[Linganth] Call for Papers: IPrA Panel on Habermas, Democracy, and the Pragmatics of Political Discourse

[Greg Thompson]

Dear Colleagues,

James Slotta & I are organizing a panel for the 20th International
Pragmatics Conference in Helsinki, Finland, June 27 through July 2,
2027, entitled "Habermas Reconsidered: Democracy and the Pragmatics of
Political Discourse in the 21st Century" (see the abstract below).

We welcome paper proposals from anyone interested in participating. Unlike
many other conferences, proposals for this conference are submitted through
the conference website: https://pragmatics.international/page/CfP2027.
250-500 word proposals can be submitted there until October 15, 2026.
During the submission process, be sure to indicate that you want to be part
of our panel on the "Topics" page. You must be a member of the
International Pragmatics Association to submit (annual regular membership
is €90 and annual "discount" membership is €40).

Feel free to reach out to James (jslotta at utexas.edu) or me (
greg.a.thompson at byu.edu) if you have questions or would like additional
information.

All the best,

Greg & James


*Habermas Reconsidered: Democracy and the Pragmatics of Political Discourse
in the 21st Century*

Few students of pragmatics have had the impact of Jürgen Habermas, who died
this past March. His accounts of the public sphere, communicative
rationality, and the discursive foundations of democracy placed the nature
of public discourse—its contextual characteristics, genres, media, and
effects—at the heart of contemporary political thought. Yet among those who
investigate the pragmatics of “actually existing” political
discourse—anthropologists, sociologists, historians—Habermas’ pragmatic
vision of democratic discourse has been the object of sustained critique
more than constructive elaboration. Indeed, the blindspots and deficiencies
of Habermas’s vision have been so thoroughly laid bare that his discussions
of the pragmatics of public discourse are often treated as little more than
an expression of their author’s own liberal universalist ideology.

In the wake of his recent passing, this panel argues that it is time to
reconsider Habermas’ work. In an era in which democracy appears to be under
threat from discourses and discursive conditions of many kinds—propaganda,
misinformation, deepfakes, social media, and echo chambers, to name a
few—Habermas’s attention to the pragmatics of democratic discourse seems
like a legacy worth taking more seriously. Beginning from Habermas’s
crucial insight—that the pragmatics of discourse play a key role in
enabling democratic governance to thrive—panelists will explore how
actually existing political discourse in the 21st century can be
illuminated by some of the analytics Habermas developed. These include the
pragmatics of argumentation and other privileged genres of public sphere
discourse, the role of metadiscourse in constructing public spheres, the
interplay of liberal ideals and speech practices, and the pragmatics of
understanding (*Verständnis*). The aim is not to gainsay the many
illuminating critiques of Habermas’s oeuvre, but to sift through his work
to identify elements that can be profitably brought to bear to understand
the pragmatics of contemporary democratic governance.


-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.

WEBSITE: https://anthropology.byu.edu/greg-thompson
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
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