> Those who argue against 'authority' in any form in the interest of
> postmodern politics inevitably fall into a performative contradiction
> between what they want to argue and what they actually say.
*IF* the argument for a performative contradiction is successful. And it is not. Habermas's reasoning is this: a performative contradiction is committed whenever the expressed content of a statement contradicts its presuppositions. In other words, one cannot use an argument to dismiss the validity of arguments. Or, one cannot use reason to invalidate reason. This seems like a coherent enough observation. However, Habermas relies here on an undifferentiated understanding of speech. Irony, play, parody are excluded as viable means of communication. For Habermas, only a rationalist can communicate. So, for Habermas, all forms of communication must be rational - so the critique of communicative reason itself cannot take place except upon pains of a performative contradiction. In other words: Habermas has completely and incoherently sealed off communicative rationality from criticism. What Habermas explicitly denies is that aesthetics, irony, drama, whatever, has cognitive content. Can we learn something about ourselves from works of art, from irony, humour... Habermas says no, nothing that couldn't be formulated in a "rational" truth claim with an objectivating attitude. I disagree. However, even if Habermas is right about this - and works of art do not admit of self-knowledge or self-understanding (and I do not think Habermas is correct about this) he stills runs into a logical problem.
Habermas's notion of a performative contradition is based upon the validity of a tripartite distinction between truth (objective world), rightness (social world), and truthfulness (subjective world). In order for the defence of the idea of a performative contradiction to be logically successful Habermas must demonstrate that all validity claims fall into this threefold structure. So the tripartite division is a presupposition of the PC argument. And here is where it gets sticky. Habermas then uses the PC argument to justify the tripartite division. He articulates the PC argument out of the "reconstructive sciences." In other words, he assumes that the "reconstructive sciences" possess the capacity and validity to distinguish between the three spheres of validity. He then runs the PC argument through the validity test. It passes. Therefore the tripartite model is valid. Habermas begs the question here. He uses his conclusion (that the PC argument is successful) as a premise in his argument. Seyla Benhabib, Jay Bernstein, Martin Jay, Maeve Cooke, Asher Horowitz, Albrecht Wellmer, Agnes Heller, and Cornelius Castoriadis have all pointed out this problem in one way or another. A successful rebuttal to Habermas can even be developed out of Gadamer's work. The PC argument fails. In order to charge someone with a performative contradiction, one must beg the question regarding performative contradictions. In other words, you can't make the charge without being guilty of the same offence, which renders the charge guilty of being completely trivial. It is an enormous scandal that Habermas uses this argument against everyone from Adorno to Derrida and Castoriadis to Foucault without being called on it. Worse, he's using the argument to shut down different forms of inquiry, different ways of approaching things. It's a scandal I say, an absolute scandal.
> Lacan, despite himself, is the 'subject presumed to
know.'
Despite the fact that Lacan explicity denies this? In order to demonstrate this claim, you would have to prove that Lacan's analytic framework does not grant access to the Freudian unconscious (ie. you'd have to demonstrate that Lacan is psychotic). The idea of "the subject presumed to know" is a rather Lacanian idea - so I'd wager that you'd have a tough time dismantling Lacan from within without inadvertently verifying the very thing you wish to critique).
ken