 I've repeated requests from many of my friends and given my already advanced stage in life I have thought it would be appropriate to take this opportunity to speak a bit about myself, not about my private life of course but about my work and not about all of my other subjects and there are quite a few to which I think I have made some little contribution in the course of the years but on one subject only the one subject where I consider my contribution the most important one namely the a priori of argumentation as the ultimate foundation of law so in previous years I have given more fiery speeches and also a little bit funny stuff this time I'm afraid it will be what on Saturday night would be called deep thoughts so you will have to suffer a little bit through all of this I hope you will benefit a little bit nonetheless I developed the central argument during my during the mid-80s when I was myself in my mid-30s and not from scratch of course I took up ideas and arguments that were previously developed by others in particular by my first principal philosophy teacher and Dr. Frater Jürgen Habermas and even more importantly by Habermas long-time friend and colleague Karl Otto Apel as well as by the philosopher economist Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard in any case however the argument that I ultimately developed appeared to me essentially new and original around the same time I must say Frank van Dunne living in Flanders and writing in Dutch and having been brought up under entirely different philosophical circumstances and traditions had come up with a very similar argument and conclusion yet at that time we both did not know of each other's work and would only find out many years later in a nutshell and I'll come back to a more detailed explanation shortly the argument runs like this first all truths claims as all claims that given a proposition that a given proposition is true or false or indeterminate or undecidable or that an argument is valid and complete or not are raised and justified and decided upon in the course of an argumentation second that the truth of this proposition cannot be disputed without falling into a contradiction because any attempt to do so would itself have to become in the form of an argument hence the a priori of argumentation third argumentation is not free floating sounds but a human action namely a purposeful human activity employing physical means at least a person's body and various external things in order to reach a specific end or goal namely the attainment of agreement concerning the truth value of a given proposition or argument force that while motivated by some initial disagreement or dispute or conflict concerning the validity of some truth claim every argumentation between a proponent and an opponent is itself a conflict free a mutually agreed upon and peaceful form of interaction aimed at resolving the initial disagreement and reaching some mutually agreed on answer as to the truth value of a given proposition or argument fifth that the truth or validity of the norms or rules of action that make argumentation between a proponent and an opponent at all possible that is the praxeological presuppositions of argumentation cannot be argumentatively disputed without falling into a pragmatic or performative contradiction six that the praxeological presuppositions of argumentation then that is what makes argumentation as a specific form of truth seeking activity possible are two fold first each person must be entitled to exclusive control or ownership of his own physical body the very means that he and only he can control directly at will so as to be able to act independently of one another and come to a conclusion on his own that is autonomously and second for the same reason of mutually independent standing and autonomy both proponent and opponent must be entitled to their respective prior possessions that is the exclusive control of all other external means of action appropriated indirectly by them prior to and independent of one another and prior to the onset of their argumentation and seven that any argument to the contrary that either the proponent or the opponent is not entitled to the exclusive ownership of his body and all prior possessions cannot be defended without falling into a pragmatic or performative contradiction because by engaging in argumentation both proponent and opponent demonstrate that they seek a peaceful conflict free resolution to whatever disagreement gave rise to their arguments yet to deny one person the right to self ownership and his prior positions is to deny his autonomy and his autonomous standing in a trial of arguments it affirms instead dependency and conflict that is heteronomy rather than conflict free and autonomously reached agreement and is therefore contrary to the very purpose of argumentation as I said I will explain these things in greater detail when I had finally worked out this argument I was actually struck by how simple and straightforward it was I was almost astonished why it had taken me so long to develop and even more so why no one else apparently had thought of it before yet then I sought of Ludwig von Mises and his famous argument concerning the impossibility of economic calculation under socialism Mises incidentally had worked out this argument also in his own mid-30s in short what Mises had argued was that the purpose of all production is the transformation of something an input that is less valuable into something an output that is more valuable that is efficient and economic instead of wasteful production that in an economy based on the division of labor recourse must be taken to monetary calculation in order to determine if production was efficient or not that input prices must be compared with output prices to determine profit or loss and yet that no input prices exist under socialism and hence