Publisher's Synopsis
This book contributes to the development of communicative theory by advancing theory of the self sufficient to support inter subjectivity and meet the conditions required for communicative rationality, communicative reason. The conclusion, which follows a transformed transcendental approach, supports the theories on inter subjectivity advanced by Jürgen Habermas, Karl-Otto Apel and Ludwig Wittgenstein, evaluated against the background of later works of Immanuel Kant. The origins of communicative theory in the writings of Kant and Charles Sanders Peirce are sketched, followed by an outline of the development of the theory by Apel and Habermas. In this discussion a central issue is identified as the failure of communicative theory to produce an adequate theory of the self as the subject of communicative transactions. It is argued that both Mead and Habermas fail to fully establish intersubjectivity as they retain elements of a Cartesian introspective subjectivity. An alternative approach developed by Charles Taylor is then discussed. Finally, it is argued that freedom and imagination, understood in the context of Kant and the late Wittgenstein are the key elements to a self capable of supporting the inter subjectivity required by communicative theory.
