Abstract

Difficulties in quentin skinner's theory, According to which illocutionary force of historical utterances is recovered by attending first to the social conventions governing utterances of the given type and then to constraints on possible intentions arising from the utterer's beliefs. Skinner's account is incomplete since it will give us only a range of "possible" illocutionary forces, Giving no help in selecting from the range. And it is circular to suppose we can gain the information about conventions "in advance" of classifying an utterance into an illocutionary type. Discussion of possible replies to these difficulties