Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome | |||
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Communicative action: Communicative action refers to interactions driven by sincere, open dialogue aimed at mutual understanding and consensus-building. Introduced by philosopher Jürgen Habermas, the concept emphasizes transparent communication, free of coercion or manipulation, to achieve collective decision-making and social cohesion. See also Communication theory, J. Habermas._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
Author | Concept | Summary/Quotes | Sources |
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Jürgen Habermas on Communicative Action - Dictionary of Arguments
III 128 Communicative action/Habermas: the concept refers to the interaction of at least two subjects capable of speech and action who enter into an interpersonal relationship (by linguistic or non-linguistic means). The actors seek an understanding to coordinate their plans and thus their actions. Language is given a prominent status here. >Agreement, >Language/Habermas. III 143 Problem: there is a danger that social action will be reduced to the interpretive performance of the communication participants, action will be adapted to speech, interaction to conversation. In fact, however, linguistic communication is only the mechanism of action coordination, which brings together the action plans and activities of the ones involved. III 157 In communicative action, the outcome of the interaction itself is dependent on whether the participants can agree among themselves on an intersubjectively valid assessment of their world-relationships. >World/thinking, >Reality. III 158 Interpretation: Problem: for the understanding of communicative actions we have to separate questions of meaning and validity. The interpretation performance of an observer differs from the coordination efforts of the participants. The observer does not seek a consensus interpretation. But perhaps only the functions differed here, not the structures of interpretation. >Observation, >Method, >Interpretation, >Practice. III 385 Communicative Action/Habermas: here the participants are not primarily oriented towards their own success; they pursue their individual goals on the condition that they can coordinate their action plans on the basis of common situation definitions. In this respect, the negotiation of situation definitions is an essential component. >Situations. III 395 Communicative Action/Speech Acts/Perlocution/Illocution/Habermas: Strawson has shown that a speaker achieves his/her illocutionary goal that the listener understands what is being said without revealing his/her perlocutionary goal. This gives perlocutions the asymmetric character of covert strategic actions in which at least one of the participants behaves strategically, while deceiving other participants that he/she does not meet the conditions under which normally illocutionary goals can only be achieved. >Speech acts, >Illocutionary act, >Perlocutionary act Therefore, perlocutions are not suitable for the analysis of coordination of actions, which are to be explained by illocutionary binding effects. This problem is solved if we understand communicative action as interaction in which all participants coordinate their individual action plans and pursue their illocutionary goals without reservation. III 396 Only such interactions are communicative actions in which all participants pursue illocutionary goals. Otherwise they fall under strategic action. III 397 HabermasVsAustin: he has tended to identify speech acts with acts of communication, i.e. the linguistically mediated interactions. III 400 Definition Understanding/Communication/Habermas: in the context of our theory of communicative action we limit ourselves to acts of speech under standard conditions, i.e. we assume that a speaker means nothing else than the literal meaning of what he/she says. >Meaning/Intending. Understanding a sentence is then defined as knowing what makes that sentence acceptable. >Understanding. III 457 Communicative action/Rationalization/HabermasVsWeber/Habermas: only if we differentiate between communicative and success-oriented action in "social action" can the communicative rationalization of everyday actions and the formation of subsystems for procedural rational economic and administrative action be understood as complementary development. Although both reflect the institutional embodiment of rationality complexes, in another respect they are opposite tendencies. - - - IV 223 Communicative Actions/HabermasVsSystem theory/Habermas: Communicative actions succeed only in the light of cultural traditions - this is what ensures the integration of society, and not systemic mechanisms that are deprived of the intuitive knowledge of their relatives. >Cultural tradition, >Culture._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Ha I J. Habermas Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne Frankfurt 1988 Ha III Jürgen Habermas Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns Bd. I Frankfurt/M. 1981 Ha IV Jürgen Habermas Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns Bd. II Frankfurt/M. 1981 |