The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

How to read how to do things with words: on Sbisà’s proof by contradiction

How to read how to do things with words: on Sbisà’s proof by contradiction
How to read how to do things with words: on Sbisà’s proof by contradiction

Midway through How to Do Things With Words, J.L. Austin’s announces a “fresh start” in his efforts to characterize the ways in which speech is action, and introduces a new conceptual framework from the one he has been using up to that point. Against a common reading that portrays this move as simply abandoning the framework so far developed, Marina Sbisà contends that the text takes the argumentative form of a proof by contradiction, such that the initial framework plays an instrumental role as part of a proof in favour of the subsequent one. Despite agreeing with Sbisà’s broad instrumentalist approach, we argue that her regimentation of Austin’s narrative into a proof by contradiction ultimately fails - both as a proof and as an interpretation of Austin. Instead, we suggest that a better way of interpreting the peculiar structure of How to Do Things With Words is as a pedagogical exercise whose point is to bring a concealed alternative into view in a manner that also explains its initial concealment, and that this approach provides richer resources for supporting Sbisà’s own conventionalist understanding of illocution than that afforded by reading the text as a proof by contradiction.

Illocution, J.L Austin, Marina Sbisà, Performative utterances
0048-3893
101-115
Wanderer, Jeremy
9fdbd4db-0065-492a-8180-2edbb15de124
Townsend, Leo
8f4f19b2-8d93-4ce5-a772-56a758369dc0
Wanderer, Jeremy
9fdbd4db-0065-492a-8180-2edbb15de124
Townsend, Leo
8f4f19b2-8d93-4ce5-a772-56a758369dc0

Wanderer, Jeremy and Townsend, Leo (2024) How to read how to do things with words: on Sbisà’s proof by contradiction. Philosophia, 52 (1), 101-115. (doi:10.1007/s11406-024-00714-8).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Midway through How to Do Things With Words, J.L. Austin’s announces a “fresh start” in his efforts to characterize the ways in which speech is action, and introduces a new conceptual framework from the one he has been using up to that point. Against a common reading that portrays this move as simply abandoning the framework so far developed, Marina Sbisà contends that the text takes the argumentative form of a proof by contradiction, such that the initial framework plays an instrumental role as part of a proof in favour of the subsequent one. Despite agreeing with Sbisà’s broad instrumentalist approach, we argue that her regimentation of Austin’s narrative into a proof by contradiction ultimately fails - both as a proof and as an interpretation of Austin. Instead, we suggest that a better way of interpreting the peculiar structure of How to Do Things With Words is as a pedagogical exercise whose point is to bring a concealed alternative into view in a manner that also explains its initial concealment, and that this approach provides richer resources for supporting Sbisà’s own conventionalist understanding of illocution than that afforded by reading the text as a proof by contradiction.

Text
s11406-024-00714-8 - Version of Record
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.
Download (784kB)

More information

Accepted/In Press date: 28 December 2023
e-pub ahead of print date: 23 January 2024
Keywords: Illocution, J.L Austin, Marina Sbisà, Performative utterances

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 496042
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/496042
ISSN: 0048-3893
PURE UUID: 61c51ad5-4a62-485f-8b25-7698da72f930
ORCID for Leo Townsend: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-5992-162X

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 02 Dec 2024 17:35
Last modified: 21 Aug 2025 02:52

Export record

Altmetrics

Contributors

Author: Jeremy Wanderer
Author: Leo Townsend ORCID iD

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×