Re: Observative is primary

[Mitchell Marks <cbmvax!uunet!gargoyle.uchicago.edu!mitchell>]

>>>>> "JFC" == jimc  jimc@math.ucla.edu writes:

JFC> In "How To Say Things with Words", Quine (I think, maybe wrong author)
JFC> has a similar discussion in which he contrast constative and
JFC> performative utterances.  Constative means that the utterance
JFC> "asserts" a fact.  Performative means that by saying the utterance the
JFC> speaker accomplishes some action, as in "I now pronounce you husband
JFC> and wife".  Quine's final point is that every sentence has both
JFC> constative and performative aspects, in various degrees; even the most
JFC> constative sentence has the performative aspect that by saying it the
JFC> speaker dumps the information on the listener.

Jim is correct in his suspicion that he might have the wrong author.  It's
J. L. Austin, the prime mover of "ordinary language philosophy" at Oxford,
whose other books include a Collected Essays, and the maddening but
fascinating {\it Sense and Sensibilia}, a posthumus reconstruction of a
lecture series edited by his students.

The idea of performative utterances remains for me, as for many other
readers apparently including Jim, the real gem that emerges from this
book.  But, as Jim points out, for Austin himself the performative /
constative distinction became something of a hook on which to hoist
something else, his analysis of the multiple aspects of an utterance into
its perlocutionary effects, illocutionary force, and propositional content.
This framework was continued and extended by Searle in his speech acts work.

Regards,

Mitch Marks