Meaning and Speech Acts

A controversy has been brewing up for some time now between those who want to explain the meanings of certain words in terms of the speech acts which those words (or sentences containing them) are standardly used to perform, and those who say that this is a mistake. Let us call these two parties the performers and the critics. I have myself; in my treatment of ‘good’, put on one of the performances which is criticised; and Professor Strawson, in his account of ‘true’, has put on another.1 Professor Searle appears by turns as one of the most interesting performers and as one of the most trenchant critics. For he says, in general, in his recent excellent book, Speech Acts: A study of the meaning of sentences is not in principle distinct from a study of speech acts. Properly construed, they are the same study. Since every meaningful sentence in virtue of its meaning can be used to perform a particular speech act (or range of speech acts), and since every possible speech act can in principle be given an exact formulation in a sentence or sentences (assuming an appropriate context of utterance), the study of the meanings of sentences and the study of speech acts are not two independent studies but one study from two different points of view (p. 18); and in an article, with which I agree almost entirely, he attacks the view (attributed perhaps wrongly to Austin) that meaning is wholly distinct from illocutionary force.2 And in particular he convincingly analyses the word ‘promise’ in terms of the speech act of promising,3 and analyses referring expressions in terms of the speech act of referring.4 But on the other hand he severely criticises those who would treat ‘good’ in a similar way.1