Rationality and Modernity: Essays in Philosophical Pragmatics (Scandinavian University Press Publication)

297 Pages·1993·5.02 MB·English

by  Gunnar Skirbekk

Gunnar Skirbekk
Rationality and Modernity
Essays in Philosophical Pragmatics
Scandinavian
University Press
Scandinavian University Press (Universitetsforlaget AS)
0608 Oslo, Norway
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Preface
The philosophical horizon of this collection of essays is broadly
speaking that ofpresent-day Critical Theory. The way of working
is largely that of case-oriented praxeology. And the political and
cultural background is that of West-European modernity, Scandi
navian style. Apel, Habermas and Wittgenstein are thinkers to
whom reference is made - though not exclusively, nor uncritically:
in my view, Wittgenstein's relation to modernity remains
'unredeemed', Habermas's reconstructions call for additional
contextual elaboration, and ApeI's transcendental pragmatics still
awaits the cautious test of further 'arguments from absurdity'.
Nevertheless, these philosophies are in my opinion highly pro
vocative and promising. They should therefore be honored dis
cursively, i.e. with curiosity and critique - and that is the aim of
this collection of essays on rationality and modernity.
Gunnar Skirbekk
Bergen, 1992
Acknowledgement
I thank all those friends and colleagues who have given me
valuable criticism during numerous dialogues and discussions on
the issues presented in these essays. A very special thank-you to
Victoria Rosen and Alastair Hannay for 'language laundering' my
essays. I also cordially thank Anne Turner and Scandinavian
University Press for a most pleasant collaboration. Finally, my
gratitude is due to the Norwegian Research Council for giving its
support to the publishing of these essays in philosophical
pragmatics.
G.S.
Introduction
A philosophy of modernity is a philosophy of crisis. In a post
metaphysical age, characterized worldwide by plurality and
tensions, the quest for a universal rationality is a complex but
urgent task. And after Auschwitz and Hiroshima the question
concerning the possibility of a universal ethics can hardly be
ignored. The most promising answers in favor of a universal
rationality, including a minimal ethics, are, I believe, to be found
in those philosophies whichelaborateprocedural andself-reflective
conceptions of pragmatic reason.
These pragmatic conceptions of universal rationality have to
cope with contextualist objections. They have to deal with the
situatednessoftheirownlanguage andoftheirown socio-historical
embeddedness. Hence there is a search not only for possible deep
level competences inherent in all contextually embedded speech
acts but also for a normative notion of cultural modernization in
terms of institutional and epistemic differentiations. Within this
intellectual setting we encounter the current debate of modernity
and post-modernity, from literary criticism to social science - the
modernists arguing in favor ofsome notion ofuniversal rationality,
the post-modernists arguing in favor ofplurality and an unmasking
of the notion of rationality as one of power and repression in
disguise.
This collection of essays deals with rationality and modernity.
It focuses on the philosophical discussion of contextuality and
universality in connection with rationality and basic norms. Its
perspective is that of the 'pragmatic turn'.1 Its discursive
dimension is that of a mutual criticism between hermeneutic
contextualism on the one hand and trans-contextual pragn1atics on
the other, or more precisely, between contextual praxeology as it
is found in the late Wittgenstein and universal pragmatics as we
find it in Apel or in Habermas. Its basic concern is to elaborate an
10 RATIONALITY AND MODERNITY
improved conception of rationality as situated but still universally
valid. All the essays have this philosophical horizon in common,
and they all attempt to elaborate, from different angles, another
position or another way of thinking within this discursive
dimension. Their philosophical contribution can be indicated,
tentatively at this point, by the following catchwords. It sets forth
a discursive elaboration of a 'fallibilistic nleliorism' with a
'pragmatic' coreofuniversal rationality. Attempts are made, on the
one hand, to defend a pragmatic (gradualistic and 'post-skeptical')
notion ofuniversal reason, including basic norms, and on the other
hand to perform case-oriented 'piecemeal negations' and
'sublations' with the use of arguments from absurdity (including
self-referential arguments). So, what is philosophically novel and
important can be summarized in terms of a pragmatic meliorism
which allows for a universality denied by contextualist positions.
At the same time this pragmatic meliorism, emphasizing, as itdoes,
attempts atovercomingthe 'negative',avoids someoftheproblems
inherent in universalistic positions which for the main operate with
'positive' goals and ideals.
As a further hint, helping to situate these essays in their proper
intellectual landscape, I will add a few remarks on some characte
ristics of contemporary Norwegian philosophy.
