Normative Rationality
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Before anything can be said about Normative Rationality a short introduction of the theory of Communicative rationality by Jürgen Habermas is neccessary. Concerning his theory the following can be said:
[Communicative] rationality refers primarily to the use of knowledge in language and action, rather than to a property of knowledge. One might say that it refers primarily to a mode of dealing with validity claims, and that it is in general not a property of these claims themselves. Furthermore…this perspective suggests no more than formal specifications of possible forms of life… it does not extend to the concrete form of life…(Cooke, 1994).
The clearest way to see this is to recognize that the validity dimensions implicit in communication signify that a speaker is open to the charge of being irrational if they place normative validity claims outside of rational discourse. Following Habermas, the argument relies that the following are given:
(a) that communication can proceed between two individuals only on the basis of a consensus (usually implicit) regarding the validity claims raised by the speech acts they exchange;
(b) that these validity claims concern at least three dimensions of validity (I, truthfulness; WE, rightness; IT, truth); and
(c) that a mutual understanding is maintained on the basis of the shared presupposition that any validity claim agreed upon could be justified, if necessary, by making recourse to good reasons.
This is an ideal situation wich in reality not often is achieved, in fact in reality it is more often (deliberately) obstructed (think of the exclusive mechanism of Michel Foucaults' discourses).
So we could say that for a speech act to be believed (and thus effectively changing the view of those who listen to it), it has to communicated in an openminded understanding community. The effect of the speach-act is based on its' validation. The speech act has to be valid on three (analytical) levels. Normative Rationality is one of these three levels, the other two are Purposive Rationality and Aesthetic Rationality. Habermas used Karl Popper's three world model for the theoretical construction of his Validity Claims (fig 1). All this being said it's now possible to explain what is meant by each form of rationality and as a consequence each form of validity:
Purposive Rationality = The claims must have Truth in the objective (physical) world, there has to be some kind of physical evidence which can be used to strengten the claim (think of real life examples, supporting abstract theory)
Normative Rationality = The claims must have Rightness (normative correctness) in the social world, The claims have to fit between the normative borders of the community in which they are made. This is a difficult aspect of validation, because these borders often make validation impossible(again think of Foucaults' exclusive mechanism of discourse).
Aesthetic Rationality = The claims must have Truthfulness (sincerity) in the subjective innerworld, People have to really believe the things they are saying. If they are not sincere this will be noticed by their public (think of bodylanguage).
References
Habermas, J. (1984) The Theory of Communicative Action Volume 1; Reason and the Rationalization of Society, Cambridge: Polity Press
Contributors
Paul Cuijpers (s0406309) en Mike van der Linden (s4094913)
Enhanced and links added by --SusanVerbeij 11:11, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
