Speech Acts

HOW TO DO THINGS WITH WORDS

Verificationist Holdovers

According to verificationism, the meaning of a sentence is the set of experiences that verify it. (If we had those experiences, we would know the sentence was true).

Thus if a sentence can’t in principle be known to be true, then it’s meaningless.

Verificationist Holdovers

Even if we reject verificationism, we’ve seen that some philosophers adopt a truth-conditions approach to sentence meaning: a sentence means the set of circumstances under which it is true.

Thus if a sentence can’t in principle be true, then it is meaningless.

But perhaps some uses of language are meaningful, even though they do not make statements that are truth-evaluable.

Examples

“I do.” [said at a wedding ceremony] “I apologize.” [said after I stepped on your toe] “I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth.” [while breaking a champagne bottle on a ship] “I bet you a dollar it will rain tomorrow.”

Performative Verbs

Admit, advise, affirm, agree, apologize, assert, beseech, bet, christen, command, concede, congratulate, consent, declare, macarize, name, order, renounce, request, state, warn

Saying and Doing

When someone utters a performative statement, she is not only saying something but also doing something • I consent to be married when I say ‘I do.’• I apologize to you when I say ‘I apologize.’• I christen the ship when I say ‘I name this ship the

Queen Elizabeth.’• I offer a bet to you when I say ‘I bet you a dollar it

will rain tomorrow.’

Properties of Performatives

They are declarative statements, in the indicative mood. They all involve the first-person pronoun ‘I.’

These utterances are not plausibly thought of as being true or false.

Describing vs. Performing

Performative utterances do not describe, or do not merely describe. When I say ‘I apologize,’ I am not reporting some inner mental state of apologizing. My saying ‘I apologize’ constitutes my apology.

Really Promising

It’s easy to fall into the trap, however, of thinking performatives are reports.

For example, we might think that we can say ‘I promise to be there tomorrow’ without really promising. If there is this gap, we might construe the statement as a report that could be true or false, depending on whether I really promise.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that, say, getting married is merely a matter of saying ‘I do,’ but that saying ‘I do’ is part of, or partly constitutes, getting married.

Performative utterances ‘imply’ that certain conditions hold, but this is not the same as describing those conditions.• Saying ‘I do’ implies (in some sense of ‘imply)

that I’m not already married.• Saying ‘I bet you a dollar’ implies that I’m

willing to take a certain bet.

Rules Enabling Performatives

Rule 1: A convention governing a certain use of an utterance, and licensing it to perform its function, must be in place at the time of the utterance. Rule 2: The circumstances where we use the performative must be ‘appropriate’—that is, they must actually be governed by the relevant convention.

Rule 1 may be violated in a case where I say to my wife ‘I divorce you.’ Since there’s no recognized convention by which one can divorce one’s wife by saying that, I have not actually succeeded in divorcing my wife.

Rule 2 may be violated in a case where Caligula says to his horse ‘I appoint you consul.’ Since the emperor can appoint consuls by saying these words, the relevant convention exists. But it does not apply, because the convention governs appointing humans as consul.

Rule 2 Violation?

Here was a case in one of the papers: A baby is born, but switched in the hospital with another baby, and no one realizes this. The baby is baptized ‘Richard.’ Later, it’s discovered that there has been a switch. Intuition: that baby is not Richard.

Other Infelicities

There may be other sorts of infelicities: I may say ‘I promise to take you to the store tomorrow,’ and have no intention on carrying through. Here we say I have still promised, but done so insincerely. And of course we can also utter performatives while play-acting, and thus not actually perform anything.

Tense Asymmetry

There’s a difference between saying ‘I promise’ (present tense) and ‘I promised’ (past tense).• The first is an act of promising, and not a

report of such an act.• The second is a report of an act of promising,

and not itself a promise.

Person Asymmetry

There’s a difference between saying ‘I promise’ (first person) and ‘you promise’ or ‘he promises’ (second and third person, respectively).• The first again is an act of promising, not a

report.• The other two are reports, and not themselves

promises.