no possibility for economic calculation because under socialism all production factors are by definition owned by a single agency namely the state thus precluding the formation of any and all factor prices when I had first encountered Mises's argument I was immediately convinced my reaction was wow how obvious straightforward and simple and also why did it take Mises so long to state something so obvious and why had no one else discovered this seemingly elementary inside before to be sure some historians of economic thought were eager to point out that some earlier authors had already hinted at Mises's argument. Terence Hutchison for instance discovered that there was even a glimpse of Mises's argument in Friedrich Engels of all people but this notwithstanding it appeared to me a gross misrepresentation of intellectual history and the grave intellectual injustice to claim anyone but Mises as the originator of the argument and the man who had finished off classical Marxist socialism intellectually once and for all as well while perhaps not quite so surprising the reaction to Mises's impossibility proof was also instructive especially given that Mises's proof concerned a problem that at a time of his writing in the immediate aftermath of world war one had taken on enormous importance with the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 in Russia but by and large there was no reaction at all Mises was simply ignored and the continued existence of the Soviet Union and after world war two of the entire Soviet empire was taken by most of the economic economics profession and large parts of the lay public as well as empirical proof that Mises was wrong or in any case irrelevant. A few young economists such as Hayek and Machlup and Röpke and Lionel Robbins were immediately converted by Mises they abandoned their erstwhile leftist leanings and became prominent spokesmen of capitalism and free markets and a few prominent socialists such as Otto Neurath, Henry Dickinson, Oscar Lange tried to refute Mises's argument but in my judgment even Mises's early fans watered down, misconstrued or distorted and so in any case weakened Mises's original argument and as for the socialist foes they did not even seem to comprehend the problem. Indeed even after Mises had systematically restated and further elaborated his arguments two decades after its original presentation in his human action and even after the implosion of socialism in the late 1980s and early 1990s when some socialists such as Robert Heilbronner felt compelled to concede that Mises had been right they still showed no sign of having grasped the fundamental reason why. Now the fate of my own argument was in many ways similar to that of Mises's proof most certainly given that we live today in an age of rampant legal ethical relativism of anything goes and a world in which private property rights have been almost everywhere and universally transformed into mere state granted or fiat property instead my argument concerned a matter of some importance for it implied a refutation of all forms of ethical relativism as self-contradictory doctrines and positively it implied that only the institution of private property in one's body and in prior possessions could ultimately be justified whereas any form of fiat property was argumentatively indefensible in any if anything then my argument concerned a matter of even greater and more fundamental importance than Mises's proof did nonetheless but not unexpectedly so my argument too was largely ignored but not entirely so. Murray Rothbard I'm particularly proud to say accepted my proof immediately as a breakthrough and so did Walter Block and Stefan Kinsella indeed only shorter after the shortly after the first English language presentation of my argument Kinsella brilliantly supplemented and expanded it by integrating it with a legal theory of estoppel that is the legal principle that bars a party from denying or alleging a certain fact owing to that party's previous conduct allegation or denial as well several more or less friendly reviews and discussions of my argument appeared in print a small symposium on my argument appeared in liberty magazine with both supporting fans and critical or hostile foes I replied to some of my early critics and their criticisms but then except for a few occasional asides let the matter rest not least because I was paid at the time to do economics and not philosophy some later critics in particular Robert Murphy and Gene Callahan who apparently accepted my libertarian conclusion but rejected my way of deriving at it without however presenting an alternative reason for their own beliefs were argumentatively demolished by Stefan Kinsella, Frank Vendan and also by Marianne Ehrbrazu the debate concerning my argument continued however and has in the meantime reached a substantial size thankfully Kinsella has documented and regularly updated the still growing literature on the subject now it is not my purpose here to give a summary account an assessment of the entire debate instead I want to take the opportunity to further clarify and elaborate on the elementary character and indeed the simplicity of my argument and along the way dispel some recurring misunderstandings in this I want to proceed in two consecutive steps first I will try to clarify the argument from argumentation itself and also the implied notion of ultimate justification and on the same hand of course of ultimate refutation of all forms of relativism and then in the second step I will try to clarify the specifically and decidedly libertarian implications that follow from the a priori of argumentation the question of how to begin philosophy that is the quest for a starting point is almost as old as philosophy itself in modern times Descartes for instance claimed his form famous cogito ergo sum as such a starting point mesis considered the fact