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

35Law as Social Mediation between Facts and Normsvalidity claims. If "true" or "valid" is understood as a triadic predicate,the unconditionality of truth is expressed only in the idealizingpresuppositions of our argumentative practice of justification,and hence at the level of language use. This shows the internalrelation between the validity of a proposition and the proof of itsvalidity for an ideally expanded audience. What is valid must beable to prove its worth against any future objections that mightactually be raised. As was the case with the ideal character ofgeneralconcepts and meanings, so is the validity dimension of languageconstituted by a tension between facti city and validity: truth and thediscursive conditions for the rational acceptability of truth claimsare mutually explanatoryPWith the use of language to coordinate action on the basis ofmutual understanding, and thus at the level of communicativeaction, this tension enters the world of social facts. In contrast to thefacticity of sign-tokens and speech events, which we could understandas necessary for the embodiment of meanings, the intralinguistictension between facticity and validity that enterscommunicative action along with validity claims must be conceivedas a moment of social facticity, that is, as a moment of that everydaycommunicative practice through which forms of life reproducethemselves. To the extent that action coordination, and with it theformation of networks of interaction, takes place through processesof reaching understanding, intersubjectively shared convictionsform the medium of social integration. Actors are convincedof what they understand and consider valid. This is why beliefs thathave become problematic can be supported or revised only throughreasons. Reasons, however, are not adequately described as dispositionsto have opinions; rather, they are the currency used in adiscursive exchange that redeems criticizable validity claims. Reasonsowe their rationally motivating force to an internal relationshipbetween the meaning and the validity oflinguistic utterances.This makes them double-edged from the word go, because they canboth reinforce and upset beliefs. With reasons, the facticity-validitytension inhabiting language and its use penetrates society. Insofaras it is supported by shared beliefs, the integration of a society issusceptible to the destabilizing effect of invalidating reasons (andis all the more susceptible to the invalidation of an entire category