It seems to me that here there is a confusion between 'performative contradiction' in the Kantian sense and the illocutionary force of performatives as used by J.L. Austin. The first seems to be the case where the fact the utterance itself is made constitutes evidence that contradicts the propositional content of the utterance, e.g. "I cannot speak any English." Here the fact that I am able to say this at all contradicts the content of what I am saying. I'm not sure that "all truth is relative" is the same kind of contradiction as it's not my ability to say this or the act of saying it that contradicts the proposition but the content of the proposition itself appears to be self-contradictory on logical grounds. Performative utterances in Austin's sense, such as "I now pronounce you man and wife" are not supposed to have a truth value so it would not be possible to speak of contradiction here. They might fail to have the appropriate illocutionary force if the suitable conditions for making the performative utterance are not. met, e.g. I am not a minister, either a bride or a groom is already married etc. This is at least true of Austin's account of performatives, though others like Searle may have had different views. O.K. --- On Sat, 5/30/09, Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Can, logically, there be any such thing as a "performative contradiction"? To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Date: Saturday, May 30, 2009, 10:22 PM --- 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. 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. "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. 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. 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. Anyway. It's good to talk. Sometimes. Donal ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html