1.3 - murphy, peter - meaning, thruth and ethical value (en)

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Meaning, Thruth and Ethical Value

Meaning, Thruth and Ethical Value

by Peter Murphy

Source:

PRAXIS International (PRAXIS International), issue: 1 / 1987, pages: 35-56, on www.ceeol.com.
http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.dibido.eu/bookdetails.aspx?bookID=03554d8d-bd83-4e93-9862-8c5f16fb4d72http://www.ceeol.com/


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Praxis International 35

PHILOSOPHICAL DEBATES: AUSTIN VS. HABERMAS

MEANING, TRUTH AND ETHICAL VALUE*

Peter Murphy

A truth-conditional theory of meaning is a contradiction in terms.Wittgenstein, for one, recognised that the question of the failure of reference,the relationship between referring expressions and reality, and so forth, raisedquestions of validity, not of meaning. And he argued strongly that if we are toconfuse the meaningof a name with the relation between the name and the thing

named, we get ourselves into deep water. He introduced the example:Excalibur has a sharp blade.1 Excalibur is the name of an object. If weadopt a correspondence theory of meaning then it must follow that if theobject to which the name Excalibur refers is broken into pieces, then thename would have no meaning, as no object would then correspond to thename. But argues Wittgenstein (against himself in the Tractatus) the corre-spondence theory confuses the meaning of a name with the existence of thebearer of the name. Even if there is nothing in the world which corresponds tothe referring expression, i.e. there is no bearer of the name, this does notimply that the name has no meaning.2 Quite the contrary. A might say to B

Jeans car has been washed, but if Jean does not own a car then the speakerhas misreferred: there is no bearer of the name that can be identified. Yet evenso this does not preclude or interfere with an auditor B understanding Asutterance. Moreover, a speaker may use a nonsense word (i.e. a lexicallyaberrant sign) to refer to an object that exists in the world in this case theword has a referent, but makes no sense to an auditor. Yet to be consistent thecorrespondence theory of meaning must accept that the lexically aberrant signis meaningful on the grounds that the object referred to with the sign exists. Aconsistent, perhaps, but implausible proposition.

Austins equation of the meaning of referring expressions with both the

sense and reference of such expressions leads ultimately to the conflatingof questions of meaning and truth. Habermas, as Ive indicated, also commitsthis mistake.3 For him, the pragmatic meaning of (the propositionalcomponent of) an utterance can only be analysed if we take into account therelationship between words and reality. The linguistic analysis of sentencemeaning abstracts from certain relations to reality into which a sentence is putas soon as it is uttered and from the validity claims under which it is therebyplaced. On the other hand, a consistent analysis of meaning is not possiblewithout reference to some situations of possible use.4 This contains ahalf-truth: in addition to the linguistic meaning of sentences we must attendalso to meanings which arise through the use of sentences on particularoccasions. We have to take account of occasion meaning or utterersmeaning. Let us take as an example that much analysed sentence The

* The first part of this article appeared in Praxis International, 5:3 (October 1985), 225-247.


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Praxis International36

King of France is wise. According to the circumstances of its use, a speakermight mean that the King is a prudent administrator, a fair arbiter ofdisputes, a learned and scholarly individual, a discrete and judicious diplo-mat, a foresighted helmsman of the ship of state, etc. There are many possiblesignifications (= usages) of the word wise. Meaning is dependent on howthe words are employed on the particular occasions of their being uttered. Onone occasion, a speaker may use wise to signify the prudence of the royaladministrator; on another to signify the fairness of the royal judge, and so on.Correct usage of the predicate expression wise entails, of course, thespeaker remaining within the rules of the language games acceptable tocontemporary players, that is, not employing the polyseme in a purelyidiosyncratic and private manner. But nonetheless it remains that thespeakers pragmatic meaning is not a function of the relationship of theutterance to the so-called external world. The equation of meaning and use is ashorthand way of saying that identical sentences can, on different occasions oftheir use, carry different meanings. To say I am going to the bank can onone occasion mean that the speaker is signalling his or her intention of going toa financial institution; on another occasion, the speaker signals an intention ofgoing to the side of a river. In both the examples bank and wise arecapable of carrying more than one signification and hence we cannotunderstand the meanings of the sentences in which they occur withoutreferring to particular situations of use. However (and this complicates

matters) the idea of the use of a sentence has significance not only for theanalysis of problems of meaning. For the same sentence can be employed notonly to convey different meanings (use

1), but also to perform different acts of

reference and attribution (use2). In the latter instance the relation of the

utterance to the external world is implicated but the character of thisrelationship (viz. whether it is impaired or not) does not affect the meaning ofthe utterance. Thus a speaker may not only use

1the same sentence (The

King is wise) on different occasions to communicate diverse meanings, butmay also use

2the same sentence to refer to different persons and to attribute

to them (different or the same depending on use1) characteristics. To speak

of correct usage in the case of use2 is different from the case of use1. Inrespect of use

2, correctness is a matter of whether the speaker has success-

fully referred to something in the world that exists and has attributedproperties to that object actually possessed by the object. A person in 1986who says The King of France is wise incorrectly uses the sentence in thesense that s/he refers to a non-existent entity. And if we take for granted thatthe sale of public offices is not an indice of good administration, then we areprobably entitled to say that a person in the reign of Louis XIV who claimedthe King of France is wise [meaning (= use

1) that the King is a prudent

administrator] also used the sentence incorrectly. But in either instance, is to

say then that usage of the sentence is incorrect to say that interlocutors willhave difficulty understanding the utterance? The answer clearly is no. Wecould only assent to this notion if we were to confuse use

1and use

2. But this is

precisely what Habermas does do. Habermas introduces the example I amtelling you, fathers new car is yellow.5 According to his theory of the double

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structure of speech acts, such an utterance can be analysed according to itsillocutionary and prepositional components. Thus

F pR P

I am telling you (fathers new car) (is yellow)

We will come to the question of the illocutionary component shortly, but firstwhat of the pragmatic meaning of the propositional component? Now, asweve seen the correspondence theory of meaning argued that a referringexpression is meaning-impaired where there is no object in the worldcorresponding to the name. Habermas in a similar vein argues that if speakersand headers are to understand each other (that is, if there is to be an identity of

meaning between them) then both speakers and hearers must fulfil certainconditions6

viz. that the speaker: that the hearer:

(i) Uses a referring expression topick out an object that actuallyexists.

(i) Can confirm that the objectexists.

(ii) The referring expression used issufficient to identify the objectreferred to.

(ii) Can identify the object referredto.

(iii) The predicated expression isactually an attribute of the object

(iii) Can attribute the samepredicate to the object.denoted.

