Habermas on the Discourse Principle | Dr Keith Pisani

About the Talk

Jürgen Habermas is often depicted as the philosopher of consensus who almost naively fails to take into account the fact that linguistic communication, ranging from everyday linguistic exchanges to the more consequential domain of political communication, is marked by disagreement and conflict. It is often claimed that his critical theory rests on an unrealistic and idealistic understanding of communication.

One principle that is sometimes cited as exemplifying this view is the discourse principle, designated by Habermas as (D). In Between Facts and Norms, this principle is defined as follows: ‘Just those action norms are valid to which all possibly affected persons could agree as participants in rational discourses.’ Contrary to a common misinterpretation, this principle is not proposed by Habermas as an aspirational ideal; rather, it is reconstructed from the presuppositions of communication and, more directly, argumentation, together with an account of what the justification of action…