Apel reads Peirce: 95 A realist discourse theory of truth

Even in areas of study where we cannot possibly treat our objects of study as fellow subjects, we will, however, still have to enter the hermeneutical circle, Apel maintains: “[…] die

study, as fellow subjects with their own reasons for action, because if we do not, we will commit a performative self-contradiction. I discuss Apel’s argument in 2.3.3 and in Chapter 7.

93 This is Apel’s position: “Die quasi-nomologische Sozialwissenschaft” can do without a hermeneutical dimension, and should, generally, be considered, together with the natural sciences, as being led by “das Erkenntnisinteresse an Welt-Objektivierung” (original emphasis, op.cit.: 25, 37).

94 Joas uses the terms functionalism and systems models because his argument is framed to target Habermas’

attempt “to provide a synthesis between his [Habermas’] ideas, based on hermeneutics and action theory, with Luhmann’s functionalism” and “systems theory” specifically (1996: 219). Another possibility is, obviously, to defend non-functionalist causal explanations of structural reproduction and change, which do not refer to human actions and reasons for acting.

95 Consider Peirce 1972, 1990.

Subjekt-Objekt-Relation der Erkenntnis [muss] immer von der Subjekt-Ko-Subjekt-Relation kommunikativer Verständigung ergänzt sein” (original emphasis, 1994a: 26). Even in the case of the natural sciences, the relevant fellow subjects have to understand one another in the double sense suggested: “Verständigung über etwas” requires “Verstehen der Bedeutung”

(understanding what is meant) and “Erreichen einer Einigung über Geltungsanspruche”

(reaching agreement on the validity-claims involved) (1994a: 18, 1994b: 199).

The requirements of understanding, however, are not necessarily dealt with explicitly in actual ongoing dialogue. Understanding among fellow subjects, within scientific communities as well as within other communities, is very often an implicit achievement. As summarized by Jürgen Habermas, communication proceeds “undisturbed” if

[…] the speaking/acting subjects a) make intelligible the pragmatic meaning of the interpersonal relation (which can be expressed in the form of a performative sentence) as well as the meaning of the propositional content of their utterance, b) recognize the truth of the statement made with the speech-act, c) recognize the rightness of the rule of which the performed speech-act may count as the fulfillment, d) do not bring the truthfulness of the parties to the communication into doubt (my emphasis, 1984: 145).⁹⁶

In these cases, there is what Habermas refers to as a “background consensus” based on

“reciprocal recognition” of the involved validity-claims (ibid.). “Questions of truth”, as well as questions of intelligibility, rightness and truthfulness, arise only when the background consensus is disturbed,⁹⁷ i.e. “if the validity-claims naively imputed in contexts of action become problematic” (my emphasis, op.cit.: 143). Thus, if A and B misunderstand each other (in terms of “Verstehen”) in the course of action, A might start asking B questions about

96 Habermas refers in this connection to “the four validity-claims”: Also “Verstehen der Bedeutung”

(understanding what is meant), in Apel’s sense, implies “reciprocal recognition of validity-claims” (Habermas 1984: 145). This is consistent with Apel’s elaboration of “Verstehen” elsewhere: “Unter den diskursrelevanten Geltungsansprüchen verstehe ich – mit Jürgen Habermas – genau vier Ansprüche, nämlich: erstens, den Anspruch auf intersubjektiv gültigen Sinn […], zweitens, den Wahrheitsanspruch […], drittens, den Aufrichtigkeit – oder Wahrhaftigkeitsanspruch […], viertens, den normativen und inbesondere moralisch relevanten Richtigkeitsanspruch (original emphasis, 1994a: 23). Hence, like Habermas, Apel considers

“Verstehen der Bedeutung” to be about “Erreichen einer Einigung über Geltungsansprüche”, even if on other occasions he conceptualizes “Verstehen” as a preparatory first step where no validity-claims are raised (op.cit.:

18). Habermas, however, is also ambivalent on this point. He says in another passage: “If the linguistic rules used by one partner are so unclear to the other that the latter does not understand the sentence uttered, both can attempt to effect an agreement about the language they mutually intend to employ. To this extent intelligibility could be considered a discursive validity claim. But the difference is unmistakable. Truth-claims and rightness-claims function in everyday speech and interaction as rightness-claims that are accepted with an eye to the possibility that, if need be, they can be discursively made good. Intelligibility on the contrary, as long as a communication in general proceeds undisturbed, presents a claim that has already factually been made good; it is not merely a promise. Therefore I prefer to count intelligibility among the conditions of communication and not among the validity-claims raised within communication” (1984: 146).

