Austin, Derrida and Searle
My first question when I faced those four texts was, how can I read them? Then, I realize that there was actually a kind of “order” to do it. Of course, is not the way to do it, but was a guideline. That`s the interesting thing about reading and following a debate or a confrontation of different authors. Sometimes, we read two different texts that talk about similar issues, we can put them to talk between them, and then, to discuss among other texts that discuss similar topics or ideas. Anyway, is always more interesting, at least for me, to read something that is “directed” (of course Derrida would not agree with this) to someone. So, I took the road of read those texts as a discussion. First, I read Austin, then, Derrida`s text called “Signature event context”, then, the Searle`s text (I will keep his name), and finally, the Derrida`s answer to Searl.
Following this reading I will not focus on any text to deep, and I will try to figure out how can the big picture looks like (if there is one). Austin (along with Wittgenstein) was one of the first philosophers in start developing a philosophy of language in the XX Century. As we know after his reading, his main focus is in the relation of language and the world that would be outside of it. In other words, and it is what gives the title of his main work, “How to do things with words”. His idea (or at least how I read it) is/was that language can escape the limits of the own language and have a relevant role in some kind of “extra linguistic” circumstances. In other words, some utterance are able to modify reality of people. A good example of this it is when a priest (in a Christian tradition) says “I now declare you man and wife”, and starting from that moment, the couple is actually married. Of course, in order to have a “happy ending” for this situation, Austin says that there is a group of conditions that must be fulfilled. The situation in what this utterance is involved would be the context (for me, one of the most relevant concepts of the discussion). If some of the conditions is not fulfilled, let’s say that the woman was already married or the scene happened on a stage in a theatre, the utterance loose it’s performative force.
A few years latter, Derrida spoke in a philosophical meeting about the issue of writing. Then, at least in my read, he made a distinction about writing and spoken language, and didn`t take much care about the last one. His main focus is about written language. But after making his main proposal about it, he started to discuss some issues related to Austin`s work. I think that one of the main points was about his (Austin) notion of context. According to Derrida there is no way to access to any kind of “objective” or “total” context , so there would be no way to establish the circumstances that surround any speech act. But is further than “just the context”, is a matter about intentions. For the French philosopher, there is no way either to access to the “real intentions” of any speaker. That`s one of the main characteristic of writing (for him), that can survive even after the dead of it’s author and the receiver. In order words, the writing exists by it self. Doesn’t need concepts like intentions, author, context of production, etc.
After this “aggression” to Austin, one of his disciples decided to reply to Derrida. For Searle, Derrida had a misreading of Austin’s text (actually, for Searle seems to be that Derrida didn’t understand a word). The American philosopher states that all Derrida`s argument are lack of force and make big confusions about concepts like iterability and permanence. For Searle, speech acts do exist and elements such as context and intentions may be accessed in order to study them.
Of course, Derrida answered. In his very characteristic style, the French philosopher answer to the short “reply” of Searle with almost a whole book (I can’t unmentioned this element). Derrida starts with an exercise of deconstruction about Serle`s text. First, he discussed the authorship of it making fun of the “copyright” of the text, and finally, reducing him to an acronym that, of course, looks like his name: Sarl. It seems to be that one of the mains point of disagreement about them are the ideas of “truth”, “real”, etc. In some way, and I agree about that, Searle claims to have “the right reading” of Austin. Finally, the text discuss about the notion of context, the role of signature (especially talking about Searle`s copyright and his own signature at the end of his previous text), in other word, going back to the arguments presented in SEC. And of course, never stops of making fun of Searle.
More than focus and choosing some positions, I would like to keep the issues that are being discussed here. As I said before, for me one of the main concepts (and that is extremely interesting when we want to think about other disciplines outside literature and philosophy) is the concept of context. Some people believe that knowing the context of an utterance we would be able to get to the “real signification” or the “intention” under it. Derrida, as we saw, doesn’t. And on the other hand appear the concept of writing (can we make a direct relation with the notion of text?). Both ideas are, nowadays, on opposite sides. That’s why for me this debate is interesting. Because show a discussion about something that is still in the arguments in literary theory. That means, at least for me, which is an issue that must be keeping discussed.
Austin, Derrida and Searle
My first question when I faced those four texts was, how can I read them? Then, I realize that there was actually a kind of “order” to do it. Of course, is not the way to do it, but was a guideline. That`s the interesting thing about reading and following a debate or a confrontation of different authors. Sometimes, we read two different texts that talk about similar issues, we can put them to talk between them, and then, to discuss among other texts that discuss similar topics or ideas. Anyway, is always more interesting, at least for me, to read something that is “directed” (of course Derrida would not agree with this) to someone. So, I took the road of read those texts as a discussion. First, I read Austin, then, Derrida`s text called “Signature event context”, then, the Searle`s text (I will keep his name), and finally, the Derrida`s answer to Searl.
