Date: 	Mon, 9 Mar 1998 21:40:59 -0500
Subject: HAB: Performatively Begging for Votes in a Contradictory Way


Ok - this is where I stand, everything else is just window 
dressing:

*** Every time Habermas accuses someone of committing a 
performative contradiction he commits a performative 
contradiction himself because his justification of the charge 
begs the question.  *** (you can quote me on that)

BTW - the votes are all in.  1 is support of Habermas, 1 
rephrasing the question, 1 applauding the rephrasing of the 
question, and 1 rephrasing the rephrasing of the question.  
Thanks to everyone who participated - it really helped clarify 
things (I will avoid sarcastically drawing out ironic 
conclusions).

Back to the fun stuff,

> (K)  At SOME point the conclusion, God exists, MUST be 
used as a premise in order to say God produces real effects.

(A) I don't know if we can get any further with this....

(K's R) Because I'm right about this.  Yeah yeah I haven't 
spelled it all out but the premise that "God produces real 
effects" *MUST* define what it means by God AND it *MUST* 
presuppose that God exists.  If I get hit by a baseball bat this 
*necessarily* means that baseball bats exist.  In order for God 
to produce effects God must exist.

P1. God exists.  Baseball bats exist.
  2.  Therefore it is possible for God to hit me with a baseball 
bat.

P3.  Being hit with a baseball bat hurts - it produces an effect.

P4.  I was hit by a baseball bat by God.
  5.  By hitting me with a baseball bat God produced an effect.

Therefore

C.  God exists.
  
P4 requires P1.  End of story.  It doesn't matter if I think God 
exists - God simply *must* exist in order to produce an effect. 
 I see what you are saying though...

(A) Again, this is just a logical point....

(K's R) Just....

> (K) What he is doing here is using the rules of an argument 
to show that arguments have rules.  

(A)  I think we're getting closer to the crux of this debate.
He is not using the premise "arguments have rules" to 
conclude that arguments have rules. First of all, that's not 
even ultimate conclusion...

(K's interference) Then it is not an argument.

(Back to A) ...he pretty much assumes it as established by 
Wittgenstein et al. and goes on to find out what these rules 
are. But it is still a conclusion functioning as a premise for 
another chain of reasoning and the charge of contradiction is 
therefore a legitimate  one to make. (No wishful thinking, Ken, 
read that carefully. ;))

(K's interference) Yes - it is a contradiction - HASTY 
CONCLUSION.
 
(Back to A)  So, secondly, what are the premises for the claim 
that argumentation has (some, not yet identified at this stage) 
rules? Well, as I mentioned before, many ways of using 
language can be seen to be analogous to games, games 
played with the help of language, and games are constituted
by their rules. (Further premises for these can be brought in if 
necessary.) From empirical clues, such as the fact that people
frequently refer to what amount to such rules when arguing, 
we can infer that argumentation is possibly such a language 
game, and if we can with the help of this assumption identify 
some plausible ones, we are quite justified in believing that 
argumentation is a language game constituted as a distinct 
genre by having a set of rules.

(K's R) Chess is a good example.  You need a rulebook to 
place chess.  You cannot deduce the rules of chess from 
playing chess... you must have a rulebook a priori.  But in 
Habermas's game you have to obey all the rules in order to 
qualify as playing chess.  But where did the rulebook
come from?  For Habermas it is a fact of reason, a 
development of nature.  I like playing chess
just as much as anyone else - but I also like to change the 
rules.  I still play chess - but my chess partner and I agree 
that the rules are open to being changed.... sometimes we 
don't even use the rulebook because we think the author is 
confused about certain things. 

(A)  In the above, the premise "argumentation has rules" 
wasn't used once. Yet all the time I made use of these rules. 
But since it did not figure in the deduction of the conclusion, it 
is logically irrelevant. It entirely drops out of the picture. If the
conclusion follows from the premises, the only way to deny 
the conclusion is questioning the premises; there can be no 
logical fallacy any more. Compare it to the fact that without my 
existence, the argument wouldn't exist either. That, like 
utilizing the rules of argumentation, is in some sense 
presupposed in my making the argument, and quite bloody 
important to me, thank you. However, from the point of view of 
logical validity, it has no bearing.

