[lit-ideas] Re: Is a computer program a performative?
- From: Robert.Paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Robert Paul)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: 07 Aug 2004 10:28:09 PDT
Peter writes:
>Now in my experience drafting a contract---which ceases to be a draft
and becomes an instrument---i.e., creates new legal relationships---when
it is propery executed, which I take to be a paradigmatic case of
a performative, is almost identical to the act of writing a computer
program, which becomes effective only when it is executed---i.e., run
--- on a computer.<
The parallel looks reasonable at first, but I think it ultimately breaks down.
This isn't an Austinian performative because it's no difference from signing a
check or initialling an order for two gross of Geary's New Collected Poems. A
new legal relationship between two or more parties is created but a performative
utterance is a 'doing' simpliciter. A typical example 'I christen thee the S. S.
Sea Urchin' just _is_ the christening. Whatever legal relationships fall out of
a formerly unnamed ship's now having a name are beside the point.
But I'm probably wrong and may not have grasped exactly what Peter wanted to
say. Austin, in the face of criticism and counterexamples, could not, in the
end, maintain the strict distinction he wanted to here.
Robert Paul
Reed College
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