Following this reading I will not focus on any text to deep, and I will try to figure out how can the big picture looks like (if there is one). Austin (along with Wittgenstein) was one of the first philosophers in start developing a philosophy of language in the XX Century. As we know after his reading, his main focus is in the relation of language and the world that would be outside of it. In other words, and it is what gives the title of his main work, “How to do things with words”. His idea (or at least how I read it) is/was that language can escape the limits of the own language and have a relevant role in some kind of “extra linguistic” circumstances. In other words, some utterance are able to modify reality of people. A good example of this it is when a priest (in a Christian tradition) says “I now declare you man and wife”, and starting from that moment, the couple is actually married. Of course, in order to have a “happy ending” for this situation, Austin says that there is a group of conditions that must be fulfilled. The situation in what this utterance is involved would be the context (for me, one of the most relevant concepts of the discussion). If some of the conditions is not fulfilled, let’s say that the woman was already married or the scene happened on a stage in a theatre, the utterance loose it’s performative force.
A few years latter, Derrida spoke in a philosophical meeting about the issue of writing. Then, at least in my read, he made a distinction about writing and spoken language, and didn`t take much care about the last one. His main focus is about written language. But after making his main proposal about it, he started to discuss some issues related to Austin`s work. I think that one of the main points was about his (Austin) notion of context. According to Derrida there is no way to access to any kind of “objective” or “total” context , so there would be no way to establish the circumstances that surround any speech act. But is further than “just the context”, is a matter about intentions. For the French philosopher, there is no way either to access to the “real intentions” of any speaker. That`s one of the main characteristic of writing (for him), that can survive even after the dead of it’s author and the receiver. In order words, the writing exists by it self. Doesn’t need concepts like intentions, author, context of production, etc.
After this “aggression” to Austin, one of his disciples decided to reply to Derrida. For Searle, Derrida had a misreading of Austin’s text (actually, for Searle seems to be that Derrida didn’t understand a word). The American philosopher states that all Derrida`s argument are lack of force and make big confusions about concepts like iterability and permanence. For Searle, speech acts do exist and elements such as context and intentions may be accessed in order to study them.
Of course, Derrida answered. In his very characteristic style, the French philosopher answer to the short “reply” of Searle with almost a whole book (I can’t unmentioned this element). Derrida starts with an exercise of deconstruction about Serle`s text. First, he discussed the authorship of it making fun of the “copyright” of the text, and finally, reducing him to an acronym that, of course, looks like his name: Sarl. It seems to be that one of the mains point of disagreement about them are the ideas of “truth”, “real”, etc. In some way, and I agree about that, Searle claims to have “the right reading” of Austin. Finally, the text discuss about the notion of context, the role of signature (especially talking about Searle`s copyright and his own signature at the end of his previous text), in other word, going back to the arguments presented in SEC. And of course, never stops of making fun of Searle.
More than focus and choosing some positions, I would like to keep the issues that are being discussed here. As I said before, for me one of the main concepts (and that is extremely interesting when we want to think about other disciplines outside literature and philosophy) is the concept of context. Some people believe that knowing the context of an utterance we would be able to get to the “real signification” or the “intention” under it. Derrida, as we saw, doesn’t. And on the other hand appear the concept of writing (can we make a direct relation with the notion of text?). Both ideas are, nowadays, on opposite sides. That’s why for me this debate is interesting. Because show a discussion about something that is still in the arguments in literary theory. That means, at least for me, which is an issue that must be keeping discussed.
Derrida VS Searle
Derrida highly appreciated Austin’s study of performatives, but he also launched an attack towards Austin, and he emphasized that the dividing line between performatives and contatives is not absolute, they are not excluding, on the contrary, there exists utterances being both of performatives and contatives. Derrida also found a destructional strategy in Austin’s work—replacing performatives—the “marginal study” as the “center” of linguistic study.
Derrida made clear his position on the question of “iterability”. He was opposed to Austin’s suggestion excluding those “non-serious” utterances—perfomative utterances said by an actor on the stage, or introduced in a poem, or spoken in soliloquy. Because signs possess the characteristic of being readable, every sign, no matter linguistic or nonlinguistic, spoken or written, can be cited, Derrida thought “citation” reflects the mechanism of iterability—the prerequite to performatives. The “non-serious” will no longer be able to be excluded from “ordinary” language as Austin wished. He illustrated that writing is a means of perpetuating thoughts and signs in the absence of the receiver and the writer, the presence and intentions belong to the structure, written signs guarantee the iteration and the readability, iterability is the most important characters of writing. Writing will not be parasitic on spoken language anymore, spoken language won’t be superior to writing because of its directness. The assimilation of speech to writing can be accomplished in the condition of iterability.
