HABERMAS' IDEAL SPEECH SITUATION
Chris Latiolais
latiolai at kzoo.edu
Mon, 23 Oct 2000 12:09:08 -0400
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It seems to me that the following statement seriously distorts what Habermas is up
to in TCA:
Habermas argues in Theory of Communicative Action that stuff like irony and
metaphor simply get in the way of more communicative forms of action. Which
isn't to say they don't matter, they do, but the deliberate refusal to
'translate' ironic utterances into "truth claims" is pathological and
irrational.
The formal pragmatic reconstruction offers a concept of communicative rationality
-- with all manner of idealizing presuppositions built into it -- for the purposes
of tracking the rationality potential of social reproduction. It's not at all
intended as a practical recommendation of how one should speak in this or that
situation or, for that matter, the elimination of indirect or literary discourse.
Right, JH doesn't have much of a story to tell about metaphor, irony,
story-telling, etc., but that should not be used to set up a strawman argument
here. Remember that JH draws attention to the illumination of artworks as
establishing solidarity and, in some cases, setting up an existential dynamic in
modes of perception and motivation. His account of language use draws upon "ideal
types" that offer a template for tracking large movements in everyday
communication, and it is perhaps best to focus on the willingness of individuals to
engage in flat-footed communicative interaction when shared understandings break
down. What would be "pathological" from JH's perspective would be the inability or
unwillingness to use the rationality potential of communicative interaction -- an
inflexible ironic attitude perhaps -- not that everyday language should be levelled
to standard form speech acts. Recall as well JH's distinction between the everyday
language use and the explicit communicative thematization of problematic validity
claims. Indirect language can do a tremendous amount of work in conveying
consensus or dissensus, and the only question is whether one has the flexibility of
drawing upon communicative interaction and higher-level argumentative discourse as
linguistic resources for rationally addressing such matters. So, another's irony
or otherwise elliptical utterance may well do a tremendous amount of critical work,
which one may well need to spell out in terms of another's orientation, which
contains assumptions about various domains of reality that could be made explicit.
Literary artworks open the doors of perception -- which may well make a vast domain
of pre-thematic assumptions questionworthy for the first time -- and this is not to
say that they're implicit arguments.
In all of
kenneth.mackendrick@utoronto.ca wrote:
> On Sun, 22 Oct 2000 21:55:48 Ralph Dumain <rdumain@igc.org> wrote:
>
> > Is a particular type of use of language required or proscribed in the ideal
> speech situation? Do the norms of communication--which I assume (wrongly?) to
> relate to postulates of individual autonomy, the right of free inquiry and the
> untrammeled pursuit of truth, norms of rationality, and the goal of transparent
> communication and human relations--demand a certain type of language? What
> does Habermas have to say about irony? Metaphorical and symbolic language? Or
> flame wars?
>
> Ken's notes version (to be taken with salt and tequilla).
>
> Habermas places language use qua action theory into two categories:
> instrumental and communicative (he divides this up more but it isn't
> important for the generic idea). According to Habermas, *all* instrumental uses
> of language are parasitic on communicative action. In other words: *essential*
> to any linguistic utterance is a fundamental attempt to understand something
> with someone. [He does this by "trumping" hermeneutics with procedural
> reinterpretations of ideology critique (Marx) and psychoanalysis (Freud) - and
> then later through Rawls, Mead, Apel and Kohlberg].
>
> The "ideal speech situation" is nothing more than the *logic* of communication.
> It isn't a place, it isn't a bus stop, it doesn't exist and nor could it ever
> exist. It is simply the "always already" *presupposition* of *all* forms of
> intersubjectivity. In short: the logic of communication entails two idealizing
> claims (what Habermas calls "transcendence within") --> reciprocity and
> respect. These two ideas form the moral core of Habermas's discourse ethics. As
> such, it serves as a counterfactual model which can be used, in Habermas's
> thought, as a critical measure of existing forms of (distorted) communication.
> Habermas argues that the these elements, reciprocity and respect, have been
> (despite massive and glaring flaws and limitations) been institutionized in a
> constitutional democracy: universal human rights and reciprocity via due
> process (argumentation) which form the moral centre of modernity.