Itis convenientto startwith Arne Nress. Coming originally from
a Spinozist position, the young Arne Nress elaborated a strongly
empiricist position during his stay in Vienna in the thirties.2 But
gradually he dissolved this position from within and was thereby
led toward a possibilistic and pluralistic position (of a 'holistic'
kind later found in Kuhnian philosophy). This skeptical trend
finally broughthim to his presentposition, adeepecology (or 'eco
sophy') reminiscent of Spinoza but which, in a Nressian perspec
tive, implies a strong practical commitment. In the fifties and
sixties, Nress, togetherwithotherphilosophers and socialscientists,
played an active role in discussing and analyzing political topics
such as fascism and democracy, non-violence and civil resistance.3
And all along he held an open discussion with philosophers with
otherpositions,includingphenomenologicalpositions, interestedin
INTRODUCTION 11
problems related to human actions and intentions.4 During these
debates the parties managed to a large extent to overcome the
traditional opposition between analytic and continental philo
sophy.s The result of these and other discussions was a widely
held consensus in favor of an analytically and contextually
interpreted 'transcendental' pragmatics.
In this intellectual environment - skeptically inclined and with
a sensitivity to the urgent political problems of a modern world
some 'mediation' between continental questions and an analytic
way of working turned to a large extent into a common heritage.
The essays of this book are indebted to this heritage.
*
This collectionofessays has the following structure: (1) In the first
essay, "Praxeological Reflections", I offer a reflection upon
lifeworld activities, in the style of thinking found in praxeological
pragmatics. In so doing I indicate the need for an 'overcoming' of
contextualist thinking in the direction of epistemic questions of a
more universalistic nature. (2) The next essay, "Arguments from
Absurdity", addresses these epistemic questions by analyzing
various cases of informal 'reductio ad absurdum' arguments. I
argue in favor of a gradualist notion of 'contingent necessity' (in
harmony with a praxeological pragmatics of late-Wittgensteinian
provenance). (3) The following essay, "Pragn1atism and Pragma
tics", focuses on the transcendental-pragmatic and universal
pragmatic conceptions of these epistemic questions, viz. the
Apelian andHabermasian notionsofadiscoursetheoryoftruth and
rightness. Criticizing the idea of an ideal speech situation, and of
consensus as a criterion ofvalidity, I argue in favor ofa gradualist
and melioristic conception ofnormative and theoretical validation,
aconceptionwhichfocuses on arguments ratherthan onconsensus,
a conception which confirms an asymmetric 'primacy of the
negative' and asserts a constitutive notion of rationality as a
regulative idea. In a slogan we could say that my strategy is that
12 RATIONALITY AND MODERNITY
of 'strengthening by weakening'. (4) In "Madness and Reason",
with the subtitle "Reductio ad pathologicu111 as a via negativa for
elucidating the universal-pragmatic notion ofrationality?", I argue
along these lines in favor of this 'weak' version of universal
pragmatics. (5) In "Contextual and Universal Pragmatics" I discuss
the interrelationship between praxeological pragmatics and uni
versal (transcendental) pragmatics; butin this essay my criticism is
n1ainly directed against the former (for its inadequate notion of
philosophical reflection and of lifeworld modernization). (6)
However, the following essay, "The Pragmatic Notion ofNature",
comments critically on the high-level paradigmatic conceptuali
zations in Habermasian thinking (focusing especially on his
dealings with the notion of nature). The point I am making is one
that favors gradualism. (7) In "Ethical Gradualism and Discourse
Ethics" I discuss discourse ethics in relation to the debate
concerning the notion of a 'moral subject' on the borderline
between humans and animals. Prior to the 'principle of universali
zation' interpreted in quasi-utilitarian terms,6 we must find out
who arethe 'affected' subjects, entitledtomorally relevantinterests
(and 'advocatory representation' if unable to participate in a
discourse). I consider the virtues of a paradigmatic (dichotomic)
thinking and of a gradualist analysis of intermediary cases, and
discuss the adequacy of the standard ethical positions, arguing in
favor ofdiscourse ethics as the final horizon for such a discussion.
"Modernization of the Lifeworld" (8) and "Rationality and Con
textuality" (9) add to the earlierdiscussion ofuniversal pragmatics,
points of view and arguments from the debate on maturation and
modernization, and in this perspective I discuss the recent debate
betweenApelandHabermas onLetztbegrilndung('ultimate norma
tivejustification')andSittlichkeit('ethicallife'). OncemoreIargue
in favor of my gradualist and meliorist version of pragmatic
philosophy.
Even though each essay can be read alone, there is still a fairly
tight web tying the various perspectives and approaches together
into one overall discussion of the basic issue, viz. that of the
'ernbeddedness of universal reason'. These essays, as well as the
INTRODUCTION 13
philosophical tradition to which they belong, represent another
approach to these problems, a way of thinking which can be dis
tinguished both from the point of view of contextual praxeology
and from that of universal pragmatics (i.e. pragmatics either in
Apel or in Habermas).7 Making that approach visible, both theore
tically and practically, is the common aim of these essays in
philosophical pragmatics.
