According to the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation, for analysing argumentative discourse, a normative reconstruction is required which encompasses four kinds of transformations. It is explained in this paper how speech act conditions can play a part in carrying out such a reconstruction. It is argued that integrating Searlean insights concerning speech acts with Gricean insights concerning conversational maxims can provide us with the necessary tools. For this, the standard theory of speech acts has to be amended in (...) several respects and the conversational maxims have to be translated into speech act conditions. Making use of the rules for communication thus arrived at, and starting from the distribution of speech acts in a critical discussion as specified in the pragma-dialectical model, it is then demonstrated how indirect speech acts are to be transformed when reconstructing argumentative discourse. (shrink)

According to the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation, for analysing argumentative discourse, a normative reconstruction is required which encompasses four kinds of transformations. It is explained in this paper how speech act conditions can play a part in carrying out such a reconstruction. It is argued that integrating Searlean insights concerning speech acts with Gricean insights concerning conversational maxims can provide us with the necessary tools. For this, the standard theory of speech acts has to be amended in (...) several respects and the conversational maxims have to be translated into speech act conditions. Making use of the rules for communication thus arrived at, and starting from the distribution of speech acts in a critical discussion as specified in the pragma-dialectical model, it is then demonstrated how indirect speech acts are to be transformed when reconstructing argumentative discourse. (shrink)

Speech Acts, Criteria and Intentions What makes a speech act a speech act? Which are its necessary and sufficient conditions? I claim in this paper that we cannot find an answer to those questions in Austin's doctrine of the infelicities, since some infelicities take place in fully committing speech acts, whereas others prevent the utterance from being considered as a speech act at all. With this qualification in mind, I argue against the idea that intentions—considered (...) as mental states accomplishing a causal role in the performance of the act—should be considered among the necessary conditions of speech acts. I would thus like to deny a merely ‘symptomatic’ account of intentions, according to which we could never make anything but fallible hypotheses about the effective occurrence of any speech act. I propose an alternative ‘criterial’ account of the role of intentions in speech acts theory, and analyse Austin's and Searle's approaches in the light of this Wittgensteinian concept. Whether we consider, with Austin, that speech acts ‘imply’ mental states or, with Searle, that they ‘express’ them, we could only make sense of this idea if we considered utterances as criteria for intentions, and not as alleged behavioural effects of hidden mental causes. (shrink)

Speech act theory seems to provide a promising avenue for the analysis of the functional organization of argument. The theory, however, might be taken to suggest that arguments are a homogenous class of speech act with a specifiable illocutionary force and a single set of felicity conditions. This suggestion confuses the analysis of the meaning of speech act verbs with the analysis of the pragmatic structure of actual language use. Suggesting that arguments are conveyed through a homogeneous (...) class of linguistic action overlooks the way in which the context of activity and the form of expression organize the argumentative functions performed in using language. An alternative speech act analysis would treat folk terminology as a heuristic entry point into the development of a technical analysis of the myriad argumentative functions and structures to be found in natural language use. This would lead to a thorough-going pragmatic analysis of the rational and functional design of speech acts in argumentation. (shrink)

I defend the view that linguistic meaning is a relation borne by an expression to a type of speech act, and that this relation holds in virtue of our overlapping communicative dispositions, and not in virtue of linguistic conventions. I argue that this theory gives the right account of the semantics–pragmatics interface and the best-available semantics for non-declarative clauses, and show that it allows for the construction of a rigorous compositional semantic theory with greater explanatory power than both truth-conditional (...) and dynamic semantics. (shrink)

Abstract: One oft-cited feature of speech acts is their expressive character: Assertion expresses belief, apology regret, promise intention. Yet expression, or at least sincere expression, is as I argue a form of showing: A sincere expression shows whatever is the state that is the sincerity condition of the expressive act. How, then, can a speech act show a speaker's state of thought or feeling? To answer this question I consider three varieties of showing, and argue that only one (...) of them is suited to help us answer our question. I also argue that concepts from the evolutionary biology of communication provide one source of insight into how speech acts enable one to show, and thereby express, a psychological state. (shrink)

In bilateral systems for classical logic, assertion and denial occur as primitive signs on formulas. Such systems lend themselves to an inferentialist story about how truth-conditional content of connectives can be determined by inference rules. In particular, for classical logic there is a bilateral proof system which has a property that Carnap in 1943 called categoricity. We show that categorical systems can be given for any finite many-valued logic using $n$-sided sequent calculus. These systems are understood as a further development (...) of bilateralism—call it multilateralism. The overarching idea is that multilateral proof systems can incorporate the logic of a variety of denial speech acts. So against Frege we say that denial is not the negation of assertion and, with Mark Twain, that denial is more than a river in Egypt. (shrink)

It is now generally recognized that figures such as Reid, Peirce, and Reinach formulated theories of speech acts avant la lettre of Austin and Searle, in Reid and Reinach’s cases under the heading ‘theory of social acts’. Here we address the question as to what conditions would have to be satisfied for such theories to count as ‘theories of speech acts’ in the now familiar sense.