Second Standard Form

Austin considers another form performatives may take. Examples he gives include:• ‘Passengers are warned to cross the line by

bridge only’• ‘You are hereby authorized to do so-and-so’

Second Standard Form

These cases have several unique features that distinguish them from the other type of performative utterances:• They’re in passive, rather than active voice.• They have non-first-person subjects.• They all admit of adding ‘hereby.’

The Breakdown of Grammatical Criteria

‘I order you to shut the door’ is a clear case of a performative utterance: uttering it partly constitutes ordering someone to shut the door (in the appropriate circumstances) But uttering ‘Shut the door’ seems to perform the same act, whereas this latter form does not meet the earlier grammatical criteria for performatives.

Example

Similarly, uttering ‘You are hereby warned that this bull is dangerous’ constitutes warning someone that the bull is dangerous, but so do:• ‘This bull is dangerous’• ‘Dangerous bull!’• ‘Bull!’

Explicit and Primary

Austin thus proposes to distinguish between explicit performatives (namely those of the form ‘I…’ or ‘You [he] are [is] hereby…’ and followed by verbs that exhibit the appropriate asymmetries) and primary performatives (performatives not in the first category, like ‘Shut the door’).

Explicit vs. Primary

The number of explicit performative verbs is large, but it is nevertheless finite; we should be able to write down a list of all the explicit performatives.

Primary performatives are often “ambiguous” in that we are not always clear what act is being performed.

‘Open the Door’

For example, an utterance of ‘open the door’ may perform several distinct functions, in varying circumstances:• As an order, from a superior officer to an

inferior one• As a request, from one friend to another• As an entreaty, from a captive to a captor, etc.

‘I Shall Be There’

Similarly, uttering ‘I shall be there’ may perform several distinct functions:• Promising to show up• Expressing one’s intention to show up• Predicting one’s future behavior, etc.

Stating vs. Showing

This, Austin suspects, is why explicit performatives exist: sometimes we want to make it clear whether we are ordering or merely entreating; or to make it clear whether we are promising or predicting.But this doesn’t mean they state what we’re doing; rather, Austin says, they show what we’re doing. Analogy: tipping your hat to someone shows that you’re greeting them, but does not state that you’re doing so.

Unlexicalized Performatives

But not all possible performatives have an explicit counterpart.

You can reprimand someone by saying ‘I am hereby reprimanding you,’ but you can’t insult someone by saying ‘I am hereby insulting you.’

Expressives

There are many less-than-clear cases of performatives. Consider what we might call ‘expressives’:

To utter ‘hooray’ is to thereby cheer. But is it a performative? Yes and no.To utter ‘damn’ is to thereby curse. But is it a performative? Yes and no.

‘I Am Sorry’

Or consider the unfortunate locution ‘I am sorry’• Sometimes one who utters it thereby makes

an apology. (“sorry that”)• Sometimes one who utters it describes his or

her feelings. (“sorry for”)• Sometimes the case is underdetermined: the

person could be doing either.

Evaluatives

Finally, consider evaluative statements: the umpire says ‘he’s out!’ The umpire definitely seems to be calling the player out in uttering the sentence. But the sentence is also answerable to the facts: he may not have been out; the umpire may have gotten it wrong. This seems like a hybrid performance/ statement.

Moore’s Paradox

This sentence seems weird:

‘It’s raining but I don’t believe that it’s raining.’

And yet there’s nothing absurd about it raining while I am unaware that it is.

Similarly Strange Performatives

‘I promise that I shall be there, but I haven’t the least intention of being there.’

‘I congratulate you on your success, but I’m not glad that you’re successful and I don’t believe you earned it.’

SPEECH ACTS

3 Kinds of Linguistic Acts

For Austin there are 3 kinds of linguistic acts:Locutionary actsPhonetic: making soundsPhatic: making sounds that are linguisticRhetic: making meaningful linguistic soundsIllocutionary actsPerlocutionary acts

Illocutionary Acts

‘Illocutionary’ is ‘in’ + ‘locutionary’– in plain English, ‘in saying.’ It is the act performed in saying what you said, like promising, betting, or asserting.