But in fact if any of these conditions are not fulfilled, we do not have theimpairment of meaning, but rather a failure of reference and/or description.If, for example, it turns out that (a) father does not possess a new car or (b)that if he does, that the car is brown, not yellow, what will have eventuated isnot a failure of understanding between speakers, but rather that in the case of

(a) the speaker has misreferred and in the case of (b) the speaker has wronglyattributed a colour property to the vehicle in question. The hearer can in turnindicate the speakers failure by refusing to acknowledge the objects existenceor by denying the predicate yellow fits the object in question. When aninterlocutor indicates to the speaker that s/he (i) cannot concur that the objectreferred to exists (I cant find what youre talking about); or (ii) lackssufficient information to identify the object (I dont know exactly what yourereferring to be more specific) or (iii) cannot agree with the speakerspredicating a certain characteristic of the object (It is not the way youdescribed it), the interlocutor is not objecting that the speakers utterance was

meaning-impaired but that the speakers efforts to refer and describe were atfault. In other words, the hearer understands the utterers intended meaning even though the utterers assertion may not be true. If misunderstanding orlack of understanding is to occur between speaker and hearer, it will not bebecause the speakers utterance fails to fulfil certain conditions of truth.7 The


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conditions that a person must satisfy to communicate or construe an intendedmeaning successfully are altogether of a different order.8

So far in discussing this question of the proper demarcation of the conceptsof truth and meaning, I have focused attention on the propositionalcomponent or what Austin called the rhetic act. But what of the illocutionaryact? Austin identifies a specific judgement of validity (viz. that of procedurallegitimacy) with the illocutionary act or performative component of thespeakers utterance. The illocutionary acts (of commanding, wishing, stating,etc.) a speaker performs are liable to be assessed by interlocutors for theirfidelity to norms of communicative interaction. But, in contrast to his analysisof the rhetic act, Austin does not infer that such assessments have anyimplications for the meaning of the performative component. That is to say,the sense of the component does not rest on the validity of the component. Asfor what Austin does say about meaning in this context, most important is hisinsistence that certain problems of (pragmatic) meaning arise specifically inrelation to illocutionary acts and questions of pragmatic meaning at this levelneed to be treated separately from those connected with the rhetic componentof the speakers utterance. Austin coined the word force to connotepragmatic meaning at the level of the illocutionary act (in contradistinction tothe term meaning connoting pragmatic meaning at the level of the rheticact).9 Austin was very critical of the undifferentiated use theory or pragmatictheory of meaning associated with Wittgenstein precisely for failing to make

this sort of distinction.10

Equally, however, Wittgenstein might havecriticised the narrowness of Austins treatment of the rhetic act, in particularAustins discussion of meaning only in connection with naming words,ignoring syncategorematical words, predicative phrases, etc. On the otherhand, Habermas suggestion that Austin equated force, with pragmaticmeaning in general (that is, at all levels) is quite wrong.11 It is also somewhatironic that Habermas should subsequently suggest a way to retain Austinsdistinction between force and meaning by using the terms to designatedifferent aspects of the pragmatic dimension. (Force then stands for themeaning of expressions that are originally used in connection with illoc-

utionary acts, and meaning for the meaning of expressions originally used inconnection with propositions.)12 Habermas effort to rescue Austin ends upby (more or less) re-inventing what Austin held to be the case all along.

For Austin, whenever an utterance is produced, a speaker performs anillocutionary act. This act may be one of advising, wishing, suggesting,warning, entreating, hoping, demanding, urging, informing, pointing out,indicating, etc. Problems of understanding arise, argues Austin, when theperformative sense of an utterance, or its illocutionary force as he prefers tocall it, is in some way ambiguous or equivocal for the auditor. 13 We see here aparallel with the earlier discussion of the understanding of naming words.*

Here once again equivocity or ambiguity interfere with the possibility ofestablishing a common understanding between speaker(s) and listener(s).When a speaker utters a sentence, an auditor (amongst various interpreting

* Cf. my Meaning, Truth and Ethical Value, Part I, op. cit.


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tasks) must interpret what speech act was intended by the speaker when s/hespoke. Problems of understanding arise because the same sentence may beused by speakers on different occasions with different performative connot-ations. Thus what is used as a question on one occasion may be intended as arequest on another occasion; what is used to advise on one occasion, may beused to instruct on another occasion, and so on. To illustrate the problem ofambiguous meaning at the level of the performative component, take thefollowing as an example. A says to B if you dont complete the assignment, Iwill inform the examiner. Such a sentence may possibly be construed as apromise or a warning. It is equivocal or ambiguous there is more than onepossible reading of the sentence. Austin addresses the question of howcommunication partners may establish the precise or unambiguous force(performative meaning) of such utterances, so that misunderstandingbetween communication partners can be minimized or a surfeit of understan-ding can be resolved. He proceeds by outlining certain devices available tothe speaker to reduce the equivocalness of the performative component andhelp clarify the illocutionary force intended by the speaker. The speaker maypreface or include in the utterance a phrase explicitly indicating the force of theutterance. For instance,

I promise you that if you dont complete the assignment, I will inform theexaminer;If you dont complete the assignment, I warn you, I will inform the

examiner.The presence of such phrases signifies the sense in which the utterance may betaken by the communicatee.

In the absence of a phrase in the utterance itself (or in some subsequentexplanatory utterance) indicating explicitly the illocutionary force intended bythe speaker, the performative sense of the utterance may be established inother ways by the tone of the speakers voice (the tone may be questioning,demanding, exclamatory, etc.), the cadence of the voice, the emphasis thespeaker lays on certain words, bodily gestures (e.g. hand movements) or facialexpressions (raised eyebrows, frowns, etc.).14 In these cases the speaker

explains himself or herself using interpretants (Eco) from sign systems otherthan symbolized language. The speaker uses the sign systems of bodily orvocal gesture to signify the meaning of the (not explicitly stated) performativeclause. The illocutionary force of the utterance may also be made explicit bythe mood of the utterance15 or by the inclusion of an appropriate modal verb(e.g. must). As Austin also indicates a hearer in the normal course ofdecoding an utterance can also rely on background information concerningthe speakers utterance to interpret the performative component of theutterance.16 For example, knowledge of a speakers character or socialposition may aid understanding. Thus we may say coming from him, I took

it as an order, not as a request ...17 But in the case where the hearer cannotsuccessfully interpret the utterance where the performative component hasmore than one possible signification and the auditor cannot choose definitelybetween the alternatives then the speaker can use a sign system to explicatethe meaning for the auditor.


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Habermas presentation of the idea of illocutionary force is significantlydifferent from that of Austin. Force, for Habermas, is a category ofmeaning that arises in regard to the general pragmatic function of theestablishment of interpersonal relations.18 But we must be wary of acceptingtoo readily Habermas own characterization of his theory. Habermas,undeniably, is concerned with the use of sentences in the generation ofinterpersonal relations, but this is not a pragmatic analysis in the same sensethat Austins is. Austins concerns arise from the fact that a speaker mayemploy an identical sentence, on different occasions, with different performa-tive connotations. Habermas, although concerned with sentence use, steersaway from this sort of problem (the problem of meaning). What fundamentallyinterests him is the use of sentences by speakers to carry out certain acts(rhetic/propositional; illocutionary/performative) which can be assessed bylisteners for the adequacy of their relationship to (external, internal, social)reality i.e. for their validity. The connection between this and the usetheory of meaning strikes me as a purely verbal connection. Rhetic acts (actsof reference and predication) pertain to the prepositional component ofutterances. In referring and describing the speaker communicates a proposi-tional content. But, as Habermas stresses, speech acts contain an illocutionaryas well as a prepositional component. Speakers, he argues, communicatesimultaneously on the level of objects or states of affairs about which they seekto reach an understanding and on the level of intersubjectivity. On this second

level, speakers (utilizing illocutionary phrases) and hearers (comprehendingqua accepting the illocutionary phrases) establish relations that permit them toreach this understanding with one another. That is to say, in order for aspeaker to communicate a certain content (e.g. Joannes closing the door)and have a hearer understand the content (i.e. share the knowledge of thespeaker), the prepositional component must be embedded in an illocutionaryphrase enabling a relationship of commanding, wishing, reporting, etc. thecontent to be established between the speech partners. In accepting the validityclaims underlying the speakers illocutionary offer, hearers comprehend theillocutionary force of the utterance.19 In Habermas theory, there is nothing

to distinguish between the intelligibility and validity of the illocutionarycomponent, whereas for Austin, hearers could only comprehend the illoc-utionary force, and the question of validity was treated separately and forgood reason. For otherwise meaning is denied a treatment in its own terms andthe special problem of meaning that arises in connection with the illocutionarycomponent is entirely obscured.

