ABSTRACT
Here I want to return to the question of the constitutive grounds of society and the life-worlds of knowledge and trust. I do so because there is a considerable danger that the post-rationalist critique of the metaphysics of presence (Derrida) and consensus (Lyotard) will convey the impression that human institutions can be contracted in mistrust and intractable minoritarianism-a view that Giddens courts as a consequence of (post) modernity. The latter view might represent a viable strategy on the level of secondary, bureaucratic institutions, but it cannot be generalized to the level of primary institutions and lifeworld relationships. I think it necessary, as I have said earlier, for us to present our own analysis of the grounds of sociability rather than to trade upon the social and political fall-out from post-rationalist theory. This exercise will also prepare the ground for our arguments regarding the mutuality of knowledge, common sense and science and for our views on the basic communicative ethics of civil institutions and our social debt to past and future generations.
