Pour une critique sceptique de la pragmatique transcendantale de K. O. Apel

Abstract

Among philosophical attempts to face the crisis of rationality, some of them emphasize the necessity of grounding its refoundation on presuppositionless principles. K.O. Apel aims at the refoundation of ethical and cognitive rationality within a communicational and argumentative framework. His “Discourse ethics” dwell on the impossibility to be criticized without committing a “pragmatic contradiction”. Is this not an excessive claim ? Greek scepticism has always been aware of the paradoxes that its own formulation raises and elaborates pragmatic strategies to escape contradiction. We can thus use these tools to avoid Apel’s argument and say that even if the communicative activities were constitutive of our humanity, nothing authorises the claim to a transcendental ultimate foundation or to ethical presuppositions. But this does not prevent us from searching for a minimal ethics for times of crisis.

Keywords

• Apel K.O.
• foundation
• pragmatics
• rationality
• scepticism
• transcendental