Some Unanswered Questions: The Limits of the Theory of Speech Acts

Given that it is the topic of validity, not meaning which ultimately animates

Habermas discussion, it is appropriate then to ask how well Habermassucceeds in answering the specific question of whether or not (and in whatway) the illocutionary component is susceptible to validation. Or, in Austinianterms, if the rhetic acts of referring to objects in the world (or describing thoseobjects) can go wrong, can this also happen with elements of the illocutionary


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act? Habermas argues, of course, that this can happen and identifies twodimensions in which the illocutionary component may be fallible.

(A) The first dimension involves the system of reference between speakersand hearers.20 In order to enter into a relation of intersubjectivity, speakersmust refer to themselves and to (prospective) hearer(s) they are addressing that is, they identify who is speaking and spoken to.21 The reference tospeakers and hearers may not always be explicit. Speakers may delete suchreferences where such knowledge is already shared between communicationpartners. But in cases of doubt the speaker must always be able to identify thespeech partners. Habermas argues that this identification is achieved by theuse of 1st and 2nd person singular or plural pronouns (I, You, We). This istrue insofar as it goes, although the identification of speakers may also beachieved by the use of definite descriptions (the Cabinet, the CentralCommittee, The Board of Directors), while identification of addresseesmay be achieved by the use of proper names (Jean), definite descriptions(the Board of Governors, the Secretary of Defence) and quantifiednoun-phrases (all men, anyone leaving the boat). Unlike referringexpressions involved in a rhetic act, referring expressions used in this contextare not employed to identify some object in the world about which somethingis said, but to identify partners in communication.

(Aa) Following through Habermas analysis of personal pronouns we find: Aperson in establishing a communication relation with another employs

(explicitly or implicitly) an illocutionary phrase for this purpose (such as Iorder you, I am telling you, I promise you, and so on). In such phrasesthe speaker refers to himself or herself as I and refers to the second personas You. (Where communication partners are multiple, plural [We/You]rather than singular pronouns are used.) Yet the second person, who isreferred to as You, (in normal cases) also uses the identifying expression Ito refer to himself or herself and this I will be recognized by the first personas a reference not to the first person, but to the second person (that is, toanother first person). This involves, as Habermas points out, a paradoxicalrelationship. The first person who uses I asserts his absolute non-identity in

relation to another person (who the first person refers to as You). The Iidentifies the first person as a non-replaceable individual, as someone differentfrom and unique in relation to the second person. Yet everyone is alike, in thateach refers to himself or herself as I and the other(s) acknowledge this.2

The system of personal pronouns enables every participant to assumeincompatible roles simultaneously, namely that of I and that of You. Everybeing who says I to himself asserts himself towards the Other as absolutelydifferent. And yet at the same time he recognizes himself in the latter asanother I and is conscious of the reciprocity of this relationship; every being ispotentially his own other.23

Habermas, so far as I know, does not take up anywhere a discussion of howspeakers may actually misrefer, that is, misuse the system of personalpronouns in identifying communication partners. So, then, in what ways canthis be done? I would propose the following possible types of misreference:(i) The speaker may use You to refer to himself or herself instead of I.


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This is apparent in the case of autistic children who frequently reverse I andYou.24 Addressed by other speakers as You, in these cases, the childadopts this referring expression as a term of self-identification. This indicates

a failure to simultaneously perceive the incompatible dialogue roles madeavailable by the system of personal pronouns.(ii) The speaker may employ a plural pronoun where a singular pronoun issuitable, and vice versa. The common irritation of individual speakers (whoare not speaking on behalf of a group) referring to themselves as We inconversation exemplifies this.(iii) A speaker may address a thing (animate or inanimate), rather than aperson, as You, suggesting a communicative reciprocity which is not at allpossible.(iv) A speaker may replace You by a third person pronoun (He, She,

They). In this case, the third person is not actually being talked about, butis actually co-present with the speaker and addressed by the speaker. Suchmisreference may be used deliberately for purposes of irony or rudeness(when communication partners are not speaking), but, again in the case ofthe autistic child, this incorrect usage may be evidence of a fundamentalspeech disorder.25

(v) A more complex case involves the following: A speaker can obfuscate thereference to the self of the speaker as the source of a communicated content bysuggesting that They say rather than I (or We) say. Heidegger points to thisphenomenon in his discussion of das Man26 das Man, or in its only

approximate English translation They, is invoked by the speaker as the realsource of the message. The speaker appears as a mere carrier of the message,whose author is much more allusive and impersonal, somebody and nobody.The speaker appears simply as the spokesperson for others; while the firstperson singular or plural may be implicit in the conversation, it is rarelyexplicitly invoked. (I am telling you) They say . . . The speaker employs areference to other speakers and thereby de-emphasises his/her personal (orgroup) responsibility for the message. The immediate speaker moves into thebackground, identifying primary authors (They), indeterminate third per-sons, anonymous and unaccountable.27 The speakers in these sorts of cases

cannot be considered to be merely performing a reporting function, passingon what others have said. Where the object of reference of the third personpronoun is indistinct and cannot be concretely identified, then to say theimmediate speaker is merely reporting the words of They is implausible.The invocation of a third person speaker rather serves in this sort of case todefocalise the immediate speaker, to withdraw attention from this speakerdisplacing it elsewhere, thereby making it impossible for potentialinterlocutors to engage in subsequent dialogue with the author of the message.

(Ab) Of course, speakers may not only use third person pronouns in thisway, but may displace responsibility for utterance from themselves by the

employment of definite descriptions (e.g. God, the people, the universalproletariat) identifying particular authors that do not exist. In the cases whereproper names or noun-headed noun phrases are used instead of pronouns asexpressions to identify speakers and addressees, misreference may also occurwhen:


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(i) A speaker in addressing a person uses an inexact expression. The bearer ofthe proper name Jean might be addressed as Joanne, the AssistantDirector of Plant Operations might be addressed as the Director of PlantOperations, The Workers Revolutionary Party as The Workers Revolu-tionary League and so on.(ii) A speaker deliberately misrefers (e.g. giving a false name, a phoneyofficial title) in identifying himself or herself, for purposes of deceit.

