Cristina Lafont

The main thesis of this article consists in that the two concepts “reference” and “truth” have an ultimate realist sense of which all epistemologizing conceptions -like relativism and incommensurabilist theses- necessarily have to come short. The arguments for this thesis are embedded in a revision of the ‘direct’-reference-position as well as of recent arguments against epistemic notions of truth, to show in the next,evaluating step how it is exactly the realist kernel of both concepts that makes arguments as to the corrective function of both notions within epistemic practices possible. This nucleus of both notions, necessary for every intent to explain learning from experience, consists in the supposition of an objective world to which all speakers refer using the same concepts and which is represented by their statements. This supposition does not inevitably have to be interpreted as a metaphysical postulate of a world in itself, but can be seen, the author argues, as a necessary formal presupposition ofcommunication, which is mastered by the speakers themselves through their having learned to use desigantive expressions referentially as well as to use the true/false distinction in its normative bipolarity

Bekanntester deutscher Philosoph der Gegenwart. Seit mehr als fünfzig Jahren prägt Jürgen Habermas das intellektuelle Leben Deutschlands und darüber hinaus. Mit seinem Werk nimmt er entscheidenden Einfluss auf die Wissenschaften, auf Politik und aktuelle gesellschaftliche Diskussionen. Neben einem Überblick zur Biografie stellt das Handbuch Habermas intellektuelle Kontexte, wie z. B. die Frankfurter Schule, vor und beleuchtet die wichtigsten Stationen seines komplexen Werkes. Der Schlussteil informiert über Begriffe und Konzepte, die sich durch das gesamte Werk ziehen.

The main argument of this article is that the concept of truth is as much internally linked to the concept of knowledge as to the concept of reality. As a consequence it is affirmed that all attempts to explain its structure which are either exclusively biased in an epistemic point of view or in a purely realist metaphysics are bound to fail. Instead this article proposes the adoption of a pragmatic standpoint which would permit to reconstruct the fallibilistic role displayed by the concept of truth in the epistemic practices of belief-revision, which must in turn be reconstructed precisely taking in account the connection of truth and reality. In that way both intuitions as to the concept of truth, the epistemic and the realist one, can be reconciled. Moreover this strategy provides as such, if correct, a strong argument in favor of an essential function of the concept of truth against contemporary deflationist tendencies

En este ensayo analizo algunas dificultades conceptuales asociadas a la exigencia de que las instituciones globales adquieran un grado mayor de legitimidad democrática. En ausencia de un Estado mundial, puede parecer inconsistente exigir que las instituciones globales sean responsables ante todos los que han de acatar sus decisiones y al mismo tiempo insistir en que los miembros de dichas instituciones, en tanto que representantes de sus respectivos Estados, mantengan las responsabilidades especiales que tienen con los ciudadanos de sus propios países. Esta dificultad parece insuperable a la luz de la extendida aceptación de la concepción de los derechos humanos centrada en el Estado, según la cual los Estados, y sólo ellos, son los responsables principales de proteger los derechos de sus ciudadanos. Contra esta concepción, defiendo la plausibilidad de una concepción alternativa, pluralista de las obligaciones derivadas de los derechos humanos. Para ello argumento que, si se tiene en cuenta la distinción tripartita entre la obligación de respetar, proteger y realizar los derechos humanos, no hay ninguna dificultad conceptual en exigir que tanto los Estados como los actores no estatales se responsabilicen por sus respectivas obligaciones en materia de derechos humanos

In this paper I focus on the discussion between Rawls and Habermas on procedural justice. I use Rawls’s distinction between pure, perfect, and imperfect procedural justice to distinguish three possible readings of discourse ethics. Then I argue, against Habermas’s own recent claims, that only an interpretation of discourse ethics as imperfect procedural justice can make compatible its professed cognitivism with its proceduralism. Thus discourse ethics cannot be understood as a purely procedural account of the notion of justice. Finally I draw the different consequences that follow from this reading.

En la discusión contemporánea sobre modelos normativos para un nuevo orden internacional está ampliamente aceptado que la justicia internacional requiere garantizar la paz, la seguridad y la defensa de los derechos humanos. Sin embargo, así́ como los objetivos de paz y seguridad son incontrovertibles, no puede decirse lo mismo del objetivo de protección de los derechos humanos. Los habituales candidatos al desacuerdo son los llamados derechos económicos y sociales, seguidos por los derechos políticos a la participación democrática. Pero, desgraciadamente, ni siquiera el derecho a la igualdad plena es incuestionado. Algunos autores optan por la estrategia minimalista de identificar derechos humanos básicos, con la esperanza de suscitar aprobación universal en el seno de la comunidad internacional, mientras que otros siguen una estrategia más generosa, con la intención de incrementar las consecuencias normativas de sus propuestas. [Fragmento]

