Skip to main content
Log in

Language, moral order and political praxis

  • Published:
Argumentation Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The paper argues that the debate between objectivist criticism and postmodern critique represents a fracturing of the modes of mundane social and linguistic practice. The two together miss the open-textured character of language-in-use and the reflexive properties of situated human practice. Both difference and agreement are grounded in the multiplicity of criteria that are a feature of the logical grammar of language, and therefore of everyday praxis, including that of critique. To escape the duality of foundationalism on the one hand, and radical relativism on the other, attention to the praxiological details of human action and reasoning is needed. The paper draws on Wittgensteinian philosophy and ethnomethodological studies of reasoning to make its case.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Button, G (Ed.): 1991,Ethnomethodology and the Human Sciences, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cascardi, A.: 1988, ‘History, Theory, (Post) Modernity,’ In R. Merril (Ed.),Ethics/Aesthetics: Post-Modern Position, Maisonneuve Press, Washington D.C, pp. 27–45.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cavell, S.: 1961–62,The Claim to Rationality: Knowledge and the Basis of Morality, Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Harvard University.

  • Connolly, W. E.: 1974,The Terms of Political Discourse, Lexington, D.C. Heath and Company

    Google Scholar 

  • Connolly, W. E.:1989, ‘Identity and Difference in Global Politics’, In J. Der Derian and M. J. Shapiro (Eds.),International/Intertextual Relations: Post-Modern Readings of World Politics, Lexington Books

  • Cook-Gumperz, J.:1975, ‘The Child As Practical Reasoner’, In M. Sanchez and B. Blount (Eds.),Socio-Cultural Dimensions of Language Use, Academic Press, New York, pp. 137–162.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coulter, J.:1990, ‘Elementary Properties of Argument Sequences’, In George Psathas (Ed.),Interaction Competence, University Press of America, Washington D.C.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coulter, J.:1991, ‘Logic: Ethonomethodology and the Logic of Language’, In G. Button (Ed.),Ethnomethodology and the Human Sciences, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dewey, J.: 1957,Reconstruction in Philosophy, Boston.

  • Foucault, M.: 1970,The Order of Things., Random House, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Galeano, E.:1973,Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, Monthly Review Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gallie, W. B.:1956, ‘Essentially Contested Concepts’, InProceedings of the Aristotelian Society. Vol. 56, London. Reprinted in Max Black (Ed.),The Importance of Language, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1962, pp. 121–46.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garfinkel, H.: 1967Studies in Ethnomethodology. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garfinkel, H.:1991, ‘Respecification’, In G. Button (Ed.),Ethnomethodology and the Human Sciences, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hebdige, D.: 1988,Hiding in the Light, Routledge, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jayyusi, L.: 1984,Categorization and the Moral Order, Routledge & Kegan Paul, Henley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jayyusi, L.: 1989, ‘Conventionality and Difference’, Paper presented to the 1st D.A.R.G. Conference on Understanding Language Use in Everyday Life, 23–6 August Calgary, Canada.

  • Jayyusi, L.: 1991, ‘Values and Moral Judgment: Communicative Praxis As a Moral Order’, In G. Button (Ed.),Ethnomethodology and the Human Sciences, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 227–251.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jayyusi, L.:in press, ‘“The Record Shows...”: Fact and Disagreement in the Bush/Rather interview’, InResearch on Language and Social Interaction.

  • Louch, A. R.: 1966,Explanation and Human Action, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marx, K.: 1965,The German Ideology, Lawrence Wishart, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCarthy, T.:1990a, ‘Private Irony and Public Decency: Richard Rorty's New Pragmatism’,Critical Inquiry 16, 355–370.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCarthy, T.:1990b, ‘Ironist Theory as a Vocation: A Response to Rorty's Reply’,Critical Inquiry 16, 644–655.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rorty, R.:1967, (Ed.)The Linguistic Turn: Recent Essays in Philosophical Method, Chicago.

  • Rorty, R.: 1989,Contingency, Irony & Solidarity, Cambridge University Press,Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rorty, R.: 1990, ‘Truth and Freedom: A Reply to Thomas McCarthy;Critical Inquiry 16, 633–643.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rorty, R.:1991, ‘Postmodernist Bourgeois Liberalism’, InObjectivity, Relativism and Truth: Philosophical Papers, Vol. I, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, First published inThe Journal of Philosophy 80, 583-9.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ryle, G.:1949,The Concept of Mind, Hutchinson Cambridge, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ryle, G.:1954,Dilemmas, Cambridge University Press.

  • Sacks, H.: 1964–72,Transcribed Lectures, (Unpublished: School of Social Sciences: University of California at Irvine): Lecture on Paradox.

  • Sacks, H.:1967, ‘The Search for Help: No-One to Turn To’, In E. Schneidman (Ed.),Essays in Self Destruction, Science House, New York, 203–33.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sacks, H.:1972a, ‘An Initial Investigation of the Usability of Conversational Data for Doing Sociology’, In D. N. Sudnow (Ed.),Studies in Social Interaction, Free Press, New York, 31–74.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sacks, H.: 1972b, ‘On the Analyzability of Stories by Children’, In J. J. Gumperz & D. Hymes (Eds.),Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York, 329–45.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schutz, A.: 1962,Collected Papers I, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague.

    Google Scholar 

  • Waismann, F.:1965, Verifiability, in A. G. N. Flew (Ed.),Logic and Language, 1st & 2nd Series, Doubleday, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winch, P.:1970, ‘Understanding a Primitive Society’, In B. R. Wilson (Ed.),Rationality, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 78–111.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winch, P.: 1972, ‘Ethics and Action, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wittgenstein, L.: 1964,Blue and Brown Books, Harper & Row, New York & Evanston.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wittgenstein, L.:1968,Philosophical Investigations, trans by G. E. M. Anscombe, 3rd Edition. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wittgenstein, L.:1974,On Certainty, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Jayyusi, L. Language, moral order and political praxis. Argumentation 9, 75–93 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00733101

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00733101

Key words

Navigation