Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 22:56:59 -0400
Subject: Re: [HAB:] re: Getting ethical by getting highly self-identical


As much as I'm enjoying this outburst of anger, I'm at a loss to pinpoint 
exactly what instigated it.

On your point below:

>  Communicative competency can only come about if people
>speak from the same world-view, ....

You might be on to something here, perhaps something I've been kvetching 
about, but is "world-view" the right way to put it?  Maybe yes, but maybe 
another expression is needed.  People with different perspectives can 
communicate in areas in which they overlap conceptually, and in areas in 
which they are open to serious empirical exploration.  And it's not only 
worldview that matters, but its application. its processing of 
information.  Perhaps another way to make a division is the 
quantitative-qualitative approach: the moment or leap at/by which one's 
viewpoint qualitatively changes.

I'm also not sure exactly what bothers you about Habermas' "interpretation 
of what is best or right": is it his substantive worldview or methodology, 
or is it the very notion of ideal speech situation?  Fred suggested in a 
subsequent post that the ideal serves as a measuring rod for the distorted 
communication we actually experience in the real world.  How do you feel 
about this notion?

At 10:22 PM 8/23/2004 +0100, Sue McPherson wrote:
>Fred,
>
>I'm not so sure about the "diplomatic" part of communication
>that you write about, especially since I recently had an expert
>in "diplomacy" behave in a rather undiplomatic way towards
>me.  Communicative competency can only come about if people
>speak from the same world-view, and I don't think Habermas's
>is the most widely understood view, or the most cohesive one,
>to draw individuals together.  If an ideal-speech situation means
>submitting to Habermas's interpretation of what is best or right,
>and if that's not something I can do, ie if neither the strategic nor
>the communicative is effective, then it's hardly an ideal situation
>at all, is it.  In fact, it's barely tolerable.
>
>Sue McPherson



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