The Semantics and Philosophy of Language Workshop is pleased to present Silver Bronzo (Chicago, grad student), who will give the second workshop talk of the quarter.

‘The Speech Act and Its Components: Two Readings of Austin’s Analysis’

DATE: Friday, April 22, 2011
TIME: 11:00am-1:00 pm
PLACE: Cobb 102

ABSTRACT: In this paper I distinguish and contrast two readings of Austin’s famous analysis of speech acts: an aggregative reading, according to which each speech act is a sum of conceptually detachable components, and an organic reading, according to which each speech act is a unity whose discernible components hang together conceptually. I argue that contemporary philosophy of language has tended to inherit Austin’s theory of speech acts—to the extend that it has inherited it at all—in accordance with the aggregative reading. And yet, I suggest that it is the organic reading that brings out the real philosophical attractiveness of Austin’s analysis. On the textual level, I argue that Austin’s wavers between an aggregative and an organic understanding of the relationship between the total speech act and its components.