Handout on J. L. Austin How to do Things with Words A good deal of philosophy is about drawing distinctions and giving definitions.

Austins book is full of distinctions, both in coming up with them and then trying to defend them. Austins aim in the book is to make a distinction between a constative utterance and a performative utterance. He ultimately fails to do so, and so he moves to a wider theory, where he talks of Locutions, Illocutions, and Perlocutions. Why does Austin want to do all this? Austin thinks that philosophers have suffered from what is called the descriptive fallacy. They think that all sentences of language are descriptions of how the world is. He wants to show that there are many other kinds of things we do with language apart from describing. He is able to show that there is no general distinction between performative and constative statements and therefore, truth and falsity can be applied to performatives as well. This shows that truth and falsity are not just applicable to descriptions of the world. We have a too straightforward and nave account of truth. Truth is relative to interests and purposes (though this does not mean that truth is relative, per se). Austin also wishes to show that merely looking at a statement and nothing else is very misleading for philosophers. They must look at the whole speech situation, who is speaking, who are in the audience, what are their interests and purposes, what is being talked about, what people want to do with what they say, what is the context of utterance. So, lets see what the distinction between constative and performative statements amounts to. Examples of constative statements are: 1. The earth is round. 2. India won independence in 1947. 3. Frogs are amphibians. 4. India Gate is in New Delhi. They are fact stating. When I say them, I report a fact. I speak truly or falsely. Also constatives have entailments, implications and presuppositions. A constative is neither true nor false if its presupposition fails. So if you say, The present king of France is bald then, since there is no present king of France, your statement is neither true nor false. Examples of performatives are: 1. I name this ship Queen Elizabeth 2. I do (take her as my wife, said when marrying) 3. I bet you sixpence it will rain tomorrow. 1

4. I promise to pay you five bucks tomorrow. In saying these, we are doing things. They are like actions, except that we perform these actions by using words. Performatives are essentially conventional. Austin never says what he means by conventional. For a performative to succeed, the following is necessary. A.1 There must be a convention regarding the utterance of the performative. A. 2 The persons uttering the statement must be appropriate to do so, and the circumstances should be appropriate too. B.1 The procedure must be carried out by the participants correctly and B.2 Completely T.1 The procedure must reflect the thoughts and feelings of the persons and T.2 Such thoughts and feelings must be seen in future effects. (14, 15) Failure of A and B are called Misfirings (18). The act is purported but void. Failure of T1 is called an insincerity (if you promise but do not intend to carry it out). Failure of A is called a Misinvocation. Failure of A2 is called Misapplication. Failure of B is called Misexecution, and Failure of B1 is called a Flaw and failure of B2 is called a Hitch. Success in terms of meeting the above conditions is called being Happy and failure is called being Unhappy. Before we move on we need to notice a few things. When we say something, we need to see that the following are distinct from each other: 1. 2. 3. 4. The sense of the statement/word The reference of the statement/word The mood of the statement. (Imperative, declarative, optative...) The force of the utterance. (How you meant it as, for instance, as an order, a request, a warning, a statement, as information, etc.) 5. The effect of the utterance on the hearer. When you say something with a sense and a reference, you have uttered a Locution. The locution has a force. This is called an Illocution. The effect on the hearer is called Perlocution. Now lets go ahead keeping all of the above in mind. We want to distinguish between the Constative and the Performative. Constative 1) True/False Performative Are the reasons for the distinction right? Not true/False. Austin challenges this. The following are his arguments. These are more 1) Austin says that if X says I state that John is like running then this is a performative for in stating Happy/Unhapp you are doing something. Yet, the truth of the y. statement depends on the happiness of John is running.(pg 55) 2) In the utterance, I warn you that the bull is about to charge, the statement would be false if the bull were not about to charge. But a warning is a performative!! Yet it can be true or false. (pg 55) 3) When we say In saying that it was raining I was not 2

4)

5)

6)

7)

8)

betting, arguing or warning: I was simply stating a fact, we clearly let stating have the same status as arguing, warning and betting. (page 133) The following sentences are parallel: (a) I state that he did not do it (b) I argue that he did not do it (c) I suggest that he did not do it (d) I bet that he did not do it. Constatives can be happy or unhappy. If one says, the cat is on the mat but he says, I dont believe it then this is essentially insincere. Just like when you say I promise but also say I dont intend to carry out my promise. Plus, we are committed to the future consequences of what we say. Hence, statements are liable to failures of T1 and T2. Statements and Performatives have got presuppositions and entailments and implications. Performatives have the presupposition that A1 and A2 are met. Promising entails that you are under an obligation. Ordering someone implies that I want something done. Verdictive performatives can be assessed for truth and falsity. Like, one can say, I estimate that Richa is five feet tall or I find that Richa is five feet tall. Or I pronounce that Richa is five feet tall.(page 140) When we say France is Hexagonal this is vague for a geographer but may be true for a general. The sentence, Lord Raglan won the battle of Alma is true for a school student but scandalous to a historian. When we say, All snow geese migrate to Labrador, would we say this was false, because one of them failed to do so? (page 143)