that humans act that is that humans pursue anticipated ends with means whether successfully or not as such a starting point the later Wittgenstein sought of ordinary language as the ultimate point of departure others such as Karl Popper denied that any such starting point existed and could be found as a little reflection shows however none of this will quite do after all Descartes cogito is a proposition and its justification comes in the form of an argument and likewise mesis speaks about action as an ultimate datum and presents an argument namely that one cannot purposefully not act to justify his point of departure and similarly Wittgenstein's ordinary language philosophy is not just ordinary talk but claims to be true talk about talking that is a justification argument and as for relatives a la poppa to assert that there is no ultimate starting point and yet claim this proposition to be true is plain contradictory and self-defeating in short whatever has been claimed here as starting points or even if the existence of such a point has been denied they all unwittingly and as a matter of fact have affirmed the existence of one and the same point of departure namely argumentation and they could deny argumentation the status as the ultimate starting point only at pain of contradiction now this criticism of other philosophers is not meant to deny some partial truth of their various contributions indeed upon reflection we can recognize that every argumentation is also an action that is a purposeful pursuit of ends with the help of means leading back to mesis but not every action is an argumentation indeed most of our actions are not further we can recognize that argumentation is a speech act involving the use of a public language as a means to communicate with other speakers which leads back to Wittgenstein but not every speech act is an argumentation indeed most activities when we speak with each other have nothing to do with an argumentation as well we recognize that every argumentation and by implication also every speech act and every action whatsoever presuppose the existence of an acting speaking and arguing person which leads back to Descartes but it is only from the vantage point of an arguing person that the distinction between actions speech acts the so-called lower functions of language and argumentation as a highest function of language can be made and claimed to be true and as for Popper and Popperian critics it is certainly true that deductive arguments proceeding from premises to conclusions are only as good as the premises are that one can always ask for a justification of these premises and then of the premises of this justification and so on and on leading to an infinite regress however the argument presented here is not a deductive argument rather it is a transcendental argument directed at the skeptic by pointing out that even he must and in fact does accept an ultimate truth simply in order to be the skeptic that he is thus the skeptic would certain thus a skeptic could certainly deny that humans act speak and argue and claim instead that no they do not and in doing so he would not become involved in a formal or logical contradiction but in making this claim he would be involved in a performative pragmatic or dialectic contradiction because his words would be refuted by his actions that is by the very fact of claiming his words to be true argumentation then is a comparatively rare subclass of actions and more specifically also of speech acts motivated by a unique reason and aimed at a unique purpose it arises from interpersonal disagreement or conflict concerning the truth value of a particular proposition or argument and I'll say more on the difference between disagreements and conflicts in a little bit and it aims at the dissolution or resolution of this disagreement or conflict by means of argumentation as the unique method of justification one cannot deny this statement and claim such denial as true without actually affirming it by one's very act of denial that is without performative pragmatic or dialectic contradiction indeed to paraphrase frank van done to claim that you cannot or ought not to argue and take arguments seriously is to say that you cannot do what you actually are and claim to be doing it is like saying there are no reasons for claiming this or that to be true and here are the reasons for why there are no such reasons as well as fundan kealy observes youm's famous dictum that our reason is and ought to be the slave of our passions while not a contradiction in adjecto is in fact a performative or dialectic contradiction for you gives reasons and pays serious attention to reasons while claiming that no attention should be given to them in light of this inter insight into the nature and epistemological status of argumentation as a unique method of justification many objections directed at my original argument can be easily discarded it has been held against the argument from argumentation for instance that one can always refuse to engage in argumentation now this is of course true and I have never said anything to the contrary however this is not an objection to the argument in question whenever a person refuses to engage in argumentation he is also owed no argument in return he simply doesn't count as a rational person in regard to the question or problem at hand he is treated as someone to be ignored in the matter indeed someone always and on principle refusing to argumentatively justify any of his beliefs or actions whatsoever against anyone would no longer be considered and treated as a person at all he would be considered and treated instead as a wild thing or an outlaw his presence and his behavior would pose for us a merely technical problem that is he would be treated like a little child screaming no at everything said to him and or like an animal that is as something to