[lit-ideas] Re: Post the letter or burn it
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 08:02:05 +0100 (BST)
Still it passeth my understanding how the square root of anything is involved
here. Also I am not sure you have understood my argument why "Post the letter
or burn it" does not follow logically from "Post the letter": the latter
singular imperative does not imply that burning the letter (or anything other
than posting) is also morally valid. Next we'll be told "Feed your children"
implies "Feed your children or burn them".
On a side-note about performatives: whether Austin got them from Scots law or
not, they are well-known to English law because of the hearsay rule. The
hearsay rule is that an out-of-court statement cannot be tendered as evidence
of the proof of the truth of its contents. Does this mean that we cannot prove
the marriage by referring to the out-of-court statement "I do" as proof of the
truth of its contents, or cannot prove the contract by referring to a party
saying "I accept the offer" as proof of the truth of its contents? This awkward
result is avoided by classifying the "I do" and "I accept" as 'original
evidence', not hearsay, of the contract: that is, saying these words is
constitutive of the contract, and they are not merely a statement from whose
truth the existence of a contract may be inferred. As such, they are
'performatives'.
Donal
London
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