Picking Up where Karl-Otto Apel Left Off. Towards an Integration of the Anthropology of Knowledge and the Transcendental Pragmatics of Language

Abstract

The work of the recently deceased philosopher Karl-Otto Apel (15-5-2107) has gone through different stages throughout its development. However, a common goal of all of them has been to reflect on the conditions that are a priori necessary for knowledge. These conditions, and the way of conceiving them, have undergone variations throughout his writings. While in his early program of an anthropology of knowledge some aspects such as reflection, body and language had a greater role, in his subsequent transcendental pragmatics of language these conditions are reinterpreted, without disappearing, from the perspective of the community of communication. This article reconstructs the problem of the a priori of knowledge in Apel’s philosophy and, by doing so, it contributes to an integration, which Apel had planned to achieve, of those two programs.

Keywords

• antropología del conocimiento
• a priori corporal
• a priori lingüístico
• comunidad de comunicación
• karl-otto apel
• pragmática trascendental del lenguaje