Austin, John Langshaw

This paper follows on from Austin’s search for a definition of performatives, both from a linguistic as well as a pragmatic point of view. In the first chapter we attempt to describe and examine performative verbs, or performative utterances, based on linguistic criteria. We introduce several new terms, and on the contrary we leave out several of Austin’s terms altogether. We regard performatives as a certain kind of action during whose utterance we are also doing something. For the first time, we characterize social validity (the utterance or non-utterance of a performative is associated with social consequences) and conventional consequential meaning (fixed formula, which are under normal circumstances reached for a particular effect on the addressee, have this meaning). For the primary semantic definition of performatives we established the following sentence, “By saying this, I make or do somehow or something”. Based on this format, we analyzed utterances which Austin considers as being performative. The format proves to be satisfactory but sometimes with a necessary degree of abstraction and free application. For performative verbs we use a verbal language analysis, based on which we found conformity with constative verbs describing doing something somehow. As an additional feature of performative utterances, we determined their dynamic nature (making a performative utterance is accompanied by a transformation which is shown as an effect on the addressee). We separate these utterances into explicit verbs (i.e. containing a verb), implicit verbs (the verb is formally omitted, the verb meaning remains) and nonverbal historically fixed. In a performative utterance the addressee is most often (if not exclusively) the person or persons to whom the utterance is intended, either explicitly - directly or indirectly - or implicitly. In the second chapter, we focus on a search for possible “original” performatives and try to determine their characteristics. We focus on the dichotomy of the future versus performatives and come to the conclusion that the auxiliary verbs used today for expressing the future had their original, specific meaning. By applying the method of etymological analysis, we concluded that the first performatives were associated with specific motion tasks or rituals or with general speech.

Here I bewail the slapdash and confusing way in which philosophers bandy about the word ‘incoherent’ (and ‘incoherence’ and ‘incoherently’).  To some it appears to mean: inconsistent; to others: pragmatically self-defeating; and to yet others: nonsensical, i.e. meaningless.  And often one is left guessing.

Le problème des other minds est généralement posé de la manière suivante : à quel genre de connaissance pouvons-nous prétendre au sujet de l’esprit et des expériences d’autrui ? La réponse traditionnelle est habituellement formulée dans les termes d’une opposition entre deux genres de connaissance: une connaissance infaillible, et donc, par principe soustraite au doute (la connaissance de soi) et une connaissance essentiellement faillible, car de type conjectural (la connaissance de l’esprit des autres). Une évidente proximité se manifeste dans la manière dont Wittgenstein et Austin entendent traiter ce problème sceptique : par une dissolution de l’opposition entre les deux genres de connaissance qui sous-tend sa formulation en recourant au phénomène de l’expressivité. Toutefois, Austin admet une révision possible de notre terminologie en intégrant les cas anormaux au monde familier et ordinaire de nos relations avec autrui, là où Wittgenstein insiste plutôt sur les « distorsions » que ces cas produisent par rapport à l’usage ordinaire de nos concepts. Cette différence est finalement mineure en comparaison des divergences qui apparaissent entre les deux auteurs dans les conséquences qu’ils tirent de cette dissolution. Pour Austin, la dissolution du pseudo-problème sceptique signifie sa disparition pure et simple une fois opérée la reconduction de nos concepts épistémiques à l’usage ordinaire ; pour Wittgenstein, elle signifie la reconduction à une difficulté pratique : l’étrangeté de certaines pratiques (celles, par exemple, des vendeurs de bois dans la célèbre allégorie des Cours sur les fondements des mathématiques) à laquelle répond notre propre étrangeté aux leurs. C’est l’épreuve de cette étrangeté et la difficulté corrélative à comprendre des pratiques radicalement différentes des nôtres que prétend exprimer, sans y parvenir, la formulation traditionnelle du problème sceptique.

Tous les juristes connaissent la distinction entre les décisions administratives et les actes administratifs non décisoires. Cette distinction détermine, en principe, la recevabilité du recours contentieux. Elle a fait l'objet de nombreux travaux. Les distinctions entre les actes non décisoires restent en revanche très largement méconnues. Or, la prise en compte des actes non décisoires par les instances juridictionnelles, aussi bien administratives que judiciaires, incite à repenser la place reconnue à ces actes, à la fois dans la pratique et dans la théorie du droit.

