Communicative Rationality - Communicative Rationality Explained

Communicative Rationality Explained

Habermas' conception of communicative rationality moves along with these contemporary currents of philosophy. Concerning (1) it can be said that:

rationality refers primarily to the use of knowledge in language and action, rather than to a property of knowledge. One might say that it refers primarily to a mode of dealing with validity claims, and that it is in general not a property of these claims themselves. Furthermore…this perspective suggests no more than formal specifications of possible forms of life… it does not extend to the concrete form of life…(Cooke, 1994).

Concerning (2), Habermas clearly and explicitly understands communicative rationality according to the terms of a reconstructive science. This means that the conception of communicative rationality is not a definitive rendering of what reason is, but rather a fallible claim. It can prescribe only formal specifications concerning what qualifies as reasonable, being open to revision in cause of experience and learning.

On (3) and (4), Habermas's entire conceptual framework is based on his understanding of social interaction and communicative practices, and he ties rationality to the validity basis of everyday speech. This framework locates reason in the everyday practices of modern individuals. This is in contradistinction to theories of rationality (e.g. Plato, Kant, etc.) that seek to ground reason in an intelligible and non-temporal realm, or objective "view from nowhere", which supposes that reason is able adequately to judge reality from a detached and disinterested perspective.

While Habermas's notion of communicative rationality is contextualized and historicized, it is not relativistic. Many philosophical contextualists take reason to be entirely context-dependent and relative. Habermas holds reason to be relatively context specific and sensitive. The difference is that Habermas explicates the deep structures of reason by examining the presuppositions and validity dimensions of everyday communication, while the relativists focus only on the content displayed in various concrete standards of rationality. Thus, Habermas can compare and contrast the rationality of various forms of society with an eye to the deeper and more universal processes at work, which enables him to justify the critique of certain forms (i.e., that Nazism is irrational and bad) and lend support to the championing of others (i.e., democracy is rational and good). The relativists on the other hand can compare and contrast the rationality of various forms of society but are unable to take up a critical stance, because they can posit no standard of rationality outside the relative and variable content of the societies in question, which leads to absurd conclusions (i.e., that Nazism is morally equivalent to democracy because the standards for both are relative).