Retorsion (retortion) is the philosophical procedure whereby one attempts to establish a thesis by uncovering a performative inconsistency in anyone who denies it. It is as old as Aristotle and has been put to use by philosophers as diverse as Transcendental Thomists and Ayn Rand and her followers. Retorsion is something like an ad hominem tu quoque except that the homo in question is everyman, indeed every rational being. Proofs by retorsion have the following form:
Proposition p is such that anyone who denies it falls into performative inconsistency; ergo, p is true.
Suppose a person asserts that there are no assertions. That person falls into performative inconsistency: the propositional content of the speech act is 'inconsistent' with the performance. *There are no assertions* is the propositional content, or content, for short. The speech act of asserting is in this case the performance. The inconsistency is not strictly logical, which is why I employed scare quotes. Strictly logical inconsistency/consistency obtains between propositions, and a performance such as asserting is not a proposition. Performances belong to the category of events, not that of propositions. And yet it is clear that there is some sort of analog of inconsistency here, some sort or analog of 'contradiction.' The content asserted is falsified by the act of asserting it. The performance 'contradicts' the content.
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