Communicative Ethics and the Claims of Transcendental Phenomenology

Abstract

Communicative ethics and transcendental phenomenology are similar in that both are concerned to locate fundamental epistemological principles in the transcendental analysis of intersubjectivity. That is to say, they agree that truth and meaning emerge in interactions among individuals. They differ however in their claims about how intersubjectivity occurs. For communicative ethics, intersubjectivity occurs in discourse among persons, and therefore language is the precondition for truth. The epistemology of communicative ethics therefore involves the transcendental analysis of conditions for the possibility of discourse. For phenomenology, intersubjectivity occurs in the lived experience of one person by another. This essay describes the difference between these epistemological commitments and argues for the phenomenological approach. It concludes with a discussion of the implications of the phenomenological approach for defending a revised theory of deliberative democracy.