There are certain illocutionary acts that, contrary to John Searle's speech act theory, cannot be correctly classified as assertives. Searle's sincerity and essential conditions on assertives require, plausibly, that we believe our assertions and that we are committed to their truth. Yet it is a commonly accepted scientific practice to propose and investigate an hypothesis without believing it or being at all committed to its truth. Searle's attempt to accommodate such conjectural acts by claiming that the degree of belief (...) and of commitment expressed by some assertives “may approach or even reach zero“ is unsuccessful, since it evacuates his thesis that these are substantive necessary conditions on assertives of any force. The illocutionary acts in question are central to scientific activity and so cannot be plausibly ignored by a theory of speech acts. The problem is not limited simply to Searle's theory, since even theories which depart markedly from Searle's in other respects are often committed to similar characterizations of assertion. (shrink)

In this paper a dialogue game for critical discussion is developed. The dialogue game is a formalisation of the ideal discussion model that is central to the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation. The formalisation is intended as a preparatory step to facilitate the development of computational tools to support the pragma-dialectical study of argumentation. An important dimension of the pragma-dialectical discussion model is the role played by speech acts. The central issue addressed in this paper is how the speech (...) act perspective can be accommodated in the formalisation as a dialogue game. The starting point is an existing ‘basic’ dialogue game for critical discussion, in which speech acts are not addressed. The speech act perspective is introduced into the dialogue game by changing the rules that govern the moves that can be made and the commitments that these result in, while the rules for the beginning, for the end, and for the structure of the dialogue game remain unchanged. The revision of the move rules is based on the distribution of speech acts in the pragma-dialectical discussion model. The revision of the commitment rules is based on the felicity conditions that are associated with those speech acts. (shrink)

This paper attempts to explain what a protest is by using the resources of speech-act theory. First, we distinguish the object, redress, and means of a protest. This provided a way to think of atomic acts of protest as having dual communicative aspects, viz., a negative evaluation of the object and a connected prescription of redress. Second, we use Austin’s notion of a felicity condition to further characterize the dual communicative aspects of protest. This allows us to distinguish protest (...) from some other speech acts which also involve a negative evaluation of some object and a connected prescription of redress. Finally, we turn to Kukla and Lance’s idea of a normative functionalist analysis of speech acts to advance the view that protests are a complex speech act constituted by dual input normative statuses and dual output normative statuses. (shrink)

I draw upon speech act theory to understand the speech acts appropriate to the multiple aims of scientific practice and the role of nonepistemic values in evaluating speech acts made relative to those aims. First, I look at work that distinguishes explaining from describing within scientific practices. I then argue speech act theory provides a framework to make sense of how explaining, describing, and other acts have different felicity conditions. Finally, I argue that if explaining aims (...) to convey understanding to particular audiences rather than describe literally across all contexts, then evaluating explanatory acts directed to the public or policymakers involves asking nonepistemic questions. (shrink)

John Searle has charged R.M. Hare's prescriptivist analysis of the meaning of ‘good,’ ‘ought’ and the other evaluative words with committing what he calls the ‘speech act fallacy.’ This is a fallacy which Searle thinks is committed not only by Hare's analysis, but by any analysis which attributes to a word the function of indicating that a particular speech act is being performed, or that an utterance has a particular illocutionary force. ‘There is a condition of adequacy which (...) any analysis of the meaning of a word must meet,’ Searle writes, ‘and which the speech act analysis fails to meet. Any analysis of the meaning of a word must be consistent with the fact that the same word can mean the same thing in all the different kinds of sentences in which it can occur.' Hare maintains that the word ‘good’ is used to indicate the speech act of prescribing. He maintains that one of the principal functions of this word is to indicate that utterances of sentences containing it have prescriptive illocutionary force, and that an analysis of its meaning must make explicit and ineliminable reference to this force-indicating function. But ‘good’ regularly occurs in sentences utterances of which appear to have no prescriptive illocutionary force. (shrink)

