La centralidad ética del discurso

El objetivo del presente trabajo es explicar la relación entre las nociones de discurso y acción en un marco pragmático trascendental. El trabajo comienza con una presentación de la primera noción y de la idea de pretensión de validez. Luego son examinadas algunas objeciones a la justificación última de la ética, formulada por Apel. La conclusión es que es posible una respuesta a esas objeciones mediante la diferenciación entre dos niveles de la relación entre discurso y acción: un nivel fáctico y uno trascendental. The aim of this paper is to explain the relation between the notions of discourse and action in a transcendental-pragmatic frame. The paper begins with a presentation of the first notion and the idea of validity claim. After that, some objections to Apel's ultimate justifications of ethic are examined. The conclusion is that an answer to these objections is possible throw the difference between two levels of the relation between discourse and action: a real level and a transcendental one.

Stimmigkeit als Geltungsanspruch

Meanings are felt and lived by the human organism before they are articulated. Following insights from pragmatism and embodied cognition, this paper suggests that there is an ‘appropriate’ relationship between what is meant and was is expressed in words and actions that can be formulated as a hitherto neglected yet crucial validity claim, namely congruity (Stimmigkeit). Congruity is what connects the meaningfulness implicit in living a life with the articulated meanings of symbolic communication. We distinguish between the intertwined aspects of (1) semiotic congruity, the fusion between sensual patterns and semiotic meanings, (2) performative congruity, the freedom and ability to articulate qualitatively experienced meaningfulness, and (3) hermeneutic congruity, the capability of achieving congruence between situational meanings and one’s entire being-in-the-world. The latter presupposes a synthesis of horizontal (biographical and experiental) and vertical (pertaining to the relation between the several strata of cultural meanings) congruity.

Communicative rationality

The concept of ‘communicative rationality’ is primarily associated with the work of the philosopher and social theorist Jürgen Habermas. According to Habermas, communication through language necessarily involves the raising of ‘validity-claims’ (distinguished as ‘truth’, ‘rightness’ and ‘sincerity’), the status of which, when contested, can ultimately only be resolved through discussion. Habermas further contends that speakers of a language possess an implicit knowledge of the conditions under which such discussion would produce an objectively correct result, and these he has spelled out in terms of the features of an egalitarian ‘ideal speech situation’. Communicative rationality refers to the capacity to engage in argumentation under conditions approximating to this ideal situation (‘discourse’, in Habermas’ terminology), with the aim of achieving consensus. Habermas relies on the concept of communicative rationality to argue that democratic forms of social organization express more than simply the preferences of a particular cultural and political tradition. In his view, we cannot even understand a speech-act without taking a stance towards the validity-claim it raises, and this stance in turn anticipates the unconstrained discussion which would resolve the status of the claim. Social and political arrangements which inhibit such discussion can therefore be criticized from a standpoint which does not depend on any specific value-commitments, since for Habermas achieving agreement (Verständigung) is a ‘telos’ or goal which is internal to human language as such. A similar philosophical programme has also been developed by Karl-Otto Apel, who lays more stress on the ‘transcendental’ features of the argumentation involved.

Rebooting discourse ethics

In this article I argue that the conception of discourse ethics that Jürgen Habermas advances in his seminar paper, ‘Discourse Ethics: Notes on a Program of Philosophical Justification’, is subject to significant revision in later work. The central difference has to do with the status of the universalization principle and its relationship to the ‘rightness’ validity claim. The earlier view is structured by a desire to provide a weak-transcendental defense of the universalization principle. The later revision, however, essentially undercuts the basis of this argument, because it severs the conception of practical discourse from the analysis of speech acts. As a way of responding to the difficulties this creates, I propose a ‘reboot’ of the discourse ethics program. This involves reverting to the earlier, more Durkheimian and less Kantian, formulation of the theory. The result is a program that is no longer encumbered by sterile debates about the correct formulation of the universalization principle, but can plausibly claim to provide insight into the role that language-dependence plays in the development and entrenchment of increasingly pro-social behavior patterns within our institutions.

Norm und Wahrheit

The article approaches »truth« from a situational point of view, arguing that truth claims are characterized by a certain type of validity claim that is in the last instance of a moral nature. In scenes of truth, a normative type of validity claim, which in Durkheim’s sense refers to the maintenance of a norm even when it is trespassed by an individual, is suspended. As a consequence, scenes of truth cannot tolerate the mismatch between reality construction and empirical observation that is characteristic of normative validity claims. Instead, they tend to eliminate any distance between construction and observation, radicalizing the norm to a quasi-natural law with a moral inflection.

"Was muss ich machen, wenn ich will, dass er das da macht?" Eine interpersonal orientierte Gesprächsanalyse von Experten/Laien-Kommunikation

This contribution argues for an investigation of expert/non-expert discourse in an interactive frame of references which accommodates the constitutive systems of text, interpersonal orientation and interaction. Depending on the interlocutors' communicative goals, references to these systems are represented explicitly or implicitly. Part I presents a frame analysis of expert/non-expert discourse from both linguistic and social-context viewpoints. Here, special reference is given to the question of how the communication act plus/minus-validity claim accommodates expert/non-expert discourse. Part II presents a micro investigation of expert/non-expert discourse. It compares and contrasts written and spoken expert/non-expert discourse in the domain of institutional communication. The data stem from the field of computer-application discourse and are analysed with regard to the degree of explicitness of textual, interactional and interpersonal references. The results obtained are refined by the explicit accommodation of the variables intimacy and power. In conclusion, face-to-face expert/non-expert discourse is not only characterized by a high degree of explicitness of the textual system, i.e. the linguistic representation of expert knowledge, but also by a high degree of explicitness of the interpersonal and interactional systems.

"Vordergründig war ich für die gar nicht frau": Zur sprachlichen Repräsentation von Geschlecht

This contribution argues for an investigation of gender in an interactive multicausal framework with multiple social identities. Depending on the participants' communicative goals, these social identities are highlighted or attributed to the background. Part I analyses the linguistic means the German language offers for the linguistic representation of gender and occupation and illustrates how these means are employed to reconstruct the corresponding identities. In German, speakers can represent their gender identity explicitly by (1) gender-specific lexical items and gender-specific collocations, and (2) adding the gender-specific morpheme -in to occupation. Part II adapts the results obtained to a discursive frame of reference based on the communication act plus/minus-validity claim, i.e. speakers postulating validity claims which are ratified by hearers. Thus, coparticipants negotiate the communicative status of validity claims. Interlocutors have a dual function: firstly, they represent the discourse-inherent category of discourse identity, and secondly, the discourse-creating category of coparticipant. Here, the social indexes of gender and occupation represent valdity claims and therefore require ratification. If they are accepted they are assigned a presuppositional status and do not have to be made explicit any longer. If they are rejected they initiate a negotiation-of-validity sequence. For this reason, the explication of social indexes at a later stage in discourse indicates that the corresponding communicative status is at stake.