Subject: Re: [HAB:] Re: Commissive vs. perlocutionary speech
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2003 14:15:59 +0300 (EET DST)



Hello Gary,

Nice to talk to you again. I'll be cutting a lot to keep the length of
this manageable - let's hope this still makes sense.

> G: Then, of course, there IS such a category, since JH
> indicates what he intends to mean by perlocutions. Why
> can't speech act theory have developed beyond its
> initiators like any other discursive formation?---though JH
> would find Austin averse to what JH has in mind (but Austin
> might be more open-minded than Searle). 

Well, you know what I mean - not a term in mainstream speech act theory as
known by non-Habermasians. In principle, of course, there's no reason why
Habermas's version wouldn't be counted as Austin's rightful heir. But as
things stand, his version is in some respects idiosyncratic (see also
his use of 'performative').
 
> A> [JH's perlocution] makes it look like he has
> misunderstood the basics of speech act theory - as indeed
> Searle has accused him of doing. 
> 
> G: But is the accusation valid? 

It is not an easy question. It is certain that he employs several key
terms differently than Austin and Searle, but as you correctly point
out, that does not yet mean he is wrong. I do think that Searle, in his
response to Habermas in _Searle and His Critics_, gets mislead by the
terminological differences (he's never let the principle of charity
guide his interpretations of others anyway) and misses the point. But
there is always the naggling doubt that perhaps Habermas does smuggle
extra normative content into his new basic concepts. 

Take illocutionary success, one bone of contention between Habermas and Searle.
Suppose I say to you "The New Jersey Devils won 5-1 last night" in order to
inform you of this fact. For Searle, illocutionary success would be a matter of
convention and context; if they are in order, I have managed to inform
you, in other words, performed an act with the intended illocutionary force.
The question is simply: what kind of act did I perform in/by saying
these words? But for Habermas, illocutionary success consists in
intersubjective recognition of validity claims (because that is what the
"illocutionary aim" of a speech act is, according to him). Intuitively,
I can inform you of something even if you do not accept what I say as
true. (If you don't believe me and get into trouble, I can later say
"You have nothing to complain about, you were informed".) In that case
it is not constitutive of performing an illocutionary act that it
achieves intersubjective recognition. It is, of course, still plausible
that I have *successfully* informed you only if you come to believe what I
said, and this is the intuition that Habermas seems to be following. As
Austin puts it, "Unless a certain effect is achieved, the illocutionary
act will not have been happily, successfully performed. This is to be
distinguished from saying that the illocutionary act is the achieving of
a certain effect [which would be perlocutionary act, AK]. I cannot be
said to have warned an audience unless it hears what I say and takes
what I say in a certain sense. ... Generally the effect amounts to
bringing about the understanding of the meaning and of the force of the
locution" (_How to Do Things With Words_, HUP 1962, 115-116). But
Habermas goes even further in his definition of illocutionary
success. It is not enough that you come to believe what I said, but you
must come to believe it *because* you recognize the validity claims
inherent in my utterance. It is a matter of rational, not merely causal
influence on your beliefs. 

In something like this manner, communicative rationality is immanent in
illocutionary aims. The question, or doubt that I mentioned is that in
going beyond the modest constitutive analysis offered by traditional
speech act theory, Habermas also goes beyond mere conceptual analysis
and adds substantive normative content into the concepts. Above I
sketched three possible senses of "illocutionary success": performing a
speech act with the intended illocutionary force, inducing the
corresponding perlocutionary effect in the hearer, and getting the
hearer accept the validity claims raised. Habermas needs the third of
these to show that communicative rationality is part and parcel of
language use, but what can he say to an opponent who insist on the first
or second alternative? If you don't already accept Habermas's theory of
communicative action in other respects, why should you accept the third
interpretation of illocutionary success, when intersubjective
recognition does not seem to be constitutive of perfoming an
illocutionary act like informing (or advising or ordering)?

> May one not intend propositional content to serve a
> directive that has a normally clear effect in ordinary
> communicative relations, and thereby tenably presume to be
> "read" to intend the perlocutionary aspect to prevail in a
> speech act? I see no reason not to admit such acts into
> speech act theory and thus to give them a name:
> perlocutions or perlocutionary speech acts. 

It is possible, but also possibly very misleading, since Austin (and
other following him) use "perlocution" for the act of persuading or
convincing someone or getting someone to do something by saying something.
 
> A> [In any case,]..."perlocutions" do not, according to
> [JH], raise validity claims,....
> 
> G: What causes you to believe that this is fair to JH's
> view? 

In the essay I referred to (in English 'Some Further Clarifications of the
Concept of Communicative Rationality', I think) he speaks of
"perlocutions" as acts where perlocutionary aspects overshadow the
illocutionary ones, so much so that they cannot be rationally disputed:
"Bestreiten lassen sich nur illokutionare Akte, die gueltig oder
ungueltig sein koennen." (127) [My apologies for the lack of umlauts - the
list program seems to remove them, so I have to use ugly substitutes.]
His example is "You act like a pig!" - to be sure, you can dispute it
("No, I don't!"), but that is beside the point. This sort of speech acts
in a way openly flout the demands of justifiability or appropriateness;
they wear, as it were, their invalidity on their sleeves. They simply
have a different role in language.

> All speech acts participate in the validity basis of
> speech. [...]

I'm not sure how what I say above is related to the rest of your
interesting post. I need to think about it.

All the best,

Antti


     --- from list habermas-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---