There are certain illocutionary acts that, contrary to John Searle's speech act theory, cannot be correctly classified as assertives. Searle's sincerity and essential conditions on assertives require, plausibly, that we believe our assertions and that we are committed to their truth. Yet it is a commonly accepted scientific practice to propose and investigate an hypothesis without believing it or being at all committed to its truth. Searle's attempt to accommodate such conjectural acts by claiming that the degree of belief (...) and of commitment expressed by some assertives “may approach or even reach zero“ is unsuccessful, since it evacuates his thesis that these are substantive necessary conditions on assertives of any force. The illocutionary acts in question are central to scientific activity and so cannot be plausibly ignored by a theory of speech acts. The problem is not limited simply to Searle's theory, since even theories which depart markedly from Searle's in other respects are often committed to similar characterizations of assertion. (shrink)

In a series of articles (Pagin, 2004, 2009), Peter Pagin has argued that assertion is not a social speech act, introducing a method (which we baptize ‘the P-test’) designed to refute any account that defines assertion in terms of its social effects. This paper contends that Pagin's method fails to rebut the thesis that assertion is social. We show that the P-test is both unreliable (because it overgenerates counterexamples) and counterproductive (because it ultimately provides evidence in favor of some (...) social accounts). Nonetheless, we contend that assertion is not fully social. We defend an intermediate view according to which assertion is only a partly social speech act: assertions both commit the speaker to a proposition (a social component) and present their propositional content as true (a non-social component). The upshot is that assertion is in some important respect social, although it cannot be defined solely in terms of its social effects. (shrink)

Recent research has shown that the superlative quantifiers at least and at most do not have the same type of truth conditions as the comparative quantifiers more than and fewer than. We propose that superlative quantifiers are interpreted at the level of speech acts. We relate them to denegations of speech acts, as in I don’t promise to come, which we analyze as excluding the speech act of a promise to come. Calling such conversational acts that affect (...) future permissible speech acts “meta-speech acts,” we introduce the meta-speech act of a GRANT of a proposition as a denial to assert the negation of that proposition. Superlative quantifiers are analyzed as quantifiers over GRANTS. Thus, John petted at least three rabbits means that the minimal number n such that the speaker GRANTs the proposition that John petted n rabbits is n = 3. We formalize this interpretation in terms of commitment states and commitment spaces, and show how the truth conditions that are derived from it are partly entailed and partly conversationally implicated. We demonstrate how the theory accounts for a wide variety of distributional phenomena of superlative quantifiers, including the contexts in which they can be embedded. (shrink)

Art viewers and critics talk as if visual artworks say things, express messages, or have meanings. For instance, Picasso’s 'Guernica' has been described as a “generic plea against the barbarity and terror of war”, forming a “powerful anti-war statement”. One way of understanding meaning in art is to draw analogies with language. My thesis explores how the notion of a speech act – an utterance with a performative aspect – can illuminate art’s power to ‘speak’. In recent years, philosophers (...) of art have explored speech act theory in relation to literary art, though barely at all in relation to visual art. Given the way we talk about painting, sculpture, installation, film, and photography, and given that artists have investigated performativity through their art, this neglect is surprising. My thesis develops two main arguments. First, artwork meaning is active. I argue that visual artworks, under certain conditions, are speech acts. They have propositional content, and they have a certain force: they can do things such as assert, protest, and criticise – things we would normally do with words. I defend these contested claims against several dissenters, and explore some consequences: in particular, I explore how art can lie, a hitherto neglected question. Second, artwork meaning is flexible. I argue that what an artwork says and does is affected by the context in which it’s displayed, and in particular, by its curation. As a result, an artwork’s content and force can vary from context to context. This goes against a dominant view in the philosophy of art – what I call ‘Originalism’ – that the meaning of an artwork is fixed by factors which held at the time of the work’s creation, and so cannot change across time. I argue that this is mistaken: artworks can change in meaning. Curatorial factors can affect an artwork’s content and force, and consequently its social effects. It is known that our verbal speech has the power to oppress and liberate people in a society. My thesis aims to show that art also has this power to shape society; through what it says, and through what it does. (shrink)

Slurs are derogatory words; they seem to express contempt and hatred toward marginalized groups. They are used to insult and derogate their victims. Moreover, slurs give rise to philosophical questions. In virtue of what is the word “chink,” unlike “Chinese,” a derogatory word? Does “chink” refer to the same group as “Chinese”? If “chink” is a derogatory word, how is it possible to use it in a non-derogatory way (e.g., by Chinese comedians or between Chinese friends)? Many theories of slurs (...) answer these questions by assuming that slurs communicate derogatory messages. However, little attention has been paid to the speech acts slurs are used to perform. In this dissertation, I argue that slurs are illocutionary force indicators: words to perform the speech acts of derogation. “Chink” is a derogatory word because its use is to derogate the Chinese, just like the phrase “I promise” has the use to make a promise. To derogate the Chinese is to enforce a norm which assigns to them an inferior normative status. Slurs are also propositional indicators: words that contribute to the truth-conditions. “Chink” has the same referent as “Chinese,” its neutral counterpart. Appealing to speech act theory enables my theory to answer questions about slurs, e.g., slurs can be used in non-derogatory ways because the felicity conditions of derogation are not met. To illustrate the advantage of my theory, I will explain how other theories of slurs fall short because they take positions opposite to mine on certain issues. For instance, Mark Richard’s theory, unlike mine, takes utterances of slurs to have no truth values. It follows from his theory, I will argue, that lying with “Chang is a chink” is impossible. Finally, I will defend the force indicator theory from common objections. My force indicator theory provides a case study of the use theory of meaning and a framework for political philosophers to study the harm of slurs. (shrink)

