how to talk about pigs

Canadian Journal of Philosophy

How to Talk about PigsAuthor(s): Jay RosenbergSource: Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Mar., 1974), pp. 389-403Published by: Canadian Journal of PhilosophyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40230453 .

Accessed: 12/06/2014 23:27

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Canadian Journal of Philosophy is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toCanadian Journal of Philosophy.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.108 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 23:27:46 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cjp

http://www.jstor.org/stable/40230453?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


CANADIAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY Volume III, Number 3, March 1974

How To Talk About Pigs

JAY ROSENBERG, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

It has been about 20 years since Austin offered to teach us some

simple ways of talking.1 In view of the attention paid the balance of the Austin corpus, this offer has been greeted with a surprising silence. There are, perhaps, some reasons for this lack of response. First, of course, the article is a difficult one, tortuous and opaque. Second, I

suspect that there is a general, though tacit, consensus that any in-

sights of value in "How To Talk" have been absorbed or transcended

(aufgehoben) by the later theorizing on speech acts incorporated in How To Do Things With Words. Nevertheless, I am convinced that it is worth working through "How To Talk" if only to reveal the major internal inconsistency which it contains. Mistakes made by important philosophers are likely to be important mistakes. In addition, sorting through the ontology and epistemologies of Austin's analyses of assert-

ing will equip us with some worthwhile distinctions which, while not Austin's, may help us unravel the multiplicity of linguistic perform- ances with which he confronts us. And, finally, I believe that Austin's

analyses of the perceptual judgment in Sense and Sensibilia are, surprisingly enough, controlled in part by the very framework devel-

oped in "How To Talk." But this is getting well ahead of the story, for that is Part II. Let me begin, then, where Austin begins and see

just how far we can travel with him.

I

Austin opens with what he claims is a "simplified model of a situation in which we use language for talking about the world"

(HTSW, 181)- Speech-situation So. In So we have words and the world. When we examine So in terms of traditional ontological concerns, it

begins to look less simplified. Let me try to make good that claim. The world of So, Austin tells us, contains "numerous individual

items, each of one and only one definite type. . . . Numerous items

1 "How To Talk- Some Simple Ways/' PAS, 1952-3, reprinted as Chapter 8, pp. 181-

200, of Philosophical Papers, Oxford, 1961. Henceforth 'HTSW'. Page references will

be to the latter appearance. Later, I will need Sense & Sensibilia, Oxford, 1962. Well

call it 'SS'.

389



Jay Rosenberg How to Talk about Pigs

may be of the same type, but no item is of more than one type." (HTSW, 182) Austin provides an example to aid in interpreting 'item' and 'type': ". . . an orderless plurality of amorphous colour-patches, each of either the same pure red, or the same pure blue, or the same pure yellow." (HTSW, 182) In terms of traditional ontology, items are clearly particulars, and we are invited here to view types as predicables of a definite category. Since predication is construed adjec- tivally, they are qualities.

When we turn to the language of So, however, a different picture emerges. The language contains l-words and T-wbrds together with what Austin calls the 'assertive link', the expression 'is a'. All sentences in S will thus have the single form

I is a T. Here grammar demands that we construe predication nominally; T- words must be common nouns. (Austin, indeed, calls them 'names'.) If T-words were associated with types qua predicables as l-words are with items qua particulars, we would get a different ontological assessment of types. They would, on this reading, be kinds or species of particulars.

Unfortunately, matters are not even that simple, for while Austin's conventions of reference (l-conventions) pair l-words with items, his T-conventions (conventions of sense) associate T-words, not with types, but with what Austin calls (HTSW, 183) "item-types." The sense of a T-word, according to Austin, is an item-type "attached by nature to certain items." Now this makes item-types appear very much like types simpliciter. But before we too hastily accept this identification, let us look at the second model Austin gives us for So:

Conceive of our items here as, say, a number of samples or specimens of colours . . . each with a reference-numeral allotted to it: conceive of our senses as a number of standards or patterns of colours . . . each with a name allotted to it. ... (HTSW, 184)

Here items remain particulars. But senses, which have already been identified with item-types, are now identified with standards or patterns, which ontologically, must also be particulars. As a philosophical tradition from the Parmenides to the Investigations stands prepared to remind us, a pattern, though a one against a many, stands to its many neither as quality to instances nor as species to members. What makes something a standard or pattern is not an ontological difference at all, but rather a difference in its mode of employment. A pattern is simply a particular, but it is a particular with a determinate function: matching it is the criterion for the application of a predicate to some other particular.2 On this view, all predications are, in essence, relational.

