This post continues my meditations on the probative reach of retortion. See the category Retortion for more on this intriguing topic.
1. If a number of us are sitting silently in a room, I cannot say 'We are silent' without in some sense contradicting myself. In what sense, exactly? In the performative sense. Were I to say 'We are silent,' my performance (Vollzug in E. Coreth's terminology) -- in this case my utterance -- would be 'inconsistent' with its content. Now contents are propositions, while utterance events are not, the reason being that contents are truth-valued (either true or false assuming Bivalence) while utterance events, like all events, are not truth-valued. It follows that performative inconsistency is not identical to, or a species of, logical inconsistency. Logical consistency/inconsistency is a relation between or among propositions. Two propositions are consistent iff they can both be true, and inconsistent iff they cannot. A single proposition is self-consistent iff its logical form is such as to admit some true substitution-instances. Clearly, there is nothing logically self-inconsistent about 'We are silent.' The sentence is not logically self-contradictory. But I would contradict myself were I to say, in the situation described, 'We are silent.' Curiously, I cannot say in this situation what I know to be true. If I were to say it, I would falsify it. Therefore, the proposition that I know to be true is unassertible salva veritate in the situation in question. No doubt I have the ability to assert the sentence-type 'We are silent'; but I cannot assert it in a way that preserves truth. But this does not show that the proposition is false, or that its negation -- We are not silent -- is true.
Two interim conclusions. First, there are propositions that are unassertible salva veritate. To put the point more generally, there are propositions that are inexpressible (whether in speech or in writing or in some other way) salva veritate. For example, if we are sitting quietly meditating together, neither speaking nor writing, I cannot express the proposition that we are not writing by writing 'We are none of us writing.' Second, proof by retortion in cases like these obviously doesn't work. The inexpressibility of a proposition salva veritate does not prove that its negation is true.
2. We now consider a more interesting case. Someone claims that there are no judgments. It is easy to show that he falls into performative inconsistency. For he cannot claim that there are no judgments without judging that there are no judgments, in which case there is at least one judgment, namely the the judgment that there are no judgments. Thus our man contradicts himself. (Please note that 'There are no judgments' is not logically self-contradictory.) And indeed anyone who claims that there are no judgments contradicts himself. So this is not an ad hominem directed to a particular man. Now the issue is whether this refutation remains merely at the level of the ad hominem tu quoque even if directed at every homo, or whether it can be used positively to prove something about reality as it is in itself. Can we prove retorsively that there are judgments by exposing the performative inconsistency into which anyone falls when he judges that there are no judgments?
I don't see how. The most one succeeds in proving is that there are judgments on condition that there are judgers. It does not succeed in proving that there are judgments whether or not there are judgers. Thus it does not succeed in proving something unconditionally true, something about reality apart from us. And if retorsion cannot deliver truths about reality as it is in itself, then it is of no metaphysical use.
The same goes for 'There are some true judgments' which is discussed by Martin Moleski in Retortion: The Method and Metaphysics of Gaston Isaye, p. 69. It is easy to show that anyone who claims that there are no true judgments contradicts himself: his performance -- his making of the claim -- is 'inconsistent' (though not in the strictly logical sense) with the content of his claim. But this is a mere negative and ad hominem result. How does the retorsive move generate for us any positive metaphysical knowledge? Given that I cannot, on pain of performative inconsistency, deny that there are true judgments, how is it supposed to follow that there are in reality true judgments? Surely there were times before there were any judgers, and surely there are possible worlds in which there are no judgers. And without judgers there cannot be any judgments true or false. So there are times and worlds at which there are no judgments true or false. Therefore, retorsion cannot prove two things that it would have to prove to be metaphysically useful: first, that there are truths that reflect the nature of Being itself, as opposed to the exigencies of our thinking about Being; and second, that they are necessarily true, since presumably metaphysical knowledge is knowledge of necessary truths. I am of course assuming that judgers are contingent beings, beings which, in the patois of ''possible worlds' exist in some but not all possible worlds. But this is surely no outlandish assumption. Or will you claim that you are a necessary being?
3. The retortionist faces a 'gap' problem: an inferential gap yawns between the exigencies of our thinking about Being, and Being as it is in itself. Rather than bridge the gap, Isaye as recounted by Moleski appears merely to paper it over with the assurance that "being is intelligible." (69) And then a retorsive argument is given for this thesis: "If anyone says that not all being is intelligible, he is subject to the retort that he has just claimed to understand all being." (69) That being and the intelligible are one and the same is supposed to be a "synthetic insight" "impossible to deny." (70)
This is less than clear. Suppose I merely propose for consideration, without affirming, the proposition that some portions of reality are not wholly intelligible. How exactly does making this proposal involve me in performative inconsistency? Why do I have to "understand all being" in order to propose that some being is trans-intelligible, i.e., in principle beyond the reach of the finite discursive intellect? I am not claiming to know or even have good evidence that some being is trans-intelligible; I am merely raising the epistemic possibility that this is so. If this possibility cannot be ruled out, then how can I be sure that what I cannot affirm cannot be?
The project of understanding cannot proceed except on the presupposition that being is intelligible. And the search for truth cannot proceed except on the presupposition that there are truths to be discovered. But these may be mere transcendental presuppositions without which we cannot think and inquire. How can we be sure that the transcendental conditions of thought and inquiry are also conditions of what is real an sich? I trust everyone will see that one cannot simply assume a coincidence of the transcendental and the metaphysical (ontological). For that would be a piece of dogmatism when dogmatism is precisely what the use of retorsion is supposed to avoid.
My tentative conclusion is that retorsion seems impotent to provide us with the rigorous grounding we seek. Retorsion presupposes for its validity the coincidence of Thinking and Being, a coincidence which it cannot therefore justify.
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