ITS

[Daniel Hugh Nexon]

On Sun, 31 Aug 1997, RACE --- wrote:

> Others have been ignored completely.  I do not necessarily feel that the
> choice of ignoring makes the reasons more valid than the others.  In
> many cases due to the haste of response, it may have simply been
> oversight.

This is not a debate round; some of your reasons may have only been
"ignored" in that they have not been adressed "on point," but that is not
the same thing as being overlooked. Frankly, I find nothing in your
"summary" which falls into the latter category.

> Second, I discussed the lack of a unique limit placed by "ITS" in
> alternative interpretations.  So far only one has been suggested that
> being the other countries arguments which will be addressed in the
> strings as they come.

The standard of an "unique" limit is, IMO, not compelling. To reiterate:
you maintained that not adopting your interpertation of "its" effectively
effaced the term. This was, for reasons you have only now explained, a
"bad" thing. However, the example we both have discussed, that of a plan
to ask, compell, or enable the provision of security assitance from a
third party proves that under *both* interpertations of "its" the term is
given meaning: it is neither effaced nor mooted. The argument you have
presented for a "unique" limit reveals, IMHO, the tautological nature of
the argument. We all agree that your interpertation of the resolution will
be "more limiting"--place an additional and therefore "unique" limit over
the alternative presented here. In other words: no shit, Sherlock.

The placement of an additional limit on the resolution is not a reason to
believe that the interpertation ought to be adopted *per se*, and it is
certainly *not* a reason to argue that your interpertation is the only one
which is possibly true.

Which leads me to the primary objection I have to your argument: as Alan
Dove put it, this is an excellent debate to watch, but it is not
"objectively" true. On a fundamental level, even if one does not agree
that language is "indeterminate" in the strong sense--only temporally
fixed by a particular discursive context--it certainly is "indeterminate"
in a weak sense--language is fuzzy. Both of these interpertations fall
within the commonly accepted meanings of the term "its," therefore neither
interpertation can be, strictly speaking, "correct." All of the criteria
you use to establish the exalted status of your interpertation are, in
addition, subject to disagreement. None are so singularly profound as to
settle the question for eternity.

The overstatement of a claim is the fastest way to weaken its credibility.

> Third, Descriptive vs. Prescriptive discussions of security assistance.
> This originally was AD's third interpretation which was admitted as not
> being practical as a policy proposition.  However, i pointed out that it
> demonstrated that definitions not grounded in the descriptive realm were
> related to propositions of how USFG's notions should be changed, not
> what they are and whether they are increased.  In a related brief
> comment if developed a

[?]

This is largely a defensive argument... not one which independently
delineates the truth of your proposition; unless something happens after
"a" of great profundity... :)

> Fourth, that there is a temporal dimension created by ITS.  This is that
> ITS provides a reference to the present situation with the USFG
> regarding security assistance.

As far as I can tell, the implication of this "temporal" dimension is draw
below:

  If the affirmative plan increases
> something that is not CURRENTLY accepted as S.A., then no increase in
> "Its S.A." has occurred.  Rather, the increase in non-ITS-S.A. might
> provide a prescriptive justification for CHANGING the notions of what
> constitutes S.A.

is entirely contingent upon the acceptance of your prior understanding of
"its" in the first place. If "its" is, as I have argued, simply a
possessive and the term "security assistance" is open to interpertation,
than an increase in "security assistance" could be an increase in the
USFG's contemporary environmental assistance, if such assistance is found
to be "security assistance" properly understood.

In addition, I want to reiterate an implicit argument from my first post.
The USFG is not, in an ontological sense, an agent, but rather is spoken
of as an agent for linguistic convenience. The USFG, IMO, is an aggregate
of social interactions which is constituted as an agent as part of a
myth-complex. Since that aggregate can provide "security assistance" (or
more accurately, those who act "on behalf" of the state) it may be
relevant to ask the resolutional question, but it is startlingly
nonsensical to argue that the USFG can have a *CONCEPTION* of security
assistance. To ascribe it one is to believe, a la Hegel, that the USFG has
a "mind" in a metaphysical sense. This is simply an unproductive and
rarified proposition. Now, one could argue that certain concepts of
security assistance have been routinized by those who act on behalf of the
state, but that opens one up to the problem of Senator X who stands up and
advocates the Indonesian conception of "comprehensive security." In short,
your interpertation is not only ontologically inadequate, but a practical
nightmare. Now, you can take this or leave it, but I offer it as an
additional reason to reject your interpertation which, I hope, proves my
point above.....


[verbiage snipped]

> If a term is demeaned or brought to meaninglessness in my terminology,
> there are several implications off the top of my head.  First, that
> which is A's ground directly tradesoff with that which is N's ground.

