[lit-ideas] Re: Can, logically, there be any such thing as a "performative co...

Ingoring his injunction:

"Speranza, you better shut the fuck up",

I'll reply!

---- Who is _he_ or Chris Bruce to inhibit _my_ endless creativity? And R.
Paul, I look forward to your reply on The Grammatical Monkey.

I didn't check McCreery because I find 'remember' an otiose verb: e.g. I'm
an expert on Music-Hall of the Edwardian Era, but hardly remember it. And
now  I'm specialising in Scarlatti's baroque operas.

---- So back to where I feel comfier:

In a message dated 5/30/2009 11:56:35 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Of course, it may depend how far or little  we stretch the idea of a
"performative" and a "contradiction".


----

Exactly. Seeing that your background is Celtic, you may be pleased that 
'operative' is the word, as used in Celtic (Scots) law. Austin invented a
horrible term, or rather, used a horrible term for the notion of 'operative' of
 old Scots ancestry.

----

Contradiction is also otiose and misleading. Surely we mean 'contrariness',
 or contrariwise. I can't see what _diction_ has to do with anything. It's
not  _meant_.

We only mean "~"

as per

          p & ~p

McEvoy continues:

>But

i.e. not stretching.

>taking as a central case of a performative utterance those statements
that lawyers admit as 'original evidence'

And that Scots referred to as 'operative'.

>e.g. "I do" in marriage, "I accept" in contract.
>Such out-of-court statements are not hearsay of accepting the marriage  or
other contract
>but are constitutive of that acceptance - hence they are "performative"
utterances.

Yes, 'operative' for the Scots.

>In this sense

'usage'

>of "performative", how could such an utterance ever be a  "contradiction"
(or at odds with itself), where this would seem to imply that it  at once
constituted >and did not constitute the relevant act of acceptance?

I think he was using in C. Bruce,

            "STOP  BEING SO FUCKING RUDE"

or, simpliciter"

            YOU'RE  FUCKING RUDE.

W. O. said that was one universal offense to my dignity (universal
dignity), and seeing that


         (p) You're being fucking  rude

"p" itself is being fucking rude -- or its utterer -- the 'contradiction'
was that the utterer was saying something he was not doing (cfr. "Do as I
say  and not as I do").


McEvoy:

>The utterance "I do because father-in-law-to-be has a shotgun at my  back"
,
>or "I accept because otherwise Luca Brasi will ensure it is my brains
>on the contract", do not constitute genuine acceptance

Because, and it may be related, the Scots, who invented 'operative', wear
_skirts_. "Genuine" is a trouser-word.

                      That's not acceptance.

Cfr. the otiose:

                     That's not genuine acceptance

------

A trouser word is a word that wears the trousers: as 'genuine', 'real', 
'true', etc. A Scot worth her name avoids it like the plague.

McEvoy:

>and so do not, in any strict sense, amount to a performative
contradiction - rather they are imperfect or counterfeit or surrogate, or  
whatever,
performatives.

Well, 'defeasible' if you must. Hart, Herbert Adolphus Lionel, if you
_must_ wrote loads on this. A statement is ceteris paribus if

      I do marry her -- ceteris paribus -- on  condition that her father is
NOT pointing my brain with his gun.

     I do accept -- on condition that my brains will  not be on the contract

You should always read the fine print.

----

In the case of the father, the reason is usually acceptable: if she _is_
pregnant, you should marry.

----- The case of the Sicilian mafia has to be taken case-by-case.

--- I don't like your Sicilian stereotypes.

McEvoy:

>They fall short of being genuine performatives and so cannot amount to  a
"performative contradiction". ...
>Aware W.O. was perhaps being  humourously playful in his previous use of
"performative contradiction" and/or  deploying a widened concept of
"performative" and "contradiction".

We never know with Walter (was he born in Canada? I mean, is English his
mother tongue? That may have to do a bit with things he says).

---

"Performative contradiction" is indeed nonsense, but it may be poetical, as
 when Eric Yost uses:

"I was walking down Broadway and this lady  next to the ITM
       machine said to me,

                    "Can I ask you a question?"

      "I replied --, "you've just committed a  'performative
contradiction'. Let
       me write it down for me to share  with my friends in Lit-Ideas."

                  "Can  _you_ ask *me* a question?"

       "What?" I said.

                           It has a hasty walk back home."

The question (in the header) seems clumsy in using 'logically" unecessary.
Cfr. Can there be logically a square circle?

Also 'thing' I use for 'dog', 'man', traffic light', 'stone' -- not for 
operations in the Scots.

The very fact that you are articulating the idea 'performative
contradiction' -- and by inserting "logically" -- you are calling Walter  
'irrational'.
But Meinong may disagree.

"Can" is also somewhat solecistic. It should be 'may'. May, illogically,
there by any such silly thingy as a ... -- You'll realise your question is
loaded. So don't be surprised you get a load in reply.

But I love you. And also W. O. -- and also Chris Bruce. And also R. Paul.
And also McCreery.

Cheers,

J. L. Speranza
     The Swimming-Pool Library
       Villa Speranza
          Bordighera,  Imperia

----


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