[Reader-list] Theoretical Correctness : From Habermas to Leslie Green

[ARNAB CHATTERJEE]

Dear Shuddha and others,
                                     Your question in
resonse to my Beyond : Taslima's mimesis and feminist
Theory(what on earth is  'theoretically incorrect'? 
 Can theory be 'correct' or 'incorrect'?) is
intriguing, interesting and enabling  enough so much
so that I might just begin by a provocative counter
question: if all theories are correct and  no theory
is incorrect or false, then   the theory of error
itself is   erroneous and so on and so forth. In fact
you are not keen to recognize that the theory of truth
itself might not be true. When we argue we are
actually into debating this contrary correctness and
determined by the “force of the better argument” often
there could be just one true correct answer. This
apart there are a few didactic ruses for me by which
my usage, purposively, could be meant : I’ll urge that
 the current assumptions in sexual harassment
discourse --  in which tactile sense data of touching
and the question of sexual feeling is absolutely
expelled or rooted out ( except the revolting feeling
( feeling still) of the respondent) to make a
normative point, be contrasted with the theoretical
discussion of feeling and here I give  a precise
reference instead of just citing a high sounding
phrase like  "phenomenology of feeling" in
understanding sexual commitment in groping behaviour
in public places. I will primarily refer to this text
by CS Pierce  http://www.textlog.de/4298.html   and
request the readers to inquire why the feminist
discussion of sexual violence ( or sexual ethics)
bypasses several theoretical-and philosophical
objections—even schools in order to engage in what is
known as ‘feminist reductionisms.” Avoidance of this
deep, inward critique is more visible in newspaper
articles : have a look at that and you’ll understand
what is gender, caste or class sensitive but
theoretically   incorrect and incoherent  standpoint.
A theoretically correct standpoint can take all
challenges, it doesn’t take recourse to cunning or
makes practical excuses. Leslie Green similarly talks
about Dworkin and Mackinnon et. al for making such
theoretically incorrect arguments to ban pornography
in Canada; but even though theoretically incorrect,
they were practically enough and who knows –socially
required too. Today’s feminisms are full of such
vacuous muscle flexing. 

        Now, to the main point : what on earth is
“theoretical correctness?” There is a huge literature
on all of this so I’ll be limited and sketchy for the
time being  but promise more  if required. 
        
Let me tell you my source first : I owe much to
Habermas when I use this phrase; owe but with a
difference. Today I shall state this while not going
into the details of my adoption with qualification. 
            We can start with an offhand approach by
taking theoretical correctness in scientific ( or
empirico analytic) discourses. There a theory is
incorrect if the axioms it proposes  is invalidated
say—in experiments or other forms of self -referential
‘methodological’ moorings peculiar to science. In
other forms of human ( historical-hermeneutic)
sciences, the question of  theoretical correctness has
been debated for the last 200 years or so. But to ease
this trouble let us take a simple approach. Marx
himself never believed that all theories could be
equally true or correct or otherwise he would not have
laid emphasis on practical-critical sensuous activity
where theory has to prove itself and vice versa. But
these are old debates and Shuddha and all others are
well aware of this; my point here is  to hint at the
availability of  the option of true theory  in older
discourses also. So there you have the precursors. In
between you can throw in the fact that theory
consistently has been held to have been generating or
relying upon abstract universals  ( supposedly  immune
to interests) while  practice is concrete, particular
and interested. Much of this has been refuted. But
what has not been refuted is that  truth is simply not
discursive : that we sit and talk and come to a
consensus that this is true and it becomes true. There
are statements or propositions which are true or
false. There are such things as true, false, right,
good and correct.There is an internal justification
that is necessary other than an external one. 
Starting from this assumption and using Habermas’s
insights, we can make a clear departure here. The
erstwhile discourse of practice didn’t admit of  truth
or correctness (I’m  overriding for simplicity’s sake 
the little hiatus of levels  between declarative claim
to truth and the normative claim to correctness—as in
late Habermas.). For example that  women should go out
 and vote or wear a particular sign when they are
married or who will love whom was not considered akin
to statements that  could be true or false. But the
moment the feminists started debating these rules,
norms, or customs—it could be said that the question
of correctness was brought about in the realm of
practice through their argumentation. That social
norms could be debated for their validity claims has
been emphatically made by Habermas. Why child marriage
should be shunned became  a matter of   argumentative
justification and thus particular norms or customs
were not simply in-appropriate, they were incorrect.
“Practical questions admit of truth ..and correct
norms must be capable of being  grounded in a way
similar to true statements.” Validity involves a
notion of correctness analogous to the idea of truth.
And this applies to all those harassment norms,
groping forms  and all that we were discussing. And if
there is a debate ( moreover  if they are to be
justified) then it must be intersubjectively
validated, agreed? Now,  to examine a validity claim
in a discourse, one stops conveying information or 
experiences from the empirical standpoint ( i.e.,
variety in difference), and brackets or suspends all
judgment to examine a problematised validity claim.
This is extrication from all claims to action or
practical rationality and is absolutely self reflexive
or theoretical. A “critique of knowledge” is the aim
of theoretical discourse; “political will formation “
is the aim of practical discourse. Therefore, it is
easy and obvious now : what is politically incorrect
may be  theoretically correct and what is
theoretically incorrect may be politically correct.   
  