The presumption, of course, is that ground is zero-sum. I disagree.
Besides, this argument is indeterminate: if a word in the resolution has
no independent meaning, if it adds nothing to the resolution, than why
should we care (there is no effect on ground in the first place).

> This is true even with the prospect of topical counterplans for in
> regard to a particular subject matter, A's non-resolutional plan could
> easily be the best N ground on this subject matter.

  Second, what is the
> purpose of the resolution - a starting point for discussion or many
> other possibilities - most of which require at least an inkling of What
> the Creature means.  To suggest that replacing meaning with
> meaninglessness is a reasonable move seems to make it difficult to deal
> with one of the notions discussed last spring concerning
> "predictability."

Please elucidate. It seems to me you are making the classic mistake of
equating a [particular] meaning of a resolution with the [particular]
meaning of one of its constituitve terms. (This doesn't surprise, given
the particular German term you use earlier....) The phrase in the
resolution can still have "predictable" meaning even if one element proves
to be linguistically superfluous. (I think this question is irrelevant,
however, given that we agree that its serves a function either way, and is
therefore not meaningless compared to a resolution without it)

Take the example of Southeast Asia below. You've explained adequately why
Southeast Asia: [list] is grammatical, and how the list provides a
specific limit on the general term, yet the list itself provides the same
limit with the presence or absence of the term SEA. Ergo, by your
standard, SEA places no "unique" limit on the resolution and, it seems,
the resolution is inherently flawed. Whether an alternative meaning of the
term "its" might place an "unique" limit on the resolution is irrelevant.
The example of SEA already demonstrates that a term can serve no
meaningful function from the perspective you have laid out to critique the
"possesive" interpertation of "its" without diminishing the meaningfulness
of the resolution as a whole.

  Third, i imagine that your notions here would be
> different if the title of the thread were "security", however, i'm
> arguing previously and below that the "threshold" for interpretive
> reasonableness does carry over from one portion of the topicality
> discussion to another.  It seems that the current "paradigm" suggests
> that any ambiguity in words (which there always is) requires a throwing
> up of the hands linguistically and moving to questions of competitive
> equity.  This seems a sad move to me.

I'm sorry it brings a tear to your eye, but I find nothing in your
argument to suggest any different evaluative concept other than
"competitive equity": not your "three reasons" why terms must have meaning
(from ground through predictability), nor the "unique" meaning argument
which seems, at least to me, indistinguisable from a claim that "limits
are good, more limits more so."

Besides, your own admission of "ambiguity in words" at least goes far
enough for my purpose: it makes absurd your claim to have dveloped the
"correct" understanding of the resolution. But I would go further, the
current "paradigm" (why put the word in quotations and use it, since you
eveidently realize it is most likely a misues of the concept?) is, in
fact, a "good" thing in that it recognizes any attempt to fix meaning
serves particular uses and interests, and makes manifest this relationship
(and often ironically.....).

[snip--SEA discussed above]

> > The *agent* is limited, not the provider of security assistance. Imagine:
> > resolved, Dan should increase candy deliveries to eDebate members. It is
> > not a given that I have to deliver the candy myself. Compare to: ...Dan
> > should increase *my* candy deliberies...."
> >
> > Ahh, but you got this below.
>
> not only do i get to it, but your example clearly demonstrates my
> argument given that the second anecdotal reference is analogous to the
> resolutional wording.

Uh, yes.

 This anecdote, however, as with the one on
> coaching in AD's posts seems difficult to accept because the reference
> of the possessive is a WHO rather than a WHAT.  The presence of ITS
> suggests a WHAT.

No, it doesn't. I don't want to sound patronizing, but in English, when
the subject of a sentence is third-person singular we use he/she/it. In
American English, in particular, an entity such as a government is not
gendered: "its" is correct either way, whether WHO or WHAT (if I
understand you here).

> These criteria are not purely exogenous.  They relate to the context of
> interpretation concerning debate as a practice.  The notion of what
> constitutes redundancy, it seems to me, entails including some notions
> of accepted debate practice as context.  The question of FIAT and its
> meaning is a thread which crosses the context of specific debate
> resolutions, while the question of the meaning of a Specific debate
> resolution falls within the general context of debate as practice.

I disagree entirely. The question of the scope of fiat logically follows
from the resolution, and does not proceed it. Debate practice has
developed cross-resolutional commencurability precisely because the
structure of resolutions has remained basically the same: X (the US)
should do Y (increase SA, adopt a policy to). The only deviant I can think
of recently was the Privacy topic, when, in fact, fiat questions became a
little more interesting.

Examples: imagine the resolution had been one of the following:

Resolved that...

