The Datafile PD-CD 1B/DATAFILE_PDCD1B.iso/_gutenburg/gutenberg/ippe/porter_txt/PORTER_TXT

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[note to the "flat ascii" version:
text within {curly braces}
appears in italics in the postscript version.

paragraphs are numbered,
to facilitate reference independent of pagination.
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When Failure is Success: Counter-Performative Speech Acts
Andrew P. Porter
internet email: [e-mail]
1993




Introduction

1
John L. Austin[1] saw that where assertive
speech acts (to use Searle's term) are true or
false, other performatives can be happy and
successful, or they can be infelicitous,
defective, or even outright failures. In Searle's
systematization of speech act theory[2] the
emphasis was always on articulating the
conditions for non-defective success.
Self-defeating speech acts were explored
initially by Daniel Vanderveken,[3] but nothing
was remarked beyond the logical structure of
their failure as illocutions. It was not suspected
that they could be effective and successful as
perlocutions. To turn to such speech acts as
successes is to turn from illocutionary theory
to the study of perlocutions, but the
perlocutions in question turn on their
illocutionary structure, and so require attention
to that structure. Such speech acts need not be
vicious; irony is in some sense a self-defeating
speech act.[4] When they are objectionable,
remedying them usually requires dissecting
their illocutionary incoherence; this is a
problem, because the inconsistency of the parts
of a compound and self-defeating speech act is
usually concealed. (It must be concealed, if the
illocutionarily self-defeating speech act is to
succeed as a non-ironic perlocution.) Let us
call self-defeating performative speech acts
that work at some level as perlocutions
{counter}-performative speech acts. When the
counter-performative character of a speech act
is obvious, it is ironic; when it is not, the
speech act is usually pathological in some way.
I look for the most part at speech acts with
concealed counter-performative character.

2
The investigation of speech acts other
than assertions has moved from the simple
paradigmatic cases of promises and orders etc.
to indirect speech acts, metaphor, fiction, and
eventually to internally inconsistent speech
acts. In the course of that exploration some
quite peculiar peformatives have surfaced. It
has been noticed that some performatives are
analogous to self-contradictory statements,[5]
such as "Do (not) obey this order," "I promise
(not) to keep this promise," and others of
similar construction. It does not matter
whether the negative is present or not; these
performatives are intrinsically infelicious,
misfires. There is no way to keep this
self-referring promise, or to obey this
self-referring order. In a more applicable vein,
Daniel Vanderveken has noticed what he
called "self-defeating" speech acts.

3
To see how some counter-performatives
work, consider the following. In a legendary
example of a counter-performative, it is said
that one of the Three Great Lies is

    I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you.

This purports to be more than a statement, an
offer of help, though it is incidentally also a
statement. It is taken as a classic example of a
lie, but the problem does not arise with its
being contra-factual. S, the speaker, is in fact
from the government. And he intends business
in the life and affairs of H, the hearer. But not
what the hearer would call "help."

4
It is performative, in as much as the
social worker does something in saying it (by
implication, he offers help), and it goes awry
in ways that are characteristic of performatives
that are not just assertions. This much has been
noticed before, though this sort of utterance
has not attracted much attention, but has been
taken as a theoretically marginal and
degenerate instance of performative language.
Performatives that work were treated as more
interesting than those that don't.

5
In fact, it {does} work: It does {exactl}y what
it is intended to do, which is to apply
persuasion to the welfare client in a way that is
more economical and more effective than
candid reasoning, orders, or threats: coercion.
(And if there is no compliance, the one making
this "offer" appears to be in a much better
position to apply coercion.) While appearing to
be an offer, an offer of help, this utterance is in
fact not an offer at all, but a form of coercion,
pressure, or manipulation. It is a performative
that purports to do one thing, but in fact does
something quite opposite: a
counter-performative. Its effectiveness, its
performative force, {requires} its
counter-performative sense; its perlocutionary
effect of being coercive pivots on its
illocutionary appearance of being an offer of
help, and on the silent failure of at least some
of the conditions for the non-defective
performance of such an offer.


Preliminary Expansion of the Thesis

6
The notion of utterances that are
systematically and intentionally
counter-performative (if perhaps not
consciously so) has not attracted focused
attention. But the problem has already been
encountered outside of speech act theory.
Popular psychological literature focuses, if
without philosophical precision, on the
counter-performative discourse that creates
dysfunctional family structures. In a related
way, the philosophical literature on
self-deception does achieve precision, though
without explicit attention to the speech-act
theoretical features of such discourse.
Examples can be found also from law, politics,
and religious apologetics.

7
While counter-performatives are not
theoretically central to the logic of {il}locutions,
they are crucial to the pragmatic understanding
of the same utterances when considered as
{per}locutionary acts. Formal performatives,
whose illocutionary sense cannot be twisted
after the fact, are a defense against
counter-performatives. Formal performatives
commit the speaker in one way or another,
whether sincere or not, and sometimes even
without happy preparatory conditions. It is
because of the generally understood possibility
of counter-performatives that formal
performatives are necessary at critical
commissive junctures in life.

8
The speaker who engages in
counter-performative discourse knows how
this sort of speech act works, even though he
may not be willing or able to spell it out or
explain it.[6] He has the skill of
counter-performative speech acts, included in
which is the opposition between the ostensible
illocutionary force and the probable (and
intended) perlocutionary effect. All this may
be "unconscious" -- he does not spell it out to
himself -- but it is still done with great skill,
and so has to be accounted as intentional,
responsible. In no way does the skill of
counter-performative speaking require being
able to {explain} (even to oneself) that one has
misfired in one performative act, and has
instead effectively performed some other
speech act. It is not that the illocutionary force
has been literally transformed. But when the
speech-act turns on its implications, by way of
filling the preparatory conditions for yet other
speech acts, its perlocutionary working may
indeed not only extend beyond but in fact be in
conflict with its illocutionary force. Indirect
speech acts, as Searle has observed, are
accomplished when the conditions for one
speech act are supplied in the performance of
another.[7] If a statement or question provides
the preparatory conditions for a request or
other directive, it may be taken as such. The
essential condition for a stronger directive is
satisfied, and by convention, the question "Can
you pass the salt?" counts as a request to do so.
Thus an apparently simple speech act may, in
its implications, count for much more.

9
Searle and Vanderveken list a variety of
ways in which a compound speech act can
become internally inconsistent