PHIL 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Illocutionary Act, Distributive Justice, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
10 Apr 2019
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Illocutionary force: when i say i do at a wedding, the locution "i do" action is different from the meaning of the sentence. Sometimes saying things actually involves doing an action at a particular time: assuming that you say the appropriate words in the appropriate circumstances you have carried out the action. If i promise to pay you, i have carried out the action of promising. Jones promised to pay smith five dollars so jones placed himself under the obligation to pay. It is part of what it means to make a promise, part of the concept of promising--that if you do so, you are under an obligation. While we don"t always keep our promises, that doesn"t mean we didn"t place ourselves under the obligation to do so. You can"t sign your mortgage contracts but have no intention of paying them back--if you are, you"re denying what you claim you"re doing.
