Search results

1

A scholarly confusion of tongues, or, is promising an illocutionary act?

100%

Doerge F.

Lodz Papers in Pragmatics

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2009

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vol. 5

|

issue 1

53-68

EN

Technical terms, I argued elsewhere, should not be re-defined without a profound reason; for such a re-definition furthers misunderstanding and is therefore undesirable. If my argument is on the right track, then we have reason to acknowledge the original definition of ‘illocutionary acts’ established by John L. Austin; any subsequent re-definition, unless it is specially justified somehow, must count as a terminological mistake. I use this argument, in order to proceed against what appears to me a highly problematic terminological situation, namely, the present existence of a double-digit number of different definitions of the term "illocutionary act." Against my argument, I met the objection that the co-existence of several different intensional definitions of ‘illocutionary acts’ eventually is not very problematic, given the alleged fact that the extension of the term is indisputable. In this paper, I argue that the objection fails, because its central premise is false: William P. Alston (2000), Bach & Harnish (1979) and John R. Searle (1969) have very different opinions as to whether, for instance, promising is an illocutionary act, even though promises are commonly supposed to be extremely obvious cases. Additionally, I consider the objection that the term "illocutionary act" is indispensable as a means of referring to those various things it is used for; I discard this objection by demonstrating that, and how, at least the accounts under consideration in this paper could easily do without the term.

2

Mit aktu mowy jako kategorii organizacji analizy pragmatycznej

89%

Cap P.

Półrocznik Językoznawczy Tertium

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2016

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vol. 1

|

issue 1&2

PL

W tym krótkim artykule sygnalizuję ograniczenia teorii aktów mowy postrzeganej jako element porządkujący analizy pragmatycznej. Przyznając, że pojęcie aktu mowy pomaga w usystematyzowaniu i uogólnieniu analizy na poziomie danego, pojedynczego wypowiedzenia, wskazuję, że potencjał ów jest znacznie mniejszy na poziomie dyskursu. Powodem tego jest względność pojęcia intencji wyrażanej aktem mowy, która rośnie wraz z każdym kolejnym, coraz wyższym szczeblem.

3

Translation in the Most Reverent Theory of Truth: A Self-Translative Act as an Illusion of Correspondence

89%

Cirillo G.

Roczniki Filozoficzne

|

2023

|

vol. 71

|

issue 3

155-181

PL

Choć niewątpliwie najbardziej intuicyjna, a jednocześnie prawdopodobnie najbardziej sporna teoria korespondencyjna stanowi nadal oś, wokół której toczą się nieustające spory filozoficzne na temat pojęcia prawdy, a ich zasadnicza nierozstrzygalność wydaje się je napędzać. Niniejsza praca stanowi kolejną próbę wyjaśnienia problematycznej relacji korespondencji. Celem autorki jest obrona tezy, iż niemal każde z klasycznych, współczesnych ujęć owej teorii zawiera w sobie element procesu tłumaczenia. Na początku zatem zostało sprecyzowane samo pojęcie przekładu i sposób użycia go w niniejszym artykule. Wymienione są więc główne cechy pozwalające sklasyfikować daną czynność jako translację. Następnie analizie zostały poddane trzy modele zaproponowane przez Russella, Moore’a oraz Austina, w taki sposób, aby wyeksponować rolę przekładu w każdym z nich. Ostatecznie został wskazany element łączący owe interpretacje, jak również podkreślono wagę procesu przekładu w filozoficznej refleksji nad ideą prawdy.

EN

Being the most intuitive and yet perhaps most contestable of all, the correspondence theory remains an axis around which the philosophical debate on truth incessantly spins, with indefiniteness remaining as its main propelling force. The following work presents one more interpretative attempt; it will be argued that each classical contemporary version of the theory incorporates an idea of translation process. For this purpose, initially one was specified what notion of translation should be applied here by enumerating its key features. Next, three classical models were examined-those proposed by Russell, Moore and Austin-in such a way as to expose the place of translation in each analysis. Consequently, the research both provide an element which unifies them and highlight the significance of translation for the philosophical inquiry into the concept of truth.

4

Advocacy and Enactment: Exercitives and Acts of Arguing

88%

Corredor C.