2 Tradition is curiously divided on the question of the applicability of a predicate for which pattern-matching is criterial to the pattern itself. The most common position seems to be that the matching relation (typically resemblance) is irreflexive. In that case, one can hold that the predicate applies to the pattern-particular only at the cost of introducing a second, supervening, pattern. Pursuing this line leads to the

390




These observations will prove significant later. For now, let us note that Austin's So has already yielded three prima facie distinct ontological patterns of ones against manys- a quality vs its instances, a species vs its members, and a standard vs its samples - and correspondingly, three views of predication- adjectival, nominal, and relational. "All this/' says Austin, "is, I hope, simple- and, it may be again emphasized, highly simplified." (HTSW, 185)

It is, apparently, on the third view of predication that Austin bases his analysis of a "satisfactory" (true?) assertive utterance in So. It is worth here quoting at length:

... A satisfactory utterance (assertive) on any particular occasion will be one where the item referred to by the I word is of a (in So, the) type which matches the sense which is attached by the conventions of sense to the T-word. For the utterance to be satisfactory, we require the presence of

both a conventional link between l-word and item, and another between T-word and sense, and a natural link (match) between type and sense.

Diagramatically:

'1227' 'is a' -'rhombus' (l-word) (assertive link) (T-word)

5 3 S s 3 5' S§ £ I ~i-

item/type natural link sense (sample)

(match) (pattern)

(HTSW, 184-5)

Now there are a number of peculiarities here which can best be brought out by considering Austin's account in light of the differing interpretations of 'sense' and 'type' so far elicited. It is surprising, in particular, to find in the diagram that what is referentially linked with an l-word is not an item simpliciter, but rather what Austin here calls an 'item/type'. On the first two readings, the diagonal ('/') must surely represent a relation or pseudo-relation between an item and its (ontologically distinct) type. If, for example, types and senses are qualities, the diagonal will represent exemplification ('having'), and the natural link of 'matching' emerges as identity of qualities:

Third Man regress of Plato's Parmenides. The contemporary line seems to be to dis- allow application of the predicate to the pattern particular. See, for example, Wittgen- stein's Investigations, No. 50: "There is one thing of which one can say neither that it is one metre long, nor that it is not one metre long, and that is the standard metre in Paris." The option of granting reflexivity to the matching relation, by con- trast, generates a different argument which, curiously, has also been attributed to Wittgenstein: the Paradigm Case Argument.

391




^^^ (1-word) (is a) (T-word)

Item c»v

(/So77p^- Quality = Quality (type) (matches) (sense)

If, alternatively, types and senses are species or kinds, the diagonal will represent the relationship of membership of item in species, and the link of 'matching' becomes identity of species:

^^^^(l-word) (is a) (T-word)

Item l.

'/s °^P^^- Species = Species

(type) (matches) (sense)

Finally, if 'item/types' are simply items, i.e., particulars, and the third

analysis of predication is adhered to, treating senses as particulars functioning as patterns or standards, the relation of 'matching' may be taken as resemblance, and we obtain the picture:

(1-word) (is a) (T-word)

Particular resembles Particular (item) (matches) (pattern-item)

Here the diagram looks more like Austin's, but, unfortunately, his verbal

description no longer fits. It is no longer appropriate to say that the item's type matches the sense of the T-word; it is rather the item itself which matches. On this reading, to say that an item I is of a

type T simply is to say that I matches the pattern-particular which is the sense of "T."

We have reached the point where we must settle upon a consistent

ontological assessment of the parameters involved in predication and, hence, discard something of Austin's account of So. On the whole, it seems truest to Austin to dispense with the notion of a type. Only in this way can we retain the categories of sample and pattern in the balance of our discussion and only thus can we treat 'matching' on the model of, if not as a case of, resemblance - a course which Austin clearly prefers. What remains, then, is an ontology of particulars, some of which are functioning as standards or patterns governing the

application of predicates to others. To utter a sentence of the form 'I is a V, then, is inter alia and whatever else it may be, at least to

report that two of these particulars match (resemble exactly) each

392




other - one, the referent of the 1-word, and the other, which must be one of the pattern-particulars, the sense of the T-word.

