Return-Path: Return-Path: Date: Sat, 20 Apr 91 17:59:06 CDT From: Mitchell Marks Message-Id: <9104202259.AA20854@tartarus.uchicago.edu> To: lojban-list@snark.thyrsus.com In-Reply-To: <9104191549.AA01199@luna.math.ucla.edu> Subject: Re: Observative is primary X-Zippy: I'm a nuclear submarine under the polar ice cap and I need a Kleenex! Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Sat Apr 20 19:55:30 1991 X-From-Space-Address: 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