Date: 	Sat, 7 Mar 1998 13:45:30 -0500
Subject: HAB: RE: Performative Contradictions and Question Begging


The Performative Contradiction Debate continues...

(KEN) Eg. The criminal's action is existentially self-defeating 
since the strategic attempt to suppress the other in fact ruins 
(in the form of suffering) the life of the criminal; the trespasser
>intended to do away with another's life but instead destroys
>his own (J Bernstein, Recovering Ethical Life, 181).

(ANTTI) This originates from Hegel's Philosophy of Right, and 
does not fit with Habermas's definition above (the criminal's 
action is not a constative speech act).

(K's RESPONSE)  Yes - but the logical structure is the same.  
Whereas the criminal destroys his life the speaker destroys 
their argument.

>(K) My charge against this is that the argumentative strategy 
that Habermas employs begs the question.  In other words the
>case for developing the idea of a performative contradiction
>uses one of its conclusions as a premise.  It is the logical
>equivalent of saying that God exists because God produces
>real effects (William James).  Logically this reads God
>produces real effects therefore God exists.

(A) No, logically that reads:

Whatever produces real effects exists.
God produces real effects.
Therefore, God exists.

>(K) The conclusion that God exists is used as a premise for 
the statement God produces real effects.  It is a logical circle 
and completely incoherent.

(A) Well, see above. Given the truth of the premises, the 
conclusion follows. You may dispute either of them, but if you 
don't, you're behaving illogically if you don't accept the 
conclusion. (I would personally qualify both of the premises, 
as James probably does himself. Of course God exists in a 
sense, like Santa does.)

(K's R) Of course if God exists in the same sense that Santa 
exists this makes nonsense out of the substance of  
propositional truth claims.  Ie. Anything that one believes is 
true, in a sense, even more so if they actual behave if it is 
true.  Eg. Ken has a book with all the answers, hidden
so that no one can find it, therefore Ken has all the answers 
because having all the answers produces real effects.  Do I 
have all the answers or not?  No - i don't - because NO SUCH
BOOK EXISTS!

>(K) This is the formulation of my critique:

>Habermas must assume that rules of argumentation are true
>and unavoidable (as a premise of his case) in order to
>conclude that rules of argumentation are true and
>unavoidable.

(A) I'm not sure if 'true' makes any sense here. I'll try to 
reconstruct one way of arguing for unavoidability.

At least some language games have constitutive rules, 
without which they would not be the games they are. These 
rules can be extracted from them through hermeneutic 
reflection and expressed in propositional form.

(K's R) You have to assume here that the rules of hermeneutic 
reflection expressed in propositional form CAN actually yield 
the criteria for determining the constitutive rules - which
requires the rules to be true a priori.

(A) Now, does argumentation have unavoidable rules - is there 
a point at which we are no longer arguing? What is the 
difference between argumentation and non-argumentation? 
Habermas approaches it from the difference between 
convincing and talking into. He appeals to our "intuitive 
preunderstanding" (MCCA, 89) that you can't, for example, 
"convince an opponent of something by resorting to lies;
at most [you] can talk him into believing something to be true" 
(90-91).

(K's R) You have to assume a priori that the distinction 
between communicative and strategic action here is 
completely clear cut.  If the two moments are entwined at any 
point then this falls apart.

(A) He aims to find the points after which an exchange can no 
longer be regarded as argumentation, and formulate rules 
which make explicit our implicit preunderstanding of the 
difference. There are different domains of argumentation, such 
as legal, moral and scientific ones, each of which have their 
own specific rules which constitute them as independent 
domains - what counts as a moral argument does not
count as a scientific argument. Habermas's work has recently 
dealt with such more specific rules of argumentation for the 
moral and the legal domains. (This is the status of (U), for 
example.)

(K's R) Habermas must assume here that the distinctions 
between different discourses are valid.  This can only be done 
in RETROSPECT and not established a priori (as Wellmer 
demonstrates).

(A) Once we have identified such presuppositions of 
argumentation (by semantic investigation and generalizing 
from cases to rules), we can use them to look for performative
contradictions.

(K's R) How does one know that the identification of such 
presuppositions of argumentation itself isn't a performative 
contradiction?

(A) I will return to your critique:

>(K) Habermas must assume that rules of argumentation are 
true and unavoidable (as a premise of his case) in order to
>conclude that rules of argumentation are true and
>unavoidable.

(A) This misrepresents Habermas's argument. It goes rather 
on these lines:

1) Certain language games have rules the following of which 
is unavoidable if one is to describe herself taking part in them.

(K's R) How does she know this?  And why should she care? - 
given the fact that the ideal may or may not conform to her 
vision of a moral universe?

2) Argumentation is such a language game.

(K's R) How do you know when argumentation starts and the 
strategic struggle for recognition ends?

3) These unavoidable rules can be identified through 
hermeneutic reflection.
NB: This identification is fallibilistic; the unavoidable rules are 
not unavoidably the ones that Habermas presents.

(K's R) What would it take to demonstrate that hermeneutic 
reflection CANNOT identify these rules?  You *need* to specify 
this in order to proceed empirically.