Given this understanding of So, we can find in the generic act of asserting the complexities which Austin claims to have discovered there? Austin locates four distinct species of assertion in So: placing, casting, stating, and instancing. The pairs placing-stating and casting- instancing are to share what Austin calls the same 'direction of fit'. ". . . There is a difference in direction of fit between fitting a name to an item (or an item with the name) and fitting an item to a name (or a name with the item)." (HTSW, 188) The pairs placing-instancing and stating-casting are to share what Austin calls the same 'onus of match*. ". . . In matching X and Y, there is a distinction between matching X to Y and matching Y to X, which may be called a distinction in point of onus of match/' (HTSW, 188) Austin explains the four specific speech-acts, then, as follows:

In both placing and stating we are fitting names to given items, in both instancing and casting we are fitting items to given names. (HTSW, 190) In both placing and instancing the type of item is taken for granted and the question might be whether the sense of the T-word is such as really to match it; in both stating and casting the sense of the T-word is taken for granted, and the question might be whether the type of the item is really such as to match it. (HTSW, 190)

Austin sums up these distinctions in the following "square of opposi- tion":

placing same direction of fit stating (name to item)

in 3 | tii "> 2 » 3 | n "> 2 »

instancing same direction of fit casting (item to name)

The challenge, of course, is to understand all this. In terms of the interpretation of So at which we have arrived, it seems difficult to do so. Austin's discussion suggests that we have here four parameters: an item, its type, a name, and its sense. We are invited to distinguish four speech-acts in terms of the following diagram of fitting and matching:

Placing: N -> I S -> T Stating: N -> I T -> S

Instancing: I -> N S -> T Casting: I -> N T -> S (HTSW, 200)

393




The clearest understanding of So which we have found consistent with Austin's model of sample and pattern offers only three parameters: an item, a name, and the sense of that name (a pattern- particular). On our interpretation, talk about the type of an item reduces to talk about that item's matching one or another pattern- particular. Since the sense of a name is also a pattern-particular, questions of the match of type to sense or sense to type turn out, apparently, to be questions of particular identity. For example, the question of whether the sense of the T-word matches the type of the item reduces to the question of whether the pattern which the item matches is the same as that constituting the sense of the name. Con-

versely, the question of whether the type of the item matches the sense of the T-word becomes the question of whether the pattern constituting the sense of the name is the same as that which the item matches. But these putative differences in onus of match are prima facie the same question. Nor is the epistemological difference between

arriving at a pattern by item-matching and arriving at a pattern by sense-finding enough to generate the requisite asymmetry. For although item-matching begins with a bit of the world, an item, and sense-

finding begins with a bit of language, a name, it is evident that in

matching sense to type or type to sense both sorts of pattern search must be carried out, and the putatively distinct matching tasks have the same success condition: the two searches must lead to the same pattern-particular. Thus it is not clear that what Austin calls a difference in onus of match is any real distinction.

The distinction which Austin calls a difference in direction of fit provides a clearer guideline. There is a genuine epistemological difference between beginning with a given item and searching for a name which fits it and beginning with a given name and searching for an item which it fits. On the model of predication which Austin has adopted, however, each of these searches must be mediated by pattern-matching: Matching the pattern which constitutes the sense of a name is, on Austin's view of predication, the criterion for the applicability of that name to an item. Thus, to fit a name to an item will be to move from the item to a matching pattern and then to the name having that pattern as its sense, while to fit an item to a name will be to move from the name to the pattern which is its sense and then to an item which matches that pattern. These considerations suggest the following model for interpreting Austin:

Let us take two boxes of particulars and a list of names. The first box of particulars will constitute our items (I). They will be un- marked. Each particular in the second box, however, will be marked with a code symbol keyed to some name (N) on the list. The marked particulars will be our patterns (P). An item's matching a pattern will be criterial for the applicability to the item of the name coded to the pattern.