>
> For Habermas, procedures of argumentation "approximate" the idealizing
> conditions of communication. In brief, for Habermas, *every* act of
> communication is, in some way, an act of solidarity.
>
> Habermas argues in Theory of Communicative Action that stuff like irony and
> metaphor simply get in the way of more communicative forms of action. Which
> isn't to say they don't matter, they do, but the deliberate refusal to
> 'translate' ironic utterances into "truth claims" is pathological and
> irrational.
>
> In all of this, Habermas links solidarity, autonomy, justice, democracy,
> application, science, ethics and aesthetic within one over-arching theoretical
> framework - which emphasizes the way in which human beings coordinate their
> activity.
>
> Those sympathetic to Habermas tend to modify many of his claims. Seyla Benhabib
> aruges that Habermas needs to ditch his rigid distinction between justice and
> the good life (as does Agnes Heller and Paul Gilroy). Albrecht Wellmer is
> concerned that Habermas is too Kantian... others lean toward hermeneutics or
> pragmatism and others toward post-structuralism and deconstruction....
> (self-snipped for relevance).
>
> Maeve Cooke has one of the most insightful arguments regarding Habermas's
> theory of language: that he is only able to grant *conceptual* priority of
> communicative action over instrumental action - ie. he can't fully vindicate
> the claim that all instrumental forms of language use are fundamentally
> parasitic on communicative utterances...but already I've gone on too much.
>
> Sorry, I should answer your question.
>
> No. There is not proscribed language that Habermas recommends. His only
> 'recommendation' (which he argues is inherent) is a procedure for the
> adjudication of validity claims. In his thinking, this isn't merely a
> recommendation - it is the normative idealizing core immanent to all forms of
> communication.
>
> I should also mention Jay Bernstein, who I think has an excellent critique of
> Habermas's deployment of the idea of the ideal speech situation (a term which
> Habermas hasn't used for at least a decade because it has lead to so much
> confusion) in Recovering Ethical Life (basically, a Hegelian rejoinder to
> Habermas Kantianisms).
>
> ken
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It seems to me that the following statement seriously distorts what Habermas
is up to in TCA:
<p>Habermas argues in Theory of Communicative Action that stuff like irony
and
<br>metaphor simply get in the way of more communicative forms of action.
Which
<br>isn't to say they don't matter, they do, but the deliberate refusal
to
<br>'translate' ironic utterances into "truth claims" is pathological and
<br>irrational.
<p>The formal pragmatic reconstruction offers a concept of communicative
rationality -- with all manner of idealizing presuppositions built into
it -- for the purposes of tracking the rationality potential of social
reproduction. It's not at all intended as a practical recommendation
of how one should speak in this or that situation or, for that matter,
the elimination of indirect or literary discourse. Right, JH doesn't
have much of a story to tell about metaphor, irony, story-telling, etc.,
but that should not be used to set up a strawman argument here. Remember
that JH draws attention to the illumination of artworks as establishing
solidarity and, in some cases, setting up an existential dynamic in modes
of perception and motivation. His account of language use draws upon
"ideal types" that offer a template for tracking large movements in everyday
communication, and it is perhaps best to focus on the willingness of individuals
to engage in flat-footed communicative interaction when shared understandings
break down. What would be "pathological" from JH's perspective would
be the inability or unwillingness to use the rationality <i>potential</i>
of communicative interaction -- an inflexible ironic attitude perhaps --
not that everyday language should be levelled to standard form speech acts.
Recall as well JH's distinction between the everyday language use and the
explicit communicative thematization of problematic validity claims.
Indirect language can do a tremendous amount of work in conveying consensus
or dissensus, and the only question is whether one has the flexibility
of drawing upon communicative interaction and higher-level argumentative
discourse as linguistic resources for rationally addressing such matters.
So, another's irony or otherwise elliptical utterance may well do a tremendous
amount of critical work, which one may well need to spell out in terms
of another's <i>orientation,</i> which contains assumptions about various
domains of reality that could be made explicit. Literary artworks
open the doors of perception -- which may well make a vast domain of pre-thematic
assumptions questionworthy for the first time -- and this is not to say
that they're <i>implicit arguments</i>.