(B) Habermas draws attention to a second dimension in which theillocutionary act may be fallible. He does this in making the suggestion thatspeech acts occur within a normative context. The speakers act may be judgedby others as fallible, that is it may be unacceptable to others, either becausethe act fails to correspond to a mutually recognized normative background orbecause communication partners recognise different normative backgrounds asbinding on the performance of speech acts.28 Habermas in this connectionlays his finger on a very fundamental question. But, having said that, certainproblems are also apparent with his analysis. The difficulties begin with hisuse of the expression speech acts. To briefly reiterate what has come before,*Habermas in the essay on universal pragmatics follows Searle in dividing thespeech act into a prepositional and illocutionary component. His introductionof the notion of normative context serves to answer the question of how theillocutionary (as distinct from the prepositional) component can be validated.But why then does the employment of speech act as a synonym for

illocutionary act in this connection pose a problem? Simply because speechacts and can refer to two different types of normative background. It iswarranted to speak of the normative context of illocutionary acts, but only of(plural) contexts of speech acts.

The normative context of the illocutionary act is composed of those normsof communicative behaviour which allocate speakers rights and obligations inthe making of pleas, proposals, announcements, apologies, etc. Wherespeakers violate (shared or conflicting) norms, questions about the appropria-teness or procedural legitimacy of the speakers utterance (in other words thevalidity of the illocutionary act) are in order. While all speech acts (inasmuch

as they entail an illocutionary component) can be related to norms ofcommunicative behaviour, many speech acts are also underpinned by a quitedifferent kind of normative basis. Take, as an example, the army officer whoorders a battalion of soldiers to slaughter all civilians they encounter in a zoneof combat. Legitimacy is not the only consideration of validity that can beraised here. Such a command may be judged invalid not only on grounds thatthe speaker had no right to issue the order (perhaps because such an order wasoutside the province of the officers authority or because the officer did nothave authority over the particular battalion to whom the order was given) butalso because what was commanded (the massacring of civilians) was out of

order or unacceptable because it violated military regulations, legal rules,political maxims or ethical norms intended to govern the proper conduct ofwar. In other words, the normative context that the issuance of the order can

* Meaning, Truth and Ethical Value, Part I.


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violate is of a different kind from that of the normative context the substanceofthe order can violate.

Austin introduced the idea of felicity or procedural legitimacy to specifythe particular way in which non-constative utterances could be assessed fortheir validity. Austin approached utterances as part of procedures. Certainways of speaking represented flaws or hitches in proceedings. Performative(practical) utterances could be invalid where they represented the invoking ofa procedure that was not socially recognized (such as challenging a person to aduel in a post-heroic, post-feudal society) or misapplying a procedure (such asa person without authority appointing another person to a public office) ormisexecuting a procedure (such as attempting to enter into a contract withoutthe consent of the other party). In a word Austin was, first and foremost,concerned with the procedural legitimacy of performatives. Legitimacy wasconceived as the correlate of truth-judgements made in respect of constatives.Austin, of course, eventually conceded that constatives also could belegitimate or non-legitimate. The question that remained for Austin (which hewas grappling with in the writings before his death) was whether thisconcession could be made in the reverse so to speak: that is, whethertruth-judgements could be applied to non-constatives also. Austin tentativelysuggested that truth-judgements were indeed relevant to non-constatives;29 inparticular that an interlocutor could assess whether a speaker, in making anon-constative, not only had the right to warn or advise, but whether the

speaker was right to warn or advise: whether on the facts and your knowledgeof the facts and the purpose for which you were speaking, and so on, this wasthe proper thing to say.30 How plausible is this? Insofar as a speaker inadvising or warning is making a prediction (e.g. the consulting engineer whoadvises on the stress factors in the construction of a bridge or who warnsthat if certain materials are used in the bridge building, the construction willcollapse), of course the advice or warning is open to a truth-judgement. Thespeech act contains a constative (predictive) dimension. Yet it also contains apractical dimension. It is constative in respect of events in the physical world. Itis practical in respect of repercussions (the frustration of purposes, the

destruction of human goods) in the practical world. And certainly we areentitled to question whether the engineer was right in issuing a practicalwarning that the bridge was going to collapse on the basis of an inaccuratecalculation of the forces and stresses operating on the physical structure.Similarly, to use Austins example,31 a judges finding of guilt is in a certainrespect, constative: it asserts that certain actions happened. (The accused didcommit the crime.) But overlaid upon such assertoric content is a practicalcontent. The judges finding of guilt is no pure description (indeed it isdoubtful whether there is such a thing as a pure description). To judiciallydetermine that a person has committed a crime is also to judge a person

normatively and to tie them into a web of practical consequences (imprison-ment, loss of esteem, public ostracism, etc). This practical content, however,depends crucially upon the assertoric. Everything hangs on the assumptionthat a criminal act has taken place if it hasnt then the judges finding of guiltis wrong in the practical sense of unjust.


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All sorts of things we say, which have practical significance, have inform-ational contents which are assumed by the utterer and are built-in (withvarying degrees of explicitness) into these non-constatives. Habermas, of

course, goes further than this in the essay on universal pragmatics, arguingthat all speech acts have prepositional contents which are susceptible of truth

judgements (vide the theory of the double structure of speech acts). I wouldwant to argue (less formalistically) that our practical anticipations, concernsand judgements are shaped, or given boundaries, by a diffuse backgroundknowledge which we can call informational or assertoric if we want,although at some level it is always irreducably, if often only trivially, practicalas well. Descriptions of actions e.g. of a persons entry into a house thelatch had been forced; the latch had been left open; the latch was alwaysopen are never without practical connotations. Such descriptions containpractical judgements of unpermitted entry, of neglectfulness, of a standinginvitation to enter. But at some point in our discourses, the practicalsignificance of such descriptions is assumed to be given and it is theirassertoric significance (this was the case; this happened) that becomes thefocus of our attention and, as such, these utterances become the minor premisesof our practical reasoning. It is, however, often these assumptions, theseminor premises, that get us into trouble in our practical reasoning. If someoneconvincingly suggests, contrary to the operative assumption, that hospitalityrather than violence may account for the latch having been open, after all,

then we are in a position to question the rightness of the judges findings. Thejudges decision may have been basedon untrue assumptions (this was not thecase, after all) but the decision was wrong and unjust. An individuals lifemay have been ruined; his or her character vilified, etc, because of thefinding and so questions of justice are inextricably connected with a findingbased on untrue premises.

But does this mean, then, that Austin is correct in suggesting thatinterlocutors are able to assess whether the speaker was right to command orsentence, warn or advise on the basis of whether or not the non-constativeutterance corresponds with the facts (or some similar empirical criterion)?