But Searle emphasized that Derrida confused the iterability and the permanence of writing. It’s undeniable that Derrida has put forward an important argument, but I personally agree with Searle’s opinion—permanence is essential to the conservation and circulation of writing. As to me, iterability is an inherent characteristic of linguistic signs, the improvement and enlargement is the inherent law of linguistic development as well. In his attempt to defend Austin and the theory of speech act, Searle argued that iterability is the necessary presupposition of the forms which that intentionality takes instead of something in conflict with the intentionality of linguistic acts. Besides, Searle thought Derrida misunderstood Austin’s argument about “non-serious” utterances, which are not supposed to be standard examples to be analyzed, Derrida mistook “the status of Austin’s exclusion of parasitic forms of discourse from his preliminary investigations of speech acts”. Besides, Searle argued there is no any moral judgment on the term “parasitic” and Derrida confused citationality with parasitic discourse.
Derrida questioned Austin explaining meaning in terms of context, he thought Austin attached importance on context, analyse of Austin requires a value of context, even there is only an obscure context, “intention”, which affects performative utterances, will always depends on context. Then performative communication becomes the communication of an intentional meaning of writer or speaker, even if that meaning has no referent. The presence of intention and purport means everything is in an integrated sense, including conventions, grammar of words and phrases or other semantic components. Derrida indicated that meaning does not come from the determinate context, but comes from the iterability of utterances. Austin argued that there is no “pure” performative, those “non-serious” performatives are “parasitic” upon on “ordinary” language. Derrida thought that the normal or parasitic uses of language could not be definitely determined, he claimed that there is a complementation, to illustrate meaning coming from the iterability, Derrida gave the example of signature: the absolute singularity of a signature-event and a signature-form must be retained to assure the effects of signature, and a signature must have a repeatable, iterable and imitable form and be detached from the present and singular intention of its production because of the rigorous purity of those effets. Derrida is opposed to Austin’s opinion that speech act theory can derive an explicit content, this example of signature also explained iterability of utterances and indicated that in different content, the latent sense is changeable.
We could not judge whose argument is superior though the debate, the controversy between Jacques Derrida and John Searle focusing on Austin’s theory of speech act may reflect the misunderstanding between Anglo-American and the continental philosophies.
How to do Things with Words–Austin
As the founder of speech acts theory, Austin made a distinction between “performatives” and ”constatives”, he specified there kinds of speech acts：the locutionary act, the illocutionary act, the perlocutionary act, he changed the way people considering the relation between language, mind and the world.
The contents and functions of statements are various. True value is not the only standard to assess a sentence. To start from the words and expressions for everyday use, Austin indicated that on different occasions, in different language circumstances, the language use is an activity of performing an action. The object of linguistic study should be the action fulfilled by the words and phrases, linguistic theory is just a part of linguistic acts theory.
Austin saw language as a kind of social activity, the notion of performatives: the performative utterance has its own special job, it is used to perform an action rather than just to say or assert something. There is no true or false to evaluate performative sentences, but the performatives could be void or inappropriate when something goes wrong. Then Austin stated characteristics of performatives, he examined the origin of failures and explained several “Infelicities” and six “felicity conditions” of avoiding unhappy function of performatives.
In this article, there are two points provoking my interest. First of all, we know the appropriate circumstance and conventional formula are of importance for the functioning of performatives—to perform an action, vice versa, the utterance can also be influenced by acts, I’d like to emphasize the effect of actions on performatives. Austin gave us several examples illustrating this argument, the most representative one is that marriage can be effected by cohabiting rather than uttering words in a ceremony. If we want the action being seen as done, the performative utterance is not the only necessary prerequisite. That’s to say, people can use their own bodily movements and actions to express meaning, then the body and their actions become signs of expressing meaning instead of performatives. Language and action are both the way connecting the world and our mind. Actually, I think this argument narrows the gap between acts and utterances. It’s not difficult to understand, because there is no impassable gulf separating the utterances and actions that’s also what Austin what to express.
