Communicative Action

Habermas
Jurgen Habermas
lahir 18 Juni 1929 di Dusseldorf, Jerman.
Anggota dari Hitler Youth dan dikirim untuk
membela Western Front pada bulan-bulan akhir PD
II.
Di usia 15 tahun, dia mulai memutuskan pandangan
politiknya, meninggalkan rezim Nazi
Kuliah di Universitas Gottingen dan Bonn,
mempelajari filsafat, sejarah, psikologi, sastra
Jerman, dan ekonomi.
1956-1959 menjadi asisten Theodor W. Adorno
Pada 1961, dia menjadi profesor di Universitas
Heidelberg,
1964-2002 menjadi profesor filsafat dan sosiologi di
Universitas Frankfurt.
Kritik Habermas terhadap
pemikiran semantik

Abstraksi semantik
Abstraksi kognitif
Abstraksi objektivis
 Pragmatic Approach
Habermas berpandangan bahwa
pendekatan pragmatik terhadap
makna lebih bermanfaat dalam
mempelajari komunikasi. Namun,
berbeda dengan Wittgenstein yang
memaknai makna terkait dengan
konteks lokal, Habermas berupaya
menghasilkan teori pemaknaan yang
context-independent, di mana validitas
dari ucapan bisa melampaui konteks
lokal (universal pragmatic)
It focusses on utterances, that is on
usage rather than sentences
It focusses on many different kind of
utterances that can be communicated
through a language (promises, requests,
order) rather than narrowing the domain of
language to descriptive sentence
It focusses on the relation between the
utterance and the social conventions within
which they are embedded.
Universal Pragmatic
Approach
Habermas berpandangan bahwa pendekatan
pragmatik terhadap makna lebih bermanfaat Universal pragmatics concern with
dalam mempelajari komunikasi. Namun,
the conditions that are necessary
berbeda dengan Wittgenstein yang memaknai
makna terkait dengan konteks lokal, Habermas for any speaker to be able to
berupaya menghasilkan teori pemaknaan yang communicate.
context-independent, di mana validitas dari
ucapan bisa melampaui konteks lokal (universal
pragmatic)
Communication and
Argument

In the attitude toward reaching

understanding, the speaker raises with Kebenaran
every intelligible utterance that the
claim in question is true, that the Kesesuaian dengan norma
speech act is right in terms of a given
normative context, and the speaker Intensi jelas
manifest intentions are meant in the
way they are expressed. (Habermas)
 Dual Structure of Utterance
The propositional content of an
utterance is what the sentence is
about, or what it referes to.
Performative aspect (illocutionary
aspect) concerns the use, or what can
be done with the propositional
content, and it is this pragmatic use of
utterances that interests Habermas
An utterance is a combination of
both the illocutionary force and the
propositional content, a
combination that involves both the
doing of something with the words
and the saying something about the
world. The communicative act takes
place when the intention of the
speaker is understood in the
process of communicating some
content
 Communicative Action v.s. Strategic Action
Communication action relies on
consent
It is the way of interacting whereby
meaningful relations are established
between members of society either
through physical actions or through
verbal actions .
The goal is to reach agreement and
consent between participants on what
is being communicated.
Strategic action relies on influence.
To achieve the goal, the agent uses a number
of strategies ranging from bribery to threats
of violence or blacmails. Sometimes also use
subtle means of persuasion in the use of
emotional language.
The goal of strategic action is to control and
manipulate others without their agreement
or consent.
 Illucotionary v.s. Pelucotionary

