On the Genealogy and Potential Abuse of Assertoric Norms (original) (raw)
Related papers
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.
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.
Three Approaches to the Study of Speech Acts (Dialogue and Universalism 1, 2013, 129-142).
Dialogue and Universalism, 1, 2013, 129-142., 2013
The paper reconstructs and discusses three different approaches to the study of speech acts: (i) the intentionalist approach, according to which most illocutionary acts are to be analysed as utterances made with the Gricean communicative intentions, (ii) the institutionalist approach, which is based on the idea of illocutions as institutional acts constituted by systems of collectively accepted rules, and (iii) the interactionalist approach, the main tenet of which is that performing illocutionary acts consists in making conventional moves in accordance with patterns of social interaction. It is claimed that, first, each of the discussed approaches presupposes a different account of the nature and structure of illocutionary acts, and, second, all those approaches result from one-sided interpretations of Austin’s conception of verbal action. The first part of the paper reconstructs Austin's views on the functions and effects of felicitous illocutionary acts. The second part reconstructs and considers three different research developments in the post-Austinian speech act theory—the intentionalist approach, the institutionalist approach, and the interactionalist approach.
'Assertion' (Oxford Handbooks Online, 2017)
Assertion is here approached as a social practice developed through cultural evolution. This perspective will facilitate inquiry into the questions what role assertion plays in communicative life, what norms it is subject to, and whether every viable linguistic community must have a practice of assertion. Our evolutionary perspective will, further, enable us to ask how assertion relates to other communicative practices such as conversational implicature, indirect speech acts, presupposition, and, more broadly, the kinematics of conversation. It will also motivate a resolution of debates between conventionalist and intentionalist approaches to this speech act by explaining how those who make assertions can embody their intentions to perform an act of a certain kind. We will close with a discussion of how assertoric practice can be compromised by patterns of malfeasance on the part of a speaker and by injustice within her milieu.
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.
Inquiry, 2020
In this article I argue that the distinction between illocutionary and perlocutionary acts needs examination, not just in its details but in its philosophical standing. We need to consider whether the distinction is motivated by (sometimes unwittingly) assumed problematic philosophical assumptions concerning the nature of our dependence on the words of others and the rationality of speech reception. Working with an example of the act of telling, I argue against the idea that the distinction is self-evident or easy to draw. By developing an analogy with perception, I argue further that defending the distinction requires one to engage in an argumentative dialectic with powerful alternative positions. I end by suggesting that taking the challenge further would require us to look more closely at how passivity and rationality might be reconciled in the reception of speech.
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.
How to Establish Authority with Words: Imperative Utterances and Presupposition Accommodation
in: A. Brożek, J. Jadacki & B. Žarnic (ed.), Theory of Imperatives from Different Points of View (2), Warszawa 2013 (Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science at Warsaw University, Vol. 7), 145-157., 2013
"The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it aims at providing an account of an indirect mechanism responsible for establishing one’s power to issue binding directive acts; second, it is intended as a case for an externalist account of illocutionary interaction. The mechanism in question is akin to what David Lewis calls “presupposition accommodation”: a rule-governed process whereby the context of an utterance is adjusted to make the utterance acceptable; the main idea behind the proposed account is that the indirect power-establishing mechanism involves the use of imperative sentences that function as presupposition triggers and as such can trigger off the accommodating change of the context of their utterance. According to the externalist account of illocutionary interaction, in turn, at least in some cases the illocutionary force of an act is determined by the audience’s uptake rather than by what the speaker intends or believes; in particular, at least in some cases it is the speaker, not her audience, who is invited to accommodate the presupposition of her act. The paper has three parts. The first one defines a few terms — i.e., an “illocution”, a “binding act”, the “audience’s uptake” and an “Austinian presupposition” — thereby setting the stage for the subsequent discussion. The second part formulates and discusses the main problem of the present paper: what is the source of the agent’s power to perform binding directive acts? The third part offers an account of the indirect power-establishing mechanism and discusses its externalist implications. "