Abstract

This dissertation addresses Habermas' search for a communicative foundation for universal rationality as a basis for validating assertions, in the light of the postmodern criticism that all universalizing principles represent the authority, or dominance, of individuals or cultures. By abandoning the idea of validity altogether, postmodern scholars would reduce social organization to power struggles. Modernist criticize this position as a return to relativism. Working at the intersection between these two positions, Habermas maintains the modern distinction between authority and validity, but suggests that the distinction remains blurred by prejudice and self-interest inherent in everyday discourse. To confront prejudice and self-interest, and re-establish a universal standard for validity, Habermas identifies the universal presuppositions for communication and describes them as the conditions for ideal speech. These ideal speech conditions would neutralize prejudice and self-interest, while establishing a universal standard for validity based on consensus--agreement based solely on the force of the strongest argument. ;My thesis is that the ideal speech situation must actually rely on an ethic of discourse in order to create and maintain something like the ideal conditions that Habermas identifies. The ideal speech situation is often called an ethic because it describes how we ought to act during discourse; we ought to act so as to affirm the basic presuppositions inherent in all speech acts. I argue that guidelines for ideal speech do not, by themselves, eliminate prejudice or establish conditions for consensus formation. Habermas seems to accept the inadequacy of these guidelines and relies upon a supplementary disposition that must be adopted by the speakers. This disposition achieves ideal conditions by tacitly requiring speakers to use language literally, but the literal language requirement has no universal foundation in the universal presuppositions of communication. Without this universal foundation, Habermas' discourse theory no longer establishes universal ground for validity, or truth