MIĘDZY OPISEM A NORMĄ. POZNANIE A SPOŁECZNY ŚWIAT ŻYCIA
BETWEEN DESCRIPTION AND NORMS. KNOWLEDGE AND THE SOCIAL LIFE-WORLD

Summary/Abstract: The paper deals with the problem of social contexts of knowledge. The description of social reality should take into account the fact that anyone who is trying to describe it is the part of that reality him or herself. The cognition of the social world in the objective categories – effected by the tendency to generalization – loses the normative sense of a theory as such and neglects the role of the particural cases. Regarding the notion of the collective intentionality (John Searle) the author sketches two concepts of it: the Habermas’ proceduralistic idea and R. Rorty’s idea of the contingency. In reference to the first one the aim is to establish a communicative community, in which all people have the same rights in the argumentation and the final purpose would be the agreement based on the best one. The second idea emphasises the word “we” as not being the collection of the abstract terms like “human being”, “humanity” etc., but it should be more modest and more local. Both theories – J. Habermas’ and R. Rorty’s – can be recognized as legitimate, if they develop in the solidarity with other people.

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