Communicative Ethics and the Claims of Transcendental Phenomenology: Exploring the Foundations of Intersubjectivity

Abstract

The Communicative ethics theories developed by Jurgen Habermas and Karl-Otto Apel supports models of deliberative democracy that are broadly influential in many fields. A central claim of these theories is that the foundations of knowledge can be deduced from a transcendental analysis of the intersubjective exchange that occurs in logico-linguistic pragmatic discourse. For that reason, they have each been critical of the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and his followers (especially Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty), who look for foundations of knowledge in the pre- and extra-linguistic aspects of lived experiences. For Habermas and Apel, the phenomenological project is solipsistic. Nonetheless, Dan Zahavi’s interpretation of Husserl’s theory of transcendental intersubjectivity suggests that Husserlian phenomenology and communicative ethics are similar in that they agree that knowledge and meaning emerge in intersubjectivity (i.e., in interactions among individuals). They differ, however, in their claims about how intersubjectivity occurs. Zahavi shows how Husserl anticipated and defended against the claims of Habermas and Apel. For phenomenology, the lived experience of one person by another is a precondition to language and objective knowledge. This essay draws from several works in which Zahavi develops his reading of Husserl. It describes the epidemiological commitments of communicative ethics and Husserl’s defense of the phenomenological approach. This is a significant argument that holds implications for revising theories of deliberative democracy.