Austin on Locutionary and Illocutionary Acts

Abstract

JN ATTEMPTING to explore Austin's notion of an illocutionary act I have found his corresponding notion of a locutionary act very unhelpful and have been forced to adopt a quite different distinction between illocutionary acts and propositional acts.2 I think this difference is more than a matter of taxonomical preference and involves important philosophical issues-issues such as the nature of statements, the way truth and falsehood relate to statements, and the way what sentences mean relates to what speakers mean when they utter sentences. In this paper I want to explain my reasons for rejecting Austin's distinction and for introducing certain other distinctions, and in so doing to show how these questions bear on some of the larger philosophical issues.