Secondly, in performatives, Austin found other values which function independently among the words and grammatical structure of the utterance, all the illocutionary acts can convey meanings, they also have a certain force. he differentiated these two linguistic terms—semantic meaning and pragmatic force, performatives mean uttering un utterance which has a certain conventional force, like give orders, warning, make a bet, etc..Because of force, listeners can understand the sense of utterances through context, and utterances can have certain effect on listeners. One of the best examples is the law of effect. On an appropriate occasion, after appropriate procedures, all the circumstances are appropriate in certain ways, the judge says:” I announce you guilty!” or the minister announces on a marriage ceremony:”I now announce you husband and wife!”, then their utterances will produce a force to make the announcement effective and make listeners believe this is true. The purport of utterance should be the combination of sense and force. This argument reflects the connection and distinction between semantics and pragmatics, it’s also a symbolic representation of Austin’s philosophical intelligence.
Impressions on “How To Do Things With Words” by Austin
In How To Do Things With Words, Austin discusses a special category of utterances – written or spoken – that he calls performatives. A performative utterance is performedin the active voice of the first person of the present indicative. Contrary to a declarative statement, the performative does not have the function to report or describe something. The uttering is part of doing an action. Austin offers these examples of performative utterances : ‘I do’, ‘I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth’. Austin argues that the utterance ‘I do’ is not a statement in itself, it is neither true nor false ; the realisation of its meaning occurs in the context of a marriage when someone takes man or wife. Therefore, by stating these words you are doing an action that would have not otherwise occurred.
In his second lecture, Austin presents a schema of six necessary conditions for a performative utterance to be successful, that is, for it to take effect. In summary, conditions are : accepted procedure, appropriateness of circumstances, correctness and completeness of execution, and sincerity of intentions (now and later).
Once again, I feel that I finished reading the text and reflected about it and I am not sure what I learned about ways to read or comprehend a text and, to be honest, I don’t feel I’m very much closer to knowing what Literary Theory is.
The text made me think however about two concepts. First, contexts are important as we can infer from the first condition – that of conventional procedure. A conventional procedure is deeply embedded in cultural reality. Therefore, a corrolary of Austin’s point is that cultural specificity has to be taken in account when one analyses performative utterances. By extension, I believe the cultural aspect must be studied when one is to understand a piece of litterature.
The second concept I thought of does not come from Austin’s arguments and discussion of the performative, but rather to a phrase he mentions at some point : To say is to do. It made me think of the work of a writer who have people do things by saying or writing them. Of course characters are not performing what the writer creates, but there must be some sort of reality or realness to these situations since the reader believes in it and becomes emotionally involved. In the 80s, in the american soap Dallas, the beloved main character Bobby died. Ratings went down and producers decided to have him back : the whole death had been a dream. I remember my mom being choked : she had been watching a dream for a year. She felt fooled and stopped watching. Could it be that she thought, what the writer said, the characters were really doing ?
Impressions on the Derrida-Searle argument
From the discussion, argument (fight ?) between Derrida and Searle, my favorite phrase from Derrida is « To conclude this very dry discussion » (p.20) ; not only because Derrida admitted the dryness of his discourse, but mainly because the conclusion to his paper was imminent ! I really had a hard time to follow his analysis of Austin’s paper and I felt somewhat relieved to find out I wasn’t the only one : « […] I did not find his [Derrida’s] arguments very clear and it is possible that I may have misinterpreted him […] profoundly » (p.198), writes Searle in his reply to Derrida. By Searle’s direct tone to attack Derrida’s arguments right at the beginning, one may hope that, if he doesn’t understand the text, at least he will be entertained…
At first, his his paper, Derrida discusses writing, communication and the question of absence, that of the writer or of the receivers. I believe the text can exist in the absence of the writer and of the intended receivers ; otherwise, how could the study of history, for example, exist ? This field of study is based on the analysis of texts for which historians were surely not (in most cases) the intended audience. Historians have intentions that are different from those of the writer, that is, to understand history. But to do so, they must recover and find the writer’s intention.
In the second part, Derrida discusses Austin’s ideas on performative speech acts. To Derrida, « Austin has shattered the concept of communication as a purely semiotic, linguistic, or symbolic concept » (p.13). To Searle, Derrida has not understood Austin and « Derrida’s Austin is unrecognizable » p. (204).
Derrida’s reply to Searle is highly imbued with sarcasm. It is surprisingly long considering the relatively short paper that provoked it ; and I must admit that I didn’t have the time, energy, patience, courage to fully read it. In his paper, Searle admits that he « will not attempt to deal with all or even very many of the points he [Derrida] raises » (p.199). In Derrida’s very long and exhaustive reply, I believe one of his implicit arguments is to show Searle that when one replies to someone he must do so completely, without leaving any part out (something that he stresses even more by dividing his paper from a to z). An exhaustive reply that I, at this point, am not capable of doing.
