Phenomenology and Mind (Nov 2016)
Rationality as the Normative Dimension of Speech Acts
Abstract
My paper deals with Searle’s account of the normative dimension involved in the performance of speech acts. I will first critically assess the rule-based speech act theory behind Searle’s characterization of the normativity of language – arguing that this approach cannot explain what makes a certain illocutionary act the specific type of illocutionary act it is, both in literal and non-literal or indirect cases. As an alternative, I will endorse the inferentialist model of linguistic communication proposed by Bach and Harnish. Besides a benefit on the side of speech act theory, the inferentialist model – along with some suggestions offered by Grice’s later reflections about rationality – can adequately account for the normative dimension arising from language. In particular, it enables to do so by emphasizing an aspect pointed out by Searle himself: the social character of the communication situation. I will claim that the presumption about the interlocutor’s rationality could be regarded as the basic form of normativity deriving from the social character of the communication situation.
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