Agent of Democracy - Society for College and University Planning

The Makings of a Public
should do. We deliberate well when we have a sense of what good
ends are, and these too can only be arrived at through practical
deliberation, not scientific knowledge.
Yet the form that Habermas’
“The ancient view of
conversation holds that
reasoning itself is a social
event. We reason with others
though our conversing,
not merely in the presence
of others.”
(“Getting the Public’s Intelligence,”
HEX, 2004.)
political questions take is more
akin to questions of knowledge
than questions of purpose. In fact
he is quite explicit about this. Normative
questions can be answered
formally and cognitively, and
their answers are either universally
valid or not. These answers
are found through the back-andforth
of conversation when all
who are potentially affected have
an opportunity to weigh in on
whether the proposed policy
would be best for all. Ultimately, in this round-robin conversation,
the force of the better argument will prevail.
Note how different this is from the “engaged evaluation”
that Derrida says is called for in forming public opinion. 17 Recall:
“this judgment is not some knowledge, but an engaged evaluation,
a voluntary act. It always takes the form of a ‘judgment’ (yes or no).”
Habermas also sees the end result of deliberation as forming a kind
of public opinion—public will—that, normatively, should exercise
control of sorts over parliamentary politics. But where Derrida’s
public judgment is formed through engagement, decision, a yes or
no, Habermas’ is formed through a cognitive appraisal of which
policy is right, an appraisal that will lead to unanimity on which
policy meets the test of universalizibility. The less tainted by parochial
concerns, by matters of solidarity and self-understanding,
the better.
Does a public form itself in a Habermasian deliberation? In the
back-and-forth of argumentation, there is little room for the sharing
17 Op cit., 90.
183