Internalism and Externalism in Speech Act Theory Internalism and externalism are related doctrines in the philosophy of language and mind, mostly centered on the role of reference in the individuation of propositions. This debate has recently been extended in speech act theory from content to force. But here the landscape becomes more complicated. It has been recently argued that speech act theory got off the track after Austin by internalizing Austin's "felicity" conditions. In reply it is noted (...) that the issue of internalism and externalism is more nuanced—there are internal and external elements in many theories, and a preliminary categorization is attempted here. Furthermore, internalism also has its virtues, which are largely overlooked, and we attempt to redress that imbalance. (shrink)

Whereas the relationship between truth and propositional content has already been intensively investigated, there are only very few studies devoted to the task of illuminating the relationship between truth and illocutionary acts. This book fills that gap. This innovative collection addresses such themes as: the relation between the concept of truth and the success conditions of assertions and kindred speech acts the linguistic devices of expressing the truth of a proposition the relation between predication and truth.

The aim of this paper is to explore the viability of accounting for presumptions as a subtype of verdictives, within the framework of the Austinian approach to speech acts. The available set of felicity conditions is examined and worked out, in order to try and account in particular for a main feature of presumptions, namely, their function in shifting the burden of proof. In order to extend the Austinian framework as required, the notion of pragmatic presupposition accommodation is shown (...) to be a useful device. (shrink)

Austin's notion of illocutionary force has helped us see that the understanding of utterances must go beyond considerations of meaning and of truth/falsity. The determination of the truth conditions is not always of central interest in determining what is being said. Searle has failed in his attempt to discover what is common to all illocutionary forces, Because in addition to facts we must consider also the "motivational" conditions of an utterance, Which may include purposes, Intentions, Values, And norms. Austin himself (...) restricted unduly the scope of illocutionary force by tying it closely to conventions. What the speaker is trying to say obviously involves conventions but is not always exhausted by them. We may conclude that language is based on the principle of sufficient understanding: no utterance needs to be misunderstood. (shrink)

In this essay, we distinguish the object, redress, and means of a protest in order to explain how protests have dual communicative aspects. Second, we use Austin’s notion of a felicity condition to further characterize the dual communicative aspects of protest. Finally, we turn to Kukla and Lance’s idea of a normative functionalist analysis of speech acts to advance the view that protests are a complex speech act constituted by dual input normative statuses and dual output normative statuses.

Modules, as Marr and Fodor conceive of them, lie between sensory and central processes. Modules have the functional property of representing that portion of the world which turns them on, and nine non-functional or structural properties that facilitate carrying out that function. Fodor has proposed that the processing of linguistic information is carried out by a language module , which therefore has the functional and structural features of modules. We argue that the proposed LM does not have the functional property (...) of modules in general . And we argue that Fodor's candidate for the output of the LM, interpreted syntactic form, does not satisfy important structural properties of modules . We propose another candidate, speech act potential, and argue that it fits almost all of Fodor's conditions . We next report on some pilot sentence completion studies suggesting that speech act information can influence the course of a parse and hence are a part of the LM . Finally, we outline possible experiments to test the modularity of speech act information by online methods of priming. (shrink)

I argue that john r searle's speech-Act theory of meaning violates his own requirement that such a theory specify a set of conditions for the performance of a certain illocutionary (speech) act which does not include the performance of any other illocutionary act. For the "propositional act" mentioned in searle's analysans is in actuality an illocutionary act. Then I show that any speech-Act theory must include a subsidiary speech act in the analysans. Since the analysans must (...) not contain such an act, Such an analysis is impossible. (shrink)

This paper intends to bring Austinian themes into methodological discussion about models. Using Austinian conceptual vocabulary, I argue that models perform actions in and outside of the academic field. This multiplicity of fields induces a variety of felicity conditions and types of performed actions. If for example, an inference from a model is judged according to some epistemological criteria in the scientific field, the representation of the world which the model carries will not be judged by the same criteria outside (...) the scientific field. A model can be considered as a standard in a strict scientific framework, while not being used as part of public policies, or vice versa. However, we focus on the dynamics between different fields. (shrink)

