Abstract
In this chapter I point out that, in spite of the fact that most transcendental arguments are based on classical logic, a careful analysis of the concept of a question–answer based contradiction (QA contradiction) can have far-reaching repercussions on our understanding of the transcendental argument. In particular, I offer an elaborate basis for taking seriously transcendental arguments based on QA contradictions. Since a QA contradiction cannot be understood properly in terms of classical logic, I provide an alternative basis for an important and unique type of transcendental arguments. Some norms and conditions for conversation are then explicitly shown to be the transcendental conditions of human conversation relative to asking questions and receiving answers. This chapter thus demonstrates that such transcendental arguments are not based on classical logic and, therefore, can function as alternative transcendental arguments.
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- 1.
Cf. J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962), ch. 8.
- 2.
The message “I don’t exist” is true, for example, when one leaves this message for others to read or hear after one’s own death. Evaluated under these circumstances, the argument becomes more complicated.
- 3.
I initially identified QA contradictions as “discursive contradictions” in my paper “Paradox in Meta-communication (1)” [in Japanese], in Bulletin of Osaka Shoin Women’s College, 30 (1992). My second exposition on this subject was my paper “Some Contradictions between Questions and Answers” [in Japanese], in The Ontology of Communication (A Report of the Collaborative Research based on KAKENHI of JSPS submitted to JSPS in 2001, unpublished. Project Number 10410004). The third was my presentation “Contradiction in the Question–Answer Relation” at the 13th International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Beijing, 2007. The fourth was my paper “Question–Answer Contradiction,” Philosophia Osaka 5 (2010): 79–87, where I distinguished between “the pure type of Question–Answer Contradiction” and “the ambiguous type of Question–Answer Contradiction,” which correspond respectively to the pure QA contradiction and the mixed QA contradiction of the current chapter.
- 4.
In my “Question–Answer Contradiction,” I argued that the question constituting a QA contradiction is in a pragmatic contradiction. However, this was not precise, and such a question is actually nonconforming.
- 5.
On this point I have benefited greatly from personal communication with Robert Brandom. He emphasizes the importance of anaphora in Making It Explicit: Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commitment (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994).
- 6.
In general, a question asks the listener to refer to an object, and an answer refers to that object. To do that, a question must refer to the object using some expression, and the answerer provides another expression of the object. These two expressions are coreferential, but differ in the ways in which the object is referenced. Cf. my “Identity Sentences as Answers to Questions,” Philosophia Osaka 7 (2012/13), 79–94, http://ir.library.osaka-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/11094/23292/1/po_07-079.pdf.
- 7.
When X can understand German but cannot speak German, and Y can understand English but cannot speak German, X and Y can communicate with each other without using a common language. Donald Davidson pointed this out in “The Second Person,” in Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 107–21.
- 8.
David Kaplan, “Demonstratives,” in Themes from Kaplan, ed. Joseph Almog, John Perry, and Howard Wettstein (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 505.
- 9.
G. E. M. Anscombe, “The First Person,” in Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind, Collected Philosophical Papers Vol. II (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981), 21–36.
- 10.
This could explain the fact that there are numerous first-person pronouns and second-person pronouns in Japanese and that the use of them depends on the social relation between interlocutors.
- 11.
P. F. Strawson, “On Referring,” Mind 59, no. 235 (1950): 320–44; Robert Stalnaker, “Presuppositions,” The Journal of Philosophical Logic 2 (1973): 447–57; Robert Stalnaker “Pragmatic Presuppositions,” in Semantics and Philosophy, ed. Milton K. Munitz and Peter Unger (New York: New York University Press, 1974), 197–214. Stalnaker defends the notion of “the pragmatic presupposition” of a speaker against the semantic presupposition of a sentence. The concept of cognitive presupposition that I introduce here is similar to Stalnaker’s “pragmatic presupposition”; however, I suppose that semantic presuppositions of a question and cognitive presuppositions of it are compatible, and Stalnaker emphasizes the knowledge shared between two speakers. In this chapter, I focus on the differences in cognitive presuppositions between questioners and answerers.
- 12.
Cf. Nuel D. Belnap Jr and Thomas B. Steel Jr, The Logic of Questions and Answers (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976), 108–25; Henry Leonard, “Interrogatives, Imperatives, Truth, Falsity, and Lies,” Philosophy of Science 26, no. 3 (1959): 172–86.
- 13.
This definition does not cover practical questions that call for performative utterances without truth values in response. I cannot deal with semantic or cognitive presuppositions of practical questions in this chapter because of limitations of space.
- 14.
Robert Stern, “Transcendental Arguments,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2015 edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/transcendental-arguments/.
- 15.
R. G. Collingwood, An Autobiography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 31. He also says, “Every statement that anybody ever makes is made in answer to a question.” See his An Essay on Metaphysics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940), 23.
- 16.
I tried to prove this in my paper “A Proof of Collingwood’s Thesis,” Philosophia Osaka 4 (2009): 69–83, http://ir.library.osaka-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/11094/10747/1/po_04_069.pdf.
- 17.
As Davidson pointed out in “The Second Person,” they need not share a common language.
- 18.
I would like to comment briefly on the difference between “Hesperus is Hesperus” and “Hesperus is Phosphorus.” We can explain the difference in terms of QA relations. “Hesperus is Phosphorus” can be the answer to a what question, but “Hesperus is Hesperus” cannot, because if one is asked “What is Hesperus?” one does not answer “Hesperus is Hesperus.” “Hesperus is Phosphorus” can be the answer to a yes–no question such as “Is Hesperus Phosphorus?” but “Hesperus is Hesperus” cannot, because the answer is evident and a question such as “Is Hesperus Hesperus?” cannot be asked sincerely. This suggests that “Hesperus is Phosphorus” has cognitive significance due to its status as an answer in a QA relation. Inferential semantics might attempt to explain the difference between these two sentences by the difference in their inferential roles. This difference can also be explained in terms of QA relations.
- 19.
G 4:402f.
- 20.
Donald Davidson, “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme,” in Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 197.
- 21.
The “mutual recognition” discussed here relates to the concept “Aufforderung” in Fichte and the concept “Anerkennung” in Fichte and Hegel. I interpreted them using the concept of “double bind” in my Japanese book Doitsu Kannenron no Jissen Tetsugaku Kenkyu [Studies in Practical Philosophy in German Idealism] (Kyoto: Kōbundō, 2001).
- 22.
Cf. Richard Rorty, “Verificationism and Transcendental Arguments,” Noûs 5, no. 1 (1971): 3–14.
- 23.
I appreciate the many useful comments Halla Kim offered on an earlier draft.
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Irie, Y. (2016). Transcendental Arguments Based on Question–Answer Contradictions. In: Kim, H., Hoeltzel, S. (eds) Transcendental Inquiry. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40715-9_11
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