        Let me try to explain this a bit. And this
though I first wrote as a post edit article in
Anandabazar Patrika in 2000, I  still hold that point 
as unrefuted. Consider the anti harassment legislation
initiated by the Supreme Court which it calls ‘norms’
and must be instituted in all offices. It catalogues a
list of ‘unwelcome sexual behaviour’which ranges  from
sexual propositions to showing pornography and so and
so forth. My question was, why don’t they give a list
of welcome sexual behaviour, all men/women will act 
accordingly and there will be no problems. But
everybody knows that that is ridiculous. Hence if you
cannot bring that list, how come you bring the list of
unwelcome sexual behaviour and catalogue hilarious
items? If sexual propositioning in workplace is
harassment, then where there are so called ‘sex
workers’ -who are looking forward and waiting badly
for  those sexual propositions, what will happen to
the norm?. Sexual harassment in workplace is
ridiculous when sex itself is work. But couldn’t the
sex workers be harassed ? Ofcourse, but there  the
harassment has to be non sexual in order to be outside
of  work ( like sex here is considered external to
work in office). For them    there will be  a separate
list I guess. But my central tendency was
theoretically considered such lists are not possible. 
In this, I remember having phoned Partha Chatterjee-
when I was writing this article and I did include his
point in the article. He simply discouraged me by
saying that there is less use of theoretical
objections here; a consensus is assumed and such norms
should be put in place as protection -- is also
warranted; it is practically useful. There was nothing
for me not to agree.
I’ll argue  today—after seven years since that
article, in the domain of  ordinary discourse 
feminist claims are still made in the context of
everyday life, but  are not allowed to be
problematised. Correctness here is  in accordance with
the rules. The call for argumentative justification is
overruled in favour of moral, practical or political
propriety.  Let me tell you that I don’t doubt the
strategic essentiality in all this but reiterate again
as above  that what is practically useful or
politically correct may not be theoretically correct
too. We have to live with this disjunction like people
live with gonorrhea or AIDS. And this is why I use and
often use ‘theoretical correctness ( in the sense of
truth)’, and I only hope Shuddha now onwards will use
that too.

          Finally an exemplary reference :  Leslie
Green—one of the greatest legal ( and social ) 
philosophers of our time and now a philosopher of law
at Oxford  has deployed the phrase theoretical
correctness while he talks in this mode , “the central
theoretical error thus lies

etc
.” [ Leslie Green,
Sexuality, Authenticity, and Modernity, Canadian
Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, 8(1), January 1995,
p.80].  I consider Leslie ( who is equally outspoken
about “feminist reductionisms”) one of my abstract
gurus, so   if Shuddha goes to Leslie with this--- a
bit sly entreaty, “What on earth is theoretical
error?”  I’m sure Leslie will give a far  better
answer.

Till then
Arnab 










           




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