It is familiar to categorize speech acts according to "direction of fit". Normal empirical assertions have word to (fit) world direction of fit, in that what you say is correct or incorrect insofar as the world is as you say. If the world isn't, then you are wrong. On the other hand, a claim like "it ought to be the case that P" has world to (fit) word direction of fit. If the world isn't as described - P is false - then the purport of the sentence is that the world is wrong.
In this note, I suggest an emendation of this schematic framework that I think is fruitful for understanding the complex function of a wide range of speech act types.
In this note, I suggest an emendation of this schematic framework that I think is fruitful for understanding the complex function of a wide range of speech act types.
Note that as this framework is usually employed, we the "world" that speech acts enjoy a direction of fit with, is seen to be the natural world of empirical facts. (Of course there are many complexities here, but I think we can keep this at the intuitive level for now.) Thus, consider the following three speech acts. (Of course I'm simply writing sentences. Imagine them uttered in a typical context.)
1. Mark: John closed the door.
2. Mark: John, close the door!
3. Mark: Johh ought to close the door.
As employed by, for example, Searle (see, eg. Searle, J.R. & Vanderveken, D., Foundations of Illocutionary Logic, Cambridge University Press, (Cambridge), 1985.) direction of fit considerations put 1 on one side - a declarative that strives fit the facts, and hence is right or wrong depending on whether the door is closed - and 2 and 3 both on the other - an imperative and a normative claim both of which strive to bring it about that the world is a given way, that are such that the world is somehow wrong if the door is not closed. But there is another "world" we might ask for a fit with, that is the world of social norms.
In what follows, I want to bracket questions of how to think of social norms. One can be "normatively thin" and think here simply of conventions ala Lewis, or "normatively thick" in various ways treating the normative as having varying degrees and sorts of independence from actual social behavioral dispositions. Either way, asking about direction of fit with social norms puts 1 and 3 on the same side of the divide - 1 is a sentence the proper performance of which is to fit some aspect of the world. 1 tells us that the door is closed, and 3 tells us that there is a norm in place, that it is a fact that the door ought to be closed, that John has a standing obligation. 2 is on the other side now as it does not report on a norm, but rather seek to institute a new obligation. The constitutive goal of 2 is to institute an obligation on John's part. (cf Lance and Kukla, "Leave the Gun; Take the Cannoli: the pragmatic topography of second-person calls," Ethics 123: 3, April 2013.) That is, whereas 3 responds to and reports about normative reality - it functions as reflective of an obligation and is wrong if there is no such - 2 is invocative, seeking to invoke an obligation that did not previously exist.
My first suggestion is that we begin to think about the interplay between linguistic performance and social norm in terms of the distinction between reflective and invocative functions. Following Kukla and Lance ('Yo!' and 'Lo!': the pragmatic topography of the space of reasons, Harvard 2009) I note a few points about the background framework that I endorse: first, we are speaking here of normative functions that speech acts can perform - generally these are functions from some existing normative situation in social space to some changes in that space, changes that apply to speaker, hearer, or others. Thus, an imperative is a function from an entitlement that a speaker has to an obligation on the part of the target of the imperative (among other things.) Second, all speech acts perform multiple functions. So one cannot identify a speech act strictly with a function - though one can pick out the most important or salient function in context - and even less identify these functions with sentences - though there may be functions that a given sentence typically performs.
Picking up on this second, point, it is clear enough that many speech acts perform both invocative and reflective functions. Indeed, typical utterances of 3 function not only to reflect existing normative reality but at least to reinforce it. By explicitly asserting the norm of proper dress at a formal dinner party, I reinforce that norm. I cannot, as with an appropriate order, simply inscribe wholly new norms of attire etiquette, but if none of us ever assert such norms, and they are routinely violated, they will fall out of existence. Thus, by continuing to assert them, I sustain their existence. For more interesting cases think of various sorts of role interpellation in which we report someone's gender, occupation, political role, etc.
Another interesting category in which both functions are salient is the holding. (cf Colleen Macnamarra's work on normative holding.) I say to you, who really wants to go to a party tonight even though your brother is having a hard time and needs support "You really ought to visit your brother." This speech act certainly purports to be reflecting an existing obligation. This is nothing like a mere order by which I purport to create an obligation that did not exist before. At the same time, by saying this, as a friend, I institute a second-person commitment. I call on you to honor this already-existing norm. And this second personal dimension is, indeed, invoked in the speech act. Before, things were such that you should have gone to see your brother. But this obligation was not between us in any sense. You owed it to moral decency, and perhaps to your brother, to go. Now, however, you will be challenging me as well if you don't.
One more dimension of complexity before ending this brief post: There are lots of different sorts of "fit" in the vicinity. In the case of reflective functions, the standard could be truth, justification, or a range of other epistemic standards. Perhaps these all go together. In the case of 1, presumably, the assertion of this claim functions to place me as someone who asserted something true, something justified, something conversationally salient - or, by contrast, false, unjustified, etc. But there may be domains of discourse in which these come apart. perhaps there are quasi-realist areas of discourse it the sense that there is no norm of truth, but only a norm of social justification.
