Page 23 - Oswald Ducrot, Slovenian Lectures, Digitalna knjižnica/Digital Library, Dissertationes 6
P. 23
Lecture I
al content the niceness of the party: but what on earth can the truth-condi-
tion of “That evening was nice” be? I think a description of language by
means of the notions of true and false is completely impossible for sentenc-
es of that kind, and in what follows I will try to show that it is impossible
for any kind of sentence.
Now, I will take the example of a non-assertive sentence. Imagine the
utterance “Be reasonable!” Someone does something which according to
you, should not be done, and to prevent him from doing so, you say to him
“Come on, be reasonable!”. If I were to describe that “Be reasonable!” in
Searle’s way, I would say that there is a propositional content You are reason-
able (You will be reasonable rather, since we have the future here) and then
the illocutionary force of an order. That is, in telling you to “Be reasonable”,
I am ordering you to be something and that something is to be reasonable.
Yet, one feels that such an analysis is almost absurd, on the one hand, be-
cause there are no truth-conditions for being reasonable and on the other,
because when I use that sentence Be reasonable!, I am not ordering you to
be reasonable. Indeed, it is obvious that one must be reasonable, everyone
knows that, I do not need to give that order: in the very notion of a reasona-
ble action, there is the idea of something that must be done. If I say “Be rea-
sonable” in the context I have imagined, the order which I give you is not
the order to be reasonable but the order not to do what you are doing. It is
the order “Stop doing what you are doing!” When I use the word reason-
able, it is to give you an argument in favour of that order. If you wanted a
paraphrase for “Be reasonable!”, it would be “Don’t do whatever you’re do-
ing, because it’s reasonable not to do it”. So, I think to describe words like
reasonable or unreasonable, you have to bring in the idea that those words
count as arguments for some conclusion or another.
Another example, this time a personal experience. The other day in the
street, I saw a child who wanted to stroke a dog. His parents, to prevent him
from doing so, said “Leave it alone, it’s dirty!”. That is a common enough
way of speaking: no doubt, my own parents often said such things to me.
Let us try to describe “It’s dirty!”. If I were to describe it in Searle’s way, I
would say that there is a propositional content the dog is dirty and then, the
illocutionary force of an affirmation. The parents affirm to the child that
the dog is dirty. That is, I think, what the parents do have in mind. The par-
ents think that they first describe the dog, in saying that it is dirty, then that
they ask the child to draw the conclusion that “it must not be touched”.
But now try to see things from the point of view of children. What can
“That dog’s dirty” mean for a child? What does the word dirty mean for a
al content the niceness of the party: but what on earth can the truth-condi-
tion of “That evening was nice” be? I think a description of language by
means of the notions of true and false is completely impossible for sentenc-
es of that kind, and in what follows I will try to show that it is impossible
for any kind of sentence.
Now, I will take the example of a non-assertive sentence. Imagine the
utterance “Be reasonable!” Someone does something which according to
you, should not be done, and to prevent him from doing so, you say to him
“Come on, be reasonable!”. If I were to describe that “Be reasonable!” in
Searle’s way, I would say that there is a propositional content You are reason-
able (You will be reasonable rather, since we have the future here) and then
the illocutionary force of an order. That is, in telling you to “Be reasonable”,
I am ordering you to be something and that something is to be reasonable.
Yet, one feels that such an analysis is almost absurd, on the one hand, be-
cause there are no truth-conditions for being reasonable and on the other,
because when I use that sentence Be reasonable!, I am not ordering you to
be reasonable. Indeed, it is obvious that one must be reasonable, everyone
knows that, I do not need to give that order: in the very notion of a reasona-
ble action, there is the idea of something that must be done. If I say “Be rea-
sonable” in the context I have imagined, the order which I give you is not
the order to be reasonable but the order not to do what you are doing. It is
the order “Stop doing what you are doing!” When I use the word reason-
able, it is to give you an argument in favour of that order. If you wanted a
paraphrase for “Be reasonable!”, it would be “Don’t do whatever you’re do-
ing, because it’s reasonable not to do it”. So, I think to describe words like
reasonable or unreasonable, you have to bring in the idea that those words
count as arguments for some conclusion or another.
Another example, this time a personal experience. The other day in the
street, I saw a child who wanted to stroke a dog. His parents, to prevent him
from doing so, said “Leave it alone, it’s dirty!”. That is a common enough
way of speaking: no doubt, my own parents often said such things to me.
Let us try to describe “It’s dirty!”. If I were to describe it in Searle’s way, I
would say that there is a propositional content the dog is dirty and then, the
illocutionary force of an affirmation. The parents affirm to the child that
the dog is dirty. That is, I think, what the parents do have in mind. The par-
ents think that they first describe the dog, in saying that it is dirty, then that
they ask the child to draw the conclusion that “it must not be touched”.
But now try to see things from the point of view of children. What can
“That dog’s dirty” mean for a child? What does the word dirty mean for a
