Abstract
This text seeks to follow the path taken by Habermas in the "Theory of Communicative Action" (TCA) to prove the existence of a communicative action. It focuses particularly on the fundamental questions of item "III: First intermediate consideration: social action, teleological activity and communication" (Habermas, 2012a). The presented arguments draw on a dialogue between the secondary literature on TCA and Habermas' own analyzes of item III. For the German author, the communicative action was already embryonic in several classics of the human sciences. In Weber, Habermas will seek indications of a dual concept of action, in the rational action oriented toward values - one sense focused on the relation man-object and the other referred to a relation between subjects. In this latter, Habermas tries to differentiate the strategic communication, which seeks a result, from the communicative one that would be rationally motivated to the understanding. In Austin, he introduces the concept of speech acts, which already deemed as primordial the communication aiming understanding, act of illocutionary speech. In Mead, Durkheim will show how the understanding or the consensus is primordial for the existence of the subject in the world, for this reason, the communicative action precedes the teleological action. Adorno and Horkheimer, according to Habermas, provided valuable clues to overcoming rational action oriented to ends, understanding its relational content. And finally, how Habermas interprets Goffman's dramaturgical action to understand the subjective world, and construct a broad concept of action to ground and think communicative action. This article does not seek an ultimate interpretation, its more modest intention is to present and discuss a view on a founding concept of the Habermasian theory, the communicative action.
Keywords:
Communicative action; Sociological theory; Jürgen Habermas.