How Jürgen Habermas' Theory of Communicative Action¹ can help mediators in the work of facilitating dialogues

Tania Almeida
Consultant, Teacher and Supervisor in Conflict Mediation. Founding Partner and President-Director of MEDIARE – Dialogues and Decision-Making Processes . Member of the Ethics Committee and Vice-Presidency of CONIMA – National Council of Mediation and Arbitration Institutions.

 

Jürgen Habermas is a German philosopher who developed theories concerning the pragmatics of human communication. He believes that there are assumptions of argumentation inherent in human communication and that they coordinate behavior through language. One of the authors dedicated to the analytic philosophy of language, Habermas invites us, through his Theory of Communicative Action, to include the possibility of a universal discursive ethics.

These assumptions are part of behavior patterns and refer to:

  • non-contradiction, similarity and maintenance of the meaning of words: this set of assumptions, which concern logic and semantics and seek to preserve congruence and consequent rationality in conversations, leads us to the idea that each of us must maintain be coherent when expressing yourself verbally during a dialogue, taking care, even, so that the same term or expression is not assigned different meanings in the same dialogue.
  • authenticity and addition of topics: this pair of assumptions concerns elements of the dialogue that help in the belief in the interlocutor and predicts that each speaker should state only what he really believes and add topics to the conversation when he considers them reasonable and relevant to what is being discussed , moved by the same principle of belief in what he says. 
  • competence, questioning, introducing new assertions, self-expression and non-coercion: these assumptions must govern any process that has as its objective the construction of a rationally motivated agreement; they provide that each interlocutor must have the competence to participate in a discussion, the possibility to question an assertion and to introduce new ones, the opportunity to express attitudes, desires and needs and the right not to be coerced.

 

As in a process of Mediation, the dialogues facilitated by the mediator include argumentation and counter-argument, instruments that favor understanding and disagreement, mediators have considered it useful to include the assumptions of argumentation listed by Habermas as a parameter of analysis and work.

Disagreements and conflicts would provoke the erosion of aspects related to the praxis of dialogue highlighted by Habermas. In conflict, the parties would tend to be insecure about the rules of the adversarial game of the other, fearing for their safety. The parties would function under the assumption that the other party does not care about the emotional and/or material damage they are inflicting, tending to be self-protective in order to avoid feeling vulnerable. In conflict, the parties would tend to generalize bad previous experiences in general, or that occurred in the relationship with the other party. They would also tend to believe that the other party, in any conflict resolution process, would act to take advantage of any situation. This would favor the feeling of understanding any gain or loss of the other party as a strategic maneuver or aggression. Conflict favors the Cartesian view that someone is right and someone is wrong, fostering in each party the belief that their own view is correct.

As an agent of reality and guardian of the Mediation Process, the mediator must make use of tools that make it possible to minimize the effects of conflict on the arguments between the parties. He can bring to his opening speech the aspects mentioned in the argumentation assumptions proposed by Habermas, pointing out their observance as being of interest to the parties themselves so that they can trust the other and also gain the other's trust; so that they can genuinely express themselves, making it possible to identify the desires and needs of both and, consequently, meet them; so that they build not only agreements, but especially, a future coexistence that includes non-adversariality.

The inclusion of these aspects in the opening speech makes it possible to rescue them at each moment of violation, even based on an explicit agreement with the parties to do so. In joint or private interviews, the mediator can, through questions or observations, recall what was initially agreed to be useful for the progress of the process. Habermas states that we do not realize how much we are immersed in a coexistence based on speeches and dialogues and how much we value all the aspects highlighted by him when we consider a conversation productive and satisfactory, as well as an adequate and reliable interlocutor.

The aspects mentioned by Habermas are all relational and, when brought to Mediation, they value points that favor the construction of agreements and points that favor a good present and future relationship between the parties. Taking care of the reestablishment of a negotiating and collaborative relationship between parties and helping to build an agreement need not be exclusive tasks. Resorting to the parameters offered by Habermas makes it possible to restore a communication compromised by the subjectivity of being in conflict and to center the dialogue on attitudes that favor the construction of productive dialogue.

1 Habermas' Theory of Communicative Action is crossed by three biases: the sociological one, which speaks of the linguistic interaction of individuals; the psychological, which identifies individuation and self-reflection in communicative processes; and the philosophical, which points to the morals and ethics contained in language.

REFERENCES

CHILTON, Stephen; CUZZO, Maria Stalzer Wyant. Habermas's theory of communicative action as a theoretical framework for mediation practice. Conflict resolution quarterly. Vol. 22, number 3. Spring, 2005.

HABERMAS, Jürgen. Theory of communicative action, I and II. Ed. Taurus. 4th edition. Spain, 2003.