Revisiting the Habermasian charge of performative contradiction: deconstruction as a theoretical and normative project

ABSTRACT

Jürgen Habermas famously argues that reason cannot be rejected or criticized by employing its tools. In other words, every critique of reason has to put forward certain universal generalizations about reality. Based on this, he suspects a performative contradiction in Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction – a claim which is largely dismissed by Derrida and his followers. Derrida aims at articulating the paradoxes inherent to being and justice, instead of proposing a general theoretical model of reality or a normative model of justice. In this article, I argue that there are certain generalizations at play in deconstruction. The standard Derridean interpretation of such generalizations is that they stem from the paradoxes which are at work in deconstruction. In contrast, I demonstrate that deconstruction’s belief in the paradoxes of being and morality are at least partially based on the generalizations that Derrida makes about reality. I argue that this does not deal a fatal blow to deconstruction, but requires the whole approach to assume a theoretical and normative character. I conclude that interpreting deconstruction as a theory and a normative project, rather than an atheoretical and anormative approach, will be beneficial for philosophy and political theory.

KEYWORDS:

• Derrida
• deconstruction
• paradoxes
• Habermas
• performative contradiction
• post-Structuralism
• performative powerlessness

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the International Education Center for providing funding for my dissertation on which this article is partially based. I am grateful to Camil Ungureanu at Pompeu Fabra University for reading and commenting on parts of my manuscript. I also want to thank the editors of this journal and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For Derrida’s deconstructive treatment of justice and politics, see Derrida (1992, [1993] 1994, [1997] 2005a, 1994, [2003] 2005c). For the secondary literature on this topic, see Beardsworth (1996), Thomson (2007), Cheah and Guerlac (2009), Critchley (1999), Haddad (2013). Derrida’s critique of religion and secularism can be found, especially, in Derrida (2002a). For the important secondary sources on this topic, see Naas (2012), Hägglund (2008, 2015), Caputo (1997, 2015), Baring and Gordon (2014). There is also a voluminous literature on Derrida’s influence in literary studies that fall beyond the scope of this article. For a summary of Derrida’s contributions to various disciplines, see Direk and Lawlor (2014).

2 On the Derrida-Habermas debate, see Thomassen (2006, 2008), Ungureanu (2008), Bouretz (2011), Khan (2018).

3 I use the terms ‘morality’ and ‘ethics’ interchangeably. In both cases, I refer to the normative domain, in general. I use the phrase ‘moral rightness-claims’ to refer to Habermas’s specific understanding of morality. When Habermas (2007) asks a question to Derrida, he calls such a question ‘ethical’, referring to the normative domain, in general.

4 For a more extensive discussion, see Lawlor (2002).

5 Derrida is sometimes wrongly portrayed as mainly a philosopher of linguistic discourse. In fact, Derrida ([1972] 1982, 175-207) demarcates the analysis of language from the philosophy of being, much in a similar way as many classical philosophers spanning from Plato and Aristotle to Kant and Hegel, and beyond.

6 Derrida ([1990] 2004, 109) goes as far as to argue that the university, as an institution, as well as the whole academic discourse are caught up in a paradox. ‘We live in a world where the foundation of a new law [droit] – in particular a new university law – is necessary,’ writes Derrida ([1990] 2004, 110). Such a new law, of course, does not and cannot entirely transcend university – it is by no means irrational, but instead, it has to be rooted within the academia, but at the same time, it should question the very central tenets and foundational principles of the academic discourse ([1990] 2004, 149-150).

7 It is worth quoting Derrida at length as determining his overt stance remains crucial in putting to rest Habermas’s objection. For example, in Limited Inc. Derrida (1988, 125) writes the following: ‘As in philosophy, and as a classical philosopher (which, it is true, I remain as well), I don't see a big difference, here again, between being ‘just a little serious’ and being ‘not serious at all,’ all of which, I'm afraid, is not serious at all’ [emphasis added]. Elsewhere, Derrida puts it as follows: ‘I take seriously the axiom that there is a philosophical locus, that there is a type of philosophical discourse or demand, and I attempt to go as far as possible with respect to this specificity (which is always to come, which is not given in any place)’ (Derrida and Ferraris [1997] 2001, 55).

8 For example, White and Farr criticize Thomassen on this point and argue that an agonistic charge against Habermas, according to which his theory annuls the possibility of conflict, is not justified (White and Farr 2012, 33). Instead, they believe that Habermas’s discourse theory of law and democracy is as much based on consensus as on the possibility of no-saying/conflict (2012, 36–50).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Giorgi Tskhadaia

Giorgi Tskhadaia is Associate Professor of Political Science at the School of Governance of Caucasus University. His research interests include agonistic and deliberative models of democracy, theories of (public) reason, theories of fairness.