The illocutionary aspect: involves the

The perlocutionary effect of a speech act
speaker communicating his/her intentions
involves the attempt to influence others. This
so as to bring about a consensus
intention is not manifest since there is a gap
with the listener in a rational and voluntary
between what I intend and what is understood.
way
Listeners can understand what I am saying but have
In the case of illocutionary acts the purpose no idea what I am really doing with the utterance,
of my uttering the speech act is clear, so that since the perlocutionary aim of my utterances is not
the listener understands my intention when I open to view
utter it Secondary or ‘parasitic’, since the possibility of
Fundamental and primary because it is manipulating others depends upon them first
transparent, and the speaker’s intentions are understanding what one is saying. The success of
evident and open strategic action involves hiding one’s intentions
 Lifeworld v.s. The System
Lifeworld consists of the shared stock of
knowledge, values, assumptions and beliefs
that make understanding and consensus
possible. The world of meanings that is
linguistically
maintained and challenged.
The reproduction of the lifeworld is nourished
through the contributions of communicative action
Lifeworld is self-sustaining, since communication is
beneficial for the lifeworld itself.
The lifeworld requires competent persons to
coordinate their actions in accordance with each other
– which is also known as mutual understanding
The system is the abstract structures that regulate
life in modern societies, the ‘non-symbolic
steering media’ that includes the subsystems of
money and power.
The system is nourished through the resources of the
lifeworld
The system is not self-sustaining, it depends upon the
resources of meaning that it finds in the lifeworld. This
also applies in social interaction, where while
communicative action
The system requires the coordination of action in terms
of the consequences without the need for the persons to
know what these actions mean.
Communication and
Argument

“In smoothly functioning everyday

communication these four validity How does the concept of
claims are naively accepted by the
intelligible relate to the code
participants. That is the possibility of
routine communication is dependent
model of communication?
on the implicit reciprocal imputation
by social actors that the other is
intelligible, truthful, sincere, and
behaving according to appropriate
social norms.” (Habermas)
Intelligible
Konsep Habermas intelligible
dikembangkan dari pemikiran Noam
Language cannot be explained in terms
Chomsky (linguist) tentang ‘deep rules’
of the solitary speaker, and in terms of
of language, di mana pembicara harus
a private language whose meaning the
kompeten dalam bahasa, seperti speaker alone can understand
kemampuan untuk menyampaikan
pesan dengan grammar yang benar
The nature of the rules inherent within
dan berarti ... Pembicara biasanya
language shift the question of meaning
mempertimbangkan aturan ini bila
away from the relationship betyween
kurang dalam kemampuan, sementara
language and the world, and towards
yang kopmpeten berbahasa
the way speakers follow rules within
menggunakan aturan dengan
specific social context
“unconcsious”
In the contrary ...

“Every speech act as a whole can

always be criticized as invalid from
three perspectives: as untrue in the
view of a statement made (or of the
existential presupositions of the
propositional content), as untruthtful
in view of the expressed intention of
the speaker, and as not right in view of
the existing normative context.
Habermas elements
of communication
(Mangion)

Grammatical competence: An inner reality (the speaker’s

speakers and listeners must share relationship with his/her own
the same rules that allow them to utterance -- intentions). Speakers
generate sentences and can communicate their intentions
understand what is being and it is important that these
communicated intentions are understood.

A relation to an external reality A normative reality (the values,

(the objective world). It is the norms and rules of the society).
cognitive use of language insofar Speakers communicate according
as it informs us about the external to the norms of behavior within
world. the society.
Communication
understanding

The aim of reaching understanding is

to bring about an agreement that
terminates in the intersubjective
mutuality of reciprocal
comprehension, shared knowledge,
mutual trust, and accord with one
another. Agreement is based on
recognition of the corresponding
validity claims of comprehensibility,
turth, truthfulness, and rightness
 Ideal speech situation

Actors take the role of a participant in

discussion, suspend strategic action, regard the
provision of support or justification as serious
offers, and are reciprocally guided toward
reaching understanding

The taken-for-granted world is put into question,

action justification questioned, disagreements
made explicit, counterfactual and
counterintuitive alternatives discussed -- with no
pressure acknowledge other than to get it right
 Ideal speech situation

The force behind The idea of seeking a The idea of seeking a

communication comes “better” argument “better” argument
from transforming acknowledges the acknowledges the
competitive advocacy inherent fallibility and inherent fallibility and
behind the “yes” and open-endedness of the open-endedness of the
“no” positions of the process, while rooting process, while rooting
arguers into a communicative communicative
cooperative search for rationality in practice rationality in practice
the truth