be controlled domesticated tamed drilled trained or coached another objection to my argument from argumentation advanced repeatedly and by several opponents in a seemingly most serious manner actually better qualifies as a joke it boils down to the claim that even if true my argument is irrelevant and inconsequential now why because the ethics of argumentation according to them is valid and binding only at the moment and for the duration of argumentation itself and even then only for those actually participating in this now curiously these critics do not notice that this thesis if it were true would have to apply to themselves also and hence render their own criticism irrelevant and inconsequential also their criticism itself then would be just talk for the sake of talking without any consequence outside of talking for according to their own thesis what they say about argumentation is true only when and while we are saying it and has no relevance outside the context of argumentation and moreover that what they say to be true is true only for the parties actually involved in argumentation or even only for them alone if and so far as there is no actual opponent and what they say they are just saying in an internal dialogue to themselves but why then should anyone waste his time and pay attention to such merely personal truth more importantly and to the point in fact these critics are of course not engaged in idle talk or a mere joke but in serious argumentation that is in the presentation of something that they would call a counter argument and as such and in this capacity then they become inescapably entangled in a performative or dialectic contradiction because they what they actually do claim what they say about argumentation is true inside and outside of argumentation that is whether one actually argues or not and that it is true not only for them but for everyone capable of argumentation that is contrary to what they say they actually pursue a purpose above and beyond the exchange of words itself argumentation is a means to an end and not an end it itself it is a very purpose of argumentation to overcome an initial disagreement or conflict regarding some rival truth claim and to change one's former beliefs or actions depending on the outcome of argumentation that is argumentation implies that one ought to accept the consequences of its outcome otherwise why argue hence it is a performative or dialectic contradiction to say for instance let us argue about whether or not minimum wage loss increase unemployment and then add and then let us regardless of the outcome of our debate continue to believe what we believe beforehand similarly it would be self contradictory for a judge in a trial to say let us find out who of two contending parties peter and paul is right or wrong and then ignore the outcome of the trial and let peter go even if found guilty or punish paul even if found innocent equally silly some critics have charged me for supposedly claiming falsely that the truth of a proposition depends on someone making this proposition but nowhere did I claim any such silly thing certainly that the earth orbits around the sun that water runs downward or that one plus one is true is true whether we argue about it or not argumentation does not make something true rather argumentation is a method of for justifying propositions as true or false when brought up for consideration likewise the existence of property or proper and property rights or wrongs does not depend on the fact that someone argues to this effect rather property and property rights or wrongs are justified when up for contention now with this I come to the second part of my clarification namely the libertarian implications of the ethics of argumentation for this it is first necessary to point out the obvious fact that all argumentation has a propositional content whenever we argue we argue about something this can be argumentation itself that is the very subject that I have been speaking about so far but the content can be all sorts of things they can be matters of fact or cause and effect such as whether or not global warming presently exists and is man-made or whether or not an increase in the money supply will lead to greater overall prosperity but they can also be about normative matters whether such as whether or not the possession the actual control of something by someone implies his rightful ownership of the thing in question or if slavery or taxation are justified or not in short argumentation can be either about facts or it can be about norms the source of an argumentation about facts is what I shall call a disagreement and its purpose is to resolve this disagreement and affect a change to the better in one's own factual beliefs so as to make actions motivated by these beliefs more successful in the future the source of an argumentation about norms on the other hand is conflict and its purpose is to resolve this conflict and affect a change in one's system of values so as to better avoid future conflict in the original presentation of my argument I was exclusively concerned about the second matter of normative justification and this is also the central topic here but I have to come to have come to realize that in order to better understand the nature of an argumentation about norms it is instructive to first look briefly by way of contrast at an argumentation about facts how is a factual disagreement settled within an argument argumentative setting now that depends of course first on the subject matter of the disagreement and then on the methods the actions and operations to be employed in order to come to a conclusion and decide between the rival truce claims under consideration what methods are appropriate for for a given purpose what if anything must be observed how and under what circumstances what needs to be measured and by means of what measuring