In a certain, limited respect, Austins thesis is of interest. Yet the capacity ofthis thesis to account for the validation of practical utterances is highlycircumscribed. Austin concedes far too much to that very powerful analyticaldogma that questions of validity have to be restricted, in some way or other, tomatters of fact. This attitude strips practical reason of its own distinctiveapproaches to the questions of validity. Take the example, again, of a judgewho has found a person guilty of a crime and has passed sentence on him/her.The judge, in finding guilt, may have wrongly assumed a certain state ofaffairs to be the case, so that the factual presuppositionsof the judges practicedconclusions are, in principle, open to questions about their truth-value. But

the judge may also have been negligent in listening to arguments presentedregarding the facts; the judges knowledge of the law may have beencarelessly applied. In a word, the judges behaviour is open to practical

judgements. Yet, beyond this, the judges actions and utterances are alsogoverned by normative requirements: as to what kind of evidence can be


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presented in court; what kinds of punishments are to be imposed onoffenders, etc. And just as there is no empirical criterion to which we canhave recourse to validate or appraise the judges actions in summing up orlistening to the arguments, so also there is no empirical criterion that wecan use to judge whether the infliction of bodily pain or public humili-ation or deprivation of liberty or disciplinary action or therapy orre-education are valid or reasonable forms of punishment. (This, however,does not warrant us inferring that there are no relevant criteria of validity.)Habermas, similarly, is unwilling to reduce questions of normative validity toquestions of truth. (He identifies Austins arguments as a species of naturalis-tic ethics.)32 He argues that, rather than correspondence to facts, the criteriathat can be used by interlocutors to establish whether or not a speaker wasright in issuing a non-constative is whether or not the speech act conformswitha normative background mutually recognized by speaker and hearer.33

Responding to Austins identification of the validity-judgements of lightnesswith validity-judgements of truth, Habermas argues: . . . the right to issuecertain warnings or advice depends on whether the presupposed norms towhich they refer are valid (that is, are intersubjectively recognised) or not(and, at the next stage, ought or not to be valid).34 This formulation is alogical consequence of Habermas move in the essay on universal pragmaticsto construe the rightness claim of utterances first and foremost in terms of therelationship of speech actions to a normative context: their validity is

conditional on their conformance to socially recognized expections,recognised norms, conventions, institutional bounds, and so forthwhich endow or deny persons with rights to speak in certain ways, to certainpersons, in certain circumstances, etc.35 But is this in fact an improvement onAustins position? Note carefully the terminology Habermas uses when hesays the right to issue certain warnings or advice depends . . . (emphasisadded). Austin might have replied to Habermas yes, the right to issue adviceor warnings does depend on the normative background of the speech act. Butwhether the speaker is right in advising or warning depends on the utterancecorresponding with the facts. And to the extent that Habermas

understands the claim to normative validity as the claim that speech actionsconform with a (presupposed) normative background, he really can provideno answer to this sort of rebuttal. Indeed, ironically, in spite of Habermascritique of Austins naturalistic ethics, it should be recognized that the claimthat a speech act conforms with background norms or conventions involves, atleast in part, a truth-claim viz. the speaker in fact has acted in accordance withthe normative background.The problem with Habermas analysis is that it does not properly dist-inguish between the question of whether the speaker had the right to issue awarning or piece of advice (or any other genuine non-constative) and the

question of whether the speaker was right in issuing the warning, advice, etc.Habermas, in other words, reduces the validity-judgement of rightness (whichassesses content) to the validity-judgement of legitimacy (which is concernedwith the relationship between the act of speaking and the norms, whetherhypothetical or shared, which govern communicative interaction). This is not


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an incidental anomoly, but is symptomatic of a pervasive problem inHabermas theory. Validity-judgements of rightness, as Habermas correctlypoints out, are related to the capacity of utterances used by speakers togenerate interpersonal relationships with others.36 The notion of utterancesgenerating interpersonal relationships, although rich in its implications, israther limited in its application by Habermas. Intuitively it suggests the ideaof speech as the medium actors use to integrate their actions with each other.The integrationof acts entails the bringing of a subjects acts within the boundsof common norms recognized by, or at least acquiesced in, by parties towardwhom such acts may be performed. This can be contrasted with (a) theco-ordination of acts of different subjects, which entails the orientating ofsubjects actions toward a unitary goal, or with (b) the securing of actperformances, so that subject X can rely on and, in turn, act in the expectationof subject Y making good the performance. In this case, one party makes acommitment to another party to perform an act or set of acts (perhaps inreturn for a reciprocal commitment). Although Habermas, in developing thetheory of speech acts, makes many asides invoking the idea of speech as themedium which actors use to integrate their actions with each other, thedominant conception which he has, nonetheless, of interpersonal rela-tionship is the strictly communicative relationship that is, the relationshipspeaker-listeners enter into when they advise, condemn, etc. But thisrelationship needs to be distinguished from those relationships which are the

outcome of such advice or condemnation. This distinction becomes blurred inHabermas treatment. Actors form communication relationships (they per-form speech acts towards one another), true, but consequent upon this,further interpersonal relationships, distinct from the immediate communica-tive relationship, may be generated. In making those non-constative utteran-ces, such as praising (good-statements) or advising and commanding (ought-statements), which are intended to bring about the integration of action, twokinds of interpersonal relationship are implicated. The first is the communica-tive relationship the relationship between the speaker (I) and addressee(You). The second is the interaction relationship the relationship

between a subject who makes a claim to orientate anothers actions and theother person whose acts fall within the ambit of the claim.

In a successful practical communication I would argue that a relation ofintersubjectivity is established on two levels: between speakers and listeners andbetween action-subjects. The root difficulty of Habermas thesis in the essayon universal pragmatics is the idea that speech has a double (illocutionary/prepositional) structure in other other words, that through the illocutionaryact speakers form the relations that permit them to come to an understandingwith each other about objects or states of affairs represented in the preposi-tional component. If we were to accept this notion then we must accept that,

in the case of an action-orientating utterance like, Joanne, you leave theroom, the speaker enters into a relationship with an addressee (Joanne) inorder to come to an understanding about (an anticipated) state of affairs inthe world (Joannes leaving of the room). But the speaker does not speak aboutJoannes leaving the room as if the speaker were commenting in an


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objectivating manner upon the activities of a person (I believe Joanne willleave the room). Joanne is spoken to, not about and she is spoken to on twolevels: both as an addressee of a communication and as an action-subject. Insuch cases, while the communicative relationship is brought about by the use ofa performative clause, the interactive relationship is brought through a practicalclause. The practical clause is composed of:(i) an identifying expression to indicate the subject of the act. This may be anexpression of self-identification in cases where a speaker (as an individual oron behalf of a collectivity) refers to him or herself as the doer of the action.Self-identification normally can be made using first person pronouns ordefinite descriptions. In cases where the performer of the act is not identicalwith the speaker, an expression of other-identification will be used. This maybe a second-person pronoun, a proper name or either an indefinite or a definitedescription. Where the other is not addressed directly, an action-subject maybe referred to by using a third person pronoun; and either (ii) an assigningexpression which prospectively specifies an action to be performed or omitted bythe subject. The expression grants to the subject an action or inaction of aspecific modality. The primary modalities of action are: goods, ends, norms,commitments and normalizing disciplines. Each of these modes of action canbe specified or concretized in different ways. Goods, for example, areexpressed in appraisals; ends in directives or imperatives; norms in practical

judgements; commitments in promises and plans; and normalizing disciplines

in rules, regulations, codes of behaviour and procedures. In each consecutiveinstance, an action is worthy of being, shouldbe, ought to be, is bound to be andis required to be performed or omitted by the subject but the question ofwhether the subject will perform or omit the act is open The genericcharacter of action is that it is voluntary in being committed, required,obligated, etc, to perform or refrain from an act, the subject may chooseotherwise; or (iii) an assigning expression that retrospectively grants to the subjectan act that was bound to have been, should have been, ought to have been,etc, performed or omitted. In this case, the past is re-envisaged as being opento the future. We cannot alter the past, but we can hope that what has been

done will not be repeated in the future, that a different choice will be made ona future occasion. Our reproach, our regret, our blame emphasizes thevoluntariness of the act and underlines the subjects (ourselves or otherpersons) capacity to have acted otherwise, to have chosen a different course ofaction. (In the case of praising, we express the hope that, in similarcircumstances, the act of omission will be repeated); or (iv) an evaluativeexpression which makes an assessment of action-subjects in relation to theirhaving participated in goods or having fulfilled commitments, achieved ends,satisfied obligations, or having conformed to disciplines. In the case of apositive assessment, persons typically may be judged reliable for carrying

out their pledges, capable for their achievement of ends, upright ornormal for their conformance to the rules and procedures of disciplines,good for their observance of the ethical norms and excellent for theirparticipation in human goods. These examples are only typical, notexhaustive. There are many judgements similar in character to these, but each