In this essay I analyze some conceptual difficulties associated with the demand that global institutions be made more democratically accountable. In the absence of a world state, it may seem inconsistent to insist that global institutions be accountable to all those subject to their decisions while also insisting that the members of these institutions, as representatives of states, simultaneously remain accountable to the citizens of their own countries for the special responsibilities they have towards them. This difficulty seems insurmountable in light of the widespread acceptance of a state-centric conception of human rights, according to which states and only states bear primary responsibility for the protection of their citizens' rights. Against this conception, I argue that in light of the current structures of global governance the monistic ascription of human rights obligations to states is no longer plausible. Under current conditions, states are bound to fail in their ability to protect the human rights of their citizens whenever potential violations either stem from transnational regulations or are perpetrated by non-state actors. In order to show the plausibility of an alternative, pluralist conception of human rights obligations I turn to the current debate among scholars of international law regarding the human rights obligations of non-state actors. I document the various ways in which these obligations could be legally entrenched in global financial institutions such as the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank. These examples indicate feasible methods for strengthening the democratic accountability of these institutions while also respecting the accountability that participating member states owe to their own citizens. I conclude that, once the distinctions between the obligations to respect, protect and fulfill human rights are taken into account, no conceptual difficulty remains in holding states and non-state actors accountable for their respective human rights obligations.

In this article I analyze Rawls' and Habermas' accounts of the role of religion in political deliberations in the public sphere. After pointing at some difficulties involved in the unequal distribution of deliberative rights and duties among religious and secular citizens that follow from their proposals, I argue for a way to structure political deliberation in the public sphere that imposes the same deliberative obligations on all democratic citizens, whether religious or secular. These obligations derive from the ideal of mutual accountability that is supposed to guide political deliberation in a deliberative democracy. The main advantage of this proposal is that it recognizes the right of all democratic citizens to adopt their own cognitive stance (whether religious or secular) in political deliberation in the public sphere without giving up on the democratic obligation to provide reasons acceptable to everyone to justify coercive policies with which all citizens must comply

In his book Tales of the Mighty Dead Brandom engages Gadamer’s hermeneutic conception of interpretation in order to show that his inferentialist approach to understanding conceptual content can explain and underwrite the main theses of Gadamer’s hermeneutics which he calls “the gadamerian hermeneutic platitudes”. In order to assess whether this claim is sound, I analyze the three types of philosophical interpretations that Brandom discusses: de re, de dicto and de traditione, and argue that they commit him to an “ecumenical historicism” that is directly at odds with the hermeneutic approach. Although the variety of de re interpretation that Brandom denominates de traditione comes indeed very close to the Gadamerian approach, I conclude that if Brandomian scorekeepers were to adopt it, they could become Gadamerian hermeneuts, but once they did, they would not be able to go back to their scorekeeping practices as described by Brandom

This paper is an attempt to criticize the reification of language present in Heidegger’s writings after the Kehre . The steps of the argument are as follows. First, it is argued that the specific features of Heidegger’s conception of language after the Kehre can be traced back to Heidegger’s conception of the ontological difference in Being and Time . The common element in both conceptions is the assumption that meaning determines reference (i.e. that the way entities are understood determines which entities we can refer to). In the next step the implications of this assumption are shown through an analysis of Heidegger’s conception of designation in Being and Time and after the Kehre . Finally, this conception of designation is criticized with the help of the analysis of designation offered by the so-called theories of direct reference. Key Words: Donnellan • Heidegger • language • linguistic idealism • meaning • ontological difference • reference • referential/attributive distinction.

To address the question posed in the title, I focus on Heidegger's conception of linguistic communication developed in the sections on Rede and Gerede of Being and Time. On the basis of a detailed analysis of these sections I argue that Heidegger was a social externalist but semantic internalist. To make this claim, however, I first need to clarify some key points that have led critics to assume Heidegger's commitment to social externalism automatically commits him to semantic externalism regarding concept use. I begin by explaining the independence of those positions, arguing that social externalism answers the question of whose concepts in a linguistic community are properly individuated, whereas semantic externalism makes a claim about what it takes for concepts to be properly individuated. Once these issues are distinguished, it is possible to see that Heidegger's intersubjectivist conception of language commits him to social externalism, while his conception of the ontological difference commits him to semantic internalism.

This article argues for an intermediate standpoint concerning the theory of truth which finds an equilibrium between realist an epistemic conceptions of truth. At the same time it is accepted that truth is a notion with an ultimate realist sense, but it is made clear that this intuitive sense does only have a non-trivial (i.e. non-“disquotational”), reading if the function of “truth” is seen from within the epistemic framework of our practices of belief-formation (i.e. of confirmation and revision). Following the realist line one can reconstruct the unconditional validity attributed to the intuitive concept of truth out of its internal relation with the concept of “reality”; this in turn makes clear that the epistemic strategy of extracting this uncoditionality from an emphatic concept of perfect, infallible knowledge is more than weak. This is because only preserving the decisive function of truth as a corrective, as a fallibilist reserve (incompatible therefore with any concept of “infallible” knowledge) one can see how truth relates to cognitive learning processes. On the other hand, the strategy of this paper shows thus how this is possible avoiding the bad alternative of metaphysical realism and relativism