Research in Language

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2019

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vol. 17

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issue 1

21-37

EN

Goodwin and Innocenti (2016) have contended that giving reasons may be a form of enactment, where a claim is supported by the very activity of making the claim. In my view, the kind of interaction that these authors are considering should be analysed as a form of advocacy, and therefore as an exercitive speech act. In this paper I will suggest that acts of advocating, qua illocutions, institute a normative framework where the speaker’s obligation to justify cannot be redeemed by a mere “making reasons apparent”. In general, giving reasons is part of the procedure in virtue of which the advocate’s authority to exert influence is recognised by their addressees. This illocutionary effect should be distinguished from other perlocutionary consequences.

5

Performative Utterances: Seven Puzzles

88%

Harnish R.

Lodz Papers in Pragmatics

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2007

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vol. 3

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issue -1

3-21

EN

It was John Austin who introduced the word "performative" (which he called "a new and ugly word") into the philosophy of language and linguistics. His original idea was that there are utterances which are more correctly characterized as doing something rather than stating something. Austin wrote: "when I say ‘I do’ (sc. take this woman to be my lawful wedded wife), I am not reporting on a marriage, I am indulging in it." As is well known, Austin went on to work out this notion of a performative utterance (and of a performative expression) in a number of directions, but in the end the attempt to isolate performatives (doings) from constatives (true or false) failed dramatically, and the idea of viewing language use in terms of the performative-constative dichotomy gave way to the study of speech acts: "The total speech act in the total speech situation is the only actual phenomena which, in the last resort, we are engaged in elucidating." But giving up the performative-constative distinction does not mean giving up theorizing about performatives, and there is a cottage industry in the theory of language devoted to them. We identify seven puzzles for theorizing about performatives. We consider how Austin might have dealt with some of them. Finding his answers problematic, we then survey recent theories of performatives and zoom in on the major contenders, identifying one theory in particular for scrutiny and seeing how it fares with the seven puzzles. The upshot is that there is still work to be done understanding performatives.

6

Uptake and Conventionality in Illocution

88%

Sbisà M.

Lodz Papers in Pragmatics

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2009

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vol. 5

|

issue 1

33-52

EN

The aim of this paper is to put forward a new way of conceiving of the conventionality of illocutionary acts, grounded in a new look at Austin's original ideas. While the indispensability of uptake has correctly been deemed to be a hallmark of illocution, it has also been taken as evidence of the intention-based nature of illocutionary acts as opposed to their alleged conventionality. After discussing the readings of the "securing of uptake" offered by Strawson and Searle and commenting on the consequently established divide between "communicative" and conventional speech acts, I claim that illocutionary acts are conventional, first of all, because they have conventional effects. I show that Austin took such effects to be essential to illocution and argue that the bringing about of conventional effects is bound up with the indispensability of uptake.

7

Internalism and Externalism in Speech Act Theory

75%

Harnish R.

Lodz Papers in Pragmatics

|

2009

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vol. 5

|

issue 1

9-31

EN

Internalism (Frege; Searle) and externalism (Putnam 1975; Burge 1979) 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.

8

Performatyw: suwerenna władza zamiast subwersji? (Austin, Derrida, Butler)

65%

Vatsov D.

Przestrzenie Teorii

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2015

|

issue 23

EN

In contrast to Derrida and Butler, who overemphasized the subversive force of performatives, here the focus is on the immanent (micro-)sovereign power of performative utterances. Hence, what is proposed here is a search for the basic concept of power at the micro-level of speech acts. Before being codified with reference to certain stable power relations or contexts and before being objectified in different forms of domination and/or violence, power must be analyzed at the level of immediate performatives, where the struggle for power-codification could be followed in vivo. A task like this requires a conceptual shift: the illocutionary force of speech acts must be reinterpreted as their immediate evaluative force, i.e. as illocutionary power. Taking into account Derrida’s critique of Austin’s theory of speech acts, we should recognize that performatives arenot singular or atomistic speech acts, nor are they pre-determined by certain already given contexts or procedures. They are embedded in a citation and trace signs, without any final or autonomous signification. And yet, performatives have a specific kind of sovereignty. It is not the sovereignty of the ‘act’ itself but of the act’s performance. The actual (in the sense of ‘ongoing’) performance has an immediate force that is irreversible and also non-citable. Even in the case ofa direct citation, a citing performance sediments into an irreversible arrow, thus immediately reordering and re-evaluating all points in its trajectory. This performance does not fulfill a perspective, but it irreversibly forms a perspective. This effect of the virtuosity of an immediate performance could be called the power effect since it not only demonstrates how we make things with words, but also how we re-evaluate the things that were made through words. If an ongoing performance is such an immediate source of micro-power, then its role is not only to be ironically subversive and resistant to the already existing macro-codifications of power and domination. Performatives have their own sovereign power and are therefore capable of a direct affirmation and re-affirmation of the intersubjective frames of our experience.