(K's R) Sure sure - but you slipped in the principle of 
noncontradiction as a moral guideline.  What if Marcuse is 
right?  "If dialectical logic understands contradiction as 
'necessity' belonging to the very 'nature of thought' ..., it does 
so because contradiction belongs to the very nature of the 
object of thought, to reality, where Reason is still Unreason 
and the irrational still rational."  Or what about Adorno - 
"Dialectical contradiction expresses the real antagonisms
which do not become visible within the logical-scientistic 
system of thought" (both cited in Martin Jay "The Debate over 
Performative Contradiction" in Honneth, McCarthy, Offe, and
Wellmer, eds., Philosophical Interventions in the Unfinished 
Project of Enlightenment).  Jay, by the way (and I just found 
this article today) argues in a similar vein that I have argued - 
except he doesn't conclude that Habermas is begging the 
question.  Fleming also agrees with Jay.  And this
is also where Benhabib gets off the Habermasian train of 
thought with her communicative conversation and where 
Braaten gets off with communicative thinking....  Likewise Jay
Bernstein also tries to recast the debate because he is aware 
of the problems that such a charge causes....and of the 
premises it relies on...  I think Bernstein is the harshest 
critique with Jay following close behind.  Jay concludes that 
committing a performative contradiction might not
be a bad thing - noting that all critique's of reason (however 
total they seen) have a place within debates about reason (in 
effect - welcoming a postmodern or dialectic rejoinder).

Quite honestly I think that thought itself is a performative 
contradiction.  Reality is always in excess of thought because 
of its creative character...

> (K)  Now yes, Habermas thinks  this is possible - and he 
understands it as "self-clarification."  

(A)  Yes, isn't that peculiar? Language can be used to clarify 
language and arguments to clarify arguments. At some point 
in the evolution of the species we developed a tool that can 
apply to itself. At moments like this I feel almost proud of 
being a human.

(K's R) A contradictory creature to be sure.

> (K) Can anyone help me out here?  What exactly am I 
missing?

(A) Logic.

(K's R) Good.  I wouldn't want to make the mistake of being 
consistent.

(A)  I'm sorry, I try to spare my one-liners to the next 
Schwarzenegger movie but I've put enough serious effort in 
this debate already, haven't I?

(K's R).  Yes.  We both deserve candy. (Do you think anyone 
else has actually read this far?)
 
> (K) ... If you cannot distinguish between an apple and an 
> orange ahead of time then you can't use an apple or an 
orange to prove anything.

(A)  And if you examine different shades of grey and find 
regularities in the way they vary, you can extrapolate black 
and white as the two ideal extremes.

(K's R) Very good... almost there.... now you just have to 
demonstrate how white becomes black and how black 
becomes white mediated by the irregularities of grey... and 
then you will have demonstrated the dialectic that I am getting 
at here.

> (K) Bring it to the (Habermasian) moral level and I will try to 
show you.

(A)  All right. Here's a country of four: two refugees (A and B) 
and two citizens C) and D).

A. - I believe us refugees should have political rights in this 
country.
B. - Hear, hear.
C. - Why should we grant them when you don't even pay 
taxes?
A. - Do you mean that there should be no representation 
without taxation?
C. - Yes.
A. - Well, I don't know. We don't pay taxes back in the old 
country.
B. - Come on, the fellow is right. When in Rome and all.
A. - I suppose so. OK, we'll pay taxes and take part in military 
service too.
C. - I can see now that you are decent, hardworking, 
God-fearing men after all. All right, you can
have the vote and whatever.
B. - Ahemm... actually, we don't believe in God. He hasn't 
produced any real effects in centuries.
C. - What, you don't believe in God! Oh well, I guess as long 
as you don't mind us believing, we
can pursue our conflicting ideals of good life peacefully.
B. - And we'll talk like this if there are problems about that.
C. - Exactly. Now, what do you think, honey?
D. - Anything you say, darling.
C. - No no, what do you *really* think, honey? 
D. - These men have really convinced me. If nobody has 
anything further to say, I'll go and make
some cake for all. We can split it four ways.

(K's R) AWESOME.  Excellent example - I really admire this 
kind of work - and it is work - because it is time consuming and 
often done with great pains...  But.... I don't see at all how this
moves beyond a (Habermasian) ethic into the realm of the 
universal.  I have no good reasons to join such a nation state - 
what with taxes and all... even if they are going to share the 
cake with me.

(A) I'll admit to that, but my point still remains that Habermas
is not trying to argue the case for pure reason. Communicative
rationality is situated rationality, and its results are 
contingent and always provisionary.

(K's R) But no contradictions.

Ken, who spent an hour typing up a response only to have my 
computer crash with the all-too- common "anything not saved 
will be lost" message plastered on my screen.  This is my 
second response... the first lost forever (boo hooo... it was 
much more entertaining).




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