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Even though, with my appropriation of Habermas' distinction between Lebenspraxis and Diskurs, I have no longer spoken of "fully reflective understanding," I find it interesting that I still speak -- in speak—in effect, if not in so many words -- of words—of "fully critical reflection."

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In this connection, I think of Whitehead's statement distinguishing "the appeal to history" from "the appeal to reason." "The appeal to history," he says, "is the appeal to summits of attainment beyond any immediate clarity in our own individual existence. The appeal to reason is the appeal to the ultimate judge, universal and yet individual to each, to which all authority must bow. History has authority so far, and exactly so far, as it admits of some measure of rational interpretation" (AI: 207 f.). Immediate validation of validity claims on the primary level of self-understanding and life-praxis is by way of the appeal to history, whereas mediate validation of such claims on the secondary level of critical reflection and proper theory is by way of the appeal to reason.

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