En effet, certains de ces actes - comme les recommandations de bonnes pratiques médicales - peuvent faire l'objet d'un recours pour excès de pouvoir et sont pleinement invocables devant le juge. Les autres - comme les voeux, ou les circulaires - échappent le plus souvent à toute contestation, et ne peuvent pas être utilement invoqués en justice. D'autres enfin - comme les actes préparatoires, ou les "lignes directrices" - sont soumis à un régime juridique intermédiaire : insusceptibles de faire l'objet d'une contestation directe, ces actes font l'objet d'une exception d'illégalité et les justiciables peuvent s'en prévaloir à l'appui de leurs prétentions. Comment expliquer ces différences ?

En tentant de répondre à cette question, l'auteur constate que l'hétérogénéité actuelle du droit souple n'est pas toujours justifiée. D'où l'idée d'une simplification possible, qui consisterait à soumettre les actes non décisoires à un régime juridique plus homogène, et qui permettrait de leur réserver un traitement juridictionnel plus uniforme. Cette simplification n'est pourtant envisageable que si l'on franchit au préalable les barrières théoriques qui séparent le droit "souple" et le droit "dur". En s'appuyant sur les acquis de la philosophie générale du langage, l'auteur propose ainsi une systématisation des connaissances, en intégrant les actes non décisoires dans la famille des actes unilatéraux, traditionnellement considérés comme nécessairement contraignants. La simplification de la pratique jurisprudentielle suppose donc une sorte d'unification théorique. Tels sont les principaux objectifs de la présente thèse.

(Grad Student paper)
La perlocuzione austiniana può dialogare con la Rhetorica? Partendo dal testo aristotelico, si analizza la possibilità di rintracciare delle regolarità nella retorica, a confronto con l'impossibilità di avere convenzionalità (e quindi prevedibilità) nella perlocuzione austiniana. Una sintesi è offerta dalla nozione di "campo perlocutorio" (perlocutionary field), come introdotta da Mason e Munro.

This paper discusses how assertion is collocated among the other speech acts, starting from the assumption that, in speech-act theoretical terms, assertion is an illocutionary act. It examines how assertion relates to other illocutionary acts involving the utterance of plain declarative sentences and how it should be collocated within the whole gamut of illocutionary acts. While the former exploration relies upon an intuitive grasp of the family of assertive illocutionary acts; the latter requires a more complete characterization of assertion, in the framework of a reconsideration of illocutionary act classification. Using Austin’s terms, assertion is described as an Expositive Verdictive: an act affecting discursive and conversational relations, but also involving judgment and allowing for the transfer of knowledge. Finally, the question is raised of the role or rank of assertion among the illocutionary acts, that is, whether there are any reasons to grant it a special place, or it is just one among the others.

This paper analyzes the radical critique of mimesis articulated by classic structuralist and poststructuralist theoreticians. The classic structuralist objections against mimesis, it is argued, focus on the semiotic structuring of perception. From the outset, Saussurean linguistics rejected the hypothesis according to which language acts as a replica of a non-linguistic world. Instead, Saussure--later followed by Edward Sapir, Benjamin Lee Whorf and Roland Barthes--argued that the objects of perceptions are defined within sign systems, not outside of them--an insight that voids of all substance the pursuit of the adequation of language and world. Poststructuralism adds to this principle the suggestion that sign systems are deployed in the temporal flow and are therefore inherently unstable--a principle that defeats the realist ambition to assess the state of the world in the light of truth. The chapter discusses the theoretical contribution of de Saussure, Barthes, Whorf, Derrida, J. Hillis Miller, Butler, Foucault, and Rorty.

