Schiffer: Are "illocutionary acts" conventional?

 

 

 

 

...xxx

Schiffer:

I think that we are to understand Austin's claim that illocutionary acts are conventional acts as at least committing him to this: a kind of act X is a kind of illocutionary act only if there exist certain conventions such that (primarily) by virtue of these conventions the performance of certain sorts of non-conventional acts (e.g., uttering sounds of a certain type) by certain sorts of persons in certain sorts of circumstances is constituted an instance of X-ing.

This, together with Austin's apparent suggestion that illocutionary acts are conventional acts in the same way that kicking a goal is a conventional act (ibid., p. 106), suggests that Austin thought illocutionary acts are made possible by conventions or rules of the type which Rawls and Searle have called "constitutive rules".
I believe that it is false that illocutionary acts are conventional acts in the sense intended by Austin. Perhaps there are some speech acts-e.g., an umpire putting a runner out by uttering 'Out!'-which are conventional acts in the sense intended by Austin, but these are very special cases and of peripheral interest only; and I would agree with Strawson that in the majority of cases "it is not as conforming to an accepted convention of any bkind (other than those linguistic conventions which help to fix the meaning of the utterance) that an illocutionary act is performed." (Schiffer, Meaning (1972), 91)

 

(1) Schiffer ascribes the following position to Austin: "a kind of act is a kind of illocutionary act only if there exist [constitutive rules underlying its performance]". Let us call the necessary condition here stated the "conventionality requirement".

 

(2) The conventionality requirement is clearly meant as a (partial) definition. (And we think that this is indeed a correct representation of Austin's position.) An act can thus be an "illocutionary act" in Austin's sense only if it satisfies the conventionality requirement.

 

(3) Schiffer uses the existence of acts which do not satisfy the conventionality requirement as evidence that the conventionality requirement is inadequate.

 

(4) Schiffer's argument clearly presupposes that some acts which do not satisfy the conventionality requirement are "illocutionary acts". According to Austin's definition, these acts are not "illocutinary acts". Accordingly, that they do not satisfy the conventionality requirement cannot be evidence against the conventionality requirement. Here, Schiffer's argument contains a logical fault.

 

(5) The problem is clearly this: Schiffer assumes that those acts (which do not satisfy the conventionality requirement) are "illocutionary acts". Since Austin's definition would not allow for this, Schiffer clearly assumes another, alternative definition of "illocutionary acts"

 

(6) Possibly, Schiffer already assumes the definition which he himself presents later in the book, according to which the term "illocutionary act" refers to instances of 'speaker meaning' (in one sense of that term): Let us assume this here for the sake of the argument. (Click here for details.)

 

(7) Then Schiffer argument says that, because speaker meaning does not satisfy the conventionality requirement, Austin's "illocutionary acts" do not satisfy this requirement.

 

(8) This argument is clearly nonsense. Given that the conventionality requirement is a (partial) definition (which Schiffer himself strongly seems to assume), acts which do not satisfy it do not fall in the extension of the term "illocutionary act", and hence cannot provide counterexamples. Schiffer uses the term "illocutionary act" for entities which--at least in Austin's account--this term does not refer to.

 

(9) In order to make sense of Schiffer's argument, we must apparently presume ...

(a) that Schiffer assumes an alternative definition of "illocutionary acts"--one which does not contain the conventionality requirement, is not Austin's; and assume ...

(b) that in his argument, Schiffer applies that definition which is not Austin's. 

 

(10) To apply, in a argument concerning Austin's definition of "illocutionary acts", a definition of "illocutionary acts" which is different Austin's, is a terminological mistake. This mistake presupposes ambiguity (presence of more than one meaning) of the term "illocutionary act", and rests upon the failure to keep these two meanings duly separate.