Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 19:40:19 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [HAB:] What is truth for? (Back to JH's work)


Given all due regard for technicalities, a theory of truth
must (as a practical imperative) be realistic, in at least
the pragmatic sense of according with what we do when we
look for truth or ask for truth in everyday life, as well
as via methodic determinations. We don't expect everyday
life to become normally dependent on technicalities, so (or
yet) we should expect technical analysis to accord with how
the interest in truth goes along unproblematically (i.e.,
inasmuch as truth-functional problem-solving in daily life
largely remains unproblematic or largely manageable) . 

A theory of truth is invalid if what it implies about its
lifeworld background is false. This stance accords with
Habermas' respect for the lifeworld background of
thematized or differentiated concerns, including a
formalization (or discursivity, not a formal logic, of
course) of interest in thematization.

JH: ...the question as to the internal connection between
justification and truth....[is about] everyday practices
that must not fall apart....Reaching understanding cannot
function unless the participants refer to a single
objective world, thereby stabilizing the intersubjectively
shared public space with which everything that is merely
subjective can be contrasted (OPC 359).

At this point, JH footnotes a crucial comment:

JH: It is no accident that I introduced the
formal-pragmatic concept of the grammatical supposition of
an objective world in the context of the theory of action;
Cf. [TCA 1], pp. 75-101; vol. 2..., pp. 119ff. (379ftn.32).

GD: So, there are three modes of discourse implied by the
"internal connection between justification and truth": the
grammatical supposition of an objective world, the
formal-pragmatic concept of this, and the theory of action.


Now, if one looks at a dictionary definition of truth
(taking that as a standardization of the ordinary
variability of what we mean in using 'truth'), not only a
supposition of an objective world in a formal sense is
relevant. The connection between what's "true to life," if
you will, and a *theory* of
truth-relative-to-an-objective-world is not the same as the
connection between the latter and justification. 

Ordinary life takes for granted a wider use of 'true'
(e.g., being true to form) and 'truth' than is intended by
a focus on what's the case for the world, *objectively*
speaking. Habermas presumes in his theory that a matter of
fidelity or concordance is not at issue, such that this and
other meanings of 'true' and 'truth' have been
*appropriately* differentiated and that the relevance of
objective world is clearly the matter at hand. I accept
that presumption; his is a theory about that kind of
truth-functional situation. But the difference between
lifeworld and theory is pertinent, if only inasmuch as a
theory of truth implies an implicit sense of
appropriateness (that is not theorized). 

So, along with a concern for the internal connection
between truth and justification, we might wonder about the
internal connection between objectivized matters of truth
and the lifeworld background out of which differentiations
are found or made situationally appropriate. This
connection between lifeworld and objective truth is
theorizable (and, indirectly, theorized by JH), along with
the matter of the connection between truth and
justification. 

Indeed, truth is not reducible to justified assertability: 

JH: ...truth cannot be reduced to coherence and justified
assertability, [though] there has to be an internal
relation between truth and justification....we...always
already find ourselves within the linguistically disclosed
horizon of our lifeworld[,] impl[ying] an unquestioned
background of intersubjectively shared convictions, proven
true in practice, which makes nonsense of total doubt as to
the accessibility of the world. (358)

GD: A theory of truth is only as valid as its implied
background claims and assumptions, i.e., its implicature.
How is it, relative to our interest in getting to the truth
of a matter, that we "always already find ourselves within
the linguistically disclosed horizon of our lifeworld" such
that objectivation becomes the matter at hand (presuming
that objectivation is appropriately the matter at hand; I'm
not presently questioning that the objective world can
be---and is largely---appropriately the matter at hand for
a theory of truth). How is it that "convictions [are]
proven true in practice" but come to be tested relative to
the objective world?

Importantly, Habermas' theory of truth depends on a valid
theory of the lifeworld---in more ways than the above
suggests (as background for thinking about the connection
between truth and *justification*), for what we also want
from a theory of truth is appreciation of what it is to get
to the truth, i.e., what truth-conducive practices are,
such that there is truth to justify, especially in order to
contribute insight to a problematic situation, i.e.,
improve knowledge. We want truth in order to contribute
insight, and we want theory of truth to accord with
truth-conducive practice, if not primarily serving to
foster the growth of truth. 

Habermas provides a substantive discussion of lifeworld in
"The Formal-Pragmatic Concept of Lifeworld," pp. OPC
239-46, but he seems clearly to rely there (1988) on his
analysis in TCA (as the 1996 footnote above suggests as
well). 

So, I'm going back to that analysis in TCA, with interest
in how it is (or may be) that insight is available for
truth-conducive practices, as a matter of theory (i.e., how
one has to theorize the possibility of insight, relative to
Habermas' analysis of the lifeworld and his sense of the
development of competences). 

Initially, I'm asking: Is Habermas' "reading" of the
lifeworld true? But the larger issue pertains to the
potential of critical theory (i.e., theorization that we
regard as very important) to contribute to the
actualization of those "potentials" that Habermas seeks to
foster for the sake of social evolution (or in a way that
may be social evolutionary; cf. TCA2: 313-4). 

Habermas--and all of us, I take it---want theory to
contribute to important practice. We want efficacy for
theory, relative to our interest in progressive potentials
in the world, progressive potentials for inquiry, and the
progressive potential of post-conventional learning for
onself (where the connection between theory and practice is
an immanent self formation). 

Gary


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