Ongoing discussion of this paper here: https://www.academia.edu/s/cf13d33860?source=link
Philosophy – whether traditional or contemporary – has nothing to say about the human metaphysical predicament, and cannot even offer a basic phenomenology of the human condition. Part of the problem is the ongoing confusion as to what philosophy actually amounts to, and what it can achieve. It is necessary to demystify philosophy, and have it restricted to the discipline of critical thinking, and it should not be thought of as possessing any substantial theoretical content of its own. It is a method, a skillset, a series of techniques, not a repository of various highbrow theories, whether about mind, epistemology, ontology, cosmology, science, or anything else. Metaphysics is an entirely distinct and separate field of inquiry, and concerns the human predicament, and ultimate human fulfilment, and it is to this end that critical thinking skills can usefully be applied. The purpose of this short study is to give some help to those hoping to gain an insight into the metaphysical realms of their being, and who would like some guidance with regard to those formal and academic disciplines supposedly geared to dealing with that very subject.

I suggest that, although the nonsensicalist challenge (obviously) matters, it has, at least in its Wittgensteinian form, been widely ignored.  On the other hand, those who still adhere to nonsensicalism (mainly Wittgensteinians) have been equally remiss in their failure to examine its presuppositions.

I am planning a history of the notion of philosophical nonsense and naturally difficult historical and exegetical questions have come up.  Charles Pigden has argued that the notion goes back at least as far as Hobbes and that Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant (on some interpretations) and pragmatists such as William James, as well as numerous Twentieth-Century philosophers make use of it.  In this ‘paper’ I put forward for general discussion such questions as whether Hobbes was the first 'nonsensicalist', whether Kant was a 'nonsensicalist' at all, which philosophers if any have considered contradictions to be meaningless and whether Wittgenstein thought that his concept of criterion could legitimately be used verificationistically.  I shall continue to add further questions as they occur to me.

In contrast to Derrida and Butler where the subversive force of the performatives is overemphasized here the focus is on their immanent (micro)sovereign power. Hence what is proposed here is a search for a basic concept of power on the micro level of our speech acts.

Before being codified in some stable power relations or contexts, before being objectified in different forms of domination and/or violence, power has to be analysed on the level of our 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 our speech acts has to be re-interpreted 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 the performatives are not singular or atomistic speech acts. Nor are they pre-determined by some already given contexts or procedures. They are embedded into
a citation, tracing signs, without any final or autonomous signification. And yet, the performatives have their 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 ‘on-going’) performance has its immediate force that is irreversible and in addition is not citable. Even in the case of a direct citation, the citing performance sediments into an irreversible arrow, immediately re-ordering and re-evaluating all the points in its trajectory. The performance does not fulfill a perspective, but irreversibly sediments into a perspective. This effect of virtuosity of the immediate performance could be called a power effect. Because it demonstrates not only how we make things with words, but also how we re-evaluate the value of the things made through words. If the on-going performance is such an immediate source of micro power, then its role is not only to be resistant and ironically subversive to the already existing macro codifications of power and domination. The performatives have their own sovereign power capable of direct affirmation and re-affirmation of the intersubjective frames of our experience.


Keywords: performative; illocutionary power; sovereignty; resistance; Butler; Austin; Derrida; analytic philosophy; critical theory

To what extent was ordinary language philosophy a precursor to
experimental philosophy? Since the conditions on pursuit of either
project are at best unclear, and at worst protean, the general
question is hard to address. I focus instead on particular cases,
seeking to uncover some central aspects of J. L. Austin’s and John
Cook Wilson’s ordinary language based approach to philosophical
method. I make a start at addressing three questions. First, what
distinguishes their approach from other more traditional
approaches? Second, is their approach a form of experimental
philosophy? Third, given their aims, should it have been? I offer
the following preliminary answers. First, their approach
distinctively emphasizes attention to what we should say when.
Second, their approach is closer to contemporary experimental
mathematics than it is to some prominent forms of contemporary
experimental philosophy. Third, some purported grounds for
pursuing their aims by way of surveying what individual speakers
would say when are not compelling.

"Everyone says I love you.. Analysis of declaration of love -

Ludwig Wittgenstein's and John L. Austin's studies have offered a new concept of language. Should one, in the light of The Philosophical Investigations and How to Do Things With
Words, limit himself or herself exclusively to investigating the manner in which feelings are spoken about, whilst remaining tacit as to the very nature of feelings? Can love be talked about using the language of analytic philosophy? The Author's quest is one for giving replies to those queries; to this particular end, declaration of love is made subject to detailed analysis from the standpoint of Wittgenstein's concept of linguistic games and Austin's speech act
theory."

