[lit-ideas] Re: Fw: Re: Can, logically, there be any such thing as a "performative co...


> It seems to me that many regular legal documents
> at least verge on this kind of contradiction. For example, a
> contract will often contain clauses that specify how
> and / or under which conditions it may be
> terminated. 

This is not a contradiction: a contract may provide for a 'condition 
precedent', that is a condition upon which the contract takes effect [e.g. a 
date, where this might entail that the parties be alive at that date; or some 
contingent event] and surely without contradiction. Equally it may provide for 
a condition that will terminate an on-going agreement, e.g. 'X to supply Y 
weekly with 3 barrels of oil for next five years at $a providing price per 
barrel on the market never goes higher than $b or lower than $c, again surely 
without contradiction. That is, it does not contradict an agreement on terms 
that those terms provide for when the agreement begins and when it ends.

>An even stranger document is the Power of
> Attorney, which authorizes a person to represent
> another person in legal matters, thus at least in part
> removing legal authority from the issuer. 

This is not a contradiction: a person may assent to limit their legal powers 
without contradiction (if they could not so assent that would also be a limit 
on their legal powers cf. Popper's 'paradoxes of sovereignty'). A power of 
attorney does it - of course, allowing creation of such a power also increases 
the persons legal powers insofar as we look as it as creating a form of agency 
in relation to acts that cannot normally or otherwise be delegated. The 
creation of an agency also limits legal powers insofar as the person may be 
bound by acts by their agent, though again - looked at another way - it 
increases them by allowing another to do things for oneself. A declaration of 
trust over property may limit the settlors powers over that property as may the 
granting of a lease or a loan of property etc. No contradiction is involved in 
any of thses afaircansee, anymore than it is a contradiction for a 'free agent' 
to enter into anything that lessens their
 freedom - which is not a contradiction so much as practically unavoidable. 
[See KR Popper on the 'paradox of freedom' etc. in 'TOSE'].

And yes, exploring G.E. Moore's paradoxes here would have been a wild goose 
chase also.

Donal 




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