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expressing a nuance of difference in meaning. The trustworthy person doesnot resort to deceit or renege on a pledge; the skilful person is proficient atapplying technical rules in the achieving of ends; the critical or discerningperson is able, with considerable adeptness, to distinguish worthwhile fromtrashy, trite, undemanding, uninteresting and merely instrumental activities;the correct person is accomplished with dealing in other persons ininstitutional settings; while persons who are helpful, courageous, gener-ous, gentle, non-authoritarian are good in a particular respect.

Habermas efforts to use the double structure of speech thesis to show themanner in which moral-practical utterances can be validated ultimately doesnot come to fruition. True, Habermas can show that all speech acts (includingthose which interpolate norm contents) are subject to norms or rules ordisciplines which demarcate legitimate from non-legitimate, appropriate frominappropriate performances of these acts. But he does not show, on the basisof this argument, the way in which the norm contents conveyed in these actscan be validated. But so long as Habermas wants to insist on the universality ofthe claims to rightness he cannot consistently go beyond this. Fundamental tohis idea of a universal pragmatics is the proposition that the claim to rightnessis raised implicitly with all speech acts. This makes sense, however, only if weidentify the claim to rightness with the claim that the speakers illocutionaryact conforms to a mutually recognized normative background. But this doesnot help us to answer the question of whether and how norms can be validated.

Moreover there is a tacit assumption here that the claim to rightness raisedwith different speech acts, and by different speakers, will always be identicalin character. But this is a highly problematic assumption, in particularbecause it assimilates moral-practical contexts or backgrounds to all sorts ofother codes of behaviour, disciplinary orders, institutional rules,administrative regulations, precepts of appropriateness, etc, which whileperhaps normative, are certainly not ethical or moral in character. They arenorms of an administered world or a disciplinary society which hasreplaced morality with normality; the good with the appropriate; virtuewith conformity; pleasure with rigor; and practical judgement with the

application of rules.Habermas, of course, is not insensitive to these sorts of issues. After all, his

whole inquiry into the nature of truth was set off by his dismay with theshrivelling of the moral-practical in the face of administrative and strategicrationalities. But in turning to speech act theory as one possible basis forcriticising the suspension of morality by an administered or disciplinarysociety, Habermas is also caught up in some of the implicit assumptions ofthat theory assumptions which treat procedural correctness, codified andnarrowly institutionalized behaviour as paradigmatic of the normative. Yet itis not so much recognition of this that prompted Habermas more recently to

drift away from a universal pragmatics. Rather it was his recognition thatcommunication partners do not always have recourse to a mutually recognizednormative context when performing speech actions. This applies to caseswhere a speakers claim to rightness is challenged and where the communi-cation partners appeal to conflicting norms, standards or conventions in their


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assessment of the speech action. The question of validity then, necessarily,becomes whether the norms (of communicative interaction) appealed to arevalid or not. Habermas argues in light of this that we need to assume a furthercondition of utterance validity: illocutionary acts may be unacceptable notonly because of rule violations37 (the transgression of a given normativecontext) but also because the speaker cannot justify the underlying norms.38

Habermas then turns to a version of the good reasons approach toethics39 viz discourse ethics. In this conception, the idea of valid norms isassimilated to that of rationally justified norms.

It is only when he begins to move in this direction that Habermas guidingintention of demonstrating the capacity of practical questions for truth shows promise of being realized.40 Habermas is skeptical of the foundationalthesis of modern ethical subjectivism that norms are not susceptible ofvalidation and he rejects Webers belief that we simply confront an irresolv-able pluralism of competing ethical-value systems. He wants to show that wecan again think in terms of an ethics in which practical deliberations are notconceived of in terms of capricious and decisionistic modes of choice. Yet histheory of speech acts, in the final analysis and precisely because it is a theoryof speech action cannot answer the central question which an ethics mustaddress if it is to adequately respond to the serious concerns of the subjectivisttheories. A theory of speech action lends itself most readily to the treatment ofthat dimension of the assessment of utterances that Ive called legitimacy.

This is by no means an irrelevant consideration. It goes some way towards arefutation of the subjectivists contention that moral-practical utterances areimmune from validating appraisals. But it still does not confront directly thecentral question of whether and how norms either carried in utterances orwhich regulate utterances admit of validation if they come into conflict, thatis to say, into radical opposition. Habermas does offer an answer to thisquestion in the guise of a theory of moral-practical argumentation but thissits uneasily with his post-Searlian theory of speech acts.

Once Habermas moves beyond looking at validity in terms of the norma-tive context or institutional boundedness of speech acts and turns to

consider instead the underlying norms themselves and their rationaljustifiability41 it is a short step to dispensing altogether with the thematicemphasis on the theory of speech acts, and in particular with the preoccup-ation with the norms of speech action. All norms of action can be treated asbeing open to rational justification and thus to validation. But, it should bepointed out, when Habermas takes this step in his later work, The Theory of Communicative Action, he is, in fact, only resurrecting an attitude he hadalready adopted previously in the Legitimation Crisis.42 The turn away fromthe theory of speech acts towards the theory of moral-practical argumentation,however, is not without cost. The turn toward a theory of moral-practical

argumentation is at the expense of a definite criterion of validity. Theuniversal pragmatic requirement that speech acts conform with a normativecontext provides a very specific condition of validity that, moreover, can setarguments in motion. In justifying an utterance, a speaker can indicate thatthe speech action performed fits an existing normative background. Now, of


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course, this criterion is extremely weak. It takes background norms forgranted and it makes no distinction between disciplinary and ethicalnorms. Yet, for all this, it is still something that interlocutors can argue about.Communication partners can enter into a discourse about whether or not, andto what extent, the speech action is norm-conformative. By contrast, in thetheory of moral-practical argumentation, making rational justifiability thecriterion of the validity of norms, leaves unanswered the question: justifiablein what respect?

