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

21-----Law as Social Mediation between Facts and Normscesses of communication, because validity claims are Janus-faced:as claims, they overshoot every context; at the same time, they mustbe both raised and accepted here and now if they are to support anagreement effective for coordination-for this there is noacontextual standpoint. The universalistic meaning of the claimedvalidity exceeds all contexts, but only the local, binding act ofacceptance enables validity claims to bear the burden of socialintegration for a context-bound everyday practice.An interpretive sociology that realizes that this second, moreradical tension between facticity and validity inhabits its objectdomain must revise its conventional, more or less empiricist selfunderstandingand conceive of itself as a social science that proceedsin a reconstructive manner. One needs a reconstructiveapproach to explain how social integration in general can take ·shape under the conditions of such an unstable sociation, whichoperates with permanently endangered counterfactual presuppositions.1.2.3The first step in reconstructing the conditions of social integrationleads to the concept of the lifeworld. The starting point is theproblem of how social order is supposed to emerge from processesof consensus formation that are threatened by an explosive tensionbetween facticity and validity. The double contingency that everyinteraction must absorb assumes an especially precarious form inthe case of communicative action, namely, the ever-present risk ofdisagreement built into the mechanism of reaching understanding,where the costs of dissension are quite high from the viewpointof action coordination. Normally, only a few options are available:carrying out straightforward "repair work"; putting aside the controversialclaims, with the result that the ground of shared assumptionsshrinks; moving into costly discourses of uncertain outcomeand open to unsettling questions; breaking off communication andwithdrawing; and, finally, shifting over to strategic action. To besure, the rational motivation based on each person's ability to sayno has the advantage of stabilizing behavioral expectationsnoncoercively. But the risks of dissension, which are continually