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Self-expression, Expressiveness, and Sincerity

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Abstract

This paper examines some aspects of Mitchell Green’s account of self-expression. I argue that Green fails to address the distinction between success and evidential notions of expression properly, which prevents him from adequately discussing the relation between these notions. I then consider Green’s explanation of how a speech act shows what is within, i.e., because of the liabilities one incurs and argue that this is false. Rather, the norms governing speech acts and liabilities incurred give us reason to think that the speaker is in a particular state of mind. It thus supports an evidential rather than success notion. Finally, I suggest that it is because of the sincerity of what is said, rather than the liabilities incurred, that you show what is within.

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Notes

  1. See Tormey (1971), 46.

  2. See also Tormey (1971), 48-51.

  3. For most part I will follow Green and reserve the term “expression” for the success notion.

  4. This is just one out of many different conception of sincerity in speech. For instance, sincerity is sometimes understood as speaking spontaneously or as believing that one is in the expressed state of mind. See Eriksson, “Straight Talk: conceptions of sincerity in speech” (forthcoming) for a discussion of different conceptions and their respective roles.

  5. This is suggested by a remark in relation to Searle in Green (2009, p. 144, n. 6)

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to Wayne Davis and Ragnar Francén for valuable comments.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science, Gothenburg University, Box 200, 405 30, Gothenburg, Sweden

    John Eriksson

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  1. John Eriksson
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Correspondence to John Eriksson.

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Eriksson, J. Self-expression, Expressiveness, and Sincerity. Acta Anal 25, 71–79 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-009-0076-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-009-0076-y

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