It Does Not Matter Whether We Can Derive ‘Ought’ From ‘Is’

1974 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 373-379
Author(s):  
Alison Jaggar
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Main Body ◽  
Theoretical Underpinning ◽  
Classic Article ◽  
Counter Example ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Theory Of Language ◽  
Made In

In this paper, I want to discuss the recent attempts by Professor John R. Searle to cast doubt on the traditional empiricist distinction between fact and value. Searle's first attack on this distinction was made in 1964 in his now classic article, “How to derive ‘ought’ from ‘is’.” In that paper, he presented what he claimed to be a counter-example to the thesis that statements of fact may not entail statements of value. Searle's argument aroused much controversy and inspired many attempted refutations, but Searle apparently found none of these convincing, for a few years later he published a revised version of his paper as the last chapter of his book, Speech Acts. The new version includes his replies to many of the objections which had been made to his thesis up to that time. It also includes, in the main body of the book, a theory of language which is supposed to provide the theoretical underpinning explaining why his original paper presents a genuine counter-example to the position he is attacking. It is the Speech Acts version of Searle's thesis which I want to consider here.

scholarly journals Drug delivery applications of poly-γ-glutamic acid

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Olalekan A. Balogun-Agbaje ◽  
Olubusola A. Odeniyi ◽  
Michael A. Odeniyi
Keyword(s):  
Drug Delivery ◽  
Glutamic Acid ◽  
Site Characterization ◽  
Fermentation Medium ◽  
Production Optimization ◽  
Main Body ◽  
Crucial Step ◽  
Drug Delivery Application ◽  
Made In

Abstract Background Poly-γ-glutamic acid (γ-PGA) is a biopolymer of microbial origin, consisting of repeating units of l-glutamic acid and/or D-glutamic acid. The biopolymer has found use in the fields of agriculture, food, wastewater, and medicine, owing to its non-toxic, biodegradable, and biocompatible properties. Due to its biodegradability, γ-PGA is being tipped to dislodge synthetic plastics in drug delivery application. High cost of production, relative to plastics, is however a clog in the wheel of achieving this. Main body of abstract This review looked at the production, nanoparticles fabrication, and drug delivery application of γ-PGA. γ-PGA production optimization by modifying the fermentation medium to tailor towards the production of desirable polymer at reduced cost and techniques for the formulation of γ-PGA nanoparticle as well as its characterization were discussed. This review also evaluated the application of γ-PGA and its nanoparticles in the delivery of drugs to action site. Characterization of γ-PGA and its nanoparticles is a crucial step towards determining the applicability of the biopolymer. γ-PGA has been used in the delivery of active agents to action sites. Conclusion This review highlights some of the efforts that have been made in the appraisal of γ-PGA and its nanoparticles for drug delivery. γ-PGA is a candidate for future extensive use in drug delivery.

scholarly journals Speech Acts in the Facebook Status Updates Posted by an Apostate

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Azweed Mohamad ◽  
Radzuwan Ab Rashid ◽  
Kamariah Yunus ◽  
Shireena Basree Abdul Rahman ◽  
Saadiyah Darus ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Expressive Speech ◽  
Social Actions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Data Collection Period ◽  
Collection Period ◽  
Made In

This paper discusses the speech acts in Facebook Status Updates posted by an apostate of Islam. The Facebook Timeline was observed for a duration of two years (January 2015 to December 2016). More than 4000 postings were made in the data collection period. However, only 648 postings are related to apostasy. The data were classified according to the types of speech acts. Expressive speech act is the most frequent speech act (33%, n=215), followed by the directive (27%, n=177), assertive (22%, n=141), and commissive (18%, n=115), respectively. Based on the speech acts used, it is discernible that the apostate attempts to engage other Facebook users and persuade them into accepting her ideology while gaining their support. This paper is novel in the sense that it puts forth the social actions of an apostate which is very scarce in literature. It is also methodologically innovative as it uses social media postings as a tool to explore the apostate’s social actions in an online space.

How Significant is the Use/Mention Distinction?

