Normative accounts of assertion: from Peirce to Williamson, and back again (original) (raw)

Assertion among the speech acts.

S. Goldberg (ed.), The Oxford Handbook on Assertion, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Republished in M. Sbisà, Essays on Speech Acts and Other Topics in Pragmatics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023

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.

Commitment and Obligation in Speech Act Theory

Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities

This paper aims to illuminate the notions of commitment and obligation, as well as their explanatory role, in the theory of speech acts. I begin (section 1) by arguing in support of the view that assertion involves a commitment to the truth; and, building on Williamson’s (2000) account of this act, I suggest that we can understand such commitment in terms of an obligation to ensure. I then argue (section 2) that this foundationalist account of the commitment involved in assertion is preferable to the discursive coherentism of Brandom (1983). Next (section 3), I propose that MacFarlane’s (2011) taxonomy of views of the nature of assertion should be simplified, so that there is just a broad division into those that understand the act in descriptive, vs those that understand it in normative, terms. And finally, I show (section 4) how we can understand the normative view I favour through a comparison with Stalnaker’s (1999) descriptive account of assertion which, I hope, reveals the role played by obligation in the characterization of this act.

On the Normativity of Speech Acts

Semantics and Beyond

Illocutionary speech acts such as assertion are subject to norms. In this paper I describe how we might explain the normativity of such speech acts, focusing on the case of assertion itself. In the introduction I clarify what is at issue: we are concerned not with whether speech acts are essentially conventional, but with whether they are constitutively governed by norms; I am sympathetic to the view that they are, and wish to explain how this could be the case. Next, I suggest that one kind of attempt to explain the normativity of assertion by appeal to a reductive view of its essence fails; and I sketch my own preferred explanation of this normativity which treats assertion as an irreducible kind. Then, in the final section, I show how the account I favour grounds the normativity of speech acts and their essences in more basic facts in a manner that is naturalistically acceptable – provided that the piecemeal conception of philosophical naturalism articulated there is correct.

Assertion: The Constitutive Norms View

The Oxford Handbook of Assertion, 2019

Two important philosophical questions about assertion concern its nature and normativity. This article defends the optimism about the constitutive norm account of assertion and sets out a constitutivity thesis that is much more modest than that proposed by Timothy Williamson. It starts by looking at the extant objections to Williamson’s Knowledge Account of Assertion (KAA) and argues that they fail to hit their target in virtue of imposing implausible conditions on engaging in norm-constituted activities. Second, it makes a similar proposal and shows how it does better than the competition. It suggests that Knowledge Norm of Assertion (KNA) is not constitutive of the speech act of assertion in the same way in which rules of games are constitutive, and thus KAA comes out as too strong. The final section embarks on a rescue mission on behalf of KAA; it puts forth a weaker, functionalist constitutivity thesis. On this view, KNA is etiologically constitutively associated with the speech...

Assertion: A (Partly) Social Speech Act

J. Pragmatics, 2021

In a series of articles (Pagin 2004, 2009), Peter Pagin has argued that assertion is not a social speech act, introducing a method (which we baptize ‘the P-test’) designed to refute any account that defines assertion in terms of its social effects. This paper contends that Pagin’s method fails to rebut the thesis that assertion is social. We show that the P-test is both unreliable (because it overgenerates counterexamples) and counterproductive (because it ultimately provides evidence in favor of some social accounts). Nonetheless, we contend that assertion is not fully social. We defend an intermediate view, according to which assertion is only a partly social speech act: assertions both commit the speaker to a proposition (a social component) and present their propositional content as true (a non-social component). The upshot is that assertion is in some important respect social, although it cannot be defined solely in terms of its social effects.

Is there an illocutionary act of assertion?

This contribution analyzes Cappelen’s No-Assertion view arguing that, although appealing, the No-Assertion view is based on a questionable premise, namely, that assertions are sayings. Austin’s notions of locution and saying are examined, in order to show that illocutionary acts concern aspects not covered by either of the previous two terms. Following a reconstructed definition of illocutionary act from Austin’s writings, I suggest that assertion is an illocutionary act, in that it takes effect after it is taken up by a hearer. I further suggest that in this respect the game analogy fails with regard to assertion , since no rules of the constitutive kind or norms can intrinsically define this act. This proposal is based on the idea that illocutionary act analysis should dispose of any preoccupations with propositions. It aruges that expressing propositions was not originally and should not be at the core of speech act theoretic problematic.

Should Speech Act Theory Eschew Propositions?

Sbisa on Speech as Action, 2022

In articles such as 'Speech Acts without Propositions?' (2006), Marina Sbisà advocates a "strong" conception of speech acts as means by which speakers modify states of affairs in the world, primarily those pertaining to speakers' deontic statuses relative to one another including their rights, obligations and commitments. In this light she challenges an influential approach to speech acts as typically if not universally possessing propositional contents. Sbisà argues that such an approach leads to viewing speech acts as primarily aimed at communicating propositional attitudes rather than carrying out socially and normatively significant action. For this reason she advocates eschewing propositions from speech act theory's conceptual toolkit; she also proposes a liberalization of the distinction between illocutionary force and semantic content, which are widely thought to be mutually exclusive. In this essay we examine Sbisà's reasoning and argue that while it does justify denying propositional attitudes a central role in communication, it does not justify dispensing with propositions or other contents in our theorizing about speech acts. In addition, we endorse Sbisà's proposal for liberalizing the force/content distinction, and show a variety of ways in which force indicators may also possess semantic content.

Making Sense of the Role of Assertions

Philosophical Investigations, 2019

Much of the literature on speech acts and semantics assigns a type of theoretical priority to assertions; many philosophers assume, as Robert Brandom has put it, that assertion is the fundamental speech act. Others take a more pluralistic approach, with many categories interwoven as peers, and no one category as fundamental. I suggest there is a way to embrace a pluralistic approach and explain the importance of assertions without making them fundamental. Their role instead becomes one of supporting connections between other categories, and surprisingly, turns on their unusually broad but very thin pragmatic character. 1. Searle (1962) and Austin (1962). 2. Wittgenstein (1953).

The norm of assertion: a 'constitutive' rule?

Inquiry, 2019

According to an influential hypothesis, the speech act of assertion is subject to a single ‘constitutive’ rule, that takes the form: ‘One must: assert that p only if p has C’. Scholars working on assertion interpret the assumption that this rule is ‘constitutive’ in different ways. This disagreement, often unacknowledged, threatens the foundations of the philosophical debate on assertion. This paper reviews different interpretations of the claim that assertion is governed by a constitutive rule. It argues that once we understand the full import of assuming that assertion is governed by a constitutive rule, it becomes clear that some fundamental assumptions of the current debate are mistaken, and others unwarranted.

Asserting as Commitment to Knowing. An Essay on the Normativity of Assertion

PhD dissertation , 2015

In this thesis, I propose and defend a theory according to which committing oneself to knowing the proposition expressed counts as an assertion of that proposition. A consequence of this view is the knowledge account of assertion, according to which one asserts that p correctly only if one knows that p. In support of this approach, I offer a strategy of identifying an assertion’s “normative consequences”, types of act that normally take place as a result of one’s making an assertion incorrectly. I outline two such phenomena: retraction and disavowal of knowledge. In continuation, I put the theory to test and critically examine four sets of objections against it, arguing that it can convincingly defuse them. Finally, I discuss two related issues: I maintain that by performing “aesthetic assertions” one also normally performs a non-assertoric speech act of recommendation, and argue for the possibility of “non-linguistic assertions”, whose content is expressed by gestures in appropriate contexts