The Problem of Rational Authority

Now it might appear that Habermas principle of universalization goes someway towards answering such a question.43 The theme of universalizationmakes its appearance in Legitimation Crisis, emerges again in The Theory of Communicative Action and since his response to Steven Lukes critique ofcommunicative ethics in A Reply To My Critics it has become an increasinglyimportant component of his discourse ethics. The reference to universaliz-ation bears, of course, a resemblance to Kantian themes and is in a sense anattempt to subsume, and re-interpret, the Kantian legacy in the light ofcommunication theory. It is also an attempt to furnish a general rule or pivotof argumentation that allows persons to generate a rational consensus in theface of differences of interest and opinion. It does this by offering a criterionof the validity of norms, viz the principle of universalization. But whether this

principle either serves as a pivot of argumentation or indeed even adequatelycaptures the strengths of the Kantian legacy is certainly open to question.Habermas begins with the presumption that norms affect the possibilities of

actors satisfying their interests or needs. Different norms structure thepossibilities of need satisfaction in different ways. Habermas distinguishesbetween particularistic and universalistic need satisfaction and suggests thatvalid norms are those which embody generalizable interests or needs. A norm,thus, is valid if, and only if, the effects and side-effects, which foreseeablyfollow from its general observance in the interest of any individual, can beaccepted by all without coercion. A norm is valid, in other words, if it is not

addressed to specific groups or persons and if all persons can freely accept theexactions it imposes on, and the possibilities it opens up, for them satisfyingtheir needs or interests. This certainly represents a criterion of normativevalidity. But is it a pivot of argumentation? Can it set arguments in motion?To ask whether the effects on every individual are acceptable to all individualsdoes not, in fact, invite arguments, but rather arithmetical addition. Theemployment of such a criterion does not imply the recourse to arguments. Itmerely requires actors to raise their hands to signal whether they regard theeffects on each other as acceptable. This criterion of validity does notnecessitate a rationally motivated agreement. This principle cannot be appealed

to by one communication partner to demonstrate to another the invalidityof a norm. It operates more like a veto, wherein each person can block a normby signaling that it imposes unacceptable exactions. The principle providesneither formalistic nor substantive value criteria of acceptable exactions oropenings. Yet it is such criteria that are pivotal in arguments.


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Habermas dismisses the relevance of Kantian formalism because, hesuggests, it is something we can apply as individuals (monologically) but notin arguments (dialogically).44 Habermas is probably right that Kant envisagedthe critical question viz whether the maxims of actions can become universallaws as a query that we addressed to ourselves.45 If we anticipated as a ruleignoring the distress of others, letting our talents rust, etc, Kant invited us toconsider what this meant if such maxims were universal norms, applicable toand observed by everyone. Would we not find that our own stake in thealleviation of suffering and the development and enjoyment of social wealthwas put into jeopardy? Kant assumed explicity in the Doctrine of Virtue,implicitly in the Groundwork that there are certain material values whicheverybody has a stake in and that fundamental politico-ethical problems arisebecause the particularistic regard for our own participation in those materialvalues often eclipses our regard for the participation of others in those goods.Kant merely invited us to engage in certain throught experiments (puttingoutselves in the place of the other with respect to these material values) so thatwe might regain some proportionality in our concern. Kant, of course, forcertain purposes exemplified in the Doctrine of Justice entirely bracketedany recourse to material values, invoking instead an egoistic, contentlessconcept of freedom, which, as Habermas rightly stresses, reduced the role ofat least legal norms to one of reconciling the free pursuit of private interestsof each person with all persons.46 Yet Habermas further suggestion that the

formalism of Kants Groundwork was moral rather than ethical is nottenable. Had Kants example, say, of the rusting of talents been concernedwith individual motivation or commitment to participation in the develop-ment of abilities (and had thus been concerned with the sorts of moralnorms individuals adopt to orientate their pursuit of such a good), thenHabermas critique would have been quite appropriate. But Kants interest isthe repercussions for others, or ourselves in the position of others, when wefollow certain maxims. And it does not take too much to expand the scope ofthe Kantian approach, and to locate it in a dialogic content. We caninterrogate others, just as much as we can address our own selves, about the

universalizability of maxims that are proposed. We can argue against proposednorms because they impede or put at risk the participation of some, even many,

persons in fundamental material values. We can argue that such proposals couldnot be consistently maintained by their advocates if they were to be put in theplace of those who were to be denied rights or opportunities (freedom) toparticipate in these values. In raising these sorts of questions we are not askingwhether a communication community accepts this or that norm of action, butwhether the norm is acceptable in the light of principles. We appeal, inargumentation, to a rational authority (backing): viz the idea of universalparticipation in material values.

Habermas, in contrast, wants to make the validity of norms conditionalupon wether or not the norms in question express or embody interests incommon. Such generalizable interests Habermas, earlier on suggested canbe ascertained by discourse (Legitimation Crisis); yet the idea of generalizableinterests is (in later formulations) invoked as the pivot or ground of


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arguments (The Theory of Communicative Action). Habermas suggests thatsuch generalizable interests can be ascertained by discourse, because aconstraint free consensus that issues from discourse would permit only what allcan want.47 In Legitimation Crisis, Habermas was confident that the idealspeech situation, on the strength of its formal properties alone, would allow aconsensus only through generalizable interests.48 The procedures orpresuppositions (freedom and equality) of argumentation were represented asthe conditions under which an agreement would express the commoninterest of those involved. The problem for a theory of discourse, however, ishow do you get agreement, unless those in discourse can rely on somecommon principle? Apparently to rectify this gap, Habermas introduces theidea of generalizable interest as a pivot of argumentation, so that in practicaldiscourse reasons or grounds are meant to show that a norm recommended foracceptance expresses a generalizable interest.49 But this appears only tocreate a vicious circle. We cannot ascertain generalizable interests throughdiscourse if discourse ultimately has recourse to the idea of generalizableinterests. But the vicious circle is more apparent than real. To ascertain thecommon interest in Habermas sense (of communicatively shareable need)does not necessitate argumentation. We can find out, by voting, or otherforms of indicative communication, whether the general observance of a normhas acceptable implications for the needs of all affected. How accurately weascertain this of course depends on the freedom and equality of communi-

cation. But such indicative communication is not argumentative. And it is notdiscursive because it does not rest upon any rational authority or principle ofacceptability.

There is no real suggestion from Habermas of what in principle would be anunacceptable imposition on, or infringement of, the opportunities for needsatisfaction. A large part of Habermas problem is that he offers no middle termbetween inner nature (the world of desires, interests, needs, hopes) and thesocial world of norms and rules. Norms affect in multitudinous waysindividuals chances of satisfying their needs, aspirations, interests, and soforth. Norms both facilitate and impede the satisfaction of needs and

interests. But what impositions cannot, ethically speaking, be tolerated arethose which secure rights and opportunities to participate in goods orvalues for some persons while at the same time presupposing the exclusionof others from participation in such goods. On this account, values orgoods represent the social or abstract face of need and desire. Valuesplay a crucial interpretative and justificatory role in relation to desire. Theyprovide the public, socially meaningful frames into which the privatesensuous matter of desire can be placed, rendered intersubjectively intelligibleand justified. They also provide the locus around which complexes of rights(and correlative obligations) crystallise. The ultimate rationale of norms and

rules is the securing of goods and values. Habermas is certainly aware ofthe role that values played in traditional societies in the shaping of needs (ina unreflective manner).50 He also recognizes, in the formation of post-conventional moral identities, that needs can obtain free access to the

justificatory possibilities of such cultural-evaluative contents.51 But what he


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does not acknowledge is that values also represent a bridge between innernature and the social world. For Habermas, rather, values are the ultimatepossession of circles and milieu.52 They have no broader, or deeper, socialsignificance. Yet if we were actually to bracket value terms, then what contentwould social norms or rules have? For it is rights and opportunities (freedoms)to share in, or have access to, material values that provides norms and ruleswith their raison detre. And correspondingly, it is the question of theuniversality of access to material values or value-guided practices thatconstitutes the essence of the problem of the justness or fairness of norms andrules.

