Performative Contradiction and the Romanian Revolution

Jolan Bogdan

• Éditeur: Rowman & Littlefield International
• Année: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781783488742
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Philosophy
• Sous-sujet: Analytic Philosophy

The Romanian Revolution of 1989 ended 42 years of Communist rule. It was the bloodiest revolution in a Warsaw Pact country, culminating in the overthrow and execution of Nicolae Ceau?escu. However, there was no major democratic reform and power remained in the hands of key figures from the old regime. This has led many theorists to question the authenticity of the entire revolution. Performative Contradiction and the Romanian Revolution focuses-in on the circumstances which led to these accusations. It argues that the notion of an authentic revolution, as a conceptual paradigm, is neither a sufficient, appropriate, nor useful tool for an analysis of the events in Romania. Engaging with the work of theorists including Stieglar, Agamben, Baudrillard, Badiou, Spinoza and Derrida it argues that performative contradiction is a more useful theoretical model for exploring this event. Applying the concept to specific cases within the revolution, the book demonstrates the power of performative contradiction as an analytic tool.

Chapter One

Performative Contradiction

Structuralist and Post-Structuralist Perspectives

A history of the recent usage of performative contradiction – since the coining of this specific phrase – is necessary for the opening chapter in order to demonstrate the ground where the movement of the argument is being deployed and to provide a context for its usage. The debate over performative contradiction can be explained in terms of the divide between two contemporary philosophical trajectories, that of the Modern European and Anglo-American traditions, also known as the divide between continental and analytic philosophy. In the context of understanding this gulf, perhaps speaking in terms of structuralism and post-structuralism is more useful, since the geographical delineations are not necessarily relevant. The following series of debates surrounding this term is representative of a moment where these two branches engage each other directly.

In order to contextualize the significance of the usage of performative contradiction, one must first become familiar with the movement internal to the debate surrounding it and how an accusation of internal insistency is subverted and redeemed as an inconsistency necessary to and constitutive of subjectivity. This chapter begins with one side of the history in this thread of argumentation, through its coining by the Finnish philosopher Jaakko Hintikka, followed by Austin and treated in depth by Habermas, tracing its usage against post-structuralism in general and against Jacques Derrida in particular.

The accusation of performative contradiction in modern philosophical discourse centres around Jürgen Habermas, who “chastises deconstructionists for failing to register the distinction between the ‘world-disclosing’ functions of literature and the ‘problem-solving’ functions of theoretical discourse that have been differentiated out in modern societies.”¹ According to Habermas, the failure of the acknowledgement of this distinction results in post-structuralist philosophers undermining the potency of their own arguments by creating a contradiction between what they say and how they say it.

There is a vast history running on both sides of this debate, filled with accusations, defences and counter-accusations. The present chapter seeks to provide a broad overview of some of the more significant examples on both sides of the performative contradiction debate, though it is by no means a fully comprehensive inclusion of all the voices involved. The emphasis here is placed on detailing the inception of this debate, which began with Finnish philosopher Jaakko Hintikka in 1962 and is rarely discussed in essays treating this topic. Nonetheless, it is integral to understanding the origins of the argument presently being followed by those who use performative contradiction as an accusation. Following the discussions by Hintikka and Habermas, I will look closely at Martin Jay’s overview of the debate and Habermas’ role in it. The concluding section will focus on several texts by Jacques Derrida where he talks about performative contradiction explicitly, and it will also look at Judith Butler’s work on this topic, specifically at how she subverts, inverts and redeems it as a necessary and foundational aspect of political action and democracy. Though she is neither the first nor the only one to redeem performative contradiction, her application of this reading to present-day political events is most relevant in setting a precedent for an interpretation of the Romanian Revolution.

Hintikka is credited with the term “performative contradiction,” which stems from a critique of Descartes published in his 1962 essay, “Cogito, Ergo Sum: Inference or Performance?”² It became popularized by Habermas, who elaborated upon Karl-Otto Apel’s follow-up and a more generalized application of Hintikka’s critique. Habermas uses it primarily to describe communicative action, and the use of his terminology also has its lineage in Austin’s performative speech act. In the context of performative contradiction, a performative speech act is made by the speaker who asserts two conflicting claims at the same time, such as Epimenides’ liar paradox, in which the Cretan declares “all Cretans are liars,” thereby making it impossible to ascertain whether the speaker speaks the truth about the fact that he is a liar, or if this assertion means that he is telling the truth, which would in turn prove his initial claim false. Martin Jay clarifies this structure in “The Debate over Performative Contradiction,” where he discusses – among other examples of Habermas’ accusations of performative contradiction – Foucault’s meditation on this paradox in “Maurice Blanchot: The Thought from Outside”:

