Speech Acts

Introduction

Searle’s first book appeared in 1969, subtitled “An Essay in the Philosophy of Language”. It builds on Austin, with whom Searle had studied in Oxford, and asks what rules make speech acts possible. Searle distinguishes regulative rules, which govern existing activities, from constitutive rules, which create them, and introduces the formula “X counts as Y in context C”. Using promising as his model case, he states conditions that must be met for an utterance to count as a promise, and distinguishes the propositional content of an utterance from its illocutionary force. A chapter argues, controversially, that an “ought” can be derived from an “is” by way of promising.

Connections

Builds on

• How to Do Things with Words1962 · J. L. Austin

Taken up in

• The Theory of Communicative Action1981 · Jürgen Habermas

More works by John Searle

• 1977Reiterating the Differences: A Reply to Derrida
• 1980Minds, Brains, and Programs (The Chinese Room)