Seeking Intersubjective Insight: Comments on William Rehgs Insight and Solidarity

SIMONE CHAMBERS
University of Colorado, Colorado, USA (E-mail: simone.chambers@colorado.edu)

I had just finished a manuscript on Habermass discourse theory when, in 1994, I saw a notice for a new book entitled Insight and Solidarity: The Discourse Ethics of Jurgen Habermas. I thought to myself, Oh dear! Another book on Habermas that I have to read. Then I received even worse news. I heard through the grapevine that it was a very good book; that it did a masterful job in laying out Habermass dense philosophical perspective; that it offered a coherent and compelling defense of some of Habermass trickiest arguments; that it really pushed the field of discourse theory forward. This news made me very nervous. In a moment of cowardice and fatigue I decided to wrap up my manuscript and send it off to the publisher without reading the new book. William Rehgs book then sat on my shelf accusingly until the publishing point of no return at which point I picked it up and read it. The rumors had been right. In many ways I am glad I took the cowards route. There are so many moments in the book where one must acknowledge that here is the definitive statement on the issue that I might very well have been discouraged with in my own enterprise. But at a deeper and more im- portant level I missed a very great opportunity in not reading the book ear- lier. I missed the opportunity to engage in what Rehg calls intersubjective insight.1 My first gut reaction to the book was based on the assumption that if it indeed contained the strong arguments that people said it contained, then this would undermine my confidence in my own arguments. Rehg points out that it is often the other way around: doubt results from insulating oneself from possible counter-arguments rather than confronting those arguments head on. Confidence in my own arguments is not a matter of deep, but essentially monological thought. Rather, it involves a process that takes place in the intersubjective spaces where arguments, reasons, answers, and questions meet. Confronting and engaging other peoples ideas is to participate in rational cognition.