09 Chapter 7: Communicative Action Theory

This web page is associated with a book called called Hermeneutics in Agile Systems Development.

The book can be bought at: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Dr_Jerome_Heath_Hermeneutics_in_Agile_Systems_Deve?id=mi6VBQAAQBAJ

The book gives a more complete explanation of these issues and includes a number of related topic discussions. The combination develops the understanding of the concepts of Agile software development.

Data entered by the user needs to be defined by names that make sense to the user and in the code itself. Methods of keeping data together for entities such as people, things, and organizations are part of modern application programming systems. But the designer must define those entities and their relationships to each other. Normalization is a basis for usability and thus is aimed in the direction of pragmatics. The key to “good” normalization is providing the data availability that is needed for good output. In defining the entities and their relationship we need to consider both the input and output views of data (per formation data context).

A totalizing (truth based) methodology does not solve our problems. The basis of communicative action is pragmatics. Using pragmatics we can have a meaningful discussion. But we are seeking meaning and not truth. In this process we analyze the discourse to understand the definitions of the terms (words or symbols) being used. Fitting those terms into a context that makes them meaningful in the present conversation can change sources of inadequacy into sources of new meaning in the discourse. Such an approach allows us to redefine our contexts so that our language of communication reflects terminology useful for a meaningful system. Basing on meaning rather than truth prepares us for the changes in the system that will happen. Truth is static; meaning is dynamic. Ultimately this methodology is a hermeneutic approach rather than pure functional decomposition.

https://sites.google.com/site/jbhhpu/usinghermeneuticsinsystemsanalysis.

This process is an extension of Communicative Action Theory of Habermas.

Dr. Jerome Heath

Google Books: Hermeneutics in Agile System Development