Saturday, March 07, 2020

Habermas on Karl-Otto Apel (1922-2017)

New article by Jürgen Habermas:

"Von der formalen Semantik zur transzendentalen Pragmatik – Karl-Otto Apels ursprüngliche Einsicht" [pdf]

("Topologik – International Journal of Philosophy, Educational and Social Sciences" no. 26, 2019/2020, pp.  66-88.)

Abstract:

"Among the German philosophers of the first post-World War II generation, Karl-Otto Apel is an outstanding figure. His pathbreaking achievement, which happened to fall into the shadow of a persisting dispute about the problem of "Letztbegründung", is the disclosure of a new dimension in the analysis of language - and the corresponding completion of the linguistic turn. He has performed the transition from formal semantics which concentrates on the structure of propositons to a "transcendental" pragmatics, focussing on formal properties of the use and interpretation of linguistic expressions. In the context of this shift Apel has at the same time developed the basis for an ethics of discourse. This article pursues the steps of this "transformation of transcendental philosophy", leading from the late Heidegger via Peirce to transcendental hermeneutics. In  the course of a life-long discussion with my friend Karl-Otto Apel, I tackle at the end also some difficulties in the transcendental mode of providing a foundation for discourse-ethics." 


2 comments:

Unknown said...

Kindly translate Habermas's article into English

Thomas Gregersen said...

English translation:
“From Formal Semantics to Transcendental Pragmatics: Karl-Otto Apel’s Original Insight”, Philosophy & Social Criticism vol. 46, no. 6 (2020), pp. 627-650. Link: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0191453720930837