4) After the rules are identified they can be used to criticize 
those who understand themselves to be engaging in 
argumentation, but whose speech acts contradict the rules this 
engagement presupposes; this is performative contradiction.

(K's R) Actually I agree with this.  It simply requires a lot of 
presuppositions that I disagree with.

5) The unavoidability of rules of argumentation should not be 
confused with the unavoidability of argumentation itself, which 
Habermas also argues for. (Following the rules of chess is 
necessary for playing chess, but playing chess is not 
necessary.) This is not a metaphysical necessity, but an
empirical one. There could be a human society where there 
would be no argumentation, but this society would be very 
different from ours, and the odds are none of us would want to 
live there (not because of the lack of argumentation but 
because of what it would entail).

(K's R) Do I sense a 'best of all possible worlds' (just 
kidding)?

>(K) I think that Habermas does this by reifying the actual
>experiences of those who he charges (or could charge) with a
>performative contradiction under a universalist interpretation
>of language and language use - stemming from his Kantian
>conception of 'man.'

(A) What do you mean with the "Kantian conception of 'man'" 
and where and how does Habermas subscribe to it?

(K's R) Moral 'man' in Habermas is noncontradictory man.  
Noncontradictory mem are identical - hence the 
noncontradictions.  To demonstrate this statement I would 
need an army of arguments.  Maybe I'll get around to it 
someday.

>(K) This understanding of moral and ethical life
>requires a "wider lens" than a narrowly construed discourse
>ethic (REL, 183).  Furthermore it is probably not desirable, or
>consistent, to empty ethical life of its contradictions for the
>sake of a "moral" argument.

(A) Don't you contradict yourself here? First you say discourse 
ethics is too narrowly construed and then that its wider 
application would "empty ethical life". Discourse ethics is 
limited in its scope precisely because Habermas recognizes 
that such a discourse is not suitable for solving all ethical 
problems, only those of a particular kind.

(K's R).  I don't see it - it is narrowly construed such that, its 
narrowness, in reality, empties the contents of ethical life (ie. 
All of those wonderful performative contradictions).  And yes, 
the problems it does address are the problems of 
noncontradictory man (a good superhero of sorts I
think).  Who wants to be and live noncontradictory mans' life?

>(K) It is precisely our contradictory identity that we want to 
hold onto - because these  contradictions make us who we 
are.  In this sense Kantian noncontradictory 'man' becomes 
the antithesis of an actual (moral) individual identity.

(A) As you surely know, Habermasian moral discourse is not 
meant to deal with identity issues.

(K's R) EXACTLY.  MORAL ISSUES ARE LINKED TO OUR 
IDENTITY INEXPLICABLY.  This is why I think the moral 
domain in Habermas is a problem.

>(K) And thirdly - all that a performative
>contradiction can do is identify out fundamental beliefs - the
>very things that we live and breath and wrap our lives and
>identities around (REL, 184).

(A) And that is a *problem*?? If indeed it can do that, it is a 
very powerful and important tool, don't you think?

(K's R) This isn't a problem in Hegel - because Hegel *knows* 
that the performative self-contradiction applies on a concrete 
basis and not on a transcendental one (which he notes would
be question-begging).

>(K) He does so in order to defend his understanding of the 
moral domain in contrast to the ethical.  Habermas does this
>because he cannot have it any other way.  Habermas is 
forced to generate the normative content of modernity out of 
itself, in a contradictory way, in order to defend his 
universalist postmetaphysical project and all of its contents.

(A) Modernity is forced to create its normative content out of 
itself because it does not find any authority outside itself. 
Habermas tries for his part to articulate the elements of this 
normative content. This articulation is not itself normatively 
neutral, to be sure, but it aims to proceed as rationally as 
possible to leave room for as many visions of ethical life as 
possible.

(K's R) Habermas argues that it is normatively neutral in the 
sense that procedures make some sort of 'weak' impartiality 
possible.  Habermas *needs* (U) to guarantee 'weak' 
impartiality.  However this is a kind of decisionism.  One 
decides (on what basis?) to engage in this kind of
reasoning.  Habermas has chosen modernity.  He argues that 
it is unavoidable.  I disagree and I don't think I simply have to 
drop out of enlightenment to do so.  Argumentation is a 
purified understanding of language and reason based upon 
noncontradictory man.  If the vision of noncontradictory man is 
not a shared vision then there is no reason to participate.  
Only insofar as one wants to be a clone would one want to 
participate - and hence - since this appeals to a 'want' it 
appeals to something other than pure reason.  As I have said 
before - Habermas discourse ethics is an emphatic ethics.  
And noncontradictory man is the implication of Habermas's 
moral imagination.  Please don't take this the wrong way.  I'm 
not deliberately being dogmatic and I'm not arguing AGAINST 
the force of reason to persuade (I'm trying to use reason to 
make my arguments).  I simply think that Habermas's account 
has internal contradictions that need to be examined in order 
to illuminate whether or not his vision is the clearest.  In other 
words Habermas has made a stunning case for universalism 
but I don't think it holds enough water to actually be 
successful.

(A) I better stop now and send this or it will never happen. 
Correct me if I'm wrong,
Antti

(K's R) I'll let you be the judge of that.  Please correct me if 
*I'm* wrong.

all the best.
Ken




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