Page 48 - Oswald Ducrot, Slovenian Lectures, Digitalna knjižnica/Digital Library, Dissertationes 6
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Slovenian Lectures
theory of polyphony, if it does chase truth-conditional considerations out
from the global analysis of utterances does not chase them out from the de-
tailed analysis of utterances. It may still be the case that the points of view of
my different enunciators can be described with true and false conditions. In
other words, one could at this stage make the same criticism to me as I made
to Searle. Concerning Searle, I maintained that by distinguishing the illo-
cutionary force and the propositional content, by saying that the meaning
of an utterance was the ascription of an illocutionary force to a proposition-
al content, he prevented judging the utterance as a whole in terms of truth
and falsehood: since the utterance is an act, it is, on that count, neither true
nor false. That, I put to Searle’s credit but I also addressed Searle a reproach.
I said: in the analysis that he gives of meaning, he maintains an area, that is
the propositional content, which is defined in terms of truth and falsehood.
Of course, he refuses to apply those notions of truth and falsehood to the
whole of meaning but he does maintain a sort of little cubby hole, a little
compartment where truth and falsehood are still relevant. One could make
the same reproach to me: one could say “your theory of polyphony shows
that an utterance, taken as a whole, cannot be given a truth-conditional de-
scription but the different elements that you put within the meaning of ut-
terances, well perhaps they could be described in terms of truth and false-
hood”. It is that possibility which I will be discussing in the next three lec-
tures when presenting my theory of argumentation. I will try to show that
as elementary as they may be, the points of view of the enunciators cannot
be described in truth-conditional terms.
theory of polyphony, if it does chase truth-conditional considerations out
from the global analysis of utterances does not chase them out from the de-
tailed analysis of utterances. It may still be the case that the points of view of
my different enunciators can be described with true and false conditions. In
other words, one could at this stage make the same criticism to me as I made
to Searle. Concerning Searle, I maintained that by distinguishing the illo-
cutionary force and the propositional content, by saying that the meaning
of an utterance was the ascription of an illocutionary force to a proposition-
al content, he prevented judging the utterance as a whole in terms of truth
and falsehood: since the utterance is an act, it is, on that count, neither true
nor false. That, I put to Searle’s credit but I also addressed Searle a reproach.
I said: in the analysis that he gives of meaning, he maintains an area, that is
the propositional content, which is defined in terms of truth and falsehood.
Of course, he refuses to apply those notions of truth and falsehood to the
whole of meaning but he does maintain a sort of little cubby hole, a little
compartment where truth and falsehood are still relevant. One could make
the same reproach to me: one could say “your theory of polyphony shows
that an utterance, taken as a whole, cannot be given a truth-conditional de-
scription but the different elements that you put within the meaning of ut-
terances, well perhaps they could be described in terms of truth and false-
hood”. It is that possibility which I will be discussing in the next three lec-
tures when presenting my theory of argumentation. I will try to show that
as elementary as they may be, the points of view of the enunciators cannot
be described in truth-conditional terms.
