Between Facts and Norms - Contributions to a ... - Blogs Unpad

20Chapter 1circumstance need not irritate its conventional self-understandingas an empirical science, because it can ascribe to the communicativelyacting subjects themselves the normal capabilities for managingthose disturbances in communication that arise from meremisunderstandings. In a rather harmless way, misunderstandingsrevoke idealizations that were necessarily assumed. Somethingsimilar holds for a further, communicatively unavoidable-andagain, idealizing-presupposition. Namely, the interacting participantsmust consider themselves mutually accountable, hence theymust presuppose that they can orient their action according tovalidity claims. As soon as this expectation of rationality turns outto be false, the participants-just like the sociological observer inthe role of virtual participant-drop their performative attitude infavor of an objectivating one.A different kind of problem results, however, from the demandingcounterfactual presuppositions of communicative action thatare supposed to secure an unconditional character for validityclaims. This second level of idealization, that is, determines theconstitution of social reality in such a way that every communicativelyachieved agreement-which makes possible the coordinationof actions, the complex buildup of interactions, and theweaving together of action sequences-takes as its yardstick theintersubjective recognition of criticizable validity claims. In virtueof such communicative agreements, the taking of yes/no positionsplays a key role in the functioning of everyday language games.These acts of position taking charge the social facts they create withan ideal tension, because they respond to validity claims whosejustification must presuppose the agreement of an ideally expandedaudience. The validity ( GUltigkeit) claimed for statementsand norms (as well as for first-person reports of experience)conceptually transcends space and time, whereas the actual claimis, in each case, raised here and now, in a specific context in whichits acceptance or rejection has immediate consequences. Thevalidity we claim for our utterances and for practices ofjustificationdiffers from the social validity or acceptance ( soziale Geltung) ofactually established standards and expectations whose stability isbased merely on settled custom or the threat of sanctions. The idealmoment of unconditionality is deeply ingrained in factual pro-