하버마스의 진리합의론의 의미연구

Abstract

The development of modern democracy, which seeks legitimacy by consensus, has demanded new changes in truth theory. One can say that the theory of truth consensus is the theoretical equivalent of this practical problem. A common criticism of consensualism is that if truth is merely a product of consensus, then truth is not robust. In response to this criticism, Habermas seeks to justify consensualism in a new way. The theory of truth consensus seeks, among other things, to critically overcome traditional correspondence theory and modern surplus theory of truth. Instead of seeing truth as some ultimate state or outcome of agreement, Habermas relates it to the problem of argumentation by calling it a request for validity as an a priori condition that makes possible our communicative acts, especially those of affirmative communication. He borrows Toulmin's logic of discussion to show the underlying structure of pragmatic use of language, while at the same time trying to find the minimal conditions under which the outcome of a consensus can be accepted by all. The so-called ideal discourse situation refers to such conditions, and hence refuses to read the ideal discourse situation as a utopian entity. Of course, for his consensus theory to succeed, it would have to be more explicit about whether the fundamental rules of discussion are drawn from consensus or from the nature of the discussion itself. If they are derived by consensus, then there is a danger that such principles may be rejected by consensus; if they are derived from the nature of the discussion, then there is a danger that the theory may become deductive and dogmatic. The present paper explores a series of these issues.