“Le vert est ou”
“Le vert est ou”
Austin and Literature
The notion that when we speak we are performing actions that our words refer to and that these utterances are neither true nor false, must have been obvious when people heard themselves being called “Heretic” during the Spanish Inquisition. The horror they felt was due to the fact that once declared a heretic, one became one regardless of the ‘truth’ of the matter. Unfortunately, this declaration was often in Austin’s terms a ‘felicitous’ performative. However, the notion that all language is performative is new and really quite frightening for me.
If one applies Austin’s theory to literature, the implications for the reader are serious for literary language is also performative; it is not true or false, and it creates/makes real the world it ‘speaks’ of. This means that it also brings to life the ideas, morals, ideology that lie within the text. In other words, literature helps to shape/perform the world. And the repetition of Western ideology over centuries would then only serve to ensure that certain ideologies are deeply entrenched in communities where texts ‘perform’ acts. We have seen this before in Althusser, for example.
Literature creates reality to override other realities. Therefore, when texts ‘speak’ of women and men, the idea of woman and man is performed. This suggests that gender is a construct of literary language. In other words, there is no woman or man as such outside of the text. We are female or male animals whose social performance is just that, a performance constructed in great part by language and the society that language performs. This might apply to any cultural construction of human beings. Extrapolating further, literature can transform reality. Then text might not construct female and male human beings but discover many possible varieties of individuals.
Questions:
1. What is felicitous and infelicitous literary language? Perhaps felicitous literary language is literature that uses language and form to successfully engage its audience in a ‘conversation’ that stimulates reflection on human experience. Infelicitous literary language would fail to do this. But then a lot of what we call non-literary texts becomes literature.
2. Where does meaning come from, or where is the subject in language? Austin claims that the speaker’s words and not her/his intention are performative. This means that you mean what you say/do, not what you think. However, when I say, “I love you” to my great-grandmother my intention is to tell her how much she means to me, so my intention is embedded in my words/actions, isn’t it?
Similarly, if I say, “I love you” to a partner I am thinking of breaking up with to delay the inevitable, my words ‘perform’ my intention as well as the ‘infelicitous’ illocutionary act of falsely declaring my love for the other person.
3. Why are the words of an actor not performative? (I asked this before I read the next text)
“Percussion in mis major”
Limited Inc. is very difficult to follow, and I really can’t pretend to understand it all. However, I did at least grasp the tone, and I couldn’t help chuckling when I read what looks like a rant against poor Austin.
His argument owes a lot to Austin’s concept of performative language, but for Derrida the theory is flawed for several reasons:
1. The writer does not have to be present. Searle says a shopping list and notes to a colleague during a lecture require the author’s presence. Derrida’s argument still holds as the shopping list and notes can be used repeatedly at other times. I have no problems with this idea, For example, once at an airport, someone behind a double glass wall wrote a message for me on the glass. I am sure that the glass was cleaned that day, and neither the writer nor I ever saw it again. However, it was quoted several times in many other contexts, resulting in different meanings each time. Therefore, even when a text is destroyed, its language can live on.
2. Requiring a speaker to be sincere suggests that there is meaning outside the text, but all meaning is in the text.
However, Derrida is addressing Austin (Sarl) and his ideas were formed over the course of his education in France. Doesn’t his resistance to traditional readings of texts come from his engagement with theorists from Plato on?
Searle argues that intentions do not always need to be conscious and sees no need for the separation of intention from the expression of intention. I agree that the two converge at times, and I don’t see how this convergence contradicts Derrida’s idea that texts infinitely defer meaning. Borges’ texts will be interpreted with and without consideration of his intention, but it is difficult to believe no trace of Borges remains in his work. When we read, we are discovering more of the world, and Borges remains in it through his writing. As we have discussed in class, the point of literature is to generate conversation on the human experience, not to arrive at a single possible meaning. The text keeps the dialogue going because meaning is elusive (even its origin!) The phrase, “Le vert est ou” repeated (used) in certain academic circles has and will have various meanings each time it is repeated. It might speak of Searle’s argument, of Derrida’s theory, of an example bad grammar, etc…
Also, I cannot help thinking of testimonial literature, and I worry that excluding the author and her/his history might be silencing Others. When women in South Korea write stories of their double oppression in a patriarchal society under a totalitarian regime, they use a certain voice and form to change the world. Yes, their text is performative, but if we don’t acknowledge their authorship, can we say that we are listening to their voices? They are writing to change the present world as well as any number of worlds in the future. If someone cries, “Help”, don’t we need to know whom it is in order to respond?
