This paper is a critical examination of Apel’s and Habermas’ models of human communication. Common to both philosophers is the stress on the relation between normative and empirical aspects of ethics. Although this relation is necessary in every ethical-oriented communication, the author shows that both in Apel and in Habermas it rests rather on a rational procedure stemming from relevant but limited fields - e.g. jurisprudence - than on an ethics of communication of our being in the world.