standards or device what other purposefully constructed tools instruments machines and so forth must be at hand and in working condition in order to gather the relevant data is there anything that must be counted or calculated must time and time lags be considered and time be measured must and can a controlled experiment be set up are we aiming to establish a correlation or are we looking for causation or is it a matter of meaning and understanding rather than measuring that is of concern is a matter of contention at all an empirical matter or is it a logical matter instead that must and can be settled by deductive reasoning or geometric mathematical or praxeological proof and finally when one has settled on the question which methods to choose for a given purpose these methods tools and operations must be put into action and practiced the relevant data must be actually collected and the measurements calculations experiments tests or proofs actually taken and performed so as to bring the initial disagreement to a possible conclusion now what makes this endeavor of solving some factual disagreement and argumentative justification first and most obvious both disputants indeed everyone concerned about the matter of contention must consider each other as another person equally independent and each with his own separate physical body that is no person is to exercise physical control over any other person's body without his ascent during the entire undertaking rather each person acts and speaks on his own so as to make it possible that everyone may arrive at the same resolution on his own independently and autonomously and then accept the conclusion as in his own self-interest nor presumably is any person involved in the undertaking threatened paid off or bribed by any other to merely pretend to argue and pronounce instead regardless of the outcome a predetermined verdict now while all of this is generally recognized and accepted as a matter of course by the scientific community another requirement is often overlooked and yet it is in particular this requirement that best brings out the crucial difference between factual and normative argumentation not only must everyone engaged in the endeavor of resolving some factual disagreement be equally respected and assured in his own personal bodily integrity to speak of an argumentation or argument argumentative justification it is also necessary that each person must have equal access to all data and all means implements instruments or tools methodically required to decide the question at hand so that each person may perform the same action and operation and replicate the results on his own that is if it is necessary in order to resolve some factual disagreement for instance to use paper and pencil a yardstick a clock a calculator a microscope or a telescope or simply some ground on which to stand and make one's observation then no one may be denied access to such devices in fact it would be contrary to the purpose of an argumentation about facts and hence entail a dialectic contradiction for any one person to save to anyone else for instance we disagree regarding the height of this building or the speed of that car and to bring this disagreement to a resolution we need a yardstick and a clock but i deny you access to a yardstick and a clock but and with this i come slowly to my central concern argumentation about normative matters that is of right and wrong it would not entail a performative or dialectic contradiction if i denied you access to this or that instrument or tool or this or that standing room if the source and content of our argumentation is a conflict rather than a mere disagreement that is if you and i have different and incompatible plans interests and goals regarding the instruments tools and standing room in question then my refusal to permit you access to this or that may be justified or maybe not justified but it would not itself be a self contradictory demand now it is characteristic it is the characteristic mark of an argumentation about facts that for the duration of the argumentation a harmony of interests among all participating parties must prevail all property disputes are temporarily suspended and also the outcome of the argumentation argumentation has no consequences or repercussions for the subsequent distribution of property to bring a factual disagreement to a conclusion every actual or potential participant must perform it is expected by everyone else to perform the same actions and operations with the same or the similar kind of objects as long as the argumentation lasts everyone does what everyone else expects and wants him to do all act in harmony with one another and at the end after some at least temporary conclusion has been reached everyone with his newly learned lesson returns back to his normal life in which everyone everything else remains and stays the same way as before yet in this normal life then people do not only encounter factual disagreements indeed as an empirical matter at least in the life of an adult person factual disagreements giving rise to argumentation are comparatively rare because the most fundamental and elementary facts about the composition and the inner workings of the external world are long recognized accepted and taken for granted by everyone in his daily life so as to never rise to the level of serious doubt and if and whenever any serious doubt concerning the truth value of some factual claim does arise such disagreements are generally routinely and methodically brought to some at least temporary settlement and accepted quickly and without any resistance by all interested party rather than factual disagreements then it is the experience of conflicts that motivates most serious argumentation and it is argumentation about conflicts that generates our most intense interests now conflicts arise whenever two actors