The Contribution of Habermas to Rhetorical Validity

Abstract

Habermas' discussion of the validity claims inherent in everyday conversation is examined in order to determine whether his notions of universal pragmatics and the ideal speech situation are subject to the same problems which Ray McKerrow has noted in the work of Ehninger, Toulmin, and Perelman. Habermas makes argumentative validity dependent on the rationality of society, and is thereby able to transcend the concept of validity as adherence to social convention. Nevertheless, Habermas is susceptible to the criticism that rationalistic validity criteria do not insure the “personhood” of the arguers.