Karl-Otto Apel and the Study of Communication

Abstract

In this article the author reads the German philosopher Karl-Otto Apel as a communication theorist. After a brief biographical introduction, the author examines five fields of significance pertinent to Apel’s thought and to the study of communication: First is Apel’s work on the so-called understanding and explanation controversy, or Erklaeren-verstehen (E-V) in German; second is Apel’s theory of discourse ethics; third, there are a series of essays through which the readers also get a fuller account of Apel’s use of Charles Sanders Peirce’s pragmatic approach to philosophy; and fourth, there are several articles’ that reflect Apel’s contributions to global politics based on his transcendental pragmatic framework. Finally, there is a lengthy discussion of a few other areas of significance that reveals Apel’s conceptual relationship to theories of communication. The first of these areas or fields consists of the way in which Apel takes up hermeneutics. The second is his definition and use of the “self-recuperative principle” while the third consists of his ongoing conversations with social philosophers Jürgen Habermas and Enrique Dussel.