I'll be following up this post with some more developed examples. But for now, what I offer is merely a proposal - itself a fascinating type of speech act worthy of independent study. I propose that thinking in terms of the invocative/reflective distinction vis a vis social norms, along with the many other dimensions of variation that speech acts can employ along these lines is a fruitful one. In particular, I think lots of questions that are typically asked in terms of "objectivity" or "objective purport" resolve into a wide range of distinct questions, differing along multiple dimensions when thought of in these terms. And that this is a good thing.
1. Mark: John closed the door.
2. Mark: John, close the door!
3. Mark: Johh ought to close the door.
As employed by, for example, Searle (see, eg. Searle, J.R. & Vanderveken, D., Foundations of Illocutionary Logic, Cambridge University Press, (Cambridge), 1985.) direction of fit considerations put 1 on one side - a declarative that strives fit the facts, and hence is right or wrong depending on whether the door is closed - and 2 and 3 both on the other - an imperative and a normative claim both of which strive to bring it about that the world is a given way, that are such that the world is somehow wrong if the door is not closed. But there is another "world" we might ask for a fit with, that is the world of social norms.
In what follows, I want to bracket questions of how to think of social norms. One can be "normatively thin" and think here simply of conventions ala Lewis, or "normatively thick" in various ways treating the normative as having varying degrees and sorts of independence from actual social behavioral dispositions. Either way, asking about direction of fit with social norms puts 1 and 3 on the same side of the divide - 1 is a sentence the proper performance of which is to fit some aspect of the world. 1 tells us that the door is closed, and 3 tells us that there is a norm in place, that it is a fact that the door ought to be closed, that John has a standing obligation. 2 is on the other side now as it does not report on a norm, but rather seek to institute a new obligation. The constitutive goal of 2 is to institute an obligation on John's part. (cf Lance and Kukla, "Leave the Gun; Take the Cannoli: the pragmatic topography of second-person calls," Ethics 123: 3, April 2013.) That is, whereas 3 responds to and reports about normative reality - it functions as reflective of an obligation and is wrong if there is no such - 2 is invocative, seeking to invoke an obligation that did not previously exist.
My first suggestion is that we begin to think about the interplay between linguistic performance and social norm in terms of the distinction between reflective and invocative functions. Following Kukla and Lance ('Yo!' and 'Lo!': the pragmatic topography of the space of reasons, Harvard 2009) I note a few points about the background framework that I endorse: first, we are speaking here of normative functions that speech acts can perform - generally these are functions from some existing normative situation in social space to some changes in that space, changes that apply to speaker, hearer, or others. Thus, an imperative is a function from an entitlement that a speaker has to an obligation on the part of the target of the imperative (among other things.) Second, all speech acts perform multiple functions. So one cannot identify a speech act strictly with a function - though one can pick out the most important or salient function in context - and even less identify these functions with sentences - though there may be functions that a given sentence typically performs.
Picking up on this second, point, it is clear enough that many speech acts perform both invocative and reflective functions. Indeed, typical utterances of 3 function not only to reflect existing normative reality but at least to reinforce it. By explicitly asserting the norm of proper dress at a formal dinner party, I reinforce that norm. I cannot, as with an appropriate order, simply inscribe wholly new norms of attire etiquette, but if none of us ever assert such norms, and they are routinely violated, they will fall out of existence. Thus, by continuing to assert them, I sustain their existence. For more interesting cases think of various sorts of role interpellation in which we report someone's gender, occupation, political role, etc.
Another interesting category in which both functions are salient is the holding. (cf Colleen Macnamarra's work on normative holding.) I say to you, who really wants to go to a party tonight even though your brother is having a hard time and needs support "You really ought to visit your brother." This speech act certainly purports to be reflecting an existing obligation. This is nothing like a mere order by which I purport to create an obligation that did not exist before. At the same time, by saying this, as a friend, I institute a second-person commitment. I call on you to honor this already-existing norm. And this second personal dimension is, indeed, invoked in the speech act. Before, things were such that you should have gone to see your brother. But this obligation was not between us in any sense. You owed it to moral decency, and perhaps to your brother, to go. Now, however, you will be challenging me as well if you don't.
One more dimension of complexity before ending this brief post: There are lots of different sorts of "fit" in the vicinity. In the case of reflective functions, the standard could be truth, justification, or a range of other epistemic standards. Perhaps these all go together. In the case of 1, presumably, the assertion of this claim functions to place me as someone who asserted something true, something justified, something conversationally salient - or, by contrast, false, unjustified, etc. But there may be domains of discourse in which these come apart. perhaps there are quasi-realist areas of discourse it the sense that there is no norm of truth, but only a norm of social justification.
I'll be following up this post with some more developed examples. But for now, what I offer is merely a proposal - itself a fascinating type of speech act worthy of independent study. I propose that thinking in terms of the invocative/reflective distinction vis a vis social norms, along with the many other dimensions of variation that speech acts can employ along these lines is a fruitful one. In particular, I think lots of questions that are typically asked in terms of "objectivity" or "objective purport" resolve into a wide range of distinct questions, differing along multiple dimensions when thought of in these terms. And that this is a good thing.
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