Back in the 1950s a philosopher named John L. Austin taught at Oxford University and has become famous for his detailed analytical examination of the later philosophy of one Ludwig Wittgenstein. However, rather than engage in broad generalizations about the importance of ordinary language in sorting out the various philosophical puzzles to which traditional theorizing had led traditional thinkers, Austin devoted himself to the careful analysis of the patterns and logic of everyday speech by way of helping the fly, to use Wittgenstein’s image, “find the way out of the fly bottle” (a device used before fly-paper).
Austin’s little book How to Do Things with Words is an excellent example of linguistic philosophy at its best, although it is painfully detailed and a bit tedious. What I wish to focus on here is his analysis of what he called “performative utterances”, those in which one is actually ACCOMPLISHING’ a deed in addition to uttering a sentence. We are all familiar with the usual grammatical distinctions between declarative statements and their various partners, such as questions and exclamations, etc. What Austin “discovered” are what he called “performatives”, that is, statements in which the speaker actually performs another linguistic act when speaking, an act in addition to uttering the words of his or her statement.
It is an actual fact that prior to Austin’s analysis no philosopher seems to have noticed such “performative utterances”. In this sense it is then appropriate to say that he “discovered” them. His point was that in certain instances a speaker may well accomplish a deed in addition to that of making a statement or uttering a proposition. In baseball, for instance, when the umpire utters the words “Strike one” he is not only giving a description of where he believes the pitcher’s ball was in relation to the home plate, but he is in addition performing the act of declaring that the pitcher has thrown a “strike”. He is not merely describing where the ball was in relation to the home plate, but he is announcing that the pitcher has thrown a “strike” against the batter. If it is the third strike, the batter is “out”.
To take another example, when I say “I am sorry” I am not only saying those words, but I am, as a matter of fact, performing the act of apologizing. Or again, when I, as an ordained Minister, utter the words “I pronounce you husband and wife” in the proper circumstances I am “performing” the act of actually marrying two people in addition to uttering those words. I am making a statement AND I am marrying two people. Here, then, is a speech act in which a speaker actually performs a “social act” as well as a linguistic one. Thus, Austin has shown us “how to do things with words” and he has discovered this particular common, yet extremely important, aspect of the everyday speech. At least, no other thinker seems ever to have been given credit for doing so.
In addition to being an important discovery about a very significant aspect of human linguistic activity, Austin’s insight here underscores the broader fact that language is a “many splendored thing” in and of itself. It is, indeed, the very thing the later Wittgenstein worked so hard to bring to the fore. At the very beginning of his major work, Philosophical Investigations, he speculated about the many different ways the meaning of one word utterance, such as “March”, can be construed. First, as an answer to a question about which month we are in, or as an order to a group of soldiers on the parade ground, etc. Context is everything.
I am reminded here of the sort of muddles we linguistic people get ourselves into when we fail to properly read the context of our utterances. Think of the depth of confusion perpetrated by Lou Costello and Bud Abbott in their famous skit about the question “Who’s on First?” Is “who” a person or the first word of a question? Or of the difficulties ensuing from my subtle directive to my ten-year-old son that “The door is open”, which he insisted on interpreting as an observation rather than as a directive to go shut the door he had left open. Language is, indeed, a many splendored thing! And a rather slippery thing, as well.