Functions and Fictions of Communication

This study examines the dynamic between cognitive construction and social communication but without recourse to predetermined models of rationality, truth or reality. It will be argued here that if the various theories of rational sociality contained in such concepts as intersubjectivity, rational communication, consensus or dialogue are in fact constructions (and this seems axiomatic), then subjects, individuals or social actors are either held together by recourse to something other than ontology or are trapped by anarchy. The view presented here is that the fictionality of social and cognitive constructions in no way automatically induces atomism or anomie. Instead, it recognises cognitive construction and the highly complex fictionalisation of its relations with what lies beyond it.

The Author: Colin B. Grant, Ph.D. in German Literature and Literary Theory. 1994–1998 Visiting Lecturer in German with Philosophy, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. At present Lecturer in French and German, School of Languages, Heriot-Watt University, Scotland. Author of Literary Communication from Consensus to Rupture (1995).