97 For example when claims taken for granted are made into topic of scientific discourse.

intelligibility: “How do you mean that? How should I understand that? What does that mean?” (op.cit.: 145). If A in the course of action notices that B holds something to be true that is inconsistent with what A holds to be true, A might start asking questions about truth:

“Is it really the way you say it is? Why is it that way and not otherwise?” (op.cit.: 146). If interaction makes visible that A and B have conflicting normative commitments, A might start articulating questions about rightness: “Why did you do that? Why did you not behave differently?” (ibid.). And finally, A might call into doubt the truthfulness of B: “Is he deceiving me? Is he deceiving himself about himself?” (ibid.).⁹⁸ Such questions about validity-claims – and their answers – are what constitute discourse.

Apel defends, as Habermas, a discourse theory of truth: Truth-seekers investigating state of affairs, disturb the background consensus and make truth-claims the object of discourse. Like Haack, Apel elaborates his notion of truth on the basis of Peirce’s theory of truth. Like Peirce’s theory of truth, Apel’s discourse theory is not an anti-realist consensus theory of truth, that disconnects the notion of truth from a notion of reality. “Die Subjekt-Objekt-Relation der Erkenntnis [muss] immer von der Subjekt-Ko-Subjekt-Subjekt-Objekt-Relation kommunikativer Verständigung ergänzt sein” (Apel 1994a: 26). The relation between fellow subjects (“Subjekt-Ko-Subjekt-Relation”) does not, however, replace the subject’s relation to the object (“Subjekt-Objekt-Relation”). Understanding is about something (“über etwas”). Apel’s prescription is, rather, to integrate:

[…] perceptual criteria relating to the evidence of correspondence of our thought with […]

facts […] [and] coherence criteria of logical inference into a grounded consensus through discursive arguments in the interpretation-community of scientists (my emphasis, 1994b:

196).⁹⁹

98 Habermas considers questions of truthfulness, however, to be of a different sort than questions of truth and rightness: They are “questions we do not address to the untrustworthy person himself, but rather to a third party.

The speaker suspected of untruthfulness can, if need be, be examined, for example, in a judicial process, or in (psycho-) analytical conversations” (1984: 146). Also, truthfulness is a non-discursive validity claim: “Claims to truthfulness can be settled only in contexts of action. Neither hearings nor analytical conversations between psychotherapist and patient may count as discourses in the sense of the cooperative quest for truth. Whether someone truthfully expresses his intentions or in his manifest utterances only feigns the imputed intentions, must show up in his actions if only we continue interacting with him long enough” (ibid.).

99 In the case of the human and social sciences, where the objects of study are, typically, subject-objects, the relevant fellow subjects are, however, not only the scientists. Also, even when we talk about the natural sciences, the equation between interpretation-community and the community of scientists is too simple. Citizens should, for example, be included in reasonable ways in the interpretation-community of the natural sciences (see 2.4.5).

“The meaning of truth” is “discursive agreement” on the outcome of inquiry faithful to perceptual criteria and coherence criteria in “an indefinite community of sign-interpretation”

(op.cit.: 182-183).

This indefinite community of sign-interpretation is thought of as an “ideal communication community”, that any real interpretation-community of scientists can only approach. Thus, the Peircian elaboration of “the meaning of truth” is to be understood as a “regulative idea”

(original emphasis, Apel 2001: 2, 7). This implies that any actual intersubjective assessment, however thorough, considering a validity-claim to be true, is revisable in principle. Even our best knowledge; the outcome of discourse under close-to-ideal conditions, is fallible.

Furthermore, this approach to the meaning of truth should be understood as a critique of Kant’s notion of things-in-themselves: “Peirce […] established the internal connection between truth related to reality and normatively demanded acceptability”: “the real is independent […] from each piece of factual knowledge”, but not “from each possible piece of knowledge”; the knowable (original emphasis, op.cit.: 4-5).