According to Thomas Nagel we have a natural impulse to transcend our personal point of view. However, it appears to be difficult to give this notion of transcendence any real content while maintaining a connection with everyday speech and behaviour. In this essay I show that the description of what happens in a discussion when a speaker convinces a listener suggests an interesting interpretation of transcendence. The notion of 'truth' linked to the listener who is being convinced introduces a normative (...) dimension in argumentation. This inescapable normative stance of the listener saddles her with the obligation to answer all credible objections against all arguments she has accepted. The evaluation of the arguments is not reserved for the participants of a discussion. Nothing more is required. For instance, the notion of a universal consensus has no place in the analysis of argumentation. If there is a universal dimension in argumentation and discussion, it is because there is no way of telling where convincing objections may come from. (shrink)

What would something unlike us--a chimpanzee, say, or a computer--have to be able to do to qualify as a possible knower, like us? To answer this question at the very heart of our sense of ourselves, philosophers have long focused on intentionality and have looked to language as a key to this condition. Making It Explicit is an investigation into the nature of language--the social practices that distinguish us as rational, logical creatures--that revises the very terms of this inquiry. Where (...) accounts of the relation between language and mind have traditionally rested on the concept of representation, this book sets out an alternate approach based on inference, and on a conception of certain kinds of implicit assessment that become explicit in language. Making It Explicit is the first attempt to work out in detail a theory that renders linguistic meaning in terms of use--in short, to explain how semantic content can be conferred on expressions and attitudes that are suitably caught up in social practices. -/- At the center of this enterprise is a notion of discursive commitment. Being able to talk--and so in the fullest sense being able to think--is a matter of mastering the practices that govern such commitments, being able to keep track of one’s own commitments and those of others. Assessing the pragmatic significance of speech acts is a matter of explaining the explicit in terms of the implicit. As he traces the inferential structure of the social practices within which things can be made conceptually explicit, the author defines the distinctively expressive role of logical vocabulary. This expressive account of language, mind, and logic is, finally, an account of who we are. (shrink)

