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

From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 13:45:23 -0230
Just a few questions, really, on Donal's reply to me.


Quoting Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>:

> --- On Sat, 30/5/09, Walter C. Okshevsky <wokshevs@xxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > A
> > performative
> > contradiction is a contradiction not between 2 propositions
> > as in a logical
> > contradiction but rather between (the semantic content of)
> > a proposition and
> > the act of asserting it. Examples: 
> > 
> > 1. "All truth is relative." 
> > 
> > 2. "I speak no English."
> > 
> > 3. N is a universalizable norm (judgement) but the views of
> > Russians from
> > Volgograd are not included in the discourse. 

DM:

> 1. and 2. are logically different imo. 
> 
> "2." would, arguably, fit the criterion "a contradiction.....between (the
> semantic content of) a proposition and the act of asserting it". I say
> arguably to acknowledge some possible quibbles: someone who is unable to
> speak might write [and thereby assert it through an act] "I speak no English"
> without contradiction. But a variant of 2. like "I am unable to express or
> assert anything in English" would doubtless be some kind of contradiction.

WO: Point taken.

DM continues:

> "1." is different. One may be re-written as "All truth is relative (including
> the 'truth' of this claim)." This claim may be self-defeating as a
> truth-claim, since it denies its own absolute truth, but it is more
> problematic to conclude that it is any kind of contradiction. 
> 
> For example, there is no obvious contradiction between its semantic content
> and the act of asserting it in the way there is with "2": "1" can, unlike
> "2", be asserted without obviously disproving itself. Or without giving
> grounds for its falsity - instead it gives grounds for its truth being at
> best relative. If we assume that any claim to only relative truth is
> impermissible, then we might say its claim to offer only relative truth must
> be judged false; - but this assumption is question-begging: it assumes rather
> than proves that there is no such thing as relative truth, and thus does not
> clearly show the contrary assumption involves some form of contradiction. 

WO: Why would we believe there is the possibility of "relative truth"?
Examples?


DM continues:

> But even if we make the assumption that the view that "all claims are at best
> only true relatively speaking" is a contradiction, the contradiction is not
> between the semantic content and the act of asserting but between the
> semantic content and its logical implications. On this view "1" is perhaps a
> contradiction but not for reasons to do with it being a "performative". On
> the view that it is not a logical contradiction to assert that the all claims
> are only relatively true, "1" is not a logically self-contradictory claim -
> though it is somewhat self-defeating.

WO: I'll have to side with Juergen here in his claim that a moral judgement is a
validity claim that makes a universal claim to rightness.

DM continues:

> This is aside from the point that "1" might be re-written as "All claims
> (with the exception of this one) are only true relatively". In this form "1"
> is even more obviously free of self-contradiction.
> 
> CB's words were/are not a performative contradiction, at least not in the
> exact same sense that "2" may be one. "2" is one in a way similar to "This
> statement contains only three words" may be one. CB's injunction to "Stop
> being so %"$"%"% rude" is, logically, very different: for one, it is a moral
> injunction rather than a statement of fact; for another, sometimes an
> emphasiser like &%%"^&&" might be thought justified and not rude.

WO: I believe there's definitely a practical contradistion in Kant's sense here
since CB's maxim involves illegitimate self-exemption. He exhorts others to
not-P while he himself Ps. he clearly does not take his maxim to be
universalizable, since it does not apply to his own maxim and actions.

But is there a performative contradiction here? Well, the injunction would
appear to presuppose for its intelligibility the maxim: "In circumstances Y,
when addressing another, I will not be %"$"@& rude." If that maxim proves
univerdsalizable, it would appear to authorize the judgement that "In such
circumstances, when addressing another, one ought not to be $%^%#@ rude." If
CB's expression was itself rude, then it contradicts the truth or rightness of
the above judgement, thereby yielding a performative contradiction. 

If CB were not being rude, then this analysis does not apply.


DM continues:
 
> Anyway. It's good to talk. Sometimes.

WO: When justifying moral norms and judgements, it's not only good, it's an
epistemic (i.e., necessary) component of justification.


Walter O
MUN




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

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