want and try to use one and the same physical means the same body the same standing room the same external objects for the attainment of different goals that is when their interests regarding such means are not harmonious but incompatible or antagonistic two actors cannot at the same time use the same physical means for alternative purposes if they try to do so they must clash only one person's will or that of another person can prevail but not both whenever we argue with one another about matter of conflicts then we demonstrate that it is our purpose to find a peaceful argumentative solution to some given conflict we have agreed not to fight but to argue instead and we demonstrate as well that we are willing to respect the outcome of our trial of arguments indeed to argue otherwise and say for instance let us not fight but argue whose will is to prevail in our conflict but at the end of our argumentation and irrespective of the outcome I will fight you anyway would entail a performative or dialectic contradiction to say so contradicts the very purpose of argumentation the task faced by any opponent and proponent engaged in an argumentation about conflict then is to find a peaceful resolution not only for the conflict at hand but also for all potential future conflicts so as to be able to interact henceforth with one another in a conflict free and peaceful manner despite and notwithstanding each other's differing interests whether now or in the future the definitive answer to this problem is provided by a brief analysis of the logic of action that is by method of praxeological reasoning logically to avoid all future interpersonal conflict it is only necessary that every good every physical thing employed as a means in the pursuit of human ends be always and at all times owned privately that is be controlled exclusively by one specific person or voluntary partnership or association rather than another and that it be always recognizable and clear which good is owned by whom and which is not or owned by someone else then the interests the plans and the purposes of different actors can be as different as may as they can be and yet no conflict will arise between them as long as their actions involve exclusively the use of their own private property and leave the property of others alone and physically intact but this is only part of the answer because then immediately the next question arises of how to accomplish such a complete and unambiguous privatization of all economic goods peacefully that is without generating and leading itself to conflict how can physical things become someone's private property in the first place and how can interpersonal conflict in the appropriation of physical things be avoided now praxeological analysis also yields a conclusive answer to these questions for one to avoid conflict it is necessary that the appropriation of things as means is affected through actions rather than through mere words declarations or decrease because only through a person's actions taking place at a particular place and time can an objective and intersubjectively ascertainable link between a particular person and a particular thing and in its extension and boundary be established and hence can rival ownership claims be settled in an objective manner and secondly not every recognizable taking of things into one's possession is peaceful and can thus be argumentatively justified only the first appropriator of some previously unappropriated thing can acquire this thing peacefully and without conflict and only his possession then can be regarded as his property for by definition as the first appropriator he cannot have run into conflict with anyone else in appropriating the good in question as everyone else appeared on the scene only later and any latecomer then can take possession of the things in question only with the first commerce consent either because the first come ahead voluntarily transferred his property to him in which case and from which time on he then becomes its exclusive owner or else because the first come ahead granted him some conditional use rights concerning his property in which case he did not become the thing's owner but its rightful possessor indeed to argue contrary to this and say that a latecomer independent irrespective of the will of the first possessor of some given thing should be regarded as its owner entails a performative or dialectic contradiction because this would lead to endless conflict rather than eternal peace and hence be contrary to the very purpose of argumentation if different persons want to live in peace with one another conceivably from the beginning of mankind until its end and in arguing about conflict they obviously demonstrate that they want to do this then only one solution exists that I shall call the principle of prior possessions all just and lawful and argumentatively justifiable possessions whether in the form of outright property or as rightful possessions go back directly or indirectly through a chain of conflict free and hence mutually beneficial property title transfers to prior and ultimately original appropriators and acts of original appropriation or production and vice versa all possessions of things by some person that are neither the result of his prior appropriation or production nor as a result of voluntary and conflict free acquisition from a prior appropriator producer of these things are unjust and unlawful and hence argumentatively unjustifiable possessions the question to be settled in an argumentative dispute between a proponent and an opponent then does not really concern a matter of principle anymore because the principle of prior possession itself cannot be argumentatively denied without falling into contradiction it is an ultimate given and can be recognized as a priori valid under dispute between a proponent and an opponent can only be