Habermas wants to clarify the subtle differences between his own position and similar approaches:
| Against Brandom: Accounts of Objectivity | |
| Brandom | Habermas |
| “Structural objectivity” is built into our practices of giving and asking for reasons: the distinction between something’s being true and being taken to be true is a pragmatic one, built into the structures of communication | The formal presupposition of a single objective world existing independently of us is, after all, also a structural feature of discourse |
| Against Putnam: Truth | |
| Putnam | Habermas |
| The objectivity of value is the inverse of the value-ladenness of facts. There are ought implying facts and, therefore, value judgements can be true or false | There are different senses in which judgements can be correct. Norms must not be assimilated to facts for the facts are not up to us in the same way that moral or ethical norms are. Reaching consensus does not therefore exhaust the meaning of truth |
| At issue in this dispute is whether it is legitimate to allow for different types of truth that in turn require different types of justification or whether “truth” is a notion that applies to statements about the objective world only whereas moral judgements, though they have cognitive content, are subject to a different kind of validity. (xx) | |
| Against Putnam: Pluralism | |
| Putnam | Habermas |
| Instrumentalist conception of the value of pluralism: it involves more than mere tolerance, for a consistent pluralist cannot hold that some other form of life is “wrong” and furthermore, such a pluralist must accept that other such forms of life may have insights available to them that are not available to her, but may be of use to her and her own community | Habermasians are confined to approaching a value judgement from another community or culture in only two ways, by asking a) whether it is deontologically admissible (whether it violates any universal norms), or b) whether it contributes to a collective form of life that is in the interest of those affected. But when we add to this Habermas’s emphasis on learning processes, and the dialogical nature of communication, we see that these surely allow for the possibility of our learning by interacting not only with the objective world but also with others |
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