When a narrative about past events subverts oppressive discourse by creating a plurality of perspectives, the author and readers recuperate the past to inform the present. In this case, the text is dependent on realities outside and inside its language.
3. “Parasitic” or “Non-serious” language utterances are no different form any other utterance. And although signs appear before speech, and not the other way around as Austin claims, all language is performative. Searle claims that Austin’s exclusion of “non-serious” language was temporary. This seems odd. Derrida’s attack on Austin’s exclusion of “non-serious” utterances makes sense to me. If you have a theory about language, why exclude such a large portion of the language we use? Derrida claims that all utterances are repeatable and it is this very iterability of language that makes it performative.
4. The iterability of written language in the absence of the writer makes it performative for with every iteration there is a break with a previous perfomative context to perpetually defer an ultimate meaning. Searle claims that Derrida is confusing iterability with permanence, but reprinted texts are read differently each time, and thus iterative.
I like the idea that literature’s performativity and iterability perpetually defers meaning so that texts can transform the world. However, I don’t see how the absence of the writer permits us to disregard all traces of her/his voice in the text. Yes, any sign can exist without the sender and/or receiver, but controllers at a Pan American Airways station might have saved Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan if they had known the signals they were picking up were coming from their plane!
“Le vert est ou”
“Le vert est ou”
Austin and Literature
The notion that when we speak we are performing actions that our words refer to and that these utterances are neither true nor false, must have been obvious when people heard themselves being called “Heretic” during the Spanish Inquisition. The horror they felt was due to the fact that once declared a heretic, one became one regardless of the ‘truth’ of the matter. Unfortunately, this declaration was often in Austin’s terms a ‘felicitous’ performative. However, the notion that all language is performative is new and really quite frightening for me.
If one applies Austin’s theory to literature, the implications for the reader are serious for literary language is also performative; it is not true or false, and it creates/makes real the world it ‘speaks’ of. This means that it also brings to life the ideas, morals, ideology that lie within the text. In other words, literature helps to shape/perform the world. And the repetition of Western ideology over centuries would then only serve to ensure that certain ideologies are deeply entrenched in communities where texts ‘perform’ acts. We have seen this before in Althusser, for example.
Literature creates reality to override other realities. Therefore, when texts ‘speak’ of women and men, the idea of woman and man is performed. This suggests that gender is a construct of literary language. In other words, there is no woman or man as such outside of the text. We are female or male animals whose social performance is just that, a performance constructed in great part by language and the society that language performs. This might apply to any cultural construction of human beings. Extrapolating further, literature can transform reality. Then text might not construct female and male human beings but discover many possible varieties of individuals.
Questions:
1. What is felicitous and infelicitous literary language? Perhaps felicitous literary language is literature that uses language and form to successfully engage its audience in a ‘conversation’ that stimulates reflection on human experience. Infelicitous literary language would fail to do this. But then a lot of what we call non-literary texts becomes literature.
2. Where does meaning come from, or where is the subject in language? Austin claims that the speaker’s words and not her/his intention are performative. This means that you mean what you say/do, not what you think. However, when I say, “I love you” to my great-grandmother my intention is to tell her how much she means to me, so my intention is embedded in my words/actions, isn’t it?
Similarly, if I say, “I love you” to a partner I am thinking of breaking up with to delay the inevitable, my words ‘perform’ my intention as well as the ‘infelicitous’ illocutionary act of falsely declaring my love for the other person.
3. Why are the words of an actor not performative? (I asked this before I read the next text)
“Percussion in mis major”
Limited Inc. is very difficult to follow, and I really can’t pretend to understand it all. However, I did at least grasp the tone, and I couldn’t help chuckling when I read what looks like a rant against poor Austin.
His argument owes a lot to Austin’s concept of performative language, but for Derrida the theory is flawed for several reasons:
1. The writer does not have to be present. Searle says a shopping list and notes to a colleague during a lecture require the author’s presence. Derrida’s argument still holds as the shopping list and notes can be used repeatedly at other times. I have no problems with this idea, For example, once at an airport, someone behind a double glass wall wrote a message for me on the glass. I am sure that the glass was cleaned that day, and neither the writer nor I ever saw it again. However, it was quoted several times in many other contexts, resulting in different meanings each time. Therefore, even when a text is destroyed, its language can live on.
2. Requiring a speaker to be sincere suggests that there is meaning outside the text, but all meaning is in the text.
However, Derrida is addressing Austin (Sarl) and his ideas were formed over the course of his education in France. Doesn’t his resistance to traditional readings of texts come from his engagement with theorists from Plato on?