Resumen

El presente artículo describe las relaciones directas e indirectas entre el realismo jurídico y corrientes filosóficas como el empirismo británico, el neopositivismo y la filosofía del lenguaje ordinario. Se presenta el realismo jurídico en su contexto de aparición, para luego exponer a los principales representantes del empirismo británico, antecedente y fundamento epistemológico del realismo jurídico. También se sintetizan las características distintivas del neopositivismo y su afinidad teórica con el realismo jurídico. Después se muestran los vínculos entre la filosofía del lenguaje ordinario y el realismo jurídico desde la teoría de los actos de habla. Se concluye que la renovada vigencia del realismo jurídico requiere una comprensión de sus fundamentos filosóficos.

Palabras clave: realismo jurídico, empirismo, neopositivismo, actos de habla.


Summary

This paper describes direct and indirect relations between legal realism and philosophical movements such as British empiricism, logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy. Legal realism is showed in its emergence context, and thereafter the paper exposes the main representatives of British empiricism, background and epistemological foundation of legal realism. Distinctive features of logical positivism and its theoretical affinity with legal realism are also synthesized. Afterwards, the links between the philosophy of ordinary language and legal realism from speech acts theory are shown. It is concluded that the renewed validity of legal realism requires an understanding of its philosophical foundations.

Keywords: Legal Realism, Empiricism, Logical Positivism, Speech Acts.

Artículo disponible en: https://revistas.usfq.edu.ec/index.php/iurisdictio/article/view/2363

Número completo disponible en: https://revistas.usfq.edu.ec/index.php/iurisdictio/issue/view/192

Davidson and Kolnai in different ways emphasise that practical syllogistic reasoning can only tell one that one has a reason to do or not to do something.  It cannot adjudicate between conflicting reasons.  It can tell one the means to certain ends but not which ends to pursue.  This paper considers possible responses to this predicament.  What if anything can be done to put deliberation - the 'weighing' of competing reasons - on  a rational basis?

-- English Version below --
Sollen rassistische Kommentare im Internet gelöscht werden? Soll man die Neuauflage von Hitlers "Mein Kampf" unterbinden? Soll die AfD aus Fernseh-debatten ausgeschlossen werden? Es gibt einen guten Grund, alle diese Fragen mit ja zu beantworten: Hassrede führt zu Gewalt. Sie verletzt die Angesprochen, und zwar nicht nur psychisch, sondern früher oder später auch physisch. Die flammenden Worte besorgter Bürger und Politiker führen letztlich zu den brennenden Heimen, von denen wir in letzter Zeit viel zu viele gesehen haben. Darum endet hier die Redefreiheit. – Diese Argumentation ist verständlich. Doch sie richtet mehr Schaden an, als sie hilft. In Auseinandersetzung mit Judith Butler diskutiere ich, ob die Beschränkung der Redefreiheit nur den Angreifern eine Macht zuspricht, die sich nicht haben. Und ob es dem Staat eine Macht gibt, die er vielleicht nicht haben sollte, weil er damit verhindert, dass die Angegriffenen selbst politisch handeln. Ein Staat, der nicht als Monolith begriffen wird, könnte hingegen durch die Pluralisierung von Redefreiheit neue Handlungsräume öffnen.
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Should we ban racist comments on the internet? Should a reprint of Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' be forbidden? Should we exclude right-wing parties from TV debates? It is perfectly reasonable to answer all these question with a clear 'Yes': Hate speech leads to violence. It wounds its addressees not only mentally but - sooner or later - physically. The blazing words of citizens and politicians provoke the burning refugee camps, of which we had far too many. That’s why free speech must be constrained. – This argument is understandable, but it does more harm than good. Reviewing Judith Butler’s “Excitable Speech”, I offer the argument that restraining free speech credits the offenders with a power they don’t have, and it credits the state with a power it possibly shouldn’t have as it undermines the opportunity for the offended to speak for themselves.

"With contributions by Anders Kristian Strand, Mads Thygesen, Svend Erik Larsen, Patrizia Lombardo, J. Hillis Miller, Ragnhild Evang Reinton, Lars Sætre, Tone Selboe, Erika Fischer-Lichte, Jorunn S. Gjerden, Asbjørn Grønstad, Anders M. Gullestad, Atle Kittang and Randi Koppen.