matters of fact that is whether or not the principle had been correctly adhered to and applied in all instances whether the proponents each and every current possessions was acquired justly in accordance with the principle of prior possession or whether the opponent of the status quo of current possessions can demonstrate the existence of a prior and only relinquished titled to of his to some or all but not quite all as I will explain in a moment to some or all of the proponents present possessions and the principle of prior possessions also implies that in any dispute between a proponent and an opponent about rival property claims concerning some particular means of action it is always the current and present distribution of property among contending parties that serves as a first and prima facie evidence for deciding their contentious claim prima facie the present possessor of the thing in question appears to be its prior possessor and hence its rightful owner and the burden of proof to the contrary that is the demonstration that the evidence provided by the status quo is false and deceptive is always on the opponent of the present state of affairs he must make his case and if he can't then not only remains everything as before but the opponent then actually also proponent compensation for the misuse made of his time in having to defend himself against the opponent's unjustified claims made against him which reduces the likelihood of frivolous accusations and moreover it is not just the principle and the procedure to apply it in any debate between a proponent and opponent that's irrefutably given it is also one elementary fact that is so given and beyond any dispute which leads me back to the just mentioned restrictions of all but not quite all and the argument from argumentation itself for while it is a contingent empirical question which external good is or is not rightfully owned by whom and while in principle it is possible to place any current possession of any and all external goods by any one person into doubt as regards its lawfulness this is not the case and it is not possible to do so with respect to anyone person's physical body as his primary means of action no one can consistently argue that he is the rightful owner of another person's body now he can say so of course but in doing so and seeking another person's assent to this claim he becomes involved in a contradiction hence it is and can be recognized as an a priori truth that each person is the rightful owner of the physical body that he naturally comes with and has been born with and that he has directly appropriated prior and before any other person could possibly do so indirectly by means of his own body no argumentation between a proponent and an opponent is possible without recognizing and respecting each other as independent and separate persons with their own independent and separate bodies their bodies do not physically clash or collide but they argue with one another and hence they must recognize and respect the borders and boundaries of their separate and independent bodies now some critics have argued this this does not demonstrate that a person's ownership that this does not demonstrate the person's ownership of his entire body but at best only parts of it why because to argue it is not necessary to use all body parts and true enough you do not need two kidneys two eyes or an appendix to argue indeed you also do not need your body hair or even arms and legs to argue and hence according to these critics you cannot claim to be the lawful owner of your two kidneys or eyes your legs and arms yet this objection is not only does not only appear silly after all it implies first the recognition of these unnecessary parts as natural parts of one unitary body rather than as separate standalone entities more importantly it involves philosophically speaking a category mistake the critics simply confuse the physiology of argumentation and action with the logic of argumentation and action and this confusion is particularly surprising coming from economists and even more so from economists familiar with praxeology for the fundamental distinction made in economics between labor on the one hand and land on the other hand as a two originary means of production which of course corresponds exactly to the distinctions that are made here between body and external world is also not a physiological or physicalistic distinction but a praxeological one the question to be answered is not which body parts are physiological necessary requirements for one person arguing with another person rather the question is which parts of my body and which parts of your body can I or you argumentatively justify as my or your lawful possessions and to this a clear and unambiguous answer exists I am the lawful owner of my nature given body with everything naturally in it and attached to it and you are the lawful owner of your entire nature given body any argument to the contrary would land its proponent in a performative contradiction for me to say for instance in an argumentation with you that you do not rightfully own all of your nature given body is contradicted by the fact that in so arguing and not fighting with you I must recognize and treat you as another person with a separate body and recognizably separate physical both separate different physical borders and borders from me and my body to argue that you do not lawfully own your entire natural body which you actually possess and have peacefully taken into possession before I could have possibly done so indirectly by means of my own natural body is to advocate conflict and bodily clash and hence contrary to the purpose of argumentation namely of peacefully resolving a present conflict and avoiding future conflict all I could possibly claim without immediate contradiction is that you do not own all of your current body because