Retorsion

This article explains the term retorsion in a philosophical sense, the international legal meaning is explained under retorsion (international law) , the criminal under retorsion (criminal law) .

Retorsion (from the Latin PPP retortum of the verb retorquere , “turn back”, literally “turned back”) describes in philosophy a figure of argument that turns various statements of an argument against its explicit conclusions. The term is borrowed from the international law principle of retaliation , according to which certain measures against a state can be responded to by means of comparable measures; for example, if the expulsion of embassy staff is responded to with a similar measure. In criminal law there is an outdated legal concept called retorsion , according to which insults could be immediately returned.

Explanation

In a retaliation argument , speech acts, assertions or arguments of a speaker are used to refute definitions that the speaker explicitly wanted to make. The retaliation argument does not serve to justify certain statements directly, but rather to refute certain statements or at least to refute their reasons. In the simplest case, the justification given for an assertion is used to prove the negated assertion. For example, it could be argued that a child should be judged less severely because it is still a child. The argument can then be turned around as follows: Because it is about a child, one should be stricter so that they learn the moral rules, and also blame them for doing things that are bad in adults but are ugly.

Performative Retorsion

In a certain case, this reversal of the thrust occurs by exploiting a contradiction between the content of the statement and the implications of the statement's execution. This is a special form of contradiction, a so-called performative contradiction. In this case, the retaliation argument is based on a “double communicative function of language”: Each statement not only communicates a factual statement (a so-called propositional content ), but also implicates that the utterance of the statement brings with it as a speech act . If these implicates are made explicit (spoken), a contradiction between propositional and performative content can possibly be established.

A classic example of performative retorsion concerns the globally skeptical thesis “There are no true statements”. This statement can be refuted retorsively by pointing out that the utterance of this statement itself is connected with a claim to truth.

In the example above, the retaliation argument does not prove that there is truth , but that it cannot reasonably be denied that there is truth. This special case of the retaliation argument is therefore also counted among the transcendental arguments : In the case mentioned, it is based on general conditions implied in the execution of the possibility of truthful statements. In a modified form, arguments of retaliation are used, for example, in the transcendental pragmatics of Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas .

Such an argument can be found in terms of structure, but also with an explicit reference to truth, already in Aristotle and thereafter often in the epistemological tradition. The argument v. Is explicitly discussed and then referred to as such. a. in Neuthomism , e.g. B. with Joseph Maréchal , Hansjürgen Verweyen or Béla Weissmahr .

See also

• Talion
• Tu quoque

literature

• Karl-Otto Apel : The problem of the philosophical ultimate justification in the light of a transcendental language pragmatics. In: Bernulf Kanitscheider (Ed.): Language and knowledge. Festschrift for Gerhard Frey on the occasion of his 60th birthday (= Innsbruck Contributions to Cultural Studies , Volume 19). Amoe, Innsbruck 1976, ISBN 3-85124-057-X , pp. 55-82.
• Gaston Isaye: La justification critique par retorsion. In: Revue philosophique de Louvain , Volume 52, 1954, ZDB -ID 1014745-7 , pp. 204-233.

Web links

• Bill Vallicella: When Is Retorsion Probative? Blog post, in: Maverick Philosopher, August 2013

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Erich Pertsch: Langenscheidts Large School Dictionary Latin-German . Langenscheidt, Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-468-07201-5 .
2. ^ Retorsion . In: Heidelberg Academy of Sciences (Hrsg.): German legal dictionary . tape 11 , issue 5/6 (edited by Heino Speer and others). Hermann Böhlaus successor, Weimar 2005, ISBN 3-7400-1230-7 ( adw.uni-heidelberg.de ).
3. ↑ Cf. also the definition in Arthur Schopenhauer : Eristische Dialektik (estate manuscript), there as a trick no. 26: Link
4. ↑ Béla Weissmahr : The reality of the mind . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2006, p. 57
5. ↑ Hansjürgen Verweyen: Ontological requirements of the act of faith . On transcendental questions about the possibility of revelation . Patmos, Düsseldorf 1969, Isaye 1954, esp.p. 109 ff. On Maréchal.