"Exploring Textual Action questions how we analyse works of art after the performative turn and shows how the interplay of performativity (textual action), space and topography, and the converging of genres and art forms is essential in modern drama, theatre, prose fiction, poetry and film. The volume also fosters a keen concern for the development of congenial theory.

Its 14 detailed essays analyse works of art ranging from Balzac, Melville and George Eliot, to Breton, Kafka, Benjamin, Blixen and Woolf; and from W.C. Williams, Bresson and Scorsese, to Sarraute, Duras, Reygadas, Dumont and Waltz. The approach of these studies discloses the art works as creative and dynamic utterances with active and shaping forces so powerful, and consequential, that they have the potential to transform human perception and blur clear distinctions between art and "real" life.

Using an alternative and dynamic method and suggesting a direction towards the detailed analysis of literature, art, media and culture, Exploring Textual Action addresses current debates within the humanities."

Review from Journal of Theatre Research International:
"(…) the quality of the essays and their bold attempt to connect literary and art theories with the theories of subject, intersubjective relations and communication merit respect and recognition.""

Alice Crary has recently developed a radical reading of J. L. Austin’s philosophy of language. The central contention of Crary’s reading is that Austin gives convincing reasons to reject the idea that sentences have context-invariant literal meaning. While I am in sympathy with Crary about the continuing importance of Austin’s work, and I think Crary’s reading is deep and interesting, I do not think literal sentence meaning is one of Austin’s targets, and the arguments that Crary attributes to Austin or finds Austinian in spirit do not provide convincing reasons to reject literal sentence meaning. In this paper, I challenge Crary’s reading of Austin and defend the idea of literal sentence meaning.

When one thinks about describing action, it is usually agreed that there are many ways to describe what was done on a given occasion. When it is rightly acknowledged, I call this fact “pluralism”. But there are many ways to misconceive this fact. I focused on a particularly widespread misconception: doing an action is just, only, or ultimately moving our body. A critique of the idea is obviously that moving our body is but one of several aspects that might be required to have done a given thing. J. L. AUSTIN had various ideas compatible with this critique and so with pluralism. I identified and developed a few of these ideas thanks to the notion of “model” (its distinguishing features) found in AUSTIN. These ideas run counter to some widely used tools for describing action, such as “knowing under a description”, the “accordion effect”, and the “swallowing effect”. If these descriptive tools appear at first to be compatible with pluralism, the study of the models I found in AUSTIN shows they are not.



L’idée à critiquer affirme que toute action ne consiste qu’en des mouvements physiques : une action est un mouvement du corps. La critique est que si toute action inclut des mouvements physiques, elle ne consiste pas seulement, juste, exclusivement en des mouvements physiques. Ainsi, pour toute action, il y a (probablement) un mouvement du corps, mais ce n’est (souvent) pas là la seule composante de l’action. J. L. AUSTIN a développé des techniques de description de l’action en continuité avec cette critique. C’est pourquoi, à partir de la notion de « modèle » telle qu’elle apparaît chez Austin, nous avons répertorié et développé plusieurs de ces techniques de description. Il devient alors clair qu’elles s’opposent à un usage abusif de dispositifs analytiques très répandus, comme « savoir sous une description », « l’effet accordéon » ou encore « l’avalement ». Si ces dispositifs semblent reposer sur le même fait qu’est la multiplicité des manières de décrire l’action, seuls les modèles que nous avons développés sont compatibles avec un véritable pluralisme des descriptions de l’action.

Informations complémentaires

Adolf Reinach y otros filósofos del derecho han considerado que la promesa es uno de los fundamentos del derecho positivo. Reinach hace un estudio fenomenológico de la promesa en el marco de lo que él llama "actos sociales". Posteriormente, John L. Austin hace un estudio analítico de la promesa en el marco de las "expresiones realizativas". El objetivo de este trabajo es comparar ambos estudios centrándose en el caso de la promesa simulada. El resultado es un balance que muestra cómo el estudio de la fenomenología y el de la filosofía analítica se corrigen y se complementan mutuamente.