NOTES

1. L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1967), para. 39.

2. Ibid., Paragraphs 40, 53.3. But not only Habermas. A similar proposition is put forward by Paul Ricoeur in his Structure, Word

and Event (1968), Creativity in Language (1973), Metaphor and the Main Problem ofHermeneutics (1974) in The Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1978); also in hisInterpretation Theory (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1976) and The rule of Metaphor(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), Study 3.

4. Jrgen Habermas, What Is Universal Pragmatics?, Communication and the Evolution of Society(Boston: Beacon Press, 1979), p. 46.

5. Ibid., p. 47.6. Ibid., pp. 47-48.7. In The Theory of Communicative Action (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984), Habermas locates himself in a

positive relationship to the truth-conditional semantics of people like Frege and Dummett (p. 276).He indicates that in a distinct analogy to the basic assumptions of the semantics of truth conditions,he wants to explain understanding an utterance by knowledge of the conditions under which a hearermay accept it. In other words, he assumes that we understand a speech act when we know what makes

it acceptable. But what distinguishes Habermas theory from other truth-conditional semantics is thatHabermas wants to move beyond the preoccupation of conventional truth-conditional semantics withassertoric sentences and adapt its basic postulate viz. that the meaning of a sentence is determinedby its truth-conditions to take account of the appellative and expressive functions of language (p.277). Thus, for example, in respect of imperative expressions, Habermas argues that, just as one mustknow the truth conditions of a proposition in order to understand it, one must know the conditions ofacceptability in order to understand an imperative expression. These conditions are that (a) the hearer

knows what s/he must do or not do in order to bring about the state of affairs desired by the speaker

and (b) the speakers utterance could, if necessary, be rationally grounded (pp. 299-303). This latterrationality condition viz that an utterance is acceptable or valid if it can be rationally grounded is perhaps the distinguishing feature of Habermas truth-conditional semantics. It is a condition ofacceptability not only of imperative expressions but of propositions as well. Moreover it is somethingthat has been elevated in importance over time in Habermas work. Whereas in the essay What IsUniversal Pragmatics, op. cit., Habermas referred frequently to the conformance of regulativespeech acts to a normative context as a condition of acceptability, there is relatively little mention ofthis condition in The Theory of Communicative Action. In this later work, epistemic expectations raisedin respect of referring and attributing as conditions of acceptability are also de-emphasized, again with

the rationality condition being highlighted.8. Amongst other conditions, an utterer must be able to: follow consistently and correctly the

conventions of language games or genres; follow the rules of a semantic grammar; anticipate where

the rules leave meanings indeterminate and provide additional sign-posting for hearers; producecoherent meanings; make explicit typical attitudes and asumptions which determine (in significantways) verbal meanings. A hearer, on the other hand, must be able to: recognize the genericconventions or language games which a speaker is following; have recourse to the same semanticgrammar as the utterer; estimate the significance of speakers attitudes and associations indetermining verbal meaning; recognize and correct incoherent construing of an utterers meanings


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the construing of part of the utterers discourse in conflict with the understanding of the rest;understand the parts of what a speaker says in terms which do not make impossible (or rendernonsensical) the understanding of the rest.

9. J. L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), pp. 73,99-100.10. Ibid., pp. 103, 109.11. Jrgen Habermas, What Is Universal Pragmatics?, op. cit., pp. 44-45.12. Ibid., p. 49.13. J. L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words, op. cit., Lecture VI.14. Ibid., pp. 74-76.15. Ibid., p. 7316. Ibid., p. 76.17. Ibid.18. Jrgen Habermas, What Is Universal Pragmatics?, op. cit., p. 60.19. Ibid., pp. 3S, 59.

20. Jrgen Habermas, Toward A Theory of Communicative Competence, Inquiry No. 13, pp.369-370; Systematically Distorted Communication, in P. Connerton, ed., Critical Sociology(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976), p. 354; Thoughts on the Foundation of Sociology in thePhilosophy of Language, The Gauss Lectures, Lecture 3.

21. This is also discussed by Paul Ricoeur. See his Structure, Word, Event (p. 115) and Metaphor andthe Main Problems of Hermeneutics (p. 137) in The Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, op. cit.

22. Hegel, in the Logic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975) put it this way: When I say I, I meanmy singleself to the exclusion of all others; but what I say, viz i is just every I, which in like manner excludesall others from itself. (p. 31).

23. Jrgen Habermas, Toward a Theory of Communicative Competence, op. cit., p. 370.24. Peter A. de Villiers and Jill G. de Villiers, Early Language (London: Collins, 1979), p. 73.25. Ibid.

26. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980), pp. 163-168, 323.27. Ibid., p. 165.28. Jrgen Habermas, What Is Universal Pragmatics?, op. cit., pp. 3, 29.29. J. L. Austin, Performative-Constative in J. Searle, ed., The Philosophy of Language (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 20-22; J. L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words, op. cit.,Lecture XI.

30. J. L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words, op. cit. , p. 145.31. J. L. Austin, Performative Utterance, Philosophical Papers (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1970), p. 247; How To Do Things With Words, op. cit., p. 141.32. Jrgen Habermas, What Is Universal Pragmatics?, op. cit., p. 55.33. Ibid., pp. 3, 28, 29, 35, 37-39, 53-54, 58.

34. Ibid., p. 56.35. Ibid., pp. 2K, 29, 35, 37-39.36. Ibid., pp. 34-35.37. Ibid., p. 60.38. Ibid., p. 64.39. Pioneered by Stephen Toulmin. See his Reason In Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1960).40. Jrgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis (Boston: Beacon Press, 1975), p. 101.41. Jrgen Habermas, What Is Universal Pragmatics?, op. cit., pp. 60-64.42. Jrgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis, op. cit., Part III, chapters 1-3.43. See, in particular, Habermas, A Reply To My Critics in John B. Thompson and David Held (eds.),

Habermas: Critical Debates (Macmillan: London, 1982), p. 257.

44. Habermas, Moral Development and Ego Identity, Communication and the Evolution of Society, pp.90, 94; Theory and Practice (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979), pp. 150-151.

45. Ibid.46. Habermas, Legitimation Crisis, op. cit., pp. 88-89; Moral Development and Ego Identity, op. cit., p.

90; Theory and Practice, op. cit., p. 84.47. Habermas, Legitimation Crisis, op. cit., p. 108.


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48. Ibid., pp. 110, 184-5, 187.49. Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, p. 20. It should, however, be noted that a not

radically dissimilar formulation also appeared earlier in Legitimation Problems in the Modern State

in Communication and the Evolution of Society, where Habermas suggests that to say that arecommended norm is legitimate is the same as saying it is in the general interest and that argumentsprovide reasons or grounds for holding that norms and regulations are in the general interest ofeveryone involved. (pp. 187-8; 204).

50. Habermas, Moral Development and Ego Identity, op. cit., p. 84.51. Ibid., pp. 78, 93-94.52. Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, op. cit., p. 20.

1.3 - murphy, peter - meaning, thruth and ethical value (en)

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