Meaning, Ideality and Subjectivity

Abstract

In Chapter 2, following Habermas and Apel, we introduced the concept of communicative rationality in contrast to the traditional notion of cognitive rationality, and formulated some of its basic principles deemed to be relevant to our program. In addition to the rules or principles already discussed by our philosophical contemporaries in Germany, we formulated one more principle called “the principle of choice between incompatible alternatives” (or “choice principle”). We also incorporated the Apelian-Habermasian concept of “ performative contradiction” into what we call The Principle of Performative Consistency (PPC), so that a refutation of a validity claim can be realized by showing that, similar to what is called the “ indirect proof in formal logic, making such a claim violates PPC.