Searle argues that intentions do not always need to be conscious and sees no need for the separation of intention from the expression of intention. I agree that the two converge at times, and I don’t see how this convergence contradicts Derrida’s idea that texts infinitely defer meaning. Borges’ texts will be interpreted with and without consideration of his intention, but it is difficult to believe no trace of Borges remains in his work. When we read, we are discovering more of the world, and Borges remains in it through his writing. As we have discussed in class, the point of literature is to generate conversation on the human experience, not to arrive at a single possible meaning. The text keeps the dialogue going because meaning is elusive (even its origin!) The phrase, “Le vert est ou” repeated (used) in certain academic circles has and will have various meanings each time it is repeated. It might speak of Searle’s argument, of Derrida’s theory, of an example bad grammar, etc…
Also, I cannot help thinking of testimonial literature, and I worry that excluding the author and her/his history might be silencing Others. When women in South Korea write stories of their double oppression in a patriarchal society under a totalitarian regime, they use a certain voice and form to change the world. Yes, their text is performative, but if we don’t acknowledge their authorship, can we say that we are listening to their voices? They are writing to change the present world as well as any number of worlds in the future. If someone cries, “Help”, don’t we need to know whom it is in order to respond?
When a narrative about past events subverts oppressive discourse by creating a plurality of perspectives, the author and readers recuperate the past to inform the present. In this case, the text is dependent on realities outside and inside its language.
3. “Parasitic” or “Non-serious” language utterances are no different form any other utterance. And although signs appear before speech, and not the other way around as Austin claims, all language is performative. Searle claims that Austin’s exclusion of “non-serious” language was temporary. This seems odd. Derrida’s attack on Austin’s exclusion of “non-serious” utterances makes sense to me. If you have a theory about language, why exclude such a large portion of the language we use? Derrida claims that all utterances are repeatable and it is this very iterability of language that makes it performative.
4. The iterability of written language in the absence of the writer makes it performative for with every iteration there is a break with a previous perfomative context to perpetually defer an ultimate meaning. Searle claims that Derrida is confusing iterability with permanence, but reprinted texts are read differently each time, and thus iterative.
I like the idea that literature’s performativity and iterability perpetually defers meaning so that texts can transform the world. However, I don’t see how the absence of the writer permits us to disregard all traces of her/his voice in the text. Yes, any sign can exist without the sender and/or receiver, but controllers at a Pan American Airways station might have saved Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan if they had known the signals they were picking up were coming from their plane!
Speech Acts, Language Games and Gamey Language
I had mixed feelings when reading Searle and Derrida. I like the personality that comes through Derrida’s writing; I don’t like Searle’s personality. On the other hand, I understand Searle and I am sympathetic with anyone who tries to communicate clearly. I don’t dislike Derrida’s style, but in large doses it is difficult to digest.
This is an interesting debate because it illustrates clearly that solipsistic abyss that threatens all communication. Not just qui pro quos and quid pro quos, but a fundamental refusal or inability to take the other’s point of view. Searle doesn’t play with language; Derrida does. How could they ever understand each other?
Derrida’s project is to refuse the secondary status writing. Saussure says writing is derivative; Plato says the same, and perhaps even that writing is bad. Derrida objects and “persiste et signe” (insists and signs).
Is there a particular quality that speech has and that writing does not? Derrida says that all signs are the same: they iterate. He considers Austin’s work because speech acts should offer the best examples of signs that are so anchored in context that they could not be iterated. If a speech act requires a context, then to be repeated the whole context must be repeated too. That is the source of D.’s play around signatures. Are signatures speech acts? If so, then writing goes wherever speech goes.
I will have to read Derrida’s text again (maybe twice more). I do understand that what he is saying is crucial in the sense that the relation between the sign and the context is a crucial question. Nobody really understands how to deal with context in a systematic manner.
My intuition tells me that Derrida is wrong about writing. In saying that, I may be revealing my own shortcomings rather than his: 1) I say that without understanding Derrida, 3) it is a bit self-aggrandizing to think that I might be able to dismiss Derrida with a wave of the hand, 3) dismissiveness is the easy way out of dealing with difficult thoughts, and 4) if I can see the problem with Derrida’s thinking so easily, wouldn’t it be useful to state clearly what it is?
Obviously, I don’t understand D. well enough to attempt 4, but here are a few thoughts about writing — my premises so to speak when I read D.
The first is that writing seems very different socially because it undermines dialogue. That social difference seems to me to be a reflection of a fundamental difference.
