Truth & Truthfulness, Ch. 9

Questions

1.    Pp.226-229 – What does he mean by contextualist critique (4 steps)?

2.    Clarify Habermas’s ideal speech situation 

3.    What conception of critique is Williams using? 

4.    Pp.212 – Does Williams take into account admission of falsehood into the marketplace?

5.    Has Williams read Marx?

6.    What does this chapter have to do with genealogy?

7.    P.221 – Coercion and disadvantage as a kind of critical theory? 

8.    P.222 – How does the notion of false-consciousness problematize the relation between truth and politics and what is the relation between truth and politics?

Discussion

o  Williams’ liberalism – mentions vulgar Marxists (p.222) – Williams is doing something like vulgar liberalism – doesn’t take into account what has been done in the Marxist tradition – material conditions affect our access to information – doesn’t take into in account the works of other people (like Rawls, who at least tries to take Marxist concerns seriously) – blind to real problems that exist? 

o  Is Williams really endorsing this view (liberalism)? 

o  Problem of truth and politics, which has to do with resisting tyranny. Need truthfulness when you want to fight tyranny

o  Vindicate liberalism through critique à

o  Give a conception of justice for liberal democracies because those are the societies we currently live in and will live in the foreseeable future. 

o  P.220 – currency of distributive justice 

o  Need to have these capacities to be an agents in the world 

o  Democracy and liberalism – trust plays an important role – trust about power when power is being abusive. If you don’t have the material conditions, then you don’t have the time to read newspapers (have access to information). 

o  Emancipation is in terms of power, not material conditions – talking about power in abstract sense, but doesn’t take concrete conditions into account – does his approach rule that out? Is he trying to defend the development of non-vulgar Marxist critiques as having a truthful role in society? Does he circumscribe his conception of liberalism such that those accounts of material conditions aren’t taken seriously?

o  Image of liberalism – liberalism of fear (Shklar) – unambitious conception of liberalism – not wedded to the basic assumptions of contract theory – looking for a conception of politics that has legitimacy as its first virtue such that it can be politics – starts with minimal conception that takes priority – wants theory to do less work – 

o  One of the main virtues of liberalism of fear is not only going to be legitimacy and order, but also truthfulness and critique – questions about democracy and material inequality are going to be pursued in practice (not in theory) – can’t work out the content of the virtues of truthfulness, sincerity, and authenticity, but have to do that at the concrete, practical (genealogical level) – 

o  Problem of the genetic fallacy – pointing out something that is wrong – switch from Kantian account to immanent or contextualist account of critique – process of criticism – advantaged and disadvantaged party. 

o  The disadvantage party initially believe that:

o  1) The distribution of powers and advantages in the system is basically just. 

o  2) They believe (1) only because members of the more powerful party (call them the instructors) give them appropriate training.

o  3) It is only if (1) is true that the instructors are in a sound position to claim that (1) is true; the basis for their authority comes from the system itself.

o  4) There are perfectly good explanations of the instructors’ belief in their own authority. This means, granted (3), that there are good explanations of their teaching (1) which do not imply that (1) is true. 

o  Disadvantaged societies need to ask themselves these series of questions in order to check if power is just – engaging a process of self-critique – different model than Habermas supplies – account of why these critical reflections point out injustice – 

o  Why the belief of the disadvantaged is homogenous – summary of last couple of social movements in 60s, 70s, 80s, this is how they understand themselves in the political systems – people holding a belief – why do people think something outside the system if the system is not totalizing? 

o  Pp.219-220 – this critical theory test is one that depends on (is facilitated by) values of truthfulness that are themselves facilitated by liberal institutions – way of critiquing institutions in liberal societies and institutions in non-liberal societies. 

o  Is the four step process meant to be procedural – purely procedural way of mobilizing critique at the level of institutions – error theory – explanation of why their beliefs were false (causal explanation) – Is there any productive aspect of error?