I shall call this 'the IPN model'. In terms of the IPN model, we can immediately construct epis-

temological accounts of two distinct speech-acts. We can, first, begin

394




with an item, I. We search through our box of patterns for a P which matches I. Then We read the code marked on P and search for the name, N, which bears the same coding on our list. Our assertion 'I is a V reports the results of these searches. The epistemology, then, of this first situation may be summarized by the search diagram:

I -> P -» N

Conversely, we can begin with a name, N; find the pattern, P, bearing the corresponding code mark; and then search through our items for one which matches that pattern, reporting the result by asserting 'I is a T\ Diagrammatically:

•I «- P «- N

Can we identify these accounts with any of Austin's four species of assertion? The distinction in terms of direction of fit is clear. Where we begin with an item and conclude with a name, we are fitting name to item and, thus, either placing or stating. Where we move, conversely, from name to item, we are fitting item to name and, hence, either instancing or casting. What about the onus of match? In the first situation, we hold I fixed and search the patterns for one which matches it. Since patterns are the senses of names and since in fixing the item we may presumably be said to be fixing its type ("taking the type of item for granted"), the plausible conclusion seems to be that we are here matching sense to type and, hence, either placing or instancing. Combining these results, we are led to

identify the first situation as a case of placing. We can sum up these Austinian considerations in a pairing diagram:

PLACING: i<- p >i

Here the dotted arrow indicates that the name is fitted to the item; the solid arrow, that the pattern is matched to the item (sense to type). In the second situation, we hold P fixed and search for an item which matches it. Here, by fixing the pattern, we are presumably "taking the sense of the name for granted" and locating an item of a type which matches that sense- i.e., matching type to sense and, hence, either stating or casting. The second situation, therefore, is a case of

casting and will have as a pairing diagram^ CASTING: f-> p Xn

We now have enough information about the IPN model to complete Austin's quartet of speech-acts. Let us first consider instancing. Here, Austin tells us, we are fitting item to name; matching sense to type. This gives us the pairing diagram:

INSTANCING: f «- p ^n

We may translate this diagram into an IPN search diagram by noting, first, that the fit of item and name is always mediated by the match of item and pattern3 and, second, that in the order of discovery, the

3 This is once again the point that, on Austin's view of predication, the match of item and pattern is criterial for the applicability to the item of the name whose sense the pattern is. Nor have we yet exhausted the significance of this point.

395




direction of the arrows is reversed-to match or fit X to Y is to begin with Y and search for the X which fits or matches. Thus, the pairing diagram for instancing translates into the following search diagram:

I -> P <- N

This, in turn, represents an epistemological account which begins with an item, I and a name, N. We search through our box of patterns for a P which matches I. We also search for the P coded to N. Our assertion 'I is a T' reports the consilience of these searches.

The elucidations conducted in terms of our IPN model so far suggest that it would be fruitful to look at assertions of the form 'I is a T' as offered in response to questions. Call this the implicit question model. For example, in the IPN model, the inquiry corresponding to placing moves from item to name. Thus, the question implicit in a placing situation will have the form:

(1) What (kind of item) is I? In casting, on the other hand, inquiry moves from name to item, yielding an implicit question of the form:

(2) Which (item) is a T? So far, our model is in agreement with Austin's discussions. In a footnote (HTSW, 190), he pairs placing and what-questions ('what- identifying'); casting and which-questions ('which-identifying'). Finally, instancing, in the IPN model, proceeds from both item and name by diverse routes (item-matching and sense-finding) to a pattern. The

question implicit in an instancing situation must then be of the form:

(3) Is (the item) I a T?

Symmetry considerations, of course, produce a fourth species of assertion. Fitting name to item and matching type to sense yields a

pairing diagram of the form: ^ ^ STATING: i -* p Nn

This Austin calls 'stating'. I have purposely postponed discussing it, for although the IPN model yields an account of stating, the account is as problematic as it is clear. A glance at the implicit question model reveals the trouble. We have run out of questions. Roughly, in

placing, we ask which predicate applies to a given subject; in casting, we ask which subject a given predicate applies to; and in instancing, we ask whether a given predicate applies to a given subject. But this leaves nothing else to ask. These intuitions are borne out when we translate our pairing diagram into an IPN search diagram:

I <- P -> N

The epistemological account embodied in this diagram begins with a given pattern, P. We then search through our items for an I which matches P, and we also search our list for the name, N, coded to P. Our assertion 'I is a V reports the results of these searches. The mechanics of the IPN model are thus straightforward. The difficulty is simply that no real-life epistemological situation even remotely corresponds to this account. There is no coherent sense to be made

396



lay Rosenberg How to Talk about Pigs

of an inquiry which moves from a pattern which is the sense of some name to both a sample of that pattern and the name whose sense it is, and then reports its results by predicating the name of the

sample. We know what it would be to have an item and inquire after its kind, to have a name and look for an item which it fits, or to have both name and item and inquire as to the applicability of the former to the latter. But what inquiry begins with a pattern but without

knowledge of what it is a pattern ott In view of the success of our models - IPN and implicit question -

so far, this sudden failure to achieve a coherent account of stating demands explanation. I think we are in a position to provide one. It is the very model of predication which Austin adopts which conflicts with the account of stating he purports to offer in terms of it.

