Epistemic learning and rational assertiveness in Wahrheit und Rechtfertigung

Abstract

The revisiting of issues in Theoretical Philosophy in Wahrheit and Rechtfertigung (1999) represents the recovery of problems neglected by formal pragmatics such as the formulation of a Theory of Truth, criteria for determining true knowledge, and the clarification of the nature of the relationship between Truth and Justification — the latter being crucial for understanding the analogy between normative correctness and the truth of propositions about facts in the world, incorporated by learning processes. The relationship of formal pragmatics to these issues is ambiguous, if not paradoxical, when discussing the claims and theoretical scope of the pragmatics of language, considering that the theory of communicative action does not even address the central issues of the Theory of Knowledge, since it dedicates particular attention to the problem of the rational acceptability of Speech Acts via the discursive recovery of criticizable validity claims and the normative understanding of mutual understanding. Beyond its intention to revise the discursive-consensual concept of truth, the aforementioned Habermas’s work discussed here should be interpreted and understood metacritically as the presentation of a Theory of Discursive Justification that does not ground a Critical Theory of Society, but rather anchors a conception of Morality, Law, and Democracy.