A performative contradiction arises not when two antithetical propositions (A and not A) are simultaneously asserted as true but rather when whatever is being claimed is at odds with the presuppositions or implications of the act of claiming it. To use the terminology of J.L. Austin and John Searle, to which Habermas is indebted, it occurs when the locutionary dimension of a speech act is in conflict with its illocutionary force, when what is said is undercut by how it is said.³

In other words, “I am a liar” is not a performative contradiction because it presents two antithetical propositions (“I am a liar” and “I am not lying when I tell you I am a liar”), but rather because the act of confessing to being a liar is at odds with itself. The act of confessing to lying is at odds with the act of lying. Therefore, a liar cannot confess to lying without entangling themself in a performative contradiction, which, from the point of view of the Habermasian accusation, would undercut the truth value of the claim.

There are many places through Habermas’ work where he explains in detail what the specific conditions of a performative contradiction are. I will highlight an example of this below and then review how performative contradiction is used as an accusation against post-structuralism. The discussion of performative contradiction in Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action summarizes Hintikka’s argument about Descartes and explains in detail the necessary conditions for the accusation:

A performative contradiction occurs when a constative speech act k(p) rests on noncontingent presuppositions whose propositional content contradicts the asserted proposition p. Following a suggestion by Jaakko Hintikka, Apel illustrates the significance of performative contradiction for understanding the classical arguments of the philosophy of consciousness.⁴

As his example, Apel uses Descartes’ “Cogito ergo sum” and reconstructs Descartes’ maxim in terms of a performative contradiction through a rhetorical exercise where the speech act “I hereby doubt that I exist” is uttered. The exercise is imagined as follows, which for Habermas demonstrates an undermining of the speech act’s truth claim and leads to a performative contradiction:

(a)I do not exist (here and now).

At the same time, by uttering statement (a), he ineluctably makes an existential assumption, the propositional content of which may be expressed,

(b)I exist (here and now),

where the personal pronoun in both statements refers to one and the same person.⁵

This example already lays the groundwork for a usage of performative contradiction in a way that is not an accusation, but rather a description of the paradox underpinning subjectivity. In the Psychic Life of Power, Butler refers to this as the relationship between the subject and its subjection, in the Hegelian context. However, Habermas is more concerned with the rhetorical structure underpinning the utterance, which he believes undermines the potency of the argument by creating a contradiction between what is said and how it is said. His rhetoric is couched in terminology such as “truth claim,” “opponent” and “argumentation game,” which creates a sense in the reader that his position is perhaps more concerned about the sport of arguing than it is about uncovering a deeper meaning behind the argument. In this context, accusing someone of a performative contradiction is like calling a foul during a sports game. But is such an accusation enough to reveal something profound about the position of the one being accused?

The implication for an interpretation of the Romanian Revolution runs parallel to this accusation, where the labelling of it as inauthentic is meant to strip away its credibility in much the same way as accusing a philosopher of a performative contradiction is meant to strip them and their argument of credibility or legitimacy as well. Both accusations have the same objective and arise from the presence of an internal inconsistency, which is deemed intolerable, or worse, intentionally committed and in bad faith.

Habermas guides readers through a set of arguments, where the universality of moral principles is called into question by a “fallibilist” – one who insists on holding on to certain beliefs, even though they may be false, in the absence of the possibility of gaining access to truth. Perhaps not surprisingly, in the example chosen to illustrate this point, the fallibilist is proved guilty of a performative contradiction when the one advocating for universalism proves that the fallibilist also relies on universal claims. For example, the declaration “there is no truth,” or “we cannot have access to truth,” is claiming a universal truth through its declaration.⁶ Habermas describes Apel’s accusation of performative contradiction, using the Munchhausen trilemma, which the fallibilist is guilty of: “On the basis of this trilemma the opponent concludes that attempts to ground the universal validity of principles are meaningless. This the opponent calls the principle of fallibilism.”⁷ The three avenues of argumentation available to someone trying to prove a universal truth, according to Munchhausen’s trilemma (also known as Agrippa’s trilemma, after the sceptic), are the circular (where induction is required to prove induction), the regressive (each proof requires further proof) and the axiomatic (there is a reliance on a core assumption). The fallibilist, who believes that truth is inaccessible, invokes Munchhausen’s trilemma against the advocate of universalism, claiming the argument is axiomatic:

But the opponent will have invol...