1.The US, in conjunction with Japan, should.....
2.ASEAN should....
3.World War II should have been lost by the allies.
4.Heidegger's position in _Being in Time_ is correct.
5.Dan Nexon was a bad debater.
6.Dogs are smarter than cats.
7.It would be bad for ASEAN if it accepted F-18s from the US.
etc.

In these circumstances, fiat is radically different. Sometimes, our
understandning of it has *no* meaning. In fact, fiat is a *product* of the
meaning ascribed to the resolution. It looks like a "debate practice"
because we're in a reflexive activity whereby, year after year, we choose
similar resolutional structures which repeat the conditions necessary to
conserve that practice.


 > > I fail to see
> > why questions of fiat or authority adress the "ask Australia" case....
>
> The "ask Australia" notion seems to be the example suggested here and in
> another post so i will try to address it.  First, my interpretation
> would also limit such cases to the same degree as the alternative
> interpretations provided.  So if this is a "good" limit, it is not a
> unique advantage to the alternative interpretations.

This is irrelevant. See my earlier discussion. This is an answer to the
"meaninglessness" argument. The "unqiue advantage" argument is at best
question begging, at worst it demonstrates the circularity of your
argument.

  Second, the
> question of authority here is one of whether the USFG would have the
> jurisdictional power to dictate another's foreign policy with regard to
> a substantial increase.

No, this is a question of whether asking Australia would, in fact,
result in an increase in security assistance to SEA. I guess that makes
the topicality of the affirmative dependent on solvency. Bummer. (this is,
in fact, what your argument below adds up to)

  This comes from a cross-resolutional notion of
> FIAT and a contextual notion of the subject/agency in this particular
> resolution.  In regard to the "Ask Australia" plan, it would seem that
> the redundancy might be present in the fact that a mere asking would not
> constitute a substantial increase.  Thus the limit is not a limit at
> all.

Of course, your interpertation does nothing to avoid this problem, since
the countires of SEA could simply reject the attempted increase in
security assistance (Malaysia's PM might give us the finger, for example)
meaning that the mere appropriation might not (in your words) "constitute
a substantial increase."

The counter I can think of is contingent on the meaning of "to." I guess
one might produce an argument that the mere appropriation of additional
security assistance was topical.....  But this doesn't strike me as
persuasive for a number of reasons (for one thing, it might legitimate
appropriating but never authorizing, or a plan to do both but send it
somewhere else instead).

But anyway, if "its" does mean what you argue it to mean, why wouldn't the
"ask Australia" case be legitimate if Australia increased expenditures for
US security assistance? (I can think of some reasons... but I don't
particularly think we even need to get to this argument).

> Also, the question would be, in my interpretation, whether USFG security
> assistance is increased by the "asking of Austr. or Beta Antares"?  This
> is not a subjective question under my notion.

Yes it is. What constitutes the USFG's present security assitance? Do we
look to committe jurisdiction, CBO reports, the department of state, of
defense, Senator Jess Helms? Given the USFG is only constituted as a
person for limited reasons (this issue would take all day) but *not*
because it has a "mind," how can we even ask the question you want to ask
in the first place?

> assumptions" or it is not argument.  To suggest that the burden of
> topicality analysis requires an argument which is uncontested would seem
> to suggest that Only dropped topicality attacks can be successful.
> (this is yet another example of the type of threshold notion which is
> problematic and mentioned in a string below)....

I've snipped most of the above, and I've dealt with this earlier, but I
feel the need to clarify that this is *not* my argument, nor have I ever
suggested it. Rather, I argue that your grandiose claim that you have
developed the 'one true' interpertation of the resolution is based upon
assumptions which are ultimately unresolveable. They may be pragmatically
resolved based on a situational decision calculous in the round (which is
what happens) but, outside of that context, they cannot be used to assert
a captial-T Truth claim such as you have. Moreover, I've dealt with the
fiat issue above.

> seem to care in the least what the specific resolution is and only with
> the cart notions of how to determine meaning.  This obviously is another
> theoretical quibble on my part which is probably beyond the scope of
> this specific thread (and my time in dealing with this thread)

Not at all. One of my problems is that you have invoked as a "rule" a
conception of fiat which is, in fact, situationally dependent upon the
resolution. If you want to discuss the implications of the proposition
that (and I agree with this, even though I think the meaning of the
resolution is logically prior) in practice, fiat and topicality are
co-determinate, I'd welcome it.

>  moreover, you've failed to demonstrate the utility or reason for
> > assuming each word has to have a limiting function....
>
> i've tried to provide a bit more clarification in this regard in the
> overview to my reply to AD's first reply to me and in several places
> within this post.  I find it interesting that utility would be the
> method of determining this.