<p>In all of
<p>kenneth.mackendrick@utoronto.ca wrote:
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>On Sun, 22 Oct 2000 21:55:48 Ralph Dumain <rdumain@igc.org>
wrote:
<p>> Is a particular type of use of language required or proscribed in
the ideal
<br>speech situation? Do the norms of communication--which I assume
(wrongly?) to
<br>relate to postulates of individual autonomy, the right of free inquiry
and the
<br>untrammeled pursuit of truth, norms of rationality, and the goal of
transparent
<br>communication and human relations--demand a certain type of language?
What
<br>does Habermas have to say about irony? Metaphorical and symbolic
language? Or
<br>flame wars?
<p>Ken's notes version (to be taken with salt and tequilla).
<p>Habermas places language use qua action theory into two categories:
<br>instrumental and communicative (he divides this up more but it isn't
<br>important for the generic idea). According to Habermas, *all* instrumental
uses
<br>of language are parasitic on communicative action. In other words:
*essential*
<br>to any linguistic utterance is a fundamental attempt to understand
something
<br>with someone. [He does this by "trumping" hermeneutics with procedural
<br>reinterpretations of ideology critique (Marx) and psychoanalysis (Freud)
- and
<br>then later through Rawls, Mead, Apel and Kohlberg].
<p>The "ideal speech situation" is nothing more than the *logic* of communication.
<br>It isn't a place, it isn't a bus stop, it doesn't exist and nor could
it ever
<br>exist. It is simply the "always already" *presupposition* of *all*
forms of
<br>intersubjectivity. In short: the logic of communication entails two
idealizing
<br>claims (what Habermas calls "transcendence within") --> reciprocity
and
<br>respect. These two ideas form the moral core of Habermas's discourse
ethics. As
<br>such, it serves as a counterfactual model which can be used, in Habermas's
<br>thought, as a critical measure of existing forms of (distorted) communication.
<br>Habermas argues that the these elements, reciprocity and respect, have
been
<br>(despite massive and glaring flaws and limitations) been institutionized
in a
<br>constitutional democracy: universal human rights and reciprocity via
due
<br>process (argumentation) which form the moral centre of modernity.
<p>For Habermas, procedures of argumentation "approximate" the idealizing
<br>conditions of communication. In brief, for Habermas, *every* act of
<br>communication is, in some way, an act of solidarity.
<p>Habermas argues in Theory of Communicative Action that stuff like irony
and
<br>metaphor simply get in the way of more communicative forms of action.
Which
<br>isn't to say they don't matter, they do, but the deliberate refusal
to
<br>'translate' ironic utterances into "truth claims" is pathological and
<br>irrational.
<p>In all of this, Habermas links solidarity, autonomy, justice, democracy,
<br>application, science, ethics and aesthetic within one over-arching
theoretical
<br>framework - which emphasizes the way in which human beings coordinate
their
<br>activity.
<p>Those sympathetic to Habermas tend to modify many of his claims. Seyla
Benhabib
<br>aruges that Habermas needs to ditch his rigid distinction between justice
and
<br>the good life (as does Agnes Heller and Paul Gilroy). Albrecht Wellmer
is
<br>concerned that Habermas is too Kantian... others lean toward hermeneutics
or
<br>pragmatism and others toward post-structuralism and deconstruction....
<br>(self-snipped for relevance).
<p>Maeve Cooke has one of the most insightful arguments regarding Habermas's
<br>theory of language: that he is only able to grant *conceptual* priority
of
<br>communicative action over instrumental action - ie. he can't fully
vindicate
<br>the claim that all instrumental forms of language use are fundamentally
<br>parasitic on communicative utterances...but already I've gone on too
much.
<p>Sorry, I should answer your question.
<p>No. There is not proscribed language that Habermas recommends. His only
<br>'recommendation' (which he argues is inherent) is a procedure for the
<br>adjudication of validity claims. In his thinking, this isn't merely
a
<br>recommendation - it is the normative idealizing core immanent to all
forms of
<br>communication.
<p>I should also mention Jay Bernstein, who I think has an excellent critique
of
<br>Habermas's deployment of the idea of the ideal speech situation (a
term which
<br>Habermas hasn't used for at least a decade because it has lead to so
much
<br>confusion) in Recovering Ethical Life (basically, a Hegelian rejoinder
to
<br>Habermas Kantianisms).
<p>ken</blockquote>
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