Systems of Genres and the Enactment of Social Intentions

ed out and in which the acts have been turned to a logical calculus, while still learning from Searle how rigorous systems of action may be realized. This understanding of the way genres structure social relations could be highly conservative in that decorum would urge repeating only the familiar, reproducing old dramas, prompting only replayings of the old songs at the familiar moments. But it can also give us the understanding to lead old hopes and expectations down familiar-seeming garden paths, but that lead to new places. Only by uncovering the pathways that guide our lives in certain directions can we begin to identify the possibilities for new turns and the consequences of taking those turns. When we are put on the spot, we must act, and in acting we must act generically if others are to understand our act and accept it as valid. Without a shared sense of genre others would not know what kind of thing we were doing. And life is mysterious enough already. I would like to thank all the participants in the Rethinking Genre conference for their discussion of this paper, and particularly John Dixon for his penetrating critique of my use of Searle in an earlier version of this paper. I would also like to thank Charles Goodwin and the students in my fall 1992 Language Theory course for helping me think through the puzzle John handed me. For outlines of the history and operations of the patent system in Britain and the U. S. see Bugbee, Davenport, Gomme, Jones, MacLeod, Vaughan, the various articles by P. J. Federico in the Journal of the Patent Office Society, and the special issue of Technology and Culture devoted to patents (32:4, October 1991). A comprehensive bibliography on patents appears in Weil and Snapper. A further feature of the patent system at that time, the reissuance of patents to correct defects created other opportunities to redefine the object being patented and the scope of the claim. Abuse arising from this opportunity to readjust patents on the basis of later knowledge about competition, workability of ideas, further developments of the product andmarketplace considerations, led to the reissue option to be removed in the middle of the nineteenth century. One can even suggest that in creating property (as all property is created by legal identification) our legal system, courts, etc serve to create the primary value of our society which allows the continuation of the life of society built on those values. In a Durkheimian sense we can see this as a sacred and sacralizing activity. See also McCarthy on the relationship between psychiatric reports and DSMIII and Blakeslee on the relationship between Physical Review and Physical Review Letters.