E.g. “In saying ‘I will kill you’ the defendant threatened to kill Mr. X.”

Perlocutionary Acts

Illocutionary acts are to be distinguished from perlocutionary acts. ‘Per’ + ‘locutionary’– ‘by saying.’ They’re what you do by saying what you said.

Illocutionary acts, as we’ve seen, are conventional (Rule 2). Perlocutionary acts on the other hand are the natural effects of saying.

Examples

Boring, harassing, irritating, pleasing, or persuading someone by saying what you said are examples of perlocutionary acts.

My giving a lecture on Austin doesn’t conventionally constitute boring you, even if it as a matter of causal law does in fact bore you.

SEARLE

In “The Structure of Illocutionary Acts,” Searle’s goal is an analysis of promising. The idea is to look at a very clear case of an illocutionary act, and maybe that will reveal something about all of them.

Main question: What circumstances have to obtain for you to have promised something?

The Analysis

Abbreviations:S = the SpeakerH = the HearerT = the senTencep = what is promisedWhenever S utters T in the presence of H, S promises p to H iff Conditions 1-8 obtain.

Input & Output

Condition 1: Normal input and output conditions obtain.

Both S and H speak the language. S is capable of speaking and H is capable of hearing. Both are currently conscious and paying attention. They are not acting in a play…

Propositional Content Conditions

Condition 2: S expresses the proposition that p in the utterance of H.

Condition 3: In expressing that p, S predicates a future act A of S.

Benefit

Condition 4: H would prefer S’s doing A to his not doing A, and S believes H would prefer his doing A to his not doing A.

A threat is the opposite. When you threaten someone, you predicate a future act of yourself that you think your hearer would disprefer.

Using “Promise” as Commitment

Searle considers two potential counterexamples:

“If you don’t hand in your paper on time, I promise I’ll give you a failing grade.”

“I didn’t steal the money, I promise.”

Preparatory Conditions

Condition 5: It’s not obvious to both S and H that S will do A in the normal course of events.

Searle observes “A happily married man who promises his wife he will not desert her in the next week is likely to provide more anxiety than comfort.” Conditions 4 and 5 are the “preparatory conditions.”

The Sincerity Condition

Condition 6: S intends to do A.

If you “promise” something and you don’t intend to do it, you’re insincere. Searle assumes that condition 6 entails that S believes doing A is possible.

Insincere Promises

There’s a genuine question here whether you haven’t really promised if you don’t intend to do what you “promised.” Austin and Searle both think the answer is no– you have promised, just insincerely. So Searle proposes an amended condition 6:

Condition 6a: S intends that the utterance of T will make him responsible for intending to do A.

Condition 7: S intends that the utterance of T will place him under an obligation to do A.

Condition 8: S has an intention I to produce in H the knowledge K that the utterance of T is to count as placing S under an obligation to do A. S intends to produce K by means of the recognition of I, and he intends I to berecognized in virtue of H’s knowledge of the meaning of T.

Condition 9: The semantical rules of the dialect spoken by S and H are such that T is correctly and sincerely uttered if and only if conditions 1-8 obtain.

Summary

Propositional content rule: A promise has to predicate a future act of the speaker.Preparatory rules: The act must be one the speaker wouldn’t obviously do anyway, and it has to be one that benefits the hearer.Sincerity rule: The speaker must intend to do the act in question, or else she is insincere.Essential rule: Saying what she does must count as undertaking the obligation to perform the act

Orders

Propositional content: Must predicate an act of the hearer.Preparatory: The speaker is in a position of authority over the hearer & the hearer won’t obviously do the act anyway.Sincerity: The speaker wants the ordered act to be done by the hearer.Essential: The act counts as an attempt to get the speaker to do the action.

Thank

Propositional conent: The speaker predicates a past act of the hearer.Preparatory: The past act benefited the speaker, and the speaker believes that it does.Sincerity: The speaker appreciates the act in question.Essential: The speaker’s saying what she says counts as an expression of gratitude.

SILENCING