MENDOZA, KIM S. REPLY TO JOHN SEARLE'S CONJUNCTIVE CONDITIONS FOR NON-DEFECTIVE PROMISING, 1 Reply to John Searle's Conjunctive Conditions for Non-defective Promising By Kim S. Mendoza John Searle's Speech Act Theory enumerates necessary and sufficient conditions for a non-defective act of promising in producing sincere promises. This paper seeks to demonstrate the conjunctive insufficiency of the foregoing conditions due to the inadequacy of the sincerity condition to guarantee predicated acts being fulfillable. Being the definitive condition which contains the psychological state distinct in promises as illocutionary acts, that is the expression of intention (S intends to A), I purport that not all sincere promises are non-defective. To motivate this, I shall explicate Searle's conception of full blown explicit promises as his basic qualification for the application of the above conditions, and set the line as to how explicit is 'explicit'? As a response to this insufficiency, I shall propose a condition, as part and parcel of the Propositional Content Clause, that makes up Searle's felicity conditions for promises, which requires explicitness of the form: "A is fulfillable if A is explicit in form". A is explicit if and only if 1) A is literal in form, where A can have either 1 basic or multiple meanings, and 2) The meaning of A, whether basic or multiple, with respect to its context is directly stated in the sentence uttered. I call this the Discharge Condition. Key words: Promising . Sincerity condition . Intention . Discharge Condition . Explicit form . Illocutionary acts . John Searle . Speech Acts I. Introduction John Searle advances a more refined and systematic account of Speech Acts1 with two objectives in mind: 1) to provide an analysis of the structure of speech acts, and 2) the analysis of the process of communicating in the issuance of speech acts. Focusing on the structure of illocutionary acts with promises as his primary example, Searle enumerates necessary and sufficient conditions for a non-defective act of promising. This paper seeks to demonstrate the conjunctive insufficiency of the foregoing conditions due to the inadequacy of the sincerity condition to guarantee predicated acts being fulfillable. Being the definitive condition which contains the psychological state distinct in promises as illocutionary acts, that is the expression of intention (S intends to A), I purport that not all sincere promises are non-defective. To motivate this, I shall explicate Searle's conception of full blown explicit promises as his basic qualification for the application of the above conditions, and set the line as to how explicit is 'explicit'? As a response to this insufficiency, I shall propose a condition, as part and parcel of the Propositional Content Clause, that makes up Searle's felicity conditions for promises, which requires explicitness of the form: "A is fulfillable if A is explicit in form". A is explicit if and only if 1) A is literal in form, where A can have either 1 basic or multiple meanings, and 2) The meaning of A, whether basic or multiple, with respect to its context is directly stated in the sentence uttered. I call this the Discharge Condition. Three things shall be granted in this paper without delving into their own individual debates: 1) Promise-breaking is morally wrong, 2) The moral obligation to keep one's promises roots from the existence of the institution of promising (Conventionalism), and 3) The sentence-meaning and speakermeaning present in literal utterances are the same. 1 Speech Acts (Searle, 1969): Cambridge University Press. De La Salle University-Manila April 17, 2013 MENDOZA, KIM S. REPLY TO JOHN SEARLE'S CONJUNCTIVE CONDITIONS FOR NON-DEFECTIVE PROMISING, 2 II. Searle's Illocutionary Acts Searle (1969:16) defines speech acts as the minimal units of linguistic communication. They take the form of statements, commands, questions, promises, criticism, etc. which are performed in the act of uttering something. Let us analyze these utterances in the following example (Searle 1969:22): 1. Sam smokes habitually. 2. Does Sam smoke habitually? 3. Sam, smoke habitually! 4. Would that Sam smoke habitually. Notice that all sentences express the same reference2 and predication3, that is, Sam (referring act) smoking habitually or (his) habit of smoking (predicating act). Put together, reference and predication make up the propositional act (expression of a proposition). Consider the foregoing proposition: "Sam's habit of smoking", it doesn't actually tell us anything meaningful. Necessarily, propositions are always expressed in the performance of an illocutionary act and cannot occur alone. Illocutionary acts contain their appropriate illocutionary forces4 which dictate how utterances are to be taken or perceived; this Searle ascribes as the complete speech act. A. Structure of Illocutionary Acts In essence, below is an illustration of the structure of illocutionary acts: Illustration 1 A.1. General form of illocutionary acts Illocutionary acts take the general form of: F(p), where "F" represents the illocutionary force taken by the proposition "(p)". Searle (1969:31) illustrates a short list of the different kinds of illocutionary acts through the following forms: Illustration 2 2 Referring expressions are expressions which serve to identify any thing, process, event, action, or any other kind of 'individual' or 'particular'. See Speech Acts (Searle: 1969) especially Chapter IV for in-depth discussion. 3 Predicate expressions serve to ascribe a property to the referred expression. See Speech Acts (Searle:1969) especially Chapter V for further discussion. 4 These illocutionary forces indicate what illocutionary acts are to be performed. Among the illocutionary force indicators are: word order, stress, intonation contour, punctuation, mood of the verb, and performative verbs. Take for an example the following: 'You will finish your meal!' and 'Please finish your meal.'. The illocutionary force of the first statement takes the form of a command as determined by the exclamation point, and a request for the second statement as hinted by the indicator 'please'. Illocutionary Force Illocutionary act Referring Act Propositional act Predicating Act |- (p) assertions ! (p) requests ? (p) yes-no questions Pr (p) promises W (p) warnings MENDOZA, KIM S. REPLY TO JOHN SEARLE'S CONJUNCTIVE CONDITIONS FOR NON-DEFECTIVE PROMISING, 3 Hence, we can demonstrate a few representations: "How many pencils did you buy?" is represented as: ? (X number of bought pencils) "Please buy me 7 pencils." is represented as: ! (to buy 7 pencils) B. Process of communicating Nick Fotion (2000:20) says that understanding how speech acts work goes beyond being familiar with the linguistic structure of illocutionary acts alone. It involves seeing speech acts as acts of communication with intent in order to produce a meaningful "F(p)". B.1. Intention Paul Grice, in his article entitled Meaning (1957: 377-388), provides an account of what he calls "non-natural meaning"5. He says, "To say that a speaker S meant something by X is to say that S intended the utterance of X to produce some effect in a hearer H by means of the recognition of this intention." In other words, H is said to understand what S says if H is able to recognize the intention behind the force of S uttering that X, thus achieving the intended effect of S in the said utterance. While valuable, Searle still finds Grice's account as flawed for while it provides a connection between meaning and intention, 1) it fails to account for the extent to which meaning can be a matter of rules or conventions, and 2) it makes it seem to appear that illocutionary acts and perlocutionary acts are one and the same. B.2. Convention Searle (1969:44-45) responds to this inadequate account of meaning by providing a counter-example6 to sketch out the connection between what one says/ means and what the words one utters mean. In a parallel illustration, let us suppose that I was walking down the street and a group of Brazilian men grabs me from the back, throws me into their pick up van, and declares an abduction. Consider that my plan for being released was to intentionally deceive these Brazilians into believing that I am of their kind by uttering a Portuguese line I learned from a Hollywood movie: 