That's why I provide the "or." Before this post, you'd yet to give any
explanation for why each word must have a limiting function. Don't mistake
my attempt to be inclusive of a bunch of possibilities for a truth claim.

> > Actually, this is what we call a claim without a warrant: a series of, if
> > I may borrow a phrase, "clevery worded" statements without any reason
> > behind it.
>
> I will concede quickly that "blow the doors off" is a wording in which i
> slipped into poetic rather than analytic language.  The "anarchic" was
> an attempt at humour given your signature.

Then it was too opaque for me. However, my point still stands. After being
accused of "clevery worded" statements without substantive merit I found
it highly amusing to watch argument after argument attempting to show the
"truth" of your interpertation which is, in reasoning, contingent upon
accepting your argument in the first place. The "temporality" claim, for
example.

> I don't agree that my wording is without reason.  In addition to all of
> the reasons commented on above and in the AD correspondence, the notion
> of the "threshold" being relevant does seem to be something of a unique
> reason.

Nahh. Not really. Its basically epiphenomenal: an added gloss on
previously argued positions. If they fall, it falls.

 And your use of the Southeast Asia wording to relate to this
> wording is "data" for the ease in which such associations are made.  I'm
> not suggesting that the linguistic context of the resolution is not
> important - quite the contrary.  I am suggesting that the rigor one
> imposes on one notion of meaning or meaninglessness is often
> "cross-applied" to others.

So am I. But I am suggesting, among other things, a certain lack of rigor
in "cross-applying" universal statements about meaningless to particular
instances, or in launching what is essentially an undertheorized argument
about the nature of language (one I think may be inconsistent with some of
your borrowings, but we'll have to wait until it is developed more) which,
if you'll excuse me, dejustifies the resolution (if the goal of
language--and here you seem unconsciously indebted to what is an
essentially positivistic take on language--is to express concepts such
that each word adds a rigorously meaningful modification of the phrase,
then SEA is indeed superflous to the resolution. It *should* not be there,
regardless of whether it is as an example of complimentarity, since that
complimentary adds *nothing* to our understanding of the phrase or the
proposition to be tested--the resolution).

But anyway, this is irrelevant. Meaningfulness does not imply a "unique"
limit vis-a-vis another interpertation, only whether a words absence would
change the potential meanings of the resolution such that certain
possibilities are foreclosed by the presence of the word. Both
interpertations clearly meet this standard.

> Another thing which is significant to me here is the reference to Claim
> without a Warrant.  I don't quite know when this portion of Toulmin's
> model became the definitive definition of quality argument in debate (or
> what other portions data, qualifier, backing are left out of this) but
> this demonstrates a HUGE problem with such analysis.

By ascribing "this model" to Toulmin alone, you're displaying a certain
myopia.....

  From my
> perspective, my CLAIM is the claim made in the ORIGINAL post and
> suggested at the beginning of this reply once again.  The various
> strings of reasoning which have followed that might best fit into
> various placements of warrant, qualifier, data, and backing.  When
> Toulmin is used in such a micro-analytical way it clearly breaks down as
> the "backing" obviously contains a "claim" which then requires warrant,
> qualifier, data and further backing.

Um.... The strange thing is that I agree with you here on a certain
level.. but the agreement presupposes I use Toulmin's model. I didn't. If
I had, and if you had not simply ascribed it to me, well, then.... :) But
that makes your next line, which I appear to have snipped, pertinent.

"[A]narchists... swallow without protest all the severe standards which
scientists and logicians impose upon research ... what are thought to be
the laws of scientific method by a particular writer... are even
integrated into anarchism itself." P. Feyerabend | www.columbia.edu/~dhn2

>From  Tue Sep  2 12:22:11 1997
Message-Id: <TUE.2.SEP.1997.122211.0400.>
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 1997 12:22:11 -0400
Reply-To: dhn2 at COLUMBIA.EDU
To: Team Topic Debating in America <EDEBATE at LIST.UVM.EDU>
From: Daniel Hugh Nexon <dhn2 at COLUMBIA.EDU>
Subject: Re: ITS
Comments: To: RACE --- <race at midusa.net>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.95L.970902013531.16399A-100000 at kiaora.cc.columbia.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Hey,

my posts are plauged with typos. Regards the question of whether its is
not analogous to my, I should have said something like the possessive is
her/his/its for third-person singular =~ my.


"[A]narchists... swallow without protest all the severe standards which
scientists and logicians impose upon research ... what are thought to be
the laws of scientific method by a particular writer... are even
integrated into anarchism itself." P. Feyerabend | www.columbia.edu/~dhn2