In Plato’s Phaedrus the opposition between writing and dialogue is underlined by the fact that Socrates takes a walk with Phaedrus and discusses a speech written on a scroll that Phaedrus is trying to memorize. This is a pivotal Platonic dialogue because it is the place in Plato’s writing where his Socrates character says that writing is no more than an aide to memory. I’m sure a philosopher would have a more nuanced view (Derrida makes much of the fact that in Plato’s text writing is called a “pharmakon” — remedy and poison; his reading of Plato is brilliant).
The reason writing undermines dialogue is because it cannot blend voices. The author can imagine other voices (cf Bakhtin), but those others do not write the text, at least not in the same manner as, say, each person adds his or her voice to a choral chant. Writing is quite satisfactory as a solitary endeavor. I think that’s Socrates’ complaint. Writing destroys civilization because instead of relying on the other’s voice to compose the text, the author imagines fictitious other voices. Written texts encourage schizophrenia.
Socrates regrets the double shift caused by money and writing: his oral society based on the strong social ties of the deme was being scaled up to a larger written society where money was the key to status. The social music of dialogue was being captured on paper and sold.
Socrates did not want to be part of such a society. Suicide was one option, but it was both more pedagogical and dramatic to let society do it for him. He would throw himself in front of the money train and if he got run over, that would prove he was right.
Not much time will be gained, O Athenians, in return for the evil name which you will get from the detractors of the city, who will say that you killed Socrates, a wise man; for they will call me wise, even although I am not wise, when they want to reproach you. Apology
An oral society is by nature a very different society than a written one. People are important because they are like libraries. When things are written we have the impression that we don’t need people in order to have their knowledge.
This is the history of the evolution of language: from sound, to writing, to electrons, to robots. Robots are writing that takes on human form.
Texts are well programmed robots. With Searle and Derrida, is it more like a robot battle or a dialogue?
Derrida-Searle
Too bad Austin didn’t live to see the heated debate his ideas aroused between Derrida and Searle. Furthermore, he could have explained to these guys what he actually intended when he wrote How to do things with words. But no, wait, his intentions should be evident and clearly conveyed in order for his writing to be effective. Is that so? Or is writing supposed to communicate and replicate itself without regards for an author a reader or a fixated context?
This is two opposing ideas are what I understood Searle and Derrida respectively defend essentially in their texts. And they both use Austin’s text as a source of support for their ideas. Derrida is first attracted to Austin’s propositions they separate from the classic notion that language is only a sign and its significance and it is essentially use to deliver a meaning and it is irremediably anchored to some kind or referent. The idea that a part of language is not sense but action and that it cannot be valued through a true/false dichotomy, as Austin presents with his performative utterances, profoundly seduces Derrida. However, he is quickly disappointed when he realizes that for Austin these performative qualities of language can only function when certain very specific conditions are met; that is, the performative is anchored to context. This sparks Derrida’s criticism that then Searle, in a confrontational manner, calls a misreading of Austin’s ideas.
In Searl’s response I was particularly “conflicted” by the importance of intention. Every utterance has an intention behind, it can be conscious or not, I will not argue that, but intention cannot be how one values the effectiveness of a text. “To the extent that the author says what he means, the text is the expression of his intention”. How can we know for sure what the author meant with what he wrote? If one fails to understand a text as it was intended does it make it hollow? Wasn’t that exactly what happened between Austin’s text and Derrida according to Searle? And in the case of perfomative expressions such as “I promise”, isn’t it possible to say such thing with a further intention than just a promise, like fooling someone into trusting you? Does that make the expression an infelicity? It seems like there should be some kind of moral responsibility between what one says and one does for performatives to be “happy”. Are performatives with hidden intentions parasitary then?
In Derrida’s response I have a lot of trouble understanding the relation between the signature and truth. When he says that if Searle believed what he wrote was “obviously true” then he should not have signed it, does he mean that truth doesn’t belong to anyone? (Something I agree with) But it seems like he is saying that writing doesn’t belong to anyone, because writing exists in itself it is a code one uses but doesn’t own. Or is it that everything one writes and says is a repetition, even one’s signature? If something is “obviously true” you are also obviously not its author because it is only a product of the iterability of language. So can we claim ownership over ideas? Apparently, for Derrida this would be futile since this idea in its written form will detach from you and reiterate by itself. I don’t know what I think about this.
So many ideas going back and forward from one author to the other have produced more confusion than clarity in me, as it is evident in my previous paragraphs. But it is definitely exciting to start to ponder language especially written language away from conventional formal considerations.