PL

In contrast to Derrida and Butler, who overemphasized the subversive force of performatives, here the focus is on the immanent (micro-)sovereign power of performative utterances. Hence, what is proposed here is a search for the basic concept of power at the micro-level of speech acts. Before being codified with reference to certain stable power relations or contexts and before being objectified in different forms of domination and/or violence, power must be analyzed at the level of immediate performatives, where the struggle for power-codification could be followed in vivo. A task like this requires a conceptual shift: the illocutionary force of speech acts must be reinterpreted as their immediate evaluative force, i.e. as illocutionary power. Taking into account Derrida’s critique of Austin’s theory of speech acts, we should recognize that performatives are not singular or atomistic speech acts, nor are they pre-determined by certain already given contexts or procedures. They are embedded in a citation and trace signs, without any final or autonomous signification. And yet, performatives have a specific kind of sovereignty. It is not the sovereignty of the ‘act’ itself but of the act’s performance. The actual (in the sense of ‘ongoing’) performance has an immediate force that is irreversible and also non-citable. Even in the case of a direct citation, a citing performance sediments into an irreversible arrow, thus immediately reordering and re-evaluating all points in its trajectory. This performance does not fulfill a perspective, but it irreversibly forms a perspective. This effect of the virtuosity of an immediate performance could be called the power effect since it not only demonstrates how we make things with words, but also how we re-evaluate the things that were made through words. If an ongoing performance is such an immediate source of micro-power, then its role is not only to be ironically subversive and resistant to the already existing macro-codifications of power and domination. Performatives have their own sovereign power and are therefore capable of a direct affirmation and re-affirmation of the intersubjective frames of our experience.

9

Hall of Mirrors: Toward an Open Society of Mental Health Stakeholders in Safeguarding against Psychiatric Abuse

63%

Fulford K. W. M. B., King C., Bergqvist A.

Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture

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2020

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vol. 4

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issue 2

23-38

EN

This article explores the role of an international open society of mental health stakeholders in raising awareness of values and thereby reducing the vulnerability of psychiatry to abuse. There is evidence that hidden values play a key role in rendering psychiatry vulnerable to being used abusively for purposes of social or political control. Recent work in values-based practice aimed at raising awareness of values between people of different ethnic origins has shown the importance of what we call “values auto-blindness” – a lack of awareness of one’s own values as a key part of our background “life-world” – in driving differential rates of involuntary psychiatric treatment between ethnic groups. It is argued that the vulnerability of psychiatry to abuse stems from values auto-blindness operating on the judgments of rationality implicit in psychiatric diagnostic concepts. Acting like a “hall of mirrors,” an international open society of mental health stakeholders would counter the effects of values auto-blindness through enhanced mutual understanding of the values embedded in our respective life-worlds across and between the diverse perspectives of its constituents. The article concludes by noting that a model for the required open society is available in the contemporary interdisciplinary field of philosophy and psychiatry.

10

Speaking, Inferring, Arguing. On the Argumentative Character of Speech

63%

Corredor C.

Studia Semiotyczne

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2020

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vol. 34

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issue 2

EN

Within the Gricean framework in pragmatics, communication is understood as an inferential activity. Other approaches to the study of linguistic communication have contended that language is argumentative in some essential sense. My aim is to study the question of whether and how the practices of inferring and arguing can be taken to contribute to meaning in linguistic communication. I shall suggest a two-fold hypothesis. First, what makes of communication an inferential activity is given with its calculability, i.e. with the possibility to rationally recover the assigned meaning by means of an explicit inference. Secondly, the normative positions that we recognize and assign each other with our speech acts comprise obligations and rights of a dialectical character; but this fact does not entail nor presuppose an argumentative nature in language or speech. Both inferring and arguing are needed, however, in the activity of justifying and assessing our speech acts.

11

Język gra rolę! Studia performatywne między filozofią a antropologią

62%

Kozłowski M. J.

