Is promising an "illocutionary act"

Since the publication of Speech Acts (1969), J.R. Searle was generally accepted as the leading follower of Austin (the relation, as perceived, can perhaps be likened to that between John the Baptist and Jesus Christ). Furthermore,  Searle's account of 'illocutionary acts' was generally classified as the standard theory of 'speech acts'. (This was true at the very least until Bach & Harnish published, in 1979, their Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts, which was finally to receive the status of another 'standard account'.) On Searle's approach, promising is an 'illocutionary act', if anything. For his siggestion is to develop an analysis of the act of promising, in order to isolate possibly peculiarities of 'illocutionary acts' (and finally end up with a definition): This proceeding would be perfectly gratuitous without the assumption that promising is an illocutionary act type if anything is, according to Searle's conception of these acts.

In S. Schiffer's famous book Meaning (1972), the 'Illocutionary Act' is defined as a variety of 'meaning something by uttering x'. It is clear that I can utter "I promise to buy you a Porsche", and mean by this that I promise to buy the audience a Porsche, but not to give the corresponding promise. This is what happens, for instance, when a single mother sighs "If I had a Porsche Carrera, we could visit grandpa every week!", and her little five-year-old son utters these words: he is not yet capable of such a promise. In general, though a promise may be given by saying something and meaning something by the words, it goes beyond just saying and meaning something; it additionally involves the undertaking of an obligation to do the promised thing. Thus, when we apply Schiffer's definition, promising is not an 'illocutionary act'. (Schiffer seems to be unaware of this; he bluntly proceeds from the view that to promise is just to mean something by an utterance; see, e.g., id., 1972, 98.) 

In Bach & Harnish's book Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts (1979), two varieties of 'illocutionary act' are defined. The chief variety is the "communicative illocutionary act" which is defined as an attempt at communication (or a successful attempt; which of both is not quite clear), this being in turn analysed as the expressing of mental attitudes, like intentions and beliefs. Promising clearly goes beyond a mere attempt at communication and the expressing of an attitude (even if we grant communicative success): it additionally involves the undertaking of an obligation to do the promised thing. Thus, promising is not an illocutionary act of the chief variety. Yet it seems to be an instance of the second variety of 'Illocutionary Act' which Bach & Harnish introduce (though only as a kind of 'ugly cousin') the "conventional illocutionary act". This is a "conventional act" in Austin's sense, an "institutional act", as it would today be called (cf. eid., 1979, chap. 6). So when we apply Bach & Harnish's terminology, promising is and is not an 'illocutionary act'. It is not a communicative illocutionary act, yet it is one of the ugly cousins, a conventional illocutionary act. (Bach & Harnish try to defend the view that promising actually is a communicative Illocutionary Act, arguing that it merely involved the undertaking of the relevant obligation, yet not its creation (cf. eid. 1979, 125). Even if we adopt the rather subtle distinction they introduce, which presumes that 'undertaking' does not include 'creating', this analysis is just inadequate, as they seem to confirm elsewhere (298n4) themselves: the performance of a promise in fact does involve the creation of an obligation.)

So question if promising is an 'illocutionary act' is answered by the three most prominent approaches in ways that could not be more divergent: Searle's (1969) answer is 'Yes, of course!', according to Bach & Harnish (1979), the answer is 'Yes, indeed, and no', and according to Schiffer's conception the answer is 'No, surely not!'. (For a more detailed exposition, in which Alston's theory is also taken into consideration, find a paper of mine here.) Notice well that for this conclusion we need not assume any substantial disagreement between the relevant authors! The seeming divergence of views is completely due to the discordance about the meaning and reference of the central term, 'illocutionary act'.