Cristina Lafont

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

In this essay, I analyze the cosmopolitan project for a new international order that Habermas has articulated in recent publications. I argue that his presentation of the project oscillates between two models. The first is a very ambitious model for a future international order geared to fulfill the peace and human rights goals of the UN Charter. The second is a minimalist model, in which the obligation to protect human rights by the international community is circumscribed to the negative duty of preventing wars of aggression and massive human rights violations due to armed conflicts such as ethnic cleansing or genocide. According to this model, any more ambitious goals should be left to a global domestic politics, which would have to come about through negotiated compromises among domesticated major powers at the transnational level. I defend the ambitious model by arguing that there is no basis for drawing a normatively significant distinction between massive human rights violations due to armed conflicts and those due to regulations of the global economic order. I conclude that the cosmopolitan goals of the Habermasian project can only be achieved if the principles of transnational justice recognized by the international community are ambitious enough to cover economic justice