Science, Action, and Fundamental Theology: Toward a Theology of Communicative Action. byHelmut PeukertReview by: C. G. PradoNoûs, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Dec., 1986), pp. 571-572Published by: WileyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2214989 .

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PEUKERT'S FUNDAMENTAL THEOLOGY 571

Helmut Peukert, Science, Action, and Fundamental Theology: Toward a Theology of Communicative Action (Cambridge: The M.I.T. Press, 1984), xxvii + 330 pp., $35.00.

C.G. PRADO

QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY

This is a book very much in the German tradition. It incorporates weighty scholarship, is ambitious in scope, owes its parentage to Kant, and, un- fortunately, contains an abundance of cumbersome machinery. In essence Peukert is out to establish that the contemporary conception of ration- ality, forged from failed positivism and failing foundationalism, cannot tolerate the preclusion of theological discourse. Speaking of developments away from positivism in philosophy, the physical and social sciences, Peukert tells us that his "...thesis is that... [the] turn to 'pragmatics,' to a more comprehensive concept of rationality resting on a more comprehen- sive concept of binding intersubjective communicative action...entails a radically changed situation in which the question of a fundamental theology has to be posed anew" (pp. 19-20).

I do not think Peukert's project as new as he seems to think, nor as we are promised in dust-jacket blurbs. From the fideism of philosophers such as D.Z. Phillips to the efforts of Nicholas Wolterstorff and Alvin Plantinga, we have seen many attempts to use aspects of post- Wittgensteinian conception of rationality to regain for religious discourse the intellectual legitimacy it had prior to positivism or even the Enlighten- ment. (See, e.g., Wolterstorff's Reason Within the Bounds of Religion, 2nd edition, Eerdmans, 1984). The basic maneuver is the same: the abandon- ment of foundationalism and of a priori restrictions on what can constitute rationally acceptable discourse is construed as a de facto rehabilitation of religious discourse as at least as viable as any other. Some argument is then produced to show that, furthermore, we need religious discourse to capture an essential dimension of our form of life.

Peukert's book is in two parts: in the first there is a very good review of the history of pivotal philosophical developments in our century; in the second there is some review of the efforts mentioned above, such as fideism, a great deal of complex maneuvering, and discussion of the views of Jurgen Habermas and related others. The context Peukert establishes for his attempted revitalization of religious or theological discourse is a two-fold threat to theology: first, that theology may be assimilated into theoretical accounts of human history, and second, that the reconception of practice as in part constitutive of understanding and rationality, as opposed to occurring within these, may lead to radical and essentially reductive reconception of religiousness. Basically Peukert must salvage the specialness of religious or theological discourse. He must prevent it being analyzable as a social or psychological phenomenon, and must prevent its being no

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572 NOUS

more-though no less-than part of how we determine our lived world. I think Peukert and others such as Wolterstorff are right in one respect.

As we move toward pragmatism and antifoundationalism we do move toward judging discourses only in terms of their productivity, and hence cannot antecedently preclude their viability on a priori grounds. But what Peukert and those others do not seem prepared to acknowledge is that with pragmatism and antifoundationalism goes anticorrespondism. Aban- donment of a priori grounds and criteria for knowledge is of a piece with abandonment of truth as correspondence. Religious discourse, even if once more viable as a way of coping, cannot again claim the putative descriptive- truth content which was its outstanding characteristic. This means that even if readmitted into "the conversation of mankind," it will no longer have the authority which it seems to inherently demand.

There are dues to be paid in the adoption of pragmatism and anti- foundationalism, and Peukert seems unwilling to pay them. He wants religious discourse to be special, to be binding, and he speaks of a kind of truth which the scarequotes he adds fail to turn into pragmatic truth. (See, e.g., p. 185). He speaks of the "reconstruction" of the reality of God (p. 231). He describes the "central realm" of theology as interaction involving recognition of "unconditioned" nature (p. 241). He clearly accepts the implicit foundationalism in Habermas's thought. But most significantly, what he actually offers us in his positive proposal is a warmed- over Kantian argument straight out of The Critique of Practical Reason. That is, given the putative viability of religious discourse in the context of the contemporary conception of rationality, Peukert tries to convince us that the specialness of religious discourse emerges as a necessary rationalizing counterpoint to paradoxes of normative objectivity and subjectivity which he teases out of the nature of our communicative community. This is all a long way from pragmatism, both in conception and execution. Peukert has yet to learn the lesson Richard Rorty teaches: we cannot get out of language, and there are no transcendental arguments that will elevate some of our discourses above others. Peukert cannot have it both ways. He can- not at once avail himself of antifoundationalism and pragmatism, and plead a special status for religious discourse. What he offers is in essence a transcendental argument, regardless of how larded with references to com- municative theory and shifting conceptions of rationality. I am afraid that Peukert's book confirms my view that works in the philosophy of religion invariably consist of good or useful first-halves, and optimistic but not so good or useful second-halves.

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