2019 ◽  
pp. 11-16
Author(s):  
A.W. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
The World ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Made In

It is argued that the use/mention distinction, if it is to be a clear-cut one, cannot have the significance that it is usually thought to have. For that significance attaches to the distinction between employing an expression in order to draw attention to, or to talk about, some aspect of the world, as determined by the expression’s meaning, and employing it in order to draw attention to, or to talk about, the expression itself—and this distinction is not a clear-cut one. In the final section of the essay this argument is extended to cast doubt on a rather glib appeal to the use/mention distinction that is frequently made in the philosophy of language.

Documents Incorporated–Incorporating Documents

2021 ◽  
pp. 202-236
Author(s):  
Thomas Graumann
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Social Hierarchy ◽  
Exact Order ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Implicit Argument ◽  
Made In

This chapter analyses the importance of including documents of originally distinct origin for the construction of a session’s record. It discusses the annotations affixed to documents in the process for their certain identification. It analyses the orders given by council leaders for the acceptance, reading, and filing of documents and their effects on the shape of the record. The council leadership also determines the exact order and placement of documents; our investigation can show that principles of social hierarchy govern such placing as much as the sequence of ‘recitation’ or use. Deliberate arrangement of documents serves to lay out an—often implicit—argument for the case made in the session. In later councils this practice increasingly dominates over ‘live’ speech-acts. The chapter can in this way also show the complex relationship between orality and writing, and the possibilities of editorial composition.

Speech Acts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitchell Green
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
New Developments ◽  
Indirect Speech ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Indirect Speech Acts ◽  
Grammatical Mood ◽  
Semantic Properties ◽  
Made In

Speech acts are acts that can, but need not, be carried out by saying and meaning that one is doing so. Many view speech acts as the central units of communication, with phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic properties of an utterance serving as ways of identifying whether the speaker is making a promise, a prediction, a statement, or a threat. Some speech acts are momentous, since an appropriate authority can, for instance, declare war or sentence a defendant to prison, by saying that he or she is doing so. Speech acts are typically analyzed into two distinct components: a content dimension (corresponding to what is being said), and a force dimension (corresponding to how what is being said is being expressed). The grammatical mood of the sentence used in a speech act signals, but does not uniquely determine, the force of the speech act being performed. A special type of speech act is the performative, which makes explicit the force of the utterance. Although it has been famously claimed that performatives such as “I promise to be there on time” are neither true nor false, current scholarly consensus rejects this view. The study of so-called infelicities concerns the ways in which speech acts might either be defective (say by being insincere) or fail completely. Recent theorizing about speech acts tends to fall either into conventionalist or intentionalist traditions: the former sees speech acts as analogous to moves in a game, with such acts being governed by rules of the form “doing A counts as doing B”; the latter eschews game-like rules and instead sees speech acts as governed by communicative intentions only. Debate also arises over the extent to which speakers can perform one speech act indirectly by performing another. Skeptics about the frequency of such events contend that many alleged indirect speech acts should be seen instead as expressions of attitudes. New developments in speech act theory also situate them in larger conversational frameworks, such as inquiries, debates, or deliberations made in the course of planning. In addition, recent scholarship has identified a type of oppression against under-represented groups as occurring through “silencing”: a speaker attempts to use a speech act to protect her autonomy, but the putative act fails due to her unjust milieu.

Developing the Ability to Perform Speech Acts

1996 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew D. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Explicit Instruction ◽  
Verbal Report ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Oral Speech ◽  
Underlying Processes ◽  
Made In

This paper calls attention to an increasingly prominent field of interest within second language acquisition research and pedagogy, namely, that of pragmatic ability. It focuses on an area within pragmatics, that of speech acts, considers the processes underlying the performance of such speech acts, and looks at the effects of explicit instruction in this area. The paper starts by asking what speech act ability entails. Several basic distinctions are made in the description of speech acts, such as that betweensocioculturalandsociolinguisticability. Second, directions of previous research describing speech acts are indicated and directions yet to be taken are pointed out. Difficulties in researching oral speech act performance are noted, and verbal report is recognized as one of a limited number of research tools available for investigating cognitive processes involved in speech act production. The paper then reviews four studies that utilize verbal report to gain at least some access to the underlying processes. Finally, the paper looks at previous research on the tutored and untutored acquisition of speech acts and provides suggestions for future research.

