Hatcher argues against postmodernism saying that it is obvious that we can have meaningful discussion in which people change their minds.  That is, we can be rational.  He then suggests that we follow a certain outline in our discourse which he call "obvious."  This outline requires us to be "logical" (in a technical sense) and that we agree before hand that tactics one side uses can be used by the other (which he calls the "Principle of Reciprocity.)  He also says that the postmoderns should present logical arguments (following these rules) and if they don't no one should believe them. 

He claims, rightly I think, that postmoderns have a contextualist epistemology in which truth is understood to determined only within a language game, of which there are many.  If I were to say "She is hot," this is true or not depending on whether we are talking about her fever, her temperature discomfort, or whether she is a real babe.  There are many other possibilities as well.  Restricting truth determination to language games is what Hatcher is calling "contextualist epistemology." 

I think Hatcher presents his argument well.  He argues that contextualist epistemology is self-contradictory.  He says, "So, if contextualism were true, no one could be in a position to know it, and if anyone could be in a position to know it, contextualism would be false. "  His point is, that if things can only be determined to be true within language games (or certain regions of language) then we cannot even determine if contextualist epistemology is true! 

His mistake, I think, is in thinking that we can't have a universal language game, too.  In addition to saying that "She is hot," we could say (with more thermal warming, perhaps), "Everyone is hot."  The question of whether this would be true could be determined within a language game, by asking people if they were hot if we were talkinga about temperature discomfort, or by checking people's fever, or (if we're not now talking about thermal warming, but erotic warming), commenting on the status of our universal sexuality. 

I think Hatcher's view is flawed, but then perhaps I am arguing from within a different language game than he is. Hatcher's language game has no rules for determining truth except logical ones. Unfortunately, if we can follow logical rules but change languge games in the middle of the argument we generate paradoxes and falsehoods. For example, consider the following logically correct argument.