HOW TO DO THINGS WITH WORDS

by J.L Austin. These are lectures by William James were delivered at Harvard University in 1955.

Lecture I

• Assumption: statements are only to ‘describe’ and ‘state facts as true or false’.

• Not all sentences are statements

• Pseudo-statements: statements that are not ‘verifiable’.

• Constative: not all true or false statements are descriptions.

• Performative sentence/utterance: performative (issuing of a sentence is an action)

• Performative: do not describe or report; not true or false; uttering of the sentence as a doing of an action

• 2 kinds of performatives: contractual (eg. I bet) declaratory (eg. I declare war)

• Circumstance and appropriateness is very important for an utterance to truly hold the meaning of it as a performative act.

• An act can be performed without an utterance (written or spoken) but if spoken it holds truth only if it satisfies the above two factors.

• ‘Promising’ is not just an utterance but an ‘inward and spiritual act’.

• Promising as a performative: ‘false promise’ -its not the utterance that’s false but the act is void/not implemented. So it isn’t a ‘lie or a misstatement’

Lecture II

• To say something is to do

• Performatives have the grammatical structure of statements but they don’t fit into the traditional structure of ‘true or false’.

• In evidence language: the law recognises evidence of a verbal kind if it is performative because it is regarded as “something he did, an action of his” as opposed to something he said (which won’t hold as evidence).

• Performative statements are categorised as ‘happy’ or ‘unhappy’ depending on if it is right or wrong.

• Infelicities: when an utterance is not false but unhappy; “the things that can be and go wrong” doctrine.

• Conditions for ‘happy’ performatives:

1. Accepted conventional procedure (A.1)

2. Must be appropriate(A.2)

3. Executed by all participants involved in the (exchange of the) utterance (B.1) completely(B.2)

4. They must have the intention(thoughts and feelings) to carry out the utterance(T.1)

5. Conduct themselves accordingly(T.2)

• Misfires: when the act is not achieved- it is void/without effect/attempted/purported act

• Abuses: when the act is achieved

• Misinvocations: when no such procedure took place/ if it’s in question

• Misapplications: procedure exists but is purported (allegedly true)/can’t be applied.

• Misexecutions: B cases, when the execution hasn’t been applied (B.1-Flaws and B.2-Hitches)

• Infelicities :

1) How widespread?

• In ‘acts of law’ utterances should be true or false

• Physical movements: ritual or conventional acts are susceptible

2) How complete is the classification?

• Uttering performatives is ‘performing actions’

• An actor on stage/in a poem etc: utterance is void

• To avoid ‘misunderstanding’ as a cause it is a given that: one must be heard by someone and it being understood by the other as a promise.

3) Are any infelicities mutually exclusive?

• If one doesn’t have the capacity to perform the utterance (eg. Naming a ship or naming a king) then the act is void/without effect.

Lecture III

• Infelicity :applied to all ceremonial acts and not just verbal ones

• A.1 states- there should be an appropriate procedure where certain persons are in certain circumstances:

1. ‘exist’ and ‘accepted’ are the terms for the procedure. They question if ‘be in general use’ should replace these terms.

2. Not acceptance makes it a misfire- procedure is not accepted presumably by other participants.

3. Eg. ‘I divorce you’ is not enough to dissolve a marriage in Christianity

4. Social contract: a mutually agreed understanding of other people’s and their own positions and capacity in society or in relationship to one another

5. Therefore, the person is the object of the verb eg “I order to…” must be given this authority/position by a previous procedure that was constituted giving him or her that position. If not then the person giving the order has no need to be listened to. And can thus be rejected by others/all.

6. Explicit and implicit performatives

• A.2 states-the particular person in the circumstance should be appropriate for the procedure involved:

1. Misapplication- procedure would exist but not applicable eg. “I appoint you” when someone else has been appointed, or when I am not entitled to appoint or when I have been appointed etc

• B.1 states-procedure must be executed by all participants correctly:

1. Misexecutions

2. Flaws

3. Procedure and person might be appropriate but it was done incorrectly

4. Eg. I say “my house” when I have two houses

5. Correct understanding is important

• B.2 states- procedure must be executed by all participants completely:

1. Hitches

2. Uncertainties occur regarding the end of a procedure. Confusions of anything further to be done or not.