To demonstrate this incompatibility, we must return again to the

point concerning predication which we have continually been stressing: since the match of item and pattern is criteria! for the fit of item and name, the application of a name to an item must be mediated by pattern-matching. Call this the criterion requirement. Consider first the two cases in which we fit an item to a name, instancing and casting. The criterion requirement entails that we be able to move from name to pattern and then raise the question of match of pattern and item. In terms of our IPN model, the corresponding search diagram must, therefore, contain the component 'P «- N\ That this condition is fulfilled for instancing and casting may be seen by examining the cor-

responding search diagrams: INSTANCING: I -> P <- N CASTING: I <- P <- N

When, on the other hand, we fit a name to an item - in placing or

stating-- the criterion requirement entails that we be able to move from item to pattern and then raise the question of correspondence of pattern and name. Thus the search diagram must contain the

component 'I -* P\ The diagram for placing satisfies this condition

PLACING: I -> P -> N

but the diagram for stating violates it

STATING: I <- P -> N

In other words, adopting Austin's terminology, the analysis of predication in terms of pattern and sample requires that when the direction of fit is from name to item, the onus of match must be sense to type. Since Austin characterizes stating as both fitting name to item and

matching type to sense, then, it follows that there can be no such

speech-act. Thus the judgment of our models is vindicated.

It is time to collect a few morals. First, I think we may fairly conclude that Austin is correct in his general thesis that

the difference between one named speech-act and another often resides principally in a difference between the speech-situations envisaged for their respective per- formances. (HTSW, 198)

397



lay Rosenberg How to Talk about Pigs

But, second, what we envisage as distinct situations for the perform- ance of speech-acts must be explained in terms of genuinely alternative epistemological accounts. Specifically, it is not sufficient to rely on the apparent symmetries of a simplified model, for, as we have seen, third, the ontological assessment of the parameters involved in the application of a predicate to a subject can impose constraints on the variety and number of speech-acts which may be accomplished by a given utterance. Austin muddles his ontology. His linguistic stage-setting conflates three distinct assays of predication. Hence, when he at last settles upon a paradigm, he finds there one more parameter than the ontology allows. Nor are the actual parameters of the paradigm independent, as Austin takes them to be. Yet, for all that, there are in So three species of the generic act of assertion to be distinguished. That Austin could see this multiplicity illuminates his strength. He claimed, of course, to have found a fourth. This illuminates his weak- ness. Austin took ontology for granted. For a philosopher moved by the discriminatory powers of ordinary language and troubled by the relative crudity of contemporary formalisms, this is not surprising. But, as I have tried to show, it is nonetheless a mistake.

II ... If I watch for some time an animal a few feet in front of me, in a good light, if I prod it perhaps, sniff, and take note of the noises it makes, I may say, 'That's a pig'; and this too will be 'incorrigible', nothing could be produced that would show that I had made a mistake. (SS, 114)

"That is a pig." "I is a T." We have changed books, but we appear nevertheless to be on the same playing field. Let us see if we can apply our theoretical discussions to a flesh-and-blood pig.

Let us try, as a beginning, to apply the implicit question model. The sentence 'That's a pig' might be uttered in response to one of three distinct questions:

(1) Which one is a pig? (2) Is that a pig? (3) What (kind of animal) is that (animal)?

Austin gives us only a schematic stage-setting, but an analysis of the presuppositions of our three questions may nevertheless enable us to determine which of them best fits the situation that he envisages.

