THE NORMATIVITY OF COMMUNICATION
Norms and Ideals in Peirce’s Speculative Rhetoric
We must not begin by talking of pure ideas,—vagabond thoughts that
tramp the public roads without any human habitation,—but must begin
with men and their conversation.
—Charles Sanders Peirce, The Collected Papers
of Charles Sanders Peirce
In a celebrated essay, the prominent communications scholar James Carey pointed out that beneath our ways of talking about communication there are two major conceptions constraining our communicative discourses and practices (Carey 1989, 14–15). The first is the “transmission view” of communication, which is commonly explained as the transmission of ideas from mind to mind; the other is the “ritual view” of communication, which, in Carey’s words, is not directed “toward the extension of messages in space but toward the maintenance of society” (Carey 1989, 18). In this view, communication is related to communion, conceived not as the mere sharing of contents but as the act of being engaged in the life of a community. Here, the main concept is that of practice, which highlights rules, norms, and shared patterns of conduct governed by certain ends or values, which, in turn, define the very essence of a given community. There is, therefore, a deep link between communicative practices, conceived as shared habits of conduct, and normative standards controlled by purposes, goals, and ideals. Indeed, as Craig has defended, as long as a practice develops, a normative discourse about the practice