not all of its current part are its natural parts that some current body parts are artificial parts that is parts that you had acquired and attached to your natural given body only later and indirectly I could claim for instance that your kidney is not lawfully yours because you were not born with it but had taken it against my will from my body and implanted it in yours yet in all cases such as this then in accordance with the principle of prior possession the burden of proof is on me that is the opponent of the status quo of body parts a similar category mistake that is a fundamental confusion of the empirics of argumentation on the one hand and the logic of argumentation and argumentative justification on the other is a source also of another repeatedly and from several sides presented refutation of the argument from argumentation this refutation consists of the simple observation namely the fact that slaves can argue with their slave masters therefore with slaves being able to argue so the conclusion my claim that argumentation presupposes self-ownership and libertarian property rights is empirically falsified no astonishingly I should have never sought of the existence of slaves and slavery but I did not claim that in order for one person to argue with another full libertarian property rights must be recognized and in place which of course would imply at least under present circumstances that no one ever could engage in argumentation with anyone else since no one at the current situation does have full property rights for libertarian rights and that argumentation under any other less than libertarian conditions is impossible now of course a slave and its slave master can engage in argumentation indeed argumentation is possible under practically all empirical circumstances as long as every participant can only say and do what he says and does on his own and no one is threatened or made to say so hence the criticism leveled against the argument from argumentation is completely irrelevant and beside the point the argument is not an empirical proposition about whether or not argumentation between one person and another and non-libertarian conditions can coexist accordingly it is also cannot be countered and refuted by any empirical evidence rather the argument concerns the categorically different question whether the existence of non-libertarian conditions can or cannot be argumentatively justified without running into a performative contradiction and with regard to this question the answer is rather straightforward a slave master can argue with his slave concerning the truth value for instance of the law of gravitation or the existence of invisible germs and if he were permitted and if he were to permit the slave access to all means and data necessary to bring the contentious matter to a conclusion his arguing with the slave would not involve any contradiction but constitute indeed a genuine argumentation but matters are quite different when it comes to an argumentation between the slave master and slave about the subject of slavery that is the conditions under which their argumentation takes place in this case if the slave master would say to the slave let's not fight but argue about the justification of slavery and he would thereby recognize the slave as another separate and independent person with his own mind and body he then would have to let the slave go free and leave and if he would say instead so what I have recognized you momentarily as another independent person with your own mind and body but now at the end of our dispute I prevent you from leaving anyway then he would be involved in a performative or dialectic contradiction this conversation between slave master and slave would not constitute a genuine argumentation but be at best an idle or even cruel parlor game and the same response of you are simply confused then also applies to those critics who try to double down on but slaves can argue to argument by dragging up additional counter examples yes true enough a person in jail can also engage in argumentation with his jailer and a person subjected to taxation can also argue with a taxman indeed who has ever doubted that however the question to be answered and the one addressed by the ethics of argumentation is if the current status of the person in jail or subject to taxation can be argumentatively justified or not the jailer would have to demonstrate that the jailed had previously violated the argumentatively indisputable principle of prior possessions and thus committed an unlawful action or crime and that the current restrictions imposed on his movements and prior possession of the jailed were justified in light of his earlier crime and if the jailer could not and would not or could not provide such empirical proof of a prior crime of the jailed and he then still did not let the jailed go free and restored him to his prior possession then the jailer would not be engaged in argumentation but in a mock debate and it would be he who was guilty of a crime and likewise for any verbal dispute between the taxman and the text the taxman in order to argumentatively justify his claim to any of the tax subjects current possessions would have to demonstrate that he is in possession of a prior debt contract or some sort of rental contract that would justify his present claim to any of his opponent's current possessions and if he would not or could not provide any such evidence and of course no taxman ever could then he would have to give up on his demand and if he would not do so but instead insisted on payment his verbal exchange with the text subject to would not qualify as a genuine argumentation but only as a mock trial and it would be the taxman who was an outlaw and that is that and I think the ethics of argumentation as I initially presented stands so far without any serious objections thank you very much