Consider, for example, (1): 'Which one is a pig?' It is clear that a situation in which (1) is appropriate must satisfy at least two conditions. The first of these is straightforward. 'Which one' demands a collection from which a selection is to be made. An appropriate context for (1), in other words, includes (wo or more animals. While this alone is enough to disqualify (1) in Austin's case, the second condition is worth attending to, for the appropriateness of "Which one is a pig?' presupposes also that there is something to create the presumption that one of the animals under consideration is a pig. The predicate must, as it were, be ambient in the situation. The presumption may, of course, fail, but one form which the failure takes is instructive, for

398




the answer which corrects the question is "None of these/' suggesting, not that the predicate is ill-chosen, but that the collection is not the one for which the presumption obtains.

Question (2) has a pair of presuppositions paralleling those of (1). First, of course, there must be given an item about which to ask the

question. But, second, here too the predicate must already be "in the air," i.e., there must be an antecedent presumption that the animal confronted is a pig. As before, a corrective follow-up highlights the

presumption: "No. What made you think it might be?" If nothing "made him think it might be," the interrogator is asking the wrong question. He needs question (3).

The "presumption conditions" in these two cases correspond to our earlier discussion of direction of fit. For question (1), the cor-

responding speech act is casting, withjDairing diagram: i -+ p n

for question (2), instancing, withjDamng diagram: i'<- p Vn

In both cases, the direction of fit is item to name. The name is

antecedently "given" and the item fitted to it. As for the declarative, so for the interrogative. The predicate is antecedently "given" (by presumption), and it is asked which item (or whether a given item) fits it.

Question (3), on the other hand, corresponds to placing, with pairing diagram: f ^nn

i «- p Nn

Here the direction of fit is name to item. Consequently, we should

expect to find in this instance that a presumption condition is lacking. And this is indeed the case. "What (kind of animal) is that (animal)?" presupposes, of course, that the interrogator is confronted by an animal, but since the question introduces no predicate, there is no antecedent

presumption that some particular predicate- namely, 'pig'- applies to the animal in question.

Austin's stage-setting speaks only of a single animal. Thus the "collection condition" for question (1) is not met and (1) may be ruled out. Deciding between (2) and (3) is more difficult. The stage-setting makes no mention of factors which would create a prior presumption of the correct predicability of 'pig', but neither is such an antecedent ambiance1 incompatible with Austin's posits. Fortunately, for our pur- poses we need not decide. Austin claims incorrigibility of statement. To put his claim to the test, then, we must inquire whether error is

possible here and, if so, what sort of error it might be (for even diehard phenomenalists recognize the standing possibility of "merely verbal" error). To err in placing is to mis-place; to err in instancing, to m/s-instance. For Austin, it turns out, these errors are of the same

species: To misidentify (= misplace) shows that we have gone wrong in our matching through failure to appreciate, to keep clearly before ourselves for the purpose

399




of this matching, the sense of the name (T-word). . . . The mistake is due, we

might say, . . ., to 'misconception' of the sense. (HTSW, 191) To misinstance likewise reveals misconception of the sense of the name. (HTSW, 192)

But we are a bit ahead of our story. '"Nothing could be produced/' writes Austin, "that would show that

I had made a mistake." But is this correct? Suppose, in fact - for Austin never actually says anything to the contrary - that it isn't a pig which he. is observing. Is there a way, compatible with the stipulations Austin makes, that this could come about?

We may exclude at the outset, I think, a number of what one

might call radical categorial errors. For one thing, Austin cannot here be hallucinating or confronted with a pig-mirage. Nor, for another, can he be dealing with an animated model pig, a lifelike toy pig, or a Mark 17 Robot pig with authentic pig-sounds and nylon bristles. These possibilities are all excluded ab initio by Austin's stipulation that what he is examining is an animal.

Thus the only sort of error compatible with Austin's posits is of the following kind: He is examining an animal, but the animal is not a pig. Let us suppose, for definiteness, that it is a sheep. How

might it come about that Austin, confronted by a sheep, produces the utterance 'That's a pig'?

