Das Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften: Veranstaltungen

Abstract
»Public discourse« is a widely used expression to designate a very common practice. Despite the ubiquity of this term and the phenomenon it names, a precise definition—one that not only delineates the functional contours of this phenomenon, but also uncovers the fundamental conditions that make it possible—is yet to be articulated.
Jürgen Habermas came close to providing such a definition when he characterized public discourse as a form of what he called »communicative action,« which he conceived of as fundamentally opposed to what he termed »strategic action.« By the former, Habermas referred to that discursive activity in which participants try to reach mutual understanding about a given validity claim, their ultimate goal being the coordination of their actions through mutual agreement. By the latter, Habermas referred to that discursive activity in which participants involve themselves with the purpose of achieving their own individual success by influencing, when necessary, the opinions of others.
Habermas’s account is, in my view, valuable in that it points to the very nature of the relationship between the participants as the fundamental defining element of this conceptualization. However, the way in which he characterizes these relationships, particularly how he articulates the difference between them, is unconvincing. Indeed, Habermas’s choice of egocentrism as the key distinguishing element between communicative and strategic action is, as I will explain, problematic in several respects. Drawing on resources from social ontology, particularly the work of Margaret Gilbert and Raimo Tuomela, I propose to reinterpret the difference between strategic and communicative action as revolving not around the notion of egocentrism—an inadequate explanatory framework—but around the distinction between two different mental attitudes: that in »I-mode« and that in »we-mode.« The adoption of this alternative paradigm implies the reconceptualization of communicative action—or public discourse more generally—as an instance of we-mode collaboration; that is, a form of joint action where participants, recognizing themselves as constituting a plural subject, pursue the shared goal of mutual understanding.
I conclude the paper by exploring some of the social and political implications derived from this alternative account.

Rednerin
Belén Pueyo-Ibáñez hat 2023 an der Emory University in Atlanta mit einer Arbeit über (Im)possible Communities: The Cooperative Structure of Moral Thinking promoviert. 2023/24 war sie Postdoctoral Fellow am Frankfurter Justitia Center for Advanced Studies; 2024/25 ist sie auf Einladung des Forschungsschwerpunktes »Democratic Vistas: Reflections on the Atlantic World« als Postdoctoral Fellow zu Gast am Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften.

Teilnahme
Geschlossene Veranstaltung. Kontakt: Beate Sutterlüty; E-Mail: b.sutterluety@forschungskolleg-humanwissenschaften.de