The impractical characterization of intrinsic justification: a rebuttal.

• Author: Bahm, Kenneth T.
• Position: Response to article by Richard W. Leeman and Bill Hill in this issue, p. 50; Argumentation and Advocacy, vol. 26, p. 133, 1991

We have all witnessed debaters who, after misinterpreting a case and basing their attacks on that misinterpretation, and after having had the case subsequently re-explained to them, return claiming that their opponents have shifted. The critique of intrinsic justification (Bahm, 1988; 1991) by Richard W. Leeman and Bill Hill (Hill & Leeman, 1990; Leeman & Hill, 1993) has followed a similar pattern. Their recent critique offers a reassertion of their original arguments combined with the suggestion that if those arguments no longer apply, it is because I have altered my advocacy. Hill and Leeman are dedicated to attacking a theory of intrinsicness and they construct that attack in a way that privileges their initial misreading of the argument over my attempts to clarify. The version of intrinsic justification which they critique is a creature of their own making. The purpose of this response is to both provide further explanation of what intrinsic justification is as well as further rebuttal of what intrinsic justification is not.

Leeman and Hill have developed a critique of a theory of intrinsic justification which is founded on three major misinterpretations. First, intrinsic justification is seen as a topicality standard with the goal of creating definitions. Second, intrinsic justification is seen as being theoretically dependent on phenomenology and dedicated to complete reduction. Third, intrinsic justification is seen as a theory operating in isolation of all other community constraints on meaning and practice. This response will address each of these misinterpretations and then return to the argument's central issue of promoting clash.

MISINTERPRETATION 1: INTRINSIC JUSTIFICATION AS A TOPICALITY STANDARD

Basic to understanding the argument for intrinsic justification is understanding its purpose. Leeman and Hill claim that I originally advocated a topicality argument and further argue that I am "shifting |the~ argument from one of topicality to one of justification. Now, intrinsic justification is a justification standard (emphasis mine)."

The label "intrinsic justification" was not chosen at random. It was instead intended to communicate that "intrinsic justification" is actually a justification standard. Hill and Leeman's caricature of intrinsic justification as a topicality argument apparently relies on the claim that because intrinsic justification and topicality both have to do with meaning and the promotion of clash, they are the same type of argument. "Topicality," they say, "is the issue that ensures fair standards of clash" (emphasis mine). This is a simple equivocation that fails to account for the distinction between justification and topicality.

In practice, affirmative cases are called "topical" if they fall within agreed upon definitions and "non-topical" if they. fall outside of them. Topicality, then, relates to choosing a definition and determining if a team's claims fit within that definition. Intrinsic justification does not fit this mold. Examples can be contingent while still fitting "within" the definitions.(1) Intrinsic justification as I have advocated it does not seek to create or choose between definitions. It instead seeks to focus debate on the essential qualities identified by definitions already in the round. Given the freedom to characterize my own argument, I would call intrinsic justification a justification argument since it deals with the larger question of whether the terms in the proposition are being adequately affirmed or negated. The argument is that a claim premised on an aspect of the resolution's subject which is merely contingent does not adequately justify or dejustify the resolution.

Not being a topicality argument, intrinsic justification does not have the goal of generating or selecting among definitions. Instead intrinsic justification makes use of definitions (specifically, the essential elements which definitions identify) in order to focus the debate on that which is resolutionally necessary.(2)

Given that the current community is able to use definitions and given that definitions establish qualities which are essential (Bahm, 1991), Leeman and Hill have difficulty locating a role for the process of variation. The role for variation is the same as it has always been: to demonstrate contingency. The essential aspects of a definition provide the standards and the variation provides the test which reveals the violation.

Thus, Hill and Leeman's argument is correct in noting that intrinsic justification is impractical if its goal is to use variation in order to serve the topicality function of generating definitions. If, however...