LINGUIST List 14.23

Tue Jan 7 2003

Books: Socioling: Habermas; Translator: Fultner

Editor for this issue: Marisa Ferrara <marisalinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. dgw, On the Pragmatics of Social Interaction

			
Title: On the Pragmatics of Social Interaction
Subtitle: Preliminary Studies in the Theory of Communicative Action
Series Title: Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought
			
Publication Year: 2001
Publisher: MIT Press 
 http://mitpress.mit.edu/		 
			
Author: J�rgen Habermas, 
Translator: Barbara Fultner, 
				

Paperback: ISBN: 0262582139, Pages: 216, Price: $18
Comment: Hardcover published 2000
			
Abstract:

In 1971 J�rgen Habermas delivered the Gauss Lectures at Princeton
University. These pivotal lectures, entitled "Reflections on the
Linguistic Foundation of Sociology," anticipate The Theory of
Communicative Action and offer an excellent introduction to it. They
show why Habermas considers the linguistic turn in social philosophy
to be necessary and contain the first formulation of formal
pragmatics, including an important discussion of truth.

In these lectures and two additional essays, Habermas outlines an
intersubjective approach to social theory that takes the concepts of
meaning and communication to be central. In doing so, he situates his
project relative to other influential accounts of how meaning is
constituted, in particular those of Edmund Husserl, Wilfrid Sellars,
and Ludwig Wittgenstein. He examines the nature of social interaction
and its connection to communication, developing a linguistic
conception of convention and intentionality. He also offers an account
of social and individual pathologies using the concept of
systematically distorted communication. Taken together, these analyses
contribute significantly to current debates in the philosophy of
action and language.

J�rgen Habermas is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University
of Frankfurt.

Lingfield(s): Sociolinguistics
			 
Written In: English (Language Code: ENG)