True/false Value and John Searle
John R. Searle argued in his 1989 article How Performatives Work that performatives are true/false just like constatives. Searle further claimed that performatives are what he calls declarations; this is a technical notion of Searle's account: according to his conception, an utterance is a declaration, if "the successful performance of the speech act is sufficient to bring about the fit between words and world, to make the propositional content true." Searle believes that this double direction of fit contrasts the simple word-to-world fit of assertives.
Read more about this topic: Performative Utterance
Famous quotes containing the words true, false and/or john:
“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. And also the only real tragedy in life is being used by personally minded men for purposes which you recognize to be base.”
—George Bernard Shaw (18561950)
“If everything had a label, we would live in a fully delineated but false world.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Look Johnny, Spig just joined the Navy. Im married to it. I run the mess hall. I swab the deck. I chip the rust. Youre afraid that theyll kick Spig out of the Navy. Im afraid that they wont.”
—Frank Fenton, William Wister Haines, co-scenarist, and John Ford. Minne Wead (Maureen OHara)