Modules, as Marr and Fodor conceive of them, lie between sensory and central processes. Modules have the functional property of representing that portion of the world which turns them on, and nine non-functional or structural properties that facilitate carrying out that function. Fodor has proposed that the processing of linguistic information is carried out by a language module, which therefore has the functional and structural features of modules. We argue that the proposed LM does not have the functional property of (...) modules in general. And we argue that Fodor's candidate for the output of the LM, interpreted syntactic form, does not satisfy important structural properties of modules. We propose another candidate, speech act potential, and argue that it fits almost all of Fodor's conditions. We next report on some pilot sentence completion studies suggesting that speech act information can influence the course of a parse and hence are a part of the LM. Finally, we outline possible experiments to test the modularity of speech act information by online methods of priming. (shrink)

Libertarian philosophy asserts that only the initiation of physical force against persons or property, or the threat thereof, is inherently illegitimate. A corollary to this assertion is that all forms of speech, including fraudulent advertising, are not invasive and therefore should be considered legitimate. On the other hand, fraudulent advertising can be viewed as implicit theft under the theory of contract: if a seller accepts money knowing that his product does not have some of its advertised characteristics, he acquires (...) the property title to the customer’s money without voluntary consent, which is theft. The balance between these two logical extensions of property rights—the right of free speech and the right of contract—lies somewhere in the area of communication philosophy, and can be explained through understanding the role of communication in human interactions. Advertising is a form of communication that may convey important information about the conditions of the proposed contract. These conditions are expressed in particular words that may have different meanings in different circumstances. Therefore to determine whether a particular example or “misinterpretation” is mere sophistry or a type of fraud, the judicial system has to approach each issue on a case-by-case basis. The border between legal and illegal should be determined by precedents and by expectations based on commonly accepted definitions of terms—what people commonly understand by the words and other forms of communication they use. (shrink)

Anti‐substitution intuitions play a central role in discussion of the semantics of propositional attitude ascriptions, and all theorists seem to agree that these intuitions should be explained by either semantic or pragmatic means. Jennifer Saul (2007) has recently argued that it is impossible to explain all our anti‐substitution intuitions thus. In particular, she argues that any account of the semantics of propositional attitude ascriptions faces the ‘Enlightenment Problem’ – i.e. no such account can explain the fact that we have anti‐substitution (...) intuitions about utterances of speakers who are ‘unenlightened’ as to the fact that certain names are co‐referential. In this paper, I suggest an alternative explanation of our intuitions about unenlightened utterances, and in doing so offer an original strategy for explaining truth‐conditional intuitions by either semantic or pragmatic means. (shrink)

. Usually the ethics of humor revolves around the content of humor. After giving a synopsis and exposing some shortcomings of the recent controversies, this paper takes into account additional aspects and proposes a change of perspective from token to type level and deploys tools of the philosophy of language to tackle the question whether a joke as a type can be considered morally flawed irrespective of its tokens. After exploring possible ways one can think of to furnish evidence for (...) the opposite position, two novel lines of argumentation based on counterfactual conditionals and speech act theory are provided to show that these ways aren’t viable and that joke as types are ethically neutral. Moreover, the presented approach increases the resolution of the debate and provides a framework to capture other hitherto neglected questions of the philosophy of humor as well. (shrink)

This paper endorses a view of argumentation and arguments that relates both to a special type of speech action, namely, the performance of speech acts of arguing. Its aim is to advance an analysis of those acts that takes into account two kinds of norms related to their correct performance, namely, felicity conditions and objective requirements related to the “correspondence with the facts.” It assumes that the requirement that certain objective conditions be satisfied is among the set of (...) felicity conditions of speech acts of arguing. Taking this into account helps clarify the position and role of warrants in the performance and assessment of these acts. (shrink)

Recently the CJEU decision in the case of ‘Ewa Glawischnig-Piesczek v. Facebook Ireland Limited’ has raised the issue of the transcultural/trans-territorial signification of hate speech and hate crimes. Taking a cue from this decision and the related semiotic/legal implications, the paper proposes an analysis of the semio/pragmatic conditions for the production of performativity inherent in hate speech across different cultural universes of discourse. Given that web-based digital communication is global—at least, potentially—regardless of any spatial/political compartmentalization, it crosses different (...) semio-cultural circuits. This trans-spatiality implies transcultural crossings that can multiply and even transfigure the semantic implications of the original signifier and the related prognoses of ‘semantic effectiveness.’ Cultural boundaries therefore may function as a kind of ‘horizon of events’ for hate speech and, more inclusively, all linguistic acts and their legal signification/classification. The question then arises regarding whether and to what extent the performativity of hate speech is able to withstand the variation of cultural boundary conditions. Insofar as cultures are universes of experience, the issue to be investigated broadens, and ends up invoking the question of whether or not the production of performativity implicitly presupposes and tacitly epitomizes the semio-pragmatic implications/consequences (or, in Peircean terms, ‘bearings’) coextensive with cultural universes of experience. Were this the case, it would seem to call into question the very possibility of ‘making things only with words,’ or more explicitly, the alleged meaning of ‘linguistic acts.’. (shrink)

