LANGUAGE AS ENVIRONMENT AND FOUNDATION OF SOCIAL COGNITION

The "hermeneutic turn", occurred in the 20th century, made the contemporary social theory face a number of methodological problems. One of the main problems is associated with the crisis of "consciousness model", and the basic principle of contemporary critical theory-" the principle contingency in theory", with its general idea to identify any situational thinking as essentially situational and proclaim contextualism in social cognition. The problem can be formulated in the form of question: Is the idea of essential situationality of any thought compatible with the universalist claims, which are peculiar to the theory? In this paper we consider the aspect related to the orientation of contemporary social theory towards the form of language. We consider solutions to this problem offered under Hans-Georg Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics, Karl-Otto Apel's transcendental pragmatics and Jorgen Habermas's universal pragmatics. Gadamer reveals the universality of the language's measurement. Language is a transcendental value, if we take the transcendental as appearing a necessary condition for the possibility for us to experience the "world". However, being a transcendental value language is not something external to the history, it is involved in history and everyday life. Apel borrows the concept of language games from Wittgenstein and transforms it: a set of specific language games, which were referred to in Wittgenstein, he regarded as manifestations of one universal transcendental language game. It is the transcendental language game, which supports the condition that ensures intersubjective importance to cognition. In terms of universal pragmatics, speech possesses its inherent universal standards of rationality, which are assumed by each participant in a communication process. Rationality of communication is related to those claims, which are implied within the communication mode of the language use, namely, claims to propositional truth, subjective sincerity and normative validity. In contemporary communicative philosophy the status of transcendental foundation is ascribed to the language. The structures of transcendental consciousness, providing authentic knowing, are being substituted with the structures of communication that give intersubjective importance to cognition. Also language is universal for any theoretical and practical activity. We see that the crisis of "consciousness model" and such factors as essential situationality and factuality of thinking do not deny the universalist pretensions inherent in both philosophy and contemporary social theory. Language and communication have structures that help in dealing with local socio-cultural contexts, which determine the activity of a social theorist.