Oh good. Now we may have a proper debate.
So nice for you to finally come out from under your bridge to have a decent disputation.
Lets see how long this lasts.
ingliz wrote:No.
I stole it.
What is originality?
Undetected plagiarism.
What?
We are talking about the ownership being yours in the sense that you are the one making it. Don't be facetious for the sake of rhetoric.
ingliz wrote:No.
One is not necessarily the rightful owner of a piece of property even if control of it is necessary in a debate over its ownership
Imagine that a Georgist were to argue that everyone should own a piece of landed property. The Georgist could go so far as to claim that his position is the only justifiable one. He could correctly observe that anyone debating him would necessarily grant him (the Georgist) some standing room, and then he might deduce from this true observation the conclusion that it would be a performative contradiction to deny that everyone is entitled to a piece of land. We imagine that [you] would point out to such a Georgist that using a piece of land during a debate does not entitle one to its full ownership, and [you] would be correct. But by the same token, [your] argument for ownership of one’s body falls apart; has committed the exact same fallacy as our hypothetical Georgist.
(Callahan and Murphy 2006)
There is clear distinction that all philosophers agree upon between sitting on a chair and being its owner.
You are attempting to critique self-ownership here, not the axiom of argumentation itself, argumentation itself is the term that is claimed to be axiomatic, not self-ownership. I think you have confused the two, in spite of their relationship.
Nonetheless, in address to your argument, the Georgist analogy fails, because we are not discussing transactional ownership or even appropriated ownership when we are discussing self-ownership, we are discussing what is necessary to argumentation itself which is in turn axiomatic, this is not the case for, lets say, the tree in my privately owned yard; however, more below.
The Georgist analogy you gave fails as a critique for three main reasons:
1. Equivocation- For the argument made in the analogy uses a definition that assumes appropriation of some form, this is understood by both the georgist and his hypothetical opponent in the course of their debate, and therefore in your analogy;
whereas, self-ownership as a presupposition or precondition of argumentation itself assumes self-ownership as a non-appropriated state, indeed, as a state that cannot be appropriated, but which is self-evident from argumentation itself and which assumes control, responsibility, origin, and agency. From this understanding, ownership as appropriation may indeed be further inferred in addition to ownership as a state of being (and in fact, do just that),
but not before hand.
2. Petito Principii-The analogy assumes what has yet to be proven, that of a legitimate means of appropriation.
3. False Analogy- The analogy is a false one,
for its still possible for a scenario to exist where a person could contend the Georgist position without assuming it (like if one of them were speaking on a telephone on a distant call from an unclaimed region, like Pluto).
However,
the presupposition or precondition of self-ownership is absolute in this regards as it is a necessary inference from argumentation itself, thus, if there is argument, there must be some self-owning agent on either side of the point being contended, thus there is no possible world where argumentation does not assume self-ownership (modal reasoning); however, there are possible worlds where the Georgist thesis could be contended without a performative contradiction.
Thus the analogy is a false one and does not obtain.Hence, even calling this analogy of yours a counter example of a performative contradiction is somewhat disingenuous, for one does not always have to assume the truth of the opponent's position in its contention.
The opposite is true of my argument.Let me also address your comments here (I shall italicize your accusation and then number your critique):
The argument from pragmatic contradiction is intended to show that any norms essential to argument are binding on all people at all times. The argument is invalid because the premises concern norms that hold in debates, but the conclusion concerns norms that hold in all circumstances.
(1) The argument is unsound also because it presupposes that arguers must recognize the truth of norms, but, in fact, an arguer need only behave as if the relevant norms are true.
(2) Furthermore, the argument is parasitic on the mutual recognition argument, but fails to link up with that argument, because the norm that is the concern of the mutual recognition argument assigns moral status to people qua participants in argument, whereas the norm that is the concern of the pragmatic contradiction argument assigns moral status to people qua people.
You are here characterizing my argument as falling under the composition fallacy.
This is evident from the fact that you claim I am arguing from a smaller set of norms which are relevant to argumentation only, and extrapolating from that a broader set of norms that are relevant to mankind in general. This is essentially the summary-case made in the italicized section above.
Critique #1 is more specific than your summary-case accusation made in italics, and it attempts to argue that a person engaged in argument only needs to recognize those norms as true or as are relevant to his task of debating.
Critique #2 is a similar critique to #1, but basically repeats the general charge of a composition fallacy that was mentioned in the italicized section, albeit less redundantly. I shall address critique #2 together with that charge.
Rebuttal:1. The composition fallacy does not obtain (
contra critique #2), because I am not starting with a narrow set of morals and inferring from that a whole corpus of morals which must likewise be assumed as valid,
I am only inferring those "sets of morals/rights" which are necessarily inferred for argumentation to be possible for arguers at all. 2. I am not making a distinction between people qua people and arguers (a distinction which is necessary for both your critiques), I am defining people (in the context of this debate) as those engaged or capable of engaging in argument. This should be obvious from my argument.
Thus, when I present my
argumentum a contrario (which you refer to as my argument from pragmatic contradiction), I am making the case that without the presumption of appropriation, no argumentation would be possible as no arguers could exist. This is clear from my original argument and it answers the fallacy you are trying conjure, for no distinction between "Arguers" in specific and "People qua People" in general is possible or even assumed.
My original debate posts only acknowledges people as those engaged in or capable of argument (actual persons), or those who could be such like children, the unborn, and the pre-conceived (potential persons).
Other "categories" of human-being are simply not relevant to this argument.