Page 422 - Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language

Pragmatics and Speech Act Theory
act 'misfires,' but there is no 'abuse' of the preparatory condition. For a complementary case, suppose S had made this utterance insincerely, fully intending to kill H on the way home, but being prevented from doing so; on arrival home he actually carries out his stated promise, even though it was uttered insincerely. Here is an 'abuse' of the preparatory condition, but no 'misfire'; so S's insincerity can easily remain undis- covered. Another example would be a twelfth century jester who jokingly says 'The world is a sphere' and thus produces an insincerely meant true statement. What is interesting here is that at no time during the twelfth century could either S or H believe in the truth of this assertion—hence it could work as a jest then, but not now; in this case, S's insincerity is transparent to his audience, the preparatory condition is based on faulty knowledge/belief.
Thus sincerity conditions on speech acts involve S's responsibility for what s/he is saying (asking, etc.). If S is observing the cooperative maxim of quality, then s/he will be sincere: and, normally, H will assume that S is being sincere unless s/he has good reason to believe otherwise. Generally, scholars have assumed that different kinds of illocutionary acts involve different kinds of sincerity conditions: e.g., assertions and the like are sincere if S believes in the truth of the prop- osition asserted; requests are sincere if S believes H
can do A and might be willing to do A; promises are sincere if S willingly intends to do A; declaratory acts are sincere if S believes s/he has the proper authority to make the declaration. It is obvious from these descriptions that sincerity underpins speaker-based aspects of preparatory (and, if they are retained, executive) conditions. Now, if preparatory conditions on a speech act are properly stated, only one sincerity condition should be necessary:
In uttering U, S knows or believes (or believes s/he knows) that all clauses of the preparatory condition hold.
This puts a burden on precise statement of the pre- paratory conditions, but that seems exactly where the burden should lie because preparatory conditions identify the particular circumstances appropriate to performing a given illocutionary act. Thus when H perceives a violation of any clause within the pre- paratory condition on an illocutionary act, the typical response (here generalized) is, 'S has no right to make this particular illocutionary point under the prevailing circumstances; s/he must be either deluded, insane, or malicious.'
Austin's (F.2) is a fulfillment condition. It states that the participants in a speech act must conduct themselves in accordance with the thoughts and feel- ings invoked in the illocution. Thus, according to Austin, a promise is invalid unless it is carried out; a bet is invalid if the winner is not paid. But such ful- fillment conditions hang on the perlocutions of the speech acts, and therefore stand outside an account
of the specifically linguistic aspects of S's utterance U. The illocutions of, for example, promising and betting can be communicated, and the respective illocutionary acts effected, without the perlocution coming off (cf. 'You promised to dig my rose bed, but you haven't done it' or 'You bet me $1000, and if you don't pay up by midnight I'll break your legs.') Such sentences confirm that the illocutions of a promise and a bet were valid enough, it is merely the subsequent behavior that is at fault. Thus a fulfillment condition has no place within a linguistic theory of speech acts; though it is relevant to a theory of interpersonal behavior.
An illocutionary act is felicitous when all the felicity conditions stipulated in its definition are satisfied. Today it can be seen that felicity conditions are those applications of the cooperative principle that need to be specified in the definition of a particular illo- cutionary act. Though many scholars would disagree, the author suggests that only one sincerity condition need be stated for all illocutionary acts: S believes the relevant preparatory conditions on the act hold. Preparatory conditions identify the circumstances necessary for an illocutionary act to succeed. It is also suggested that executive conditions, whichidentify the attitude or behavior that must be observed by Swhen executing the illocutionary act for it to be felicitous, can be written into the preparatory conditions on the act. On this view, the whole burden of felicitous illocution will depend on proper observation of the preparatory conditions on each illocutionary act. These conditions provide the grounds for motivating S to make the utterance and grounds from which H will evaluate the illocutionary act expressed in the utterance.
See also: Speech Act Classification; Speech Act Hier- archy.
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