NOTES
1. Itisthus 'post-positivist' andpost 'philosophyofconsciousness'.Cf. Karl
Otto Apel, Transformation der Philosophie, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp,
1973; and Dietrich Bohler, Tore Nordenstam and Gunnar Skirbekk, eds.,
Die pragmatische Wende. Sprachspielpragmatik oder Transzendental
pragmatik? Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1986.
2. Cf. Erkenntnis undwissenschaftliches Verhalten (1936).
3. Cf., e.g., the UNESCO project on the notion ofdemocracy, led by Nress
(Democracy, Ideology and Objectivity; Studies in the Semantics and
Cognitive Analysis ofIdeological Controversy, Arne Nress et al., Oslo,
1956); the thesis on Nazism by his colleague Arild Haaland (Nazismen i
Tyskland. Enanalyseavdensforutsetninger,Oslo, 1955);andNress'swork
onGandhianethics (Gandhi andtheNuclearAge, N.J., 1965, Gandhiand
Group Conflict, Oslo, 1974).
4. E.g., Hans Skjervheim,whocriticizedtheNressianempiricisminthe study
ofman. Cf. ObjectivismandtheStudyofMan, Oslo, 1959. (InThe Theory
ofCommunicative Action, Boston, 1984, Habermas makes this comment:
"Wherein consists then the special methodological difficulties ofunder
standing in the sciences that must gain access to their object domains
through interpretation? H. Skjervheim already dealt with this problem in
1959. He is among those who reopened the debate concerning social
scientific objectivism, a discussion that has come to a provisional close
with the comprehensive examination by Richard Bernstein, The Restruc
turing of Social and Political Theory (1976). Under the spectacular
14 RATIONALITY AND MODERNITY
impression of Peter Winch's book, The Idea ofSocial Science (1958), it
was not sufficiently noticed that SkjervheilTI was the one who had first
worked out the methodologically shocking consequences ofthe Verstehen
problematic;hadworkedout,thatis,whatisprobletnaticabout Verstehen."
in: Vol. I, pp. 111.)
5. One perspective of this 'mediating' process was the following: quite a
number of those from the continental tradition were interested in
phenomenological descriptions and intentional explanations of human
actions, and quite a number of those from analytic philosophy were
interestedintheanalysisofhuman actions, includingalongthelinesofthe
Wittgenstein of PhilosophicaL Investigations. Both groups were case
oriented and interested in understanding the phenomena. Add to this that
both were discussing these problems with the same social scientists, and
with each other- in a small society one has to listen to other people and
even read what they are writing. As time passed, the importanceofSchul
richtungen gradually decreased. Through their detailed case studies of
contextual preconditions inherent in (speech) acts, the Wittgensteinian
philosophers made an importantcontribution to this process ofcombining
these two traditions (hence supplementing a similar contribution by the
phenomenologists).
We could say that Norwegian philosophers (less burdened than their
British colleagues by a local tradition) put the late Wittgenstein to proper
use at an early stage. Knut-Erik Tran~y, who became acquainted with
Wittgenstein in England, analyzed methodological rules in terms of
constitutivenorms.JakobMel~eandhis 'Jacobins'elaboratedapraxeology
ofbasic actions (which in one perspective reminds us of a Heideggerian
phenomenology). Ingemund Gullvag developed an analytic version of a
universal pragmatics. Some ofthe articles from these discussions are now
available in three collections, published at the Scandinavian University
Press: Praxeology, Gunnar Skirbekk, ed., 1983; Essays in Praglnatic
Philosophy I, lngemund Gullvag and Helge H~ibraaten, eds., 1985; and
Essays in Pragmatic PhiLosophy II, Helge H~ibraaten, ed., 1990. Today
thereis aWittgenstein archive at the University ofBergen, computerizing
his Nachla~.
6. Cf.,e.g.,1. Habermasin MoralConsciousnessandCommunicativeAction,
Cambridge, Mass.: MITPress, 1990,p. 65: "Thusevery valid normhas to
fulfill thefollowingcondition: (D)Allaffectedcanaccepttheconsequences
and the side effects its general observance can be anticipated to have for
INTRODUCTION 15
the satisfaction of evel)'one's interests (and these consequences are
preferred to those ofknown alternative possibilities for regulation)",
7. For the application of my conception ofpragmatic meliorism on practical
issues, cf. Gunnar Skirbekk, Eco-Philosophical Manuscripts, Bergen:
Ariadne, 1992.