Abstract
Self-defeating and self-justifying expressions are reflexive insofar as they pertain to themselves. However, the reflexivity involved is often pragmatic, i.e., does not entirely depend upon the logical properties of what is expressed but also upon the expressive act. In this paper I present a general account of pragmatic reflexivity and apply it to some familiar self-defeating and self-justifying expressions in epistemology. This application indicates some important, if often neglected features of the epistemological issues involved. The account I defend suggests that epistemology is particularly sensitive to pragmatic reflexivity since what epistemologists do, i.e., inquire, theorize, and defend theories, is also the subject of the inquiry and resultant theories.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
C.S. Peirce sought to uncover the important features of assertion by examining extreme or magnified instances of assertion such as oaths. This is the strategy of the logical magnifying glass that I follow here. See The Collected Papers of C.S. Peirce 5.546. Hilpinen (1998) is a detailed account of Peirce’s logical methodology and resultant theory of assertion.
Since (L) is false only if it is true as well, (L) is perhaps self-justifying as well as self-defeating. As I discuss in connection with White’s definition, this may rule (L) out as purely self-defeating but it will still count as self-defeating on my attempted, more inclusive, definition. I will discuss the relation between self-justification and self-defeat in more at the end.
It may be observed that a material conditional reading of (P1) threatens to reduce the proposed definition to the condition that ‘s’ is false. Since this would make mere falsity a sufficient condition, such a reduction would ruin any hope of a definition of self-defeating expressions. I thank Michael Shaffer for forcefully making this point at the 2006 ISSA Conference on Argumentation. I intend the conditional in this and subsequent definitions to be read non-materially. However, I cannot here defend a specific semantic account of counterfactuals or normal conditionals etc., since it is beyond the scope of this paper to address all the issues that arise for such conditionals.
Instead of putting the matter in terms of goals I could just as well describe the same point about assertion in terms of rules, e.g., successful assertions are those that conform to the rule: assert only what you (the assertor) believe. I use the formulation in terms of goals in a neutral way.
I realize that even if one allows that successful assertions of (M) entail that the speaker believes that (M) other, more controversial principles concerning belief must be assumed to derive a contradiction. These include at least a principle of distribution of belief for believed conjunctions and some principle concerning the iteration of belief. I ignore those issues here because I am only concerned to point out the necessity of referring to the connection between belief and the act of assertion, i.e., that it must be assumed that an assertion of (M) conveys belief that (M) in any explanation of the impropriety of such an assertion.
I use the term ‘success condition’ in a general sense that includes most of the success conditions and felicity conditions discussed in speech act theory. However, the various claims that such and such expressive acts have so and so success conditions must be examined one by one on their own merits which obviously goes beyond the scope of this paper. For instance, an anonymous referee suggested, by means of the example (SC), that the negation of an apparent success condition associated with particular expressive act need not result in self-defeat.
-
(SC) I apologize for being late but it was not my fault.
The problem is that it is not clear that (SC) is a self-defeating apology because it is not clear that acceptance of fault is a success condition, in my sense, on apologies. Such problem cases do not show that my definition overreaches, however, since I am not committed to one or the other view about the success conditions of apologies. At most, what is shown by this case is that not all of the conditions associated with expressive acts are success conditions. If the apologizer’s acceptance of fault is a success condition, then his use of (SC) as an apology is self-defeating. If such acceptance is not a success condition but an important condition in some other respect, then his use of (SC) may not be self-defeating. Although it is not always clear what conditions are the success conditions that hold for a particular expressive act, it is clear that there are success conditions, whatever they may be, that are relevant to determining whether such expressive acts are self-defeating. It just so happens that the relevant success conditions are not always as clear as they are in the case of (A), (M), and (D).
-
Michael Veber, in conversation, came up with this example in a more realistic but less obvious form: “Don’t take my advice.”
Of course the item ‘s’, whether or not it is a sentence, should be distinguished from its use in an expressive act, e.g., in an utterance. It is the use of ‘s’ that is relevant to the sense of self-defeat that I am defining. The definition applies whether or not one accepts the plausible claim that only utterances of sentences have truth values. I am grateful to an anonymous referee for drawing my attention to this point.
It should also be noted that my definition of pragmatic reflexive inconsistency in terms of (P4) is consistent with the recent work of Ingvar Johanssen. Johanssen (2003) provides a detailed explanation of, not just semantic and pragmatic self-defeaters, but of various sub-types of the pragmatic variety. In particular, he makes a distinction between performative contradictions, which are self-defeating on account of the content of a given use of an expression and its conditions of success, and anti-performatives, which are self-defeating on account of what is shown by a given use of an expression and its conditions of success. For example (A), above, is an example of a performative contradiction whereas (H) and (!) below, are anti-performatives.
-
(H) I’m always very humble.
-
(!) I never raise my voice! (Yelled at audience)
According to (P4), both (H) and (!) are pragmatic reflexive inconsistent, even though such expressions differ from (A) in the way indicated by Johanssen. I will not pursue Johanssen’s classification any further than noting that my analysis in terms of (P4) leaves open the possibility of further distinctions among types of pragmatic reflexive inconsistency. The points I make will be relevant to both the performative and anti-performative types of pragmatic reflexive inconsistency.
-
I owe this example to a fruitful discussion with Kirk Ludwig at the 2005 meeting of the Florida Philosophical Association. Ebersole also argued that this example shows a shortfall in the notion of pragmatic paradox defended by O’Connor.
That is, where ‘s’ in (P4) is (IMP).
The argument against Protagorean relativism gleaned from Plato’s Theaetetus and Descartes “Cogito” argument are perhaps the most well-known historical examples of arguments from self-defeating expressions. For one other, more recent example see: Bonjour (1998), for the objective epistemic value of a priori justification.
(P4) together with (Form) model the structure of arguments like Siegel’s argument against relativism.
The notion of self-justification I discuss is not very robust: I simply mean that the expression contains the resources for its own support.
References
BonJour, L. 1998. In defense of pure reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Copi, I. 1986. Introduction to logic, p. vi. New York: MacMillan.
Ebersole, F. 1953. The definition of ‘pragmatic paradox’. Mind 62(245): 80–85.
Hilpinen, R. 1998. Pragmatics and pragmatism: On C.S. Peirce’s pragmatic theory of meaning. In Proceedings of the 20th International Wittgenstein Symposium: The Role of Pragmatics in Contemporary Philosophy, eds. P. Weingartner, et al., 151–164. Vienna: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky.
Johanssen, I. 2003. Performatives and anti-performatives. Linguistics and Philosophy 26: 661–702.
O’Connor, D.J. 1948. Pragmatic paradoxes. Mind 57: 358–359.
O’Connor, D.J. 1951. Pragmatic paradoxes and fugitive propositions. Mind 60: 536–538.
Peirce, C.S. 1931–1935. The collected papers of C.S. Peirce, Vol. 5. Harvard University Press.
Siegel, H. 1987. The incoherence argument and the notion of relative truth, relativism refuted, 3–31. Dordrecht: Reidel.
Siegel H. 2004. Relativism. In Handbook of epistemology, eds. I. Niiniluoto, M. Sintonen, J. Wolenski, 747–780. Netherlands: Kluwer.
Stack, M. 1983. Self-refuting arguments. Metaphilosophy 14: 327–335.
White, F.C. 1989. Self-refuting propositions and relativism. Metaphilosophy 20: 84–92.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Morris, J. Pragmatic Reflexivity in Self-defeating and Self-justifying Expressions. Argumentation 22, 205–216 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-007-9064-9
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-007-9064-9