Austin concludes that It is essential to realize that true and false, like free and unfree, do not stand for anything simple at all; but only for a general dimension of being a right or proper thing to say as opposed to a wrong thing, in these circumstances, to this audience, for these purposes, and with these intentions. (pg 144). And, The truth or falsity of a statement depends not merely on the meaning of words but on what act you were performing in what circumstances. (Ibid.) Mood and Tense also wont do. 1) Mood wont do because instead of saying I order you to turn right I can say Turn right 2) Tense wont do because we can say, instead of Youre out, Out as we do in cricket. Or instead of saying I find 3

2) Maybe the distinction can be drawn in terms of Mood or Tense.

Performatives are usually in the first person singular present indicative

Constatives are in declarative mood and can have many tenses (past tense, future tense etc.) 3) We can reduce all performatives to explicit form and then ask four questions of the explicit form. This will tell us whether it is a performative or not. These tests do not apply to constatives. (though that is not much of a difference)

active.

you guilty we can say You did it. (See page 58)

The four questions that tell you something is a performative are: a) Could he do the action without uttering the performative? b) Could he do it deliberately; could he be willing to do it? c) Can we ask But was he really Xing, where X is the action performed? d) Could it be literally false that I X when I said I was Xing, where X is a performative? (page 86)

The answer to a) should be No; the answer to b) should be Yes, the answer to c) should be No, and the answer to d) should ideally be No. If these answers emerge then we get a Performative. When you make a performative explicit, it means that when an umpire says Out an explicit form would be I declare you out. So, you put it into explicit terms, so to speak. There are problems though. Austin claims that these tests work for I postulate but not I was assuming that (Page 87). He says that we can say the latter without assuming anything or being conscious of assuming anything. To say. I assume need not be a report or a performance of an assumption. (page 87) Also, statements with Behabitive verbs like I am sorry..., I blame,I approve of and I welcome you are half descriptive and half performative. So making X explicit does not make it a performative all the time. It might draw in some descriptive content. Also sometimes it is hard to make things explicit, so we dont say things like I insinuate that or I insult you that even though insulting and insinuating are very much performances of actions. (page 88)

So much for the performative/constative difference. Austin claims that he cannot draw the line between them, even though it initially looks like the distinction is promising. Austin then wants to draw a distinction between Illocution and Perlocution. Remember that Illocution is the name given to what you want to do with a sentence. Perlocution is the effect of what you said on the hearer. Austin wants to replace the performative/constative dichotomy with a theory of speech acts. Illocution A) So far as Illocution goes, there are three main aspects to be noted about them: Perlocution A) So far as Perlocutions go, one has to note the following: 4

1) They have to be understood by the audience/hearer for the force of the utterance to be taken in the right sense: this is called securing uptake. 2) Force takes effect in a sense different from bringing about some change in nature; thus to say I name this ship Queen Elizabeth has the effect that other people refer to the ship as Queen Elizabeth. 3) Illocutionary acts usually invite a response. So there is usually a sequel to it as a matter of convention. B) Illocutionary acts are picked out by the Formula: In saying X I was doing Y or I did Y. Example: In saying I would shoot him, I was threatening him. But this formula applies to locution as well as to cases where no illocution is involved at all: 1) In saying Iced ink I was uttering the noises I stink 2) In saying X you were making a mistake or failing to observe a distinction or breaking the law or running a risk or forgetting. None of these are Illocutionary acts. (page 120-125)

1) There is a distinction between the object of a Perlocution and a sequel of a Perlocution. I think this distinction is rather vague. Thus when I warn you, then you are alerted. That is the object version of Perlocution; the sequel version is brought out clearly when there is no illocutionary formula. So, when I say Matthew, why are you behaving like a girl? the sequel of this is to feel insulted, by Matthew.

B) Perlocutionary Acts are picked out by the Formula: By Saying X I did Y or I was doing Y And By saying I would shoot him, I alarmed him. The By saying formula is also not entirely secure from counterexamples. 1) For instance, through wrong use of language. A person can say Are you intimidating me? instead of Are you threatening me? 2) Tempt is a verb which can be used in both senses of either locution or Perlocution. We dont say I tempt you to and so being tempted is a perlocutionary effect. But we do say Are you tempting m? and this suggests that tempting someone can be an illocutionary phenomenon. 3) Sometimes doing an illocutionary act is not trying to have any perlocutionary effect. To promise XYZ is not to try to have any effect on the hearer. (page 120-125)

What is the result of all this? A) The total speech act in the total speech situation is the only actual phenomenon which in the last resort we are engaged in elucidating; (pg 147) B) Stating, describing hold no unique position. C) True and false are not relations or qualities but are a dimension of assessment. D) There is no contrast between normative and factual terms. E) The theory of meaning in terms of sense and reference needs to be weeded out and replaced by a theory of speech acts. (Page 147-148) What we need to do is to classify speech acts.