The superlative quantifiers, at least and at most, are commonly assumed to have the same truth-conditions as the comparative quantifiers more than and fewer than. However, as Geurts & Nouwen have demonstrated, this is wrong, and several theories have been proposed to account for them. In this paper we propose that superlative quantifiers are illocutionary operators; specifically, they modify meta-speech acts.Meta speech-acts are operators that do not express a speech act, but a willingness to make or refrain (...) from making a certain speech act. The classic example is speech act denegation, e.g. I don't promise to come, where the speaker is explicitly refraining from performing the speech act of promising What denegations do is to delimit the future development of conversation, that is, they delimit future admissible speech acts. Hence we call them meta-speech acts. They are not moves in a game, but rather commitments to behave in certain ways in the future. We formalize the notion of meta speech acts as commitment development spaces, which are rooted graphs: The root of the graph describes the commitment development up to the current point in conversation; the continuations from the root describe the admissible future directions.We define and formalize the meta-speech act GRANT, which indicates that the speaker, while not necessarily subscribing to a proposition, refrains from asserting its negation. We propose that superlative quantifiers are quantifiers over GRANTs. Thus, Mary petted at least three rabbits means that the minimal number n such that the speaker GRANTs that Mary petted n rabbits is n = 3. In other words, the speaker denies that Mary petted two, one, or no rabbits, but GRANTs that she petted more.We formalize this interpretation of superlative quantifiers in terms of commitment development spaces, and show how the truth conditions that are derived from it are partly entailed and partly conversationally implicated. We demonstrates how the theory accounts for a wide variety of phenomena regarding the interpretation of superlative quantifiers, their distribution, and the contexts in which they can be embedded. (shrink)

Understanding what it means toconsent is of considerable importance sincesignificant moral issues depend on how this actis defined. For instance, determining whetherconsent has occurred is the deciding factor insexual assault cases; its proper occurrence isa necessary condition for federally fundedhuman subject research. Even though mosttheorists recognize the legal and moralimportance of consent, there is still littleagreement concerning how consent should bedefined, or whether different domains involvingconsent demand context-specific definitions.Understanding what it means to consent isfurther complicated by the fact that currentlegal (...) conceptions are not necessarily groundedin argument; they typically depend on appealsto authority and precedent. The purpose ofthis paper is to use speech act theory toprovide a theoretically grounded conception ofconsent; such a conception can aid in the justresolution of legal and moral disputes thathinge on whether an act of consent occurred. (shrink)

In this paper I want to examine the concept of 'conditions of fulfilment' or 'compliance' or 'satisfaction' which have been introduced by some authors in order to provide analyses of meaning which are just as adequate to directive speech acts as truth-conditional semantics are (claimed to be) adequate to assertive speech acts. It will be argued that this aim is missed. Most analyses (except those of some primitive cases) will remain throughout imcomplete as long as they are not (...) supplemented by a specification of conditions of normative validity. In the case of several illocutionary verbs they can be substituted by conditions under which the speaker could make use of sanctions against the hearer. (shrink)