Well, I think we may also rule out the possibility of an ordinary perceptual error. It would be inconsistent with the story Austin tells, in other words, to interpret an error here as his mis-taking the sheep for a pig. Such a mistake, in (hose circumstances, would be too radical to be explained. The stage-setting, in fact, is specifically designed to exclude the hypothesis of misperception, for, as Austin himself argues, the explanation of an error by appeal to misperception is only viable when the perceiver or circumstances of perception are deviant in ways which support that hypothesis. Now we may take it that Austin is neither blind not jaundiced, neither drugged not hypnotized. In short, he is the very model of a normal perceiver. And insofar as the circumstances of perception are concerned, we have it stipulated that the animal is not at a great distance ("a few feet in front of me"), that the lighting is neither dim nor of an unusual color ("in good light"), that Austin does not judge in haste (he watches "for some time"), and that his scrutiny is not limited to a single sensory modality (he prods, sniffs, and listens). Let us take it, then, that misperception is ruled out. Austin does not mistake the sheep for a pig.

Finally, let us rule out as well a lapsus linguae of the ordinary sort. Austin is notoriously careful about choosing his words. We may suppose, then, that 'pig' - and not 'sheep' - is what Austin intends to say, that, in other words, if a "merely verbal" error has occurred, it cannot be described as a simple slip of the tongue.

We have thus ruled out radical categorial errors, ordinary perceptual errors, and common slips of the tongue. For all this, however, it is still possible that Austin, after careful scrutiny in optimal conditions of a sheep a few feet in front of him, should produce, with full deliberateness, the utterance 'That's a pig'. We have not yet, in fact,

400




touched on a characteristic way in which placing or instancing can go astray. In order to do this, it will be useful to turn again to our IPN model, but, for this to be fruitful, it is necessary as a preliminary to find something in the Austinian epistemological view corresponding to the model's patterns. Interestingly, I think it can be found, and fairly close to the surface at that.

Consider what Austin says about the way in which we learn such

ordinary words as 'pig':

We learn the word 'pig', as we learn the vast majority of words for ordinary things, ostensively- by being told, in the presence of the animal, 'That is a pig';4 and thus, though certainly we learn what sort of thing it is to which the word

'pig' can and can't be properly applied, we don't go through any kind of inter- mediate stage of relating the word 'pig' to a lot of statements about the way things look, or sound, or smell. (SS, 121)

While this is pretty clearly false- for most children learn 'pig' by reference to representations, pictures or models of pigs

- it does yield a nice fit between our IPN model and Austin's concept of the epistemological setting of a perceptual judgment. For Austin evidently con- ceives of a mature speaker as possessed of a set of ostensive paradigms, acquired during his language learning years, against which items later encountered can be measured. And these ostensive paradigms-or, strictly, our speaker's memory-records of them - play precisely the role played by the patterns in our IPN model. Matching them

appropriately is criteria! for the correct applicability to an item of the

predicates which they epitomize. For it is thus that we learn "what sort of thing it is to which the word 'pig' can and can't be properly applied."

And now we can see what might have happened that Austin should utter 'That's a pig' in the presence of a sheep. Consider the IPN search

diagrams for placing and instancing: PLACING: I -+ P -* N INSTANCING: I -* P «- N

In both cases, we begin with an item and search for a pattern which matches it. (I -»* P) Misperception of the item, of course, can cause us to go wrong. We may thus arrive at a pattern which matches not what the item is but what it appears to be. But in Austin's case, we have ruled out the hypothesis of misperception. Thus we must

suppose that he locates an ostensive paradigm in his records which

appropriately matches the sheep clearly perceived before him. Yet that is only half of the story, for he must still get the paradigm connected with the predicate. In placing, he reads the pattern-code and searches for the corresponding name; in instancing, he is ante-

cedently possessed of the name the coding of which he checks against that on the found paradigm. In either case, then, the utterance which he produces will depend upon what name is coded to that

paradigm- and that name may be 'pig'. In other words, Austin's file

4 A quite special use of the utterance 'That's a pig', by the way, not comfortably captured by our considerations thus far.

401




of ostensive paradigm records may contain a magnificently clear paradigm of a sheep which, however, is labelled 'pig'. As a child, he was told 'That is a pig', all right, but every time he was told it, he was in the presence of a sheep.

Now it is clear enough that something is interestingly wrong here. What isn't so clear is precisely how to describe it and what con- sequences to draw. Austin is wrong about something, to be sure, but what is it?

