Discourse

The term discourse, from the Latin discursus " walk around ", originally meaning ' erörternder lecture "or" goes back and forth conversation " used.

Since the 1960s, the term is increasingly used in discourse theories and studied. This gives it changing meanings. Discourse theories attempt to describe how sequences of utterances are constituted. The form of the examination may be philosophical, linguistic or literary studies.

Discourse as a lecture

When discourse as erörterndem lecture, two discourse types can be distinguished:

• In the presence of systematic spokesman Jump: speech act sequence, for example, question and answer, accusation and justification
• In the absence of systematic spokesman Jump: speech act concatenation, for example, lecture, narrative

Philosophical discourse term

Overview

In addition to the purely linguistic meaning discourse today is frequently, but used as a philosophical concept in different meanings.

• Jürgen Habermas saw as representative of a linguistic turn in philosophy, the language ability as the ultimate mark of man. He developed in this context, in collaboration with Karl -Otto Apel, a discourse ethics. Discourse with him is the " scene of communicative rationality ." In this sense, discourse is an argumentative dialogue is spoken about the truth of assertions and the legitimacy of standards. What each is considered reasonable is the intersubjective, recognized by all participants of a community truth.

• The Poststrukturalist Michel Foucault examined the changes in the systems of thought and the role of power there. As a discourse it refers to the process of the formation of those truths, " in which we give pause to us our being ." What each is considered "reasonable", establishing itself from " impersonal and contingent power effects."

• Jean -François Lyotard considers discourse as a multitude of different, independent forms of discourse that can not be hierarchized by a universal judgment rule.

Jürgen Habermas

Fundamental to the discourse theory of Habermas is developed in the theory of communicative action distinction of

• Communicative action, regularly oriented to mutual understanding in the form of utterances, called " speech acts ", and
• A strictly oriented to their own interests " strategic action".

According to this understanding, the strategic action behaves parasitically to communicative action, which is the original mode of speaking.

In communicative action, a spokesman regularly collects validity claims that appear depending on the statement than those of ( propositional ) truth of ( normative ) accuracy and the (subjective) truth and target the consent of the other person. If this target is missed, so no agreement is reached, this is the starting point for the discourse that problematizes the one hand and raised the other hand, criticized the validity claims and acts " as a court of communicative action ".

The discourse guarantees the possibility of a consensus by its constituent terms that are inevitable, necessary language recognized by each of the participants. They were tentatively formulated in " rules of discourse " and aimed to establish an "ideal speech situation " from where nothing reigns as " the unforced force of the better argument and the motive of the cooperative search for truth ."

" Under the heading, discourse ', I introduced the direction indicated by argument form of communication, be made in the become problematic validity claims on the subject and examined for their permission to go. "

Jürgen Habermas refers to in his theory of communicative action to discourse as a process of negotiation of individual validity claims of the individual actors ( Habermas referred to as " actuators "). A feature of the language is according to Habermas its inherent rationality. The results of a communication - if it is free from distortion caused by power or hierarchies - are, according to him necessarily rational. As an ideal, the best insurance for true knowledge, he thus sees the " domination-free discourse " - built on discourse norms ( Principle of equality of participants, Principal Problematisierbarkeit all topics and opinions, Principal Unausgeschlossenheit of the audience ) and authentic feelings. The resultant communicative reality is to bring the best argument to win - to which can be further built up.

Habermas ' concept of discourse here was composed in part of the psychoanalytic tradition of American discourse analysis ( conversation analysis). Jürgen Link sees this as a second element of the Enlightenment " concept of rationality of interventions in public debates ." Thus Habermas took aim with these dialogical and interactional elements initially at " a rational, aiming at informal consensus debate." Later, Habermas approaches with his concept of discourse and Michel Foucault speaks of specific or specialized discourses. In contrast to Foucault, " he insists [ ... ] on the priority of a sovereign ultimately intersubjectivity in relation to the respective discourse. Simplified one could say: In Habermas intersubjectivity constituted the discourse, in Foucault it is first and foremost as per specific - historical constituted of discourses ".

Michel Foucault

Grossly simplified thinks Foucault discourse with the aufscheinende in the language understanding of reality of a particular era. The rules of discourse define for a particular context or a particular field of knowledge, what is sayable, what should be said, what can not be said and by whom it should be when told in what form ( for example, only in the form of a scientific statement ).

The so-called " discursive practice " is composed of

• Linguistic aspects ( the discourse ) and
• Non-linguistic aspects (for example, political institutions or architecture).
• In some theories of Foucault subsequent enforcement of certain ( physical ) is of representation ( performativity ) understood as part of the discursive practice. For example, take certain feminist theories, gender identity itself as a discursive practice (cf. Judith Butler). Today perceived as real differences between men and women can be represented as a discursive construction.

Discourse in Foucault's sense is a " linguistically produced meaningful context, which forces a certain idea, which in turn has the same specific power structures and interests as the basis and produced ". As far as " discourse " in the public debate is equated with " discussion", is a crucial aspect lost: the property of discourse to produce reality and structure. Foucault describes in The Archaeology of Knowledge his plan to investigate the discourse as follows: "It [ is ] a task that is not - no more - to treat the discourse as a whole character [ ... ], but as practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak. While there are these discourses of signs; but they use these characters for more than just the name of the stuff. This makes them more irreducible to speech and language. This more has to bring and describe the light. "

See also: The order of discourse ( Foucault, 1974)

Critical Discourse Analysis

The so-called Critical discourse analysis (for example, Jürgen Link and Siegfried Jäger) concludes from a Marxist perspective on the concept of discourse by Foucault. Discourse here means the institutionalized social speech, which determines the action of man. Object are both the form and the content of utterances. Is also asked about what is not said in the ways of speaking or is speakable. For hunters, the discourse has also a historical dimension: discourse is a river of speech and texts ( "knowledge" ) through time.

Jean -François Lyotard

Lyotard distinguishes between different types of discourse ( genres de discours ): cognitive ( or scientific ), the economic, philosophical and narrative nature of the discourse. At the same time, he notes: " There is no Diskursart whose hegemony would be fair on the other. " When a clash of different types of discourse unfolds inevitably a conflict. The conflict ( différend ) differs from Lyotard litigation ( litige ). Thus Lyotard seeks a philosophy of dissent, which does not seek to reconcile with an all-encompassing idea of ​​the " clash " of different discourse and forms of knowledge. Lyotard diagnosed the decline of universalist discourses, namely those reasoning systems that can claim universal validity. There is no overarching judgment rule.

At the same time Lyotard addresses the issue of legitimacy. In the discourse it provides a means to create legitimacy, but should not be done by telling this discourse. Lyotard speaks of the "end of grand narratives ", which - had discredited themselves - not least to Auschwitz. The discourse understands Lyotard at the same time not as the end of Legitimierungsprozesses. In this way, the dialogue came to an end. The Postmodern " does not find its basis in the compliance of the experts, but in the paralogy of the inventor." Paralogy literally means " Widervernünftigkeit ". Statements can be identified by Lyotard not thereby legitimize that they allow a consensus. He contradicts Habermas. To regard the consensus as the aim of the discussion, was bare aggression. But the fundamental Heteromorphie the wissenskonstituierenden statements and the variety of life forms recognize leads to the emergence of non -compliance as a common knowledge. This allows both the production of hitherto unknown, what silent in the discourse, which has not yet been brought in speech form.