In this chapter I show that idealizing assumptions can obscure conversational dynamics because they neglect power differentials that are crucial enablers of the successful performance of some speech acts (see, Sbisà, 2020). I examine how silencing is promoted by conversational norms that would defeasibly entitle linguistic agents to presume that silence indicates acceptance. I focus on Goldberg’s (2020) discussion of these phenomena. Goldberg argues in support of a norm of no silent rejections claiming that silencing is partly the result (...) of the misapplication of this norm. He further defends the view that the norm itself is part of the solution to the problem of silencing. In the chapter I argue that Goldberg is mistaken on these points. Instead, drawing inspiration from Sbisà (2020), I argue that norms of no silent rejection are temporarily enacted by means of speech acts that function as exercitive assertions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"A Woman's Thought Runs Before Her Actions":Vows as Speech Acts in As You Like ItWilliam O. ScottAbout a decade ago Susanne Wofford discussed As You Like It from the viewpoint that Rosalind uses a "proxy," her guise as Ganymede, in uttering "the performative language necessary to accomplish deeds such as marriage." 1 Thus Wofford complicated and qualified the success-oriented assumptions about performative usage of language as envisioned in (...) Austin's speech-act theories. 2 Her starting point was that (as Austin himself said) these performative usages don't have the same kind of force if they are included in a play; and so she proposed to take Rosalind's uses of vows as playful, both theatrically and personally. Her notion of the proxy, which raises questions too about the binding force of the speech act through the identity and tactics of the speaker, is especially apt in describing exactly what Rosalind does. Understandably Rosalind's performative manqué may be a prelude to the perfected form. Another complication suggests itself if one is going to attend to niceties of language usage: given that for Austin a performative procedure is founded on conventions of language, shouldn't one also examine such linguistic forms historically? For this play the most relevant form to consider historically is the vow.The precise formulation of vows, in espousal or marriage (both legally enforceable in church courts), was very important in early-modern England. One may wonder, then, what the formal requirements of [End Page 528] vows were, how much the analysis of them resembled and diverged from modern speech-act philosophy, and how the vows functioned. And one might ask such questions both about this play and about real-life practice. A more exact notion of vows may enrich our notions of Rosalind's playfulness with them and broaden our sense of the uses and tactics of performatives; and to the extent that this playfulness contrasts with Rosalind's serious (re)iteration of vows at the end of the play, we should give due weight to Carol Neely's suggestion that much of the pleasure for early-modern audiences lay in the body of the play rather than its conclusion. 3The actual vows between lovers would indeed lend themselves to historicized analysis of the speech acts that constitute them. The early-modern ecclesiastical court judge Henry Swinburne made something like that in his Treatise of Spousals, with his section "By what Form of Words Spousals de futuro are contracted," and similarly on the form of words in "Spousals de praesenti." 4 The implied time of effectiveness in the commitment to marriage is crucial in church law of the time, because it determines whether the vows are, respectively, a betrothal that promises a future marriage, or a present binding (whether inside or outside church) that becomes an instant marriage upon carnal consummation. Both these declarations of commitment are performatives (once reciprocated), and they are normally established by social convention, what Swinburne calls "the Common use of Speech or Custom" (p. 83). Swinburne also concerns himself with what amount to the conditions of "felicity" that are requisite to make the speech valid—for instance, who is allowed to contract spousals (cp. Austin, pp. 14–24).Both of these issues of timing and eligibility are important to Rosalind in the pretense of wedding in Act 4, Scene 1. As it is for Swinburne, the context is important: when Celia as priest asks, "Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?" his answer "I will" is not good enough for Rosalind until he adds at her direction, "I take thee, Rosalind, for wife." 5 Likewise Swinburne considers at length the arguments whether there is a distinction between "I will" and "I do," and whether the future-sounding verb refers only to the beginning of a process and not its completion (pp. 8–9, 57–61). Though in general he allows the distinction (so that "I will" makes a spousal and "I do" a marriage), one of his exceptions sounds like the question that Celia first puts: "The Man demanding of the Woman whether she will take him to her Husband, she answereth [I will... (shrink)

This paper endorses a view of argumentation and arguments that relates both to a special type of speech action, namely, the performance of speech acts of arguing. Its aim is to advance an analysis of those acts that takes into account two kinds of norms related to their correct performance, namely, felicity conditions and objective requirements related to the “correspondence with the facts.” It assumes that the requirement that certain objective conditions be satisfied is among the set of (...) felicity conditions of speech acts of arguing. Taking this into account helps clarify the position and role of warrants in the performance and assessment of these acts. (shrink)

The debate over the merits of originalism has advanced considerably in recent years, both in terms of its intellectual sophistication and its practical significance. In the process, some prominent originalists—Lawrence Solum and Jeffrey Goldsworthy being the two discussed here—have been at pains to separate out the linguistic and normative components of the theory. For these authors, while it is true that judges and other legal decision-makers ought to be originalists, it is also true that the communicated content of the constitution (...) is its original meaning. That is to say: the meaning is what it is, not what it should be. Accordingly, there is no sense in which the communicated content of the constitution is determined by reference to moral desiderata; linguistic desiderata do all the work. In this article, I beg to differ. In advancing their arguments for linguistic originalism, both authors rely upon the notion of successful communications conditions. In doing so they implicitly open up the door for moral desiderata to play a role in determining the original communicated content. This undercuts their claim and changes considerably the dialectical role of linguistic originalism in the debate over constitutional interpretation. (shrink)

Understanding what it means to consent is of considerable importance since significant moral issues depend on how this act is defined. For instance, determining whether consent has occurred is the deciding factor in sexual assault cases; its proper occurrence is a necessary condition for federally funded human subject research. Even though most theorists recognize the legal and moral importance of consent, there is still little agreement concerning how consent should be defined, or whether different domains involving consent demand context-specific definitions. (...) Understanding what it means to consent is further complicated by the fact that current legal conceptions are not necessarily grounded in argument; they typically depend on appeals to authority and precedent. The purpose of this paper is to use speech act theory to provide a theoretically grounded conception of consent; such a conception can aid in the just resolution of legal and moral disputes that hinge on whether an act of consent occurred. (shrink)

