On The Philosophy Of Language Of Haberms

As the main representative of the second generation of the Frankfurt School,Habermas's critical social theory adheres to the liberation of consciousness at thebeginning of its construction. In order to achieve the utopian dream of the human'sfree,fair and rational society,He reconstructs the balance between value rationalityand instrumental rationality through effective social criticism. How is the utopiandream possible? His answer is the theory of communicative action. How is the theoryof communicative action possible? The philosophy of language of Haberms is theanswer. This shows that the philosophy of language is not only the integral part of thetheory of communicative action but also essential elements of Habermas's criticalsocial theory. Especially,it is an important cornerstone for achieving his the utopiandream. Understanding of his language philosophy is a precondition for deeplyunderstanding Habermas and his critical social theory.On the philosophy of language of Haberms,academia has been a popular viewthat it is equivalent to formal pragmatics. In other words,the philosophy of languageof Haberms can be replaced or named with formal pragmatics. I do not agree with thispopular view. The purpose of this paper is to describe our new understanding ofHabermas's philosophy of language from the following four aspects.Firstly,the philosophical background and the topic area. Above all,thephilosophical background. The formation of Habermas's philosophy of language and''the linguistic turn'' of contemporary western philosophy are inseparable. Without theparadigm shift of the linguistic turn,there is no Habermas's philosophy of language.Unlike modern western philosophers,contemporary western philosophers after thelinguistic turn no longer consider the dichotomy frame of subject and object as thestarting point. They aim at solving the epistemological problem through the identification of meaning and analysis of language. The linguistic turn ofcontemporary western philosophy is not only manifested in the Anglo—Americantradition of analytic philosophy,but also phenomenological—hermeneutic tradition ofcontinental philosophy. In addition,the topic area. The topic area refers to thatHabermas's philosophy of language is exactly which parts of his composition. Itincludes the following four aspects. They are formal pragmatics,the pragmaticmeaning theory,consensus theory of truth,critical hermeneutics. This view subvertsacademia's view about the philosophy of language of Haberms.Secondly,the genealogy of Habermas's philosophy of language. One ofsignificant features of Habermas's philosophy of language is its synthesis. We mustcarry out a detailed genealogy inspection if you want to deeply comprehend it.(1)Thegenealogy of the lifeworld theory. The ideological foundation of Habermas's theory ofthe world lies in Husserl's lifeworld theory of phenomenology,Schütz's lifeworldtheory of social phenomenology,Durkheim's collective consciousness theory,Mead'stheory of the self and Popper's three worlds theory(.2)The genealogy of the speech acttheory. Habermas's speech act theory undertakes Austin's trichotomy of speech actsand Searle's monism of speech acts.(3)The genealogy of the communicativecompetence theory. The communicative competence originates from thetransformational generative grammar school,the genetic epistemology school andsociolinguistic school.(4)The genealogy of the theory of meaning. Intentional theoryof meaning,true condition theory of meaning and use theory of meaning are source ofideas of Habermas's pragmatic meaning theory.(5)The genealogy of criticalhermeneutics. The source of ideas of Habermas's critical hermeneutics derives fromdebates with philosophical hermeneutics of Gadamer.Thirdly,the four elements. Habermas's philosophy of language includes formalpragmatics,the pragmatic meaning theory,consensus theory of truth and criticalhermeneutics. In addition,formal pragmatics consists of five parts. They are thelifeworld as background knowledge,validity claims at the central position,thecommunicative competence undertaking act functions,the speech situation with ideal design. Especially,the lifeworld theory and communicative competence theory are theelements which the popular view never introduce to academia. According to thepragmatic meaning theory,understanding the expression is to understand the validityclaims which this expression proposes；On the basis of the consensus theory of truth,true refers to the validity claim of linguistic communication between persons. That isto say,it is the truth which is connected with constative speech acts. Understanding thebasic content of critical hermeneutics comes from three aspects. Critical and reflectiveconsciousness is the soul of critical hermeneutics；Methods consciousness is the natureof critical hermeneutics；Application consciousness is the purpose of criticalhermeneutics.Fourthly,critical scrutiny. The critical scrutiny unfolds from the two perspectivesof western philosophy and Marxism. On the one hand,the perspective of westernphilosophy. The main representatives of criticisms for Habermas's philosophy oflanguage from the western academia are Maeve Cooke and John B. Thompson. MaeveCooke pays attention to criticism for the pragmatic meaning theory and validity claimstheory. John B. Thompson shows a lot of criticism against the consensus theory oftruth and critical hermeneutics. On the other hand,the Marxism perspective. Thelimitations of the above criticism are their internal resistance,appearance and repair. Inorder to profound analysis of Habermas's philosophy of language,Only can thecritique of the Marxism perspective explore its inadequacies.(1)Marxism philosophyof language. It consists of Marxism language theory,Marxism truth theory,Marxismhermeneutics.(2)The Marxism critique. The critique on the Marxism horizon lies inthe criticism for the lifeworld theory,the view of language,the truth theory andcriticism hermeneutics.In one word,the point of view that formal pragmatics is equivalent to Habermas'sphilosophy of language as a whole is problematic. Both are not the equal relationshipof a same rank but a containment relationship of different rank. The latter includes theformer. The narrow understanding of the popular view about Habermas's philosophy oflanguage will lead to bias understanding of his critical social theory. At the same time, this narrow understanding also can't explain that why Habermas can expand histhoughts to many fields. Such as discourse ethics,discourse politics,discoursephilosophy of law,and so on.