Performative Contradiction
Transcendental pragmatics (Apel, Habermas)
A contradiction between the propositional content of a statement and the performative presuppositions of its utterance. Example: "I do not exist" -- the statement contradicts the fact that someone is uttering it. The performative contradiction shows what we cannot coherently deny, because we have already presupposed it in the very act of denial.
Origin
Aristotle's principle of contradiction (impossible to deny). In the twentieth century, Apel and Habermas develop this into the "transcendental-pragmatic" method -- it is not what can be thought, but what is already presupposed in the very performance of thinking, that cannot be gone behind.
In Hegel
Corresponds to the method of self-application -- the concept tests itself by performing itself.
Cross-references
Selbstanwendung · Performativ · Transzendentalpragmatik · Unhintergehbarkeit · Reflexionsformen
Im kontext der reflexionsformen (kap. 5.5)
The performative contradiction is the moment of *external reflection* -- what has been posited (the assertion) meets resistance (the act of performing it, which contradicts it). The resolution of the performative contradiction is *determining reflection*: we recognize why the contradiction was *necessary* and what it *shows*.
Beispiel (skeptiker)
- Positing reflection: "There is no truth" (the assertion is posited) - External reflection: The assertion itself lays claim to truth (resistance) - Determining reflection: Truth cannot be gone behind -- the contradiction *shows* this
Im buch
Ch. 1.4, 24.2, 27.2
Systematischer ort
The performative contradiction is the criterion for structures that cannot be gone behind -- whatever sublates itself when one denies it must be true.