This essay responds to an influential contextualist challenge against the traditional view of the relationships between meaning and truth. According to that challenge, meaning fails to determine truth conditions for reasons unrelated to the customary forms of contextual influence, having to do with so-called ‘pre-semantic’ issues and with indexicality. As a response to the contextualist, I argue that the examples they present are naturally analyzable from the traditional viewpoint, and that the forms of contextual dependence they highlight are by no (...) means novel or problematic.Este artigo responde a um influente desafio por parte do contextualismo à visão tradicional da relação entre significado e verdade. De acordo com este desafio, significados falham em determinar as condições de verdade por razões diferentes das formas usuais de influência contextual, que têm a ver com questões assim chamadas ‘pré-semânticas’ e com indexicalidade. Como resposta aos contextualistas, eu argumento que os exemplos apresentados pelos mesmos são naturalmente analisáveis do ponto de vista tradicional, e que as formas de dependência contextual que eles enfatizam não são, de forma alguma, novas ou problemáticas. (shrink)

Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 52, Issue 1, Page 69-100, Winter 2024.

I argue that figurative speech, and irony in particular, presents a deep challenge to the orthodox view about sentence content. The standard view is that sentence contents are, at their core, propositional contents: truth-conditional contents. Moreover, the only component of a sentence’s content that embeds in compound sentences, like belief reports or conditionals, is the propositional content. I argue that a careful analysis of irony shows this view cannot be maintained. Irony is a purely pragmatic form of content (...) that embeds in compound sentences. The standard view cannot account for this fact. I sketch out a speech-act theoretic framework that can. But in accepting this alternative framework we are giving up on the whole idea of an autonomous semantics. (shrink)

Terence Cuneo presents a new argument for moral realism. According to the normative theory of speech, speech acts are generated by an agent's altering her normative position with regard to her audience. In doing so she takes on rights and responsibilities, some of which are moral and objective: these are a necessary condition of speech.

We bring out syntactic and semantic similarities of two types of conditionals with fronted antecedents [normal indicative conditionals and biscuit conditionals ] and two types of left dislocation constructions in German, which mark two types of topicality. On the basis of these similarities we argue that NCs and BCs are aboutness topics and relevance topics, respectively. Our analysis extends the approach to aboutness topicality of Endriss to relevance topics to derive the semantic and pragmatic contribution of left-dislocated (...) DPs and applies it to an analysis of conditionals as pluralities of possible worlds. We show how this uniform approach to the interpretation of topicality accounts for the nominal left dislocation constructions as well as for the semantic and pragmatic effects observed in connection with the two types of conditionals. We furthermore discuss the potential of our proposal to deal with subjunctive biscuit conditionals, if-clauses modifying speech acts different from assertions, conditionals with right-dislocated if-clauses, and nested conditionals. (shrink)

This paper provides evidence for an ambiguity of bare VPs in the English conditional conjunction construction. This ambiguity, undetected by previous researchers, provides a key to the development of a compositional semantic analysis of conditional conjunction with imperative first conjuncts. The analysis combines existing semantic theories of imperatives, the future tense, modal subordination, and speech act conjunction to yield the correct semantics without further stipulation.

Some visual artworks constitute hate speech because they can perform oppressive illocutionary acts. This illocution-based analysis of art reveals how responsive curation and artmaking undermines and manages problematic art. Drawing on the notion of counterspeech as an alternative tool to censorship to handle art-based hate speech, this article proposes aesthetic blocking and aesthetic spotlighting. I then show that under certain conditions, this can lead to eventual metaphysical destruction of the artwork; a way to destroy harmful art without physically (...) destroying it. (shrink)

It is generally agreed that there are two kinds of indicative conditionals that do not contain conditional 'then.' There are hypothetical conditionals such as 'If Mary has done the groceries, there is beer in the fridge' and there are biscuit conditionals such as 'If you are thirsty, there is beer in the fridge.' There is also broad consensus that we cannot find an analogous distinction between hypothetical and biscuit conditionals within indicative conditionals that do feature (...) 'then.' Conditionals containing 'then,' it is assumed, are uniformly read as hypothetical conditionals. In this article, I shall argue that there are biscuit conditionals featuring 'then.' This result, I take it, is not only interesting on its own. It also puts pressure on the popular view that conditional 'then' triggers the presupposition that in some situations in which the conditional's antecedent is not true, its consequent is not true either. (shrink)