Habermas, Quine and Heidegger

While Habermas accuses Quine of levelling the distinction between lifeworld and objective world in the favour of the objective world he faults Heidegger for levelling it in the favour of the lifeworld. Heidegger, according to Habermas, gives so much prominence to the disclosive function of language and lifeworld that the inneroworldly phenomena go into oblivion.

Though the levelling of the distinction between lifeworld and objective world occurs form two different angles in Quine and Heidegger, the result is albeit the same. The transcending power or reason as well as the initiating and accomplishing powers of subjects capable of speech and acts are sacrificed on the one hand on the alter of the objective world and on the other hand on the alter of language and lifeworld.

The above might seem strange on the first impression but should fall in place once we understand that weak naturalism depends on dialectical relationship between lifeworld and objective world on the one hand and disclosed world and innerworldly on the other hand, a dialectical relation which is mediated through the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ of subjects capable of speech and action.

While Quine is lambasted for ignoring the world disclosive function of language, Heidegger for ignoring innerworldly learning processes that have power to revise the disclosed meaning we start with. The linguistic meaning we start with has to prove itself in the tribunal of the exchange of reasons (exchange of the yes and no’s of the participants) as well as against the recalcitrant reality. However such a “revisionory” conception of meaning is impossible either if we consider meaning in causal terms, or if we consider meaning as linguistically given.