Cheryl Misak argues that truth ought to be reinstated to a central position in moral and political philosophy. She argues that the correct account of truth is one found in a certain kind of pragmatism: a true belief is one upon which inquiry could not improve, a belief which would not be defeated by experience and argument. This account is not only an improvement on the views of central figures such as Rawls and Habermas, but it can also make sense (...) of the idea that, despite conflict, pluralism, and the expression of difference, our moral and political beliefs aim at truth and can be subject to criticism. Anyone interested in a fresh discussion of political theory and philosophy will find this a fascinating read. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 36.4 (2003) 301-329 [Access article in PDF] Toward a Skeptical Criticism of Transcendental Pragmatics Frédéric Cossutta CNRS, UMR "Savoirs et Textes" University of Lille III 1. How skeptical objections play a part in transcendental foundation The grounding task of a transcendental pragmatics according to K. O. Apel My subject is the contemporary attempts, and more precisely K. O. Apel's, that aim at the refoundation of rationality (...) within a communicational framework. 1 I want to show that this task, insofar as it aims at being radical, insofar as it is "transcendental pragmatics," is the target of criticisms that a skepticism always raises against the doctrines purporting to be built upon a foundation wholly devoid of presupposition. 2 It so happens that Apel's doctrine—in a manner more systematic than that of F. Jacques or Habermas—makes explicit the conditions of its own constitution. It does so through the overthrow of skeptical objections that aim at a refutation of its radical attempt at a transcendental foundation: in Apel's eyes, the objection of the relativist or of the skeptic, because it contains an inner contradiction (a "performative self-contradiction") a contrario ensures the absolute validity of his universal pragmatic principle. If this use of skepticism constitutes the spring of the argumentation and the cornerstone of the systematic edifice Apel built, a skeptical overthrow of his overthrow will demonstrate the fragile and unsteady nature of its transcendental ambitions. It will then become impossible to associate the communicative activity with a horizon of ethical presuppositions that guarantee the success of discussion and of negotiation. It is the legitimacy of this foundationalism that we propose to contest in order to undermine transcendental theories of discourse ethics.And yet, without reverting to a sociological empiricism or having recourse to a philosophy of intersubjectivity, by showing that philosophical skepticism is not as naive as its critiques would have it, the ethical [End Page 301] orientation of communicative activity can be suspended without giving up the quest for consensus. The latter is not originary; it is not presupposed by a speech act that is ethically neutral at its structural level, but it can at best be derived as can its contrary, disagreement. Thus, against the inflation of transcendental pragmatics, I shall oppose an ethical minimalism. The grounding device of transcendental pragmatics On the one hand, how is one to undertake a founding task without anchoring it in a philosophy of consciousness? On the other hand, how is one to protect oneself from the relativistic consequences of an empirical approach of intersubjectivity? Apel's aim is to show that communicative activity presupposes an a priori that is neither a social nor a linguistic fact but factum rationis in the sense that freedom is the condition of the possibility of moral experience in Kant. Thus, according to K. O. Apel, "it appears that even purely semantic-referential discourse presupposes a pragmatic-transcendental reflection on the communicative speech-acts' claim to validity" (Apel 1994, 54). In the same book, the author relies on the model that makes language into a mere tool of communication and of representation, the Aristotelian view of language as propositional understanding: "Among the historical effects of the Aristotelian understanding there is, to some extent, the Western concept of the common sense of language as a tool for communication and representation" (54). In the initial historical treatment (12-13), it is true that a reference to Plato occurs: "in Plato, it is true that the logos, with the aid of 'language' or 'discourse' is an organon making it possible to communicate something to the other; its realm is thus that of conversation (dialogos), and thought itself is conceived of as 'a silent conversation of the soul with itself' " (Theaetetus, 180e-190a).However, this concession is immediately withdrawn: "but, on the other hand, the significance of the logos is made precise at the very moment that it is expressed as an utterance or proposition that can be true or false; this is the import of definition, argument or rational deduction" (Apel 1994, 14). In this sense... (shrink)

In this book Jonathan Adler offers a strengthened version of evidentialism, arguing that the ethics of belief should be rooted in the concept of belief--that...

The fundamental question of the ethics of belief is "What ought one to believe?" According to the traditional view of evidentialism, the strength of one's beliefs should be proportionate to the evidence. Conventional ways of defending and challenging evidentialism rely on the idea that what one ought to believe is a matter of what it is rational, prudent, ethical, or personally fulfilling to believe. Common to all these approaches is that they look outside of belief itself to determine what one (...) ought to believe. In this book Jonathan Adler offers a strengthened version of evidentialism, arguing that the ethics of belief should be rooted in the concept of belief—that evidentialism is belief's own ethics. A key observation is that it is not merely that one ought not, but that one cannot, believe, for example, that the number of stars is even. The "cannot" represents a conceptual barrier, not just an inability. Therefore belief in defiance of one's evidence (or evidentialism) is impossible. Adler addresses such questions as irrational beliefs, reasonableness, control over beliefs, and whether justifying beliefs requires a foundation. Although he treats the ethics of belief as a central topic in epistemology, his ideas also bear on rationality, argument and pragmatics, philosophy of religion, ethics, and social cognitive psychology. (shrink)

This long-awaited book sets out the implications of Habermas's theory of communicative action for moral theory. "Discourse ethics" attempts to reconstruct a moral point of view from which normative claims can be impartially judged. The theory of justice it develops replaces Kant's categorical imperative with a procedure of justification based on reasoned agreement among participants in practical discourse.Habermas connects communicative ethics to the theory of social action via an examination of research in the social psychology of moral and interpersonal development. (...) He aims to show that our basic moral intuitions spring from something deeper and more universal than contingent features of our tradition, namely from normative presuppositions of social interaction that belong to the repertoire of competent agents in any society. Jürgen Habermas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. (shrink)