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Created: September 7, 2003
Latest Update: September 11, 2003
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Answerability When I Don't Understand,
How Do I Get a Handle on It To Ask a Question?

jeanne's answers

Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, September 2003.
"Fair use" encouraged.

1. I'm not quite sure what you mean by utterance?

   Bakhtin uses the word "utterance." As we are using it in our discussions, I mean anything we say, or sometimes an action, where nothing is said, but some communication is indicated. For example, someone may point to something, or art or music or photographs may be involved in the communication. I'm using utterance to cover all those.

2. Do you mean "whatever you say" by utterance?"

   Yes, whatever you say as a means of communication or any other form that communication takes. For example if the child tugs at her mothers skirt, she is communicating, and that utterance is answerable, even if the child's action was the means of communication.

3. Why is it called "dialogic" answerability?

   Because that there is answer implies an Other. We're not counting communicating with yourself. When there is an Other, then we have a dialog. I am also contrasting here the concept of monologic non-answerability in which the one with power or the decision-maker neither expects nor tolerates answerability. Then we have essentially a monolgue, going from Person with Power to Other. That brings up all kinds of problems, like our normative expectation that the senior person in terms of authority is the one who initiates conversation, not the other way around. William Foote Whyte's Street Corner Society. Like the complicity of silence. Like the riskiness of answerability. (Here I'd like to bring up Duncan Kennedy's critique of legal education in terms of his failure to consider the risk of answerability.)

4. Why do you say "utterance or act"?

   Because I am trying to emphasize that communication takes place in many ways besides just words. Although I haven't had time to go back and check this out with Bakhtin, my bet would be that Bakhtin, too, is making "utterance" more inclusive than the spoken word alone.

5. I'm not sure I see the difference between Habermas' and Bakhtin's questions.

   Habermas' question on how shall we come to consensus makes the unstated assumption that we use reason in our governance roles to come to legitimate consensus such as he seeks in which all are considered and none or dominated or exploited. Bakhtin's question goes to a much deeper level of human understanding and interaction by asking what to say when I'm faced with another human, with my same qualities and abilities to reason and to answer, who is here to answer whatever I say? Much more fundamental question. Instead of how do we agree, how do we relate to each other at all.

6. What do you mean by a "validity claim"?

   A validity claim, in the sense that I am using it, is a claim to truth that takes a different perspective, that of the Other speaking. The Other's claim often conflicts that the claim to what is true that Person claims when person remains unaware of the claims of Others around him/her.

   In philosophy a truth claim is one that must be tested out as it fits in the whole philosophical scheme to determine whether it is true or false. In the sense that we are using it here, it matters less that it is true or false within any philosophical scheme than it does whether it has been presented from a valid perspective that we have neglected to consider before because Other was silenced, and not given a "good faith" chance to present the claim.