scholarly journals Vowel harmony in Klao linear and nonlinear analyses

1983 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
John Victor Singler
Keyword(s):  
Special Interest ◽  
Vowel Harmony ◽  
The Other ◽  
Nonlinear Analyses ◽  
Counter Example ◽  
Linear And Nonlinear ◽  
Pharyngeal Constriction ◽  
Made In

Klao, a Kru language spoken in Liberia, has a nine-vowel system. Like most other Kru languages, it displays harmony sensitive to pharyngeal constriction (tongue-root retraction). What gives the Klao vowel-harmony system special interest is the fact that a great deal of variation occurs, suggesting that vowel harmony is in some way optional. This provides a counter-example to the claim (made in Clements [1977l) that root-controlled vowel harmony is always obligatory. Given this optionality, the question arises as to which model best captures the facts of Klao vowel harmony. 'l,w frameworks are considered: one, along the lines of Anderson [1930], treats vowel harmony as one more assimilation rule, and the other, following the model found in Clements [1981] handles vowel harmony autosegmentally.

scholarly journals Justification

Pragmatics ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Cristina Macário Lopes
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Semantic Relations ◽  
Text Representation ◽  
Inference Process ◽  
Functional Aspects ◽  
Coherence Relations ◽  
On Line ◽  
Argumentative Texts ◽  
Made In

The main purpose of this paper is to analyse formal and functional aspects of constructions based on a Justification (or Claim-Argument) coherence relation, explicitly marked by a connective. The prototype of this construction is an utterance like Está gente em casa, porquer as luzes estão acesas [“ There is somebody at home, because the lights are on”]. The empirical data are collected from an on-line corpus of contemporary written Portuguese (CETEMPúblico). Following Sanders et al.(2001), I assume the distinction between semantic and pragmatic coherence relations in text representation: Semantic relations connect the situations of the sociophysical world described by the propositional content of the related textual segments; pragmatic relations involve the illocutionary domain, i.e., the relation concerns the speech act status of the segments. Justification relation is a pragmatic relation and I argue that it requires simultaneously a sequence of speech acts and an inference process. In fact, Justification relations occur typically in argumentative contexts, and argumentation, according to van Eemeren & Grotendorst (1984), is a compound illocution, consisting of at least two functionally distinct statements: A main assertion corresponding to the claim being made and a subordinate assertion, which counts as an attempt by the speaker to justify his claim, convincing the listner of its acceptability. The claim being made in prototypical Justification constructions (p, because q) is an assumption, not a fact; it corresponds to a conclusion drawn by the speaker, supported by the premise expressed in the second clause and warranted by a generic implicit premise. The account presented in this paper contests Sweetser’s (1990) distinction between epistemic causal conjunctions and speech act causal conjunctions: The act of concluding may be speaker-internal, but since it is asserted and then justified, it is not possible to dissociate the epistemic and the illocutionary domains within the field of argumentative texts.

Great Basin Prehistory: A Review

1955 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse D. Jennings ◽  
Edward Norbeck
Keyword(s):  
Special Reference ◽  
Great Basin ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Field Research ◽  
General Level ◽  
San Juan ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Made In

Since the Publication of Steward's interpretations of Great Basin prehistory, which were based upon field research ending about 1935, no attempt has been made in published form to collate and analyze currently available data on the full range of the prehistory of the area. Steward's conclusions are thoughtful and represent conservative, sound reasoning upon the basis of the data available and the theories current at the time. As might reasonably be expected, however, subsequent findings have cast doubt upon some of his interpretations and have made others unacceptable. This paper is a brief attempt, deliberately kept at a general level, to review both old and new data, with special reference to the cultural relationships between the Great Basin and San Juan Anasazi, and to call attention to current developments and problems.

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