The idea of political communication

Wright, Alan (1989) The idea of political communication. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.

Abstract

This work defends the thesis that communicative activity is logically constitutive of political practice. The concepts of language and communication are examined and it is shown that communication is indefinable. Although there is no logical rule through which objects may be associated with the term, communication is shown to have a logic of active modalities. Modal logics derived from propositional calculus, however, are shown to be inadequate to their characterisation. A revision of logic is argued as necessary to understanding the immediacy of the relationship between communicative activity and politics. As a prolegomenon to this revision, connections between speech, reason and logos in Greek political theory are examined. Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions of these connections are shown to be flawed in their misunderstanding of the unified nature of logos. The consequence of this was the decline of discourse and its replacement by spatial class-logics and by rhetoric. The rationalist adoption of method and the failure of empiricism to account for the connection between reason, speech and political practice is shown to be the outcome. Habermas' attempt to redress these failings, following Kant and Hegel, is explored but it is argued that his theory of communicative action entails an unwarranted metaphysical emphasis. The role of communicative action in a developmental-logical nexus is also rejected and it is argued that, at most, a modal logic of communicative activity is possible, through which its constitutive role can be understood. This role is not programatic. The four modes of communicative activity relevant to politics, namely, judging, deliberating, choosing and arguing, are examined and their transitive, temporal and polymorphous nature is demonstrated. Finally, the implications of communication for political association and for the possibility of an authentic politics are examined and the constitutive nature of communicative activity for political practice is re-emphasised.

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