[lit-ideas] Can, logically, there be any such thing as a "performative contradiction"?

Of course, it may depend how far or little we stretch the idea of a 
"performative" and a "contradiction".

But taking as a central case of a performative utterance those statements that 
lawyers admit as 'original evidence' e.g. "I do" in marriage, "I accept" in 
contract. Such out-of-court statements are not hearsay of accepting the 
marriage or other contract but are constitutive of that acceptance - hence they 
are "performative" utterances. In this sense of "performative", how could such 
an utterance ever be a "contradiction" (or at odds with itself), where this 
would seem to imply that it at once constituted and did not constitute the 
relevant act of acceptance? 

The utterance "I do because father-in-law-to-be has a shotgun at my back" , or 
"I accept because otherwise Luca Brasi will ensure it is my brains on the 
contract", do not constitute genuine acceptance and so do not, in any strict 
sense, amount to a performative contradiction - rather they are imperfect or 
counterfeit or surrogate, or whatever, performatives.
They fall short of being genuine performatives and so cannot amount to a 
"performative contradiction".

Donal
Too much time on my (F.A.Cup watching, if you must) hands
Aware W.O. was perhaps being humourously playful in his previous use of 
"performative contradiction" and/or deploying a widened concept of 
"performative" and "contradiction"; and hoping he took only an acceptable level 
of offence at my previous animadversions 
Final whistle - o, god..
Next on this weary day - Britain's Got Talent







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