In our IPN model, what the patterns go proxy for is the senses of the names (T-words). In terms of this way of understanding Austin, then, what he is wrong about is the sense of the word 'pig'. And this, indeed, is, as we have seen, how Austin himself diagnoses the errors of misplacing and misintancing: they result from "misconcep- tions of the sense of the name." But does an error of this sort impugn the incorrigibility of his perceptual judgment! Well, Austin attempts to slide around the question:

It may be asked, Does not misidentifying [= misplacing] remain, nevertheless, itself a (merely) linguistic' mistake? This is reminiscent of the argument that mis- statement is impossible, which so long entangled the Greeks, and is perhaps hard to answer because linguistic' is vague. The basic point, never to be surrendered, is that mistakes in matching are possible, do occur, and that they may be due to faulty grasp of either of the two elements [name and item? item and pattern?] being matched. (HTSW, 191)

But if we face the question squarely, we can see one, not implausible, way in which incorrigibility of a sort may be preserved here.

It is the main thrust of these sections of Sense and Sensibilia that is not sentences as such which are corrigible or incorrigible but rather the statements which, on various occasions, those sentences are used to make. Now suppose that the bizarre error which we have been reconstructing occurs. Austin utters That's a pig', but he has mislearned the predicate 'pig'. His ostensive paradigm for 'pig' is that of a sheep, and it is, in fact, a sheep which he confronts. The question we must face, of course, is: What statement has Austin made?

Now Austin's mislearnihg has engendered a peculiar situation. Briefly, it has driven a wedge between what the word 'pig' means and what Austin means by the word 'pig'. For Austin's misapplications of 'pig' are not random but systematic. It is a word in his vocabulary with as regular and determinate a use as the kind-terms of our own. We can imagine one of Austin's students, amused by the situation and reluctant to correct the master, drawing a newcomer aside and explaining to him "Don't be so puzzled. It's just that when Austin says 'pig' he means 'sheep'. It must have something to do with being raised in the city." But this division, in turn, creates an ambiguity in talk about 'Austin's statement'. It acquires, we might say, an external and an internal sense. Externally, the statement Austin makes is the statement that native speakers without special information would take him to be making, the "hearers' statement," determined in part by the meanings of the words uttered. Thus, externally, we should describe the situation as one in which Austin has stated that the animal is a

402




pig. And this statement is not only corrigible but, in fact, false. But, internally, the statement Austin makes is the statement determined by what he (perhaps idiosyncratically) means by the words he utters, the "speaker's statement." And adopting the internal mode of description, the situation is properly characterized as one in which Austin has stated that the animal is a sheep (for, after all, that's what he means by 'pig'). In that case, the statement made is true, and there is a good case for calling it 'incorrigible'. For if we adhere consistently to the internal mode of description, what error there is will be "in the words only." It's the sentence that's wrong, not the statement. Thus if, as Austin supposes, the possibilities of radical categorial error, and ordinary perceptual error, can be excluded by the situation of perceptual judgment, the sole remaining forms of error - slips of the tongue and idiosyncratic speaker-meaning - can be pinned to the sentences uttered rather than the statements made. And that is one nice thing to mean by calling them "merely verbal" errors.

I believe that, consciously or unconsciously, Austin follows this course. In Sense and Sensibilia he adopts, in other words, a model of

speaker competence in terms of a command of ostensive paradigms controlled by the pattern-matching analyses of declarative speech acts in "How To Talk." Stipulating a situation in which the only error

possible is that of misinstancing or misplacing, he adopts the internal sense of 'statement' and concludes not unnaturally, we have seen, that, in that situation, the statement made is "incorrigible."

And can the Cartesian skeptic grant Austin his point? Well, now that we understand better what underlies the claim, the project of assessment can properly begin, and there is surely room enough for

challenge. But in the end, it doesn't, I think, matter very much. For we can now see, too, how far Austin actually is from coming to grips with the challenge of Cartesian skepticism. The proper skeptical course is to displace the doubt from the judgment to its context. For the

skeptic can, if he must, comfortably grant Austin's contention that in that situation the statement which Austin makes by uttering 'That's a pig' is incorrigible, but go on to insist that the situation stipulated by Austin is one in which we can never know ourselves to be. Thus Austin's "incorrigibility" is, at best, a conditional incorrigibility and, since the condition itself cannot be incorrigibility known to obtain, it cannot serve as the unconditional foundation of knowledge the demand for which is a keystone of the skeptic's argument. In the end, then, as we should have known all along, there is no real alternative but to set aside our scrutiny of speech acts and confront the limita- tions of perceptual knowledge head on.

March 1972

403



how to talk about pigs

Documents