Page 19 - Oswald Ducrot, Slovenian Lectures, Digitalna knjižnica/Digital Library, Dissertationes 6
P. 19
Lecture I
mood (in this case, the indicative). The indicative indicates that the speaker
adheres to the idea, to the dictum, according to which there is Peter’s com-
ing in the future. If the sentence were May Peter come!, if the sentence had
that quasi-subjunctive form, you would have the same dictum again but a
different modus, which would be the subjunctive: while the indicative in-
dicates the subjective belief of the human being who adheres to the dictum,
the subjunctive here would indicate the will – or rather, to avoid ambigui-
ty, let us say the desire of the human being who wishes Peter to come in the
future. So, all the grammatical moods express psychological attitudes, – be-
liefs, desires, for example – relative to dicta. (If the word will has seemed in-
adequate to describe the subjunctive, it is because it is preferable to reserve
it to indicate the different attitudes expressed by the modus, whatever they
may be, in a general way.)
Well, I do not intend to examine this conception in detail: the point is
simply to show that, on the one hand, it already questions the truth-condi-
tional conception I spoke of earlier on but, on the other hand, that it does
so in a way which is not radical enough. It does question the truth-condi-
tional conception in so much as, according to the Port-Royal grammarians,
a whole part of the meaning of a sentence, namely, the modus, is distinct
from the part, namely, the dictum, which represents reality or, according to
Bally, there is something else in our sentences than a representation of re-
ality. The representation of reality is given by the dictum alone. To that ex-
tent, the purely truth-conditional or informative conception of meaning is
already criticized. But to my mind, that criticism is not radical enough in
as much as the modus, which for example indicates belief or desire is also,
in a certain sense, a description of reality: simply, it is not the same reali-
ty as that described by the dictum. The dictum describes the outer world,
the modus the inner world, but fundamentally, in both cases, there is a rep-
resentation of a certain reality: an outer reality in one case, an inner reali-
ty in the other.
That has led a certain number of philosophers of language to produce
a representation of meaning which is fundamentally similar to Bally’s and
the Port-Royal grammarians’ but which differs on one important point:
the subjective element is not psychological in nature. Yes, as my second ex-
ample, I am going to take speech-act philosophy as developed by English
and American philosophers, especially Austin in England and Searle in the
United States. It is essentially about Searle that I am going to speak. Aus-
tin, whose position is far less clear-cut and possibly far closer to my own, I
am leaving aside.
mood (in this case, the indicative). The indicative indicates that the speaker
adheres to the idea, to the dictum, according to which there is Peter’s com-
ing in the future. If the sentence were May Peter come!, if the sentence had
that quasi-subjunctive form, you would have the same dictum again but a
different modus, which would be the subjunctive: while the indicative in-
dicates the subjective belief of the human being who adheres to the dictum,
the subjunctive here would indicate the will – or rather, to avoid ambigui-
ty, let us say the desire of the human being who wishes Peter to come in the
future. So, all the grammatical moods express psychological attitudes, – be-
liefs, desires, for example – relative to dicta. (If the word will has seemed in-
adequate to describe the subjunctive, it is because it is preferable to reserve
it to indicate the different attitudes expressed by the modus, whatever they
may be, in a general way.)
Well, I do not intend to examine this conception in detail: the point is
simply to show that, on the one hand, it already questions the truth-condi-
tional conception I spoke of earlier on but, on the other hand, that it does
so in a way which is not radical enough. It does question the truth-condi-
tional conception in so much as, according to the Port-Royal grammarians,
a whole part of the meaning of a sentence, namely, the modus, is distinct
from the part, namely, the dictum, which represents reality or, according to
Bally, there is something else in our sentences than a representation of re-
ality. The representation of reality is given by the dictum alone. To that ex-
tent, the purely truth-conditional or informative conception of meaning is
already criticized. But to my mind, that criticism is not radical enough in
as much as the modus, which for example indicates belief or desire is also,
in a certain sense, a description of reality: simply, it is not the same reali-
ty as that described by the dictum. The dictum describes the outer world,
the modus the inner world, but fundamentally, in both cases, there is a rep-
resentation of a certain reality: an outer reality in one case, an inner reali-
ty in the other.
That has led a certain number of philosophers of language to produce
a representation of meaning which is fundamentally similar to Bally’s and
the Port-Royal grammarians’ but which differs on one important point:
the subjective element is not psychological in nature. Yes, as my second ex-
ample, I am going to take speech-act philosophy as developed by English
and American philosophers, especially Austin in England and Searle in the
United States. It is essentially about Searle that I am going to speak. Aus-
tin, whose position is far less clear-cut and possibly far closer to my own, I
am leaving aside.
