How do you know that your reality is real?

to define reality

as a quality appertaining to phenomena that we recognize as having a being independent of our own volition

To define knowledge

as the certainty that phenomena are real and that they possess specific characteristics

Are we really free to take any reality as reality?

Questioning the taken-for-granted-ness of reality

The Reality of Everyday Life

 An ordered reality It involves humans consciousness The here of my body and the now of my present Closeness and Remoteness Intersubjective world Ongoing correspondence between meanings (shared)Common-sense knowledge Taken for granted as reality

Social Interaction in Everyday Life

 Face to face situation Continuous interchange of expressivity Others subjectivity is available Means of typificatory schemes

Language and Knowledge in Everyday Life

 The human production of signs, serving as an index of subjective meanings, but also objectively available in the common reality we share with others Signs are clustered in a number of system, characterized by detachability Language is the most important sign system of human society. So, everyday life is, above all, life with and by means of the language I share with my fellowmen The detachment of language lies much more basically in its capacity to communicate meanings that transcend the expression of subjectivity here and now It can then preserve in time and transmit to following generations

 As a sign system, language has the quality of objectivity, providing me with a ready-made possibility for the ongoing objectification of my unfolding experience Language also typifies experiences, and also anonymizes experiences Language is capable of transcending the reality of everyday life altogether, and of the here and now

The social stock of knowledge differentiates reality by degrees of familiarity

I know what to do - What everybody knows My knowledge of everyday life is structured in terms of relevances Knowledge is socially distributed and possessed differently by different individuals and types of individuals

Language builds up semantic fields or zones of meaning

It is possible for both biographical and historical experience to be objectified, retained and accumulated a selection It is determining what will be retained and what forgotten It includes knowledge of my situation and its limits Participation in the social stock of knowledge thus permits the location of individuals in society

Communicative Action
Actors in society seek to reach common understanding and to coordinate actions by reasoned argument, consensus, and cooperation rather than strategic action strictly in pursuit of their own goals (Habermas, 1984, p. 86). It emphasizes widespread public participation, sharing of information with the public, reaching consensus through public dialogue rather than exercise of power, avoiding privileging of experts and bureaucrats

four kinds of action by individuals in society

Teleological Action/Strategic Action The actor makes a "decision among alternative courses of action, with a view to the realization of an end, guided by maxims, and based on an interpretation of the situation Normatively Regulated Action Actors in a social group pursue common values or norms of the group, "fulfilling a generalized expectation of behavior. It is social capital in action

four kinds of action by individuals in society

Dramaturgical Action. Sometimes an actor is neither solitary nor a member of a social group, but is interacting with people who are "constituting a public for one another, before whom they present themselves There is a "presentation of self , not spontaneously but stylized, with a view to the audience Communicative Action Here two or more actors establish a relationship and seek to reach an understanding about the action situation and their plans of action in order to coordinate their actions by way of agreement. Interpretation refers in the first instance to negotiating definitions of the situation which admit of consensus

Social Action
two "orientations":
orientation to success and orientation to reaching understanding.

HABERMAS; Language must be comprehended in terms of the structure of discourse

Principals
The fundamentalist approach: Language develops and renews itself in discourse - the individual, common customs and norms The complementarity between structure and practice Background knowledge - Linguistic practive applies the code by simultaneously recreating it through innovative statements and articulations The complementarity of I and We - a discourse, a common referential space, We-stances & Iperspectives, We-perspectives & I-perspectives

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The conception of the structure of the discourse can serve to enable us to understand the specificity of social action The code is both deployed and innovated in the course of linguistic practice This practice initially and usually approximates a discourse The participants act from We-perspectives We follow the rules. We carry out the ritual and we apply the norms

The common we the consensus REASON/RATIONALITY as a perfection of reaching understanding that is acceptable for all

the process of communicative rationality

A communication that is "oriented to achieving, sustaining and reviewing consensus - and indeed a consensus that rests on the intersubjective recognition of criticisable validity claims"

A NEED FOR FREE AND NONDOMINATIVE PROCESSES OF UNDERSTANDING

there can no longer be a totalising knowledge

Rationality is no longer monological the principle of reaching rational understanding seems to be incompatible with authoritarian conditions or exploitation

The questions of TRUTH, RIGHTNESS, and AUTHENTICITY