[lit-ideas] Count Your Blessings
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2004 19:34:57 EDT
In "Is a computer program a performative?", in a message dated 8/6/2004
1:19:37 PM Eastern Standard Time, junger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
As long as we are discussing performatives, is a computer
program---which is often defined as ``a set of intstructions
to be performed by a computer''---a performative. Or a
series of performatives?
Does it make a difference whether the computer is a human being,
as they used to be when I was young, or a gadget?
----
Well, I was thinking about this.
Geary said that "Bless you" is _not_ a performative, but a petition:
May God bless you.
I counterresponded that there is a sense in which this may count as a
performative.
Notably, who does the utterer think _she_ is to have the _power_ to invoke
God's intention to bless the hearer (because she sneezed)?
Geary would say that there is no security (if that's the word) that the
petition will be fulfilled. This is as it may. One can say, "Bless you",
meaning,
"May God bless you" and care less (or _not_ care less) whether God actually
goes on to _bless_ the hearer.
It would seem as if the _illocutionary force_ of the blessing stops at that:
not all blessings would be 'successful'.
In this, "Bless you" contrasts with God's famous utterance,
"Fiat lux"
Let there be light.
It can be said that, as uttered by God -- and reported in the Bible, etc --
this _was_ a performative, since light there was because God said (in Hebrew,
according to Julie), "Fiat lux".
With a computer program, it's a bit like in between "Fiat lux" and "Bless
you". Suppose I hit the key "Print". If my printer has no paper, then the
computer programme will not _succeed_ in carrying out the instruction 'print',
until paper is provided.
Cheers,
JL
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