which takes interlocution to be a fact of experience, something ever pre-given,
and seeks to describe the normative conditions of possibility of mutual
understanding – in some sense, the forms of discursive intuition. The
philosopher’s task is therefore to establish the ‘basis of validity of discourse’,
which for Habermas assumes the following structure: any speaker, simply
by virtue of speaking, transmits four universal claims to validity. She must
in fact (a) express herself intelligibly (intelligibility claim); (b) give it to be
understood that something is the case (truth claim: we are only considering
‘serious’ locutions here – that is, those really directed at phenomena, and thus
enjoined to truth, at least as a goal); (c) make herself understood by her
interlocutor(s) (sincerity claim: making oneself understood in the framework
of consensus is in fact to state the truth about oneself, to be sincere); and (d)
agree with her interlocutor (accuracy claim, which is defined as a set of norms
to which the interlocutors collectively subscribe). These four claims are the
presupposed basis of inter-subjective understanding; they furnish language
with its structure as interlocution; they are the basis of the agreement realised
by each process of enunciation – that is, the basis of the fundamental consensus
of which language is at once the source and the medium, and on which
philosophy constructs its ethics of discussion. If, in fact, these claims are not
honoured (for Habermas is not unaware that the facts do not correspond to
the idyllic consensus he describes), it simply means that human beings quit
the domain communicative action and embark on a different kind of action –
strategic action – which does not presuppose the same validity claims.
We can see how this theory is situated in the framework of pragmatics.
For the philosopher and linguist alike, it is a question of reconstructing the
speaker’s competence, but her communicative competence, not her phrasal
competence – that is, her ability to produce grammatical sentences. The theory
of sentences is in fact insufficient. There are specific presuppositions of
discourse, due to the fact that (a) the sentence has a relationship with the
external reality of what can be perceived (this is called reference); (b) it also
has a relationship with the internal reality of the speaker’s intended meanings;
and (c) it has a relationship with the normative reality of what is socially and
culturally recognised by the community of speakers (this is called a culture,
an encyclopaedia, and serves as a foundation for the speaker’s life-world).
Readers will have recognised the source of the three claims to validity
represented by truth (the discourse corresponds to external reality), sincerity
48 • Chapter Three