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Performative and Existential Self-Verifyingness*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2010
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I think I am not alone in being troubled on whether existen-tial self-verifyingness and performative self-verifyingness are really two distinct concepts, or what the difference exactly between them is supposed to be as they are utilized by Hintikka in his celebrated analysis of Descartes' cogito argument. My attempts to classify and clarify some permutations on these concepts may therefore be of general interest, given the acknowledged importance of Hintikka's analysis.
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- Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , March 1977 , pp. 128 - 138
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- Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1977
References
1 See also Nakhnikian, George, “On the Logic of Cogito Propositions.” Nous, Vol. Ill, No. 2, 05, 1969, 197–209,CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Weinberg, Julius, “Cogito. Ergo Sum: Some Reflections on Mr. Hintikka's Article. “Philosophical Review. Vol. LXXI. No. 4. 10, 1962, 483–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Feldman, Fred. “On the Perfor-matory Interpretation of the Cogito,” Philosophical Review, Vol. LXXXII. No. 3, 07, 1973, 345–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Hintikka, Jaakko, “Cogito, Ergo Sum: Inference or Performance?.” in Descartes: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. by Doney, W. (New York. 1967). 108–39. This article originally appeared in the Philosophical Review. Vol. LXXI. No. 1, January, 1962, 3-32.Google ScholarA revised version appears in Meta-Meditations: Studies in Descartes (Belmont, California. 1965). 50–76Google Scholar. In the sequel, references to this article are simply marked “Hintikka,” accompanied by a page reference to the Doney edition. See also. “Cogito, Ergo Sum as an Inference and a Performance,” Philosophical Review, Vol. LXXII. No. 4. October. 1963. 487-96Google Scholar.
3 Hintikka. 116.
4 See Hughes, G. E. and Cresswell, M. J.. An Introduction to Modal Logic (London. 1968). Chapter 2Google Scholar.
5 Indeed the converse definition is strikingly similar to Hintikka's interpretation (1) reflected in the schema ‘Ba ⊃ (З x) (x = a)’. I take this close similarity as additional evidence for the inappropriateness of the converse definition in the context of interpretation (2).
6 Hintikka, 121.
7 In his later paper. “Cogito, Ergo Sum as an Inference and a Performance,” Philosophical Review, Vol. LXXII, No. 4, October, 1963, 487-96, Hintikka writes … there is no incompatibility whatsoever between saying that cogito, ergo sum is a performance and that it is an inference. There is no need for one to deny, even if one should claim that the Cogito is essentially performative, that in it sum is inferred from the cogito, provided that some basis of this inference is the fact that the denial of the corresponding implication “if I thin k then I exist”—namely, “I think, but I do not exist”—is existential-l y inconsistent (self-defeating).
Observe, however, that the ‘I think’ is superfluous in showing the existential inconsistency of ‘I think, but I do not exist’ because the second conjunct, ‘1 do not exist’ suffices by itself to demonstrate the existential inconsistency of the entire statement. Presumably, according to the Hintikka notion of existential inconsistency, if p is existentially inconsistent then p conjoined to any statement whatever, q. must also be existentially inconsistent.
8 I will follow the convention of calling Hintikka's performatory-existential self-verifying theme ‘interpretation (2)’. Interpretation (I) turns on the existential presupposition of 7I think’.
9 Hintikka. 139.
10 See Hintikka, Jaakko, Knowledge and Belief (Ithaca, 1962)Google Scholar.
11 Hintikka, Jaakko, “Knowledge, Belief and Logical Consequence,” Ajatits, Vol. 32, 1970, 32–47.Google Scholar See also Wu, Kathleen Johnson, “Hintikka and Defensibility.” Ajattis, Vol. 32, 1970, 25–31Google Scholar and Wu, Kathleen Johnson, “Hintikka and Defensibili ty: Some Further Remarks,” Journal of Philosophical Logic, Vol. I, 1972, 259–61Google Scholar.
12 Haldane, E. S. and Ross, G.R.T. (trans.), The Philosophical Works of Descartes (London, 1931)Google Scholar.
13 For a clear and useful explanation of the Cartesian motions of thought and consciousness, see McRae, Robert, “Descartes' Definition of Thought,” Cartesian Studies, ed. by Butler, R. J. (Oxford, Blackwell, 1972), 55–70Google Scholar.
14 For a comprehensive bibliography of writings on the cogito argument, see Sebba, Gregor, Bibliographia Cartesiana: A Critical Guide to the Descartes Literature 1800–1960 (The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1964).CrossRefGoogle Scholar References to some articles written since 1960 can be found in Doney (op. cit., note 1), Bibliography, E. 2.
15 Husserl, Edmund, Cartesian Meditations (The Hague. 1960)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, translated by Dorion Cairns. See also Berger, Gaston, The Cogito in Husserl's Philosophy (Evanston, 1972)Google Scholar.
16 This phenomenon has been analyzed by Mackie, J. L. in “Self-Refutation: A Formal Analysis,” The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. XIV. No. 56. 1964. 193–203CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Bennett's, Jonathanview of Mackie in The Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. XXX, No. 3. 365fGoogle Scholar.
17 See Knowledge and Belief, 77f. Although intuitively, it seems fairly clear what expressions should be allowed as substituends of a, ø, and p, to make (T) do what we want it to. various restrictions are needed. Let me simply remark on two such restrictions: (1) Truth-entailing verbs like ‘know’ (as treated by Hintikka) must not be allowed to go in at ø, or (T) is vacuously satisfied. (2) Expressions like ‘p. which is true’ cannot be allowed in for p, for the same reason.
18 Mitton, Roger, “Professor Hintikka on Descartes'‘Cogito,’” Mind, Vol. LXXXI, No. 323, 07, 1972, 407fCrossRefGoogle Scholar.
19 See Jaakko Hintikka, Knowledge and Belief, p. 6. “In order to specify a statement one has to specify the occasion on which it was uttered or written and to specify the speaker or writer.”
20 A phenomenon observed by Joseph Margolis needs to be kept in mind when considering the various explanations for the logical features of ‘I exist’ we are considering.
21 So understood, the performative interpretation would simply collapse into Hintikka's interpretation (1), as Mitton observes.
22 Hintikka's views on the statement/utterance/sentence distinction may best be surmised by examining a footnote in “Cogito, Ergo Sum: Inference or Performance,” Doney (op. cit.), p. 117.
23 Strictly speaking, ‘believing’ should be thought of as standing in for the doxastic sense of ‘thinking.’ But it seems more helpful to the reader's understanding to remove the ambiguity and lapse into using the more explicit expression ‘believing.’
It may be worthwhile to recall here the distinction between a sentence, an utterance, and a statement. A sentence is of course a grammatical entity that involves no reference to any particular utterer or any particular time of utterance. An utterance is an event (a speech-act) thay may be specified by specifying the uttered sentence, the speaker, and the occasion on which he makes his utterance.
24 Not to be confused with the doxastic expression ‘Ba Ba p⊃Ba p’. In the expression we consider, the “something” that I am said to believe need not be the same “something” in both cases.