Pragmatism in Apel and Habermas
pp. 387-416
in: Guttorm Flistad (ed), Philosophy of Mind/Philosophie de l’esprit, Berlin, Springer, 1983Abstract
When we talk about pragmatism in Apel and Habermas, we do not have in mind the cruder sense of this term, which emphasizes "what works" and what is unreflectively taken to be "useful." Afterall, a critique of instrumentalistic fallacies and ethical shortsightedness belongs to the core of their thinking. The sense of pragmatism at stake here is primarily a conception of scientific investigation and validation, i.e. a pragmatic conception of truth in a broad sense. Its relatedness to pragmatism is realized by its affinity to basic ideas in Ch.S. Peirce (say, validity by consensus through an unlimited community of investigators).