Tematy z Szewskiej

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2014

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issue Performatywność 2(12)/2014

75-108

PL

Artykuł podejmuje próbę krytycznego przedstawienia studiów performatywnych z perspektywy filozofii języka. Fundamentalne idee dla nowego spojrzenia pochodzą z tzw. „późnej” twórczości Ludwika Wittgensteina. Pozwolą nam one na ponowne przeanalizowanie kluczowych koncepcji innych autorów, takich jak Michaił Bachtin, Gregory Bateson, czy John L. Austin, w których kręgu zainteresowania znajdowały się kwestie związane z językiem. Cała trójka wchodzi w skład szerokiego panteonu tzw. prekursorów studiów performatywnych. Redefiniujące ustalenia pomogą w ponownym przyjrzeniu się koncepcji i metodzie „etnografii performatywnej’’ powołanej do życia przez Victora W. Turnera. Prowadzone przez niego próby (w co najmniej dwóch znaczeniach i użyciach), dążące do ożywienia doświadczenia etnograficznego zastygłego w tekście uwidoczniły, że zarówno proces opracowywania wybranych fragmentów dla ich inscenizacji, jak ich późniejsze odegranie, prowadzić może do poszerzenia antropologicznej wiedzy oraz głębszego rozumienia ze strony uczestników takich zdarzeń.

EN

The article undertakes a critical approach to Performance Studies from a philosophy of language perspective. Ideas that originate in “late” works of Ludwig Wittgenstein are fundamental for the presentation of this new perspective, since they enable to reanalyze key concepts of other authors, such as Michaił Bakthin, Gregory Bateson, John Austin, each of whom was interested in different aspect of language. These authors form part of a wide pantheon of Performance Studies precursors. The article’s findings can be useful to once again examine the concept and method of “performing ethnography”, founded by Victor Turner. His attempts-rehearsals (which should be at least dually perceived), which aimed at reviving ethnographic experience, have revealed that the process of preparation of an ethnographic text for performance adaptation as well as the performing experience can lead the participants of such events to deeper anthropological knowledge and understanding.

12

Mluvní akty prosebné modlitby ve Starém zákoně

45%

Fajmon B.

Studia theologica

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2015

|

vol. 1

45-69

EN

After previously constructing the classification of the speech acts of faith we now address specifically the speech acts of asking in prayer in the Old Testament from the perspective of Austin’s and Searle’s theory. We firstly analyze the declarative and directive dimensions of human blessing while also considering the “sincerity condition”. Searle’s condition of “non‑obviousness”, which is valid for the request, is not relevant in the case of asking in prayer. However, it opens the field of inquiry into the perlocutionary intentions of the one who prays. The last part of the essay examines the connection between the “preparatory conditions” of asking in prayer with various relations between different speech‑acts in the discourse of prayer.

13

Quia Ego Nominor Leo: Barthes, Stereotypes and Aesop’s Animals

38%

Tyler T.

Dialogue and Universalism

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2014

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issue 1

193-208

EN

Taking Barthes’ discussion of Aesop’s lion as my starting point, I examine the notion of the stereotype as it applies to the use of animals in philosophy and cultural theory. By employing an illustrative selection of animal ciphers from Saussure and Austin, and animal indices from Peirce and Schopenhauer, I argue that theory’s beasts are always at risk of becoming either exemplars of a deadening, generic Animal or mere stultifying stereotypes. Gilbert Ryle’s faithful dog, Fido, as well as a number of Aesop’s edifying animals, help to demonstrate that these two dangers are not inescapable, however. I close by indicating two strategies for preventing the unnecessary inhibition of the creatures of critical theory, focusing on Derrida’s individual and gently unruly cat.

Refine search results

A scholarly confusion of tongues, or, is promising an illocutionary act?

Mit aktu mowy jako kategorii organizacji analizy pragmatycznej

Translation in the Most Reverent Theory of Truth: A Self-Translative Act as an Illusion of Correspondence

Advocacy and Enactment: Exercitives and Acts of Arguing

Performative Utterances: Seven Puzzles

Uptake and Conventionality in Illocution

Internalism and Externalism in Speech Act Theory

Performatyw: suwerenna władza zamiast subwersji? (Austin, Derrida, Butler)

Hall of Mirrors: Toward an Open Society of Mental Health Stakeholders in Safeguarding against Psychiatric Abuse

Speaking, Inferring, Arguing. On the Argumentative Character of Speech

Język gra rolę! Studia performatywne między filozofią a antropologią

Mluvní akty prosebné modlitby ve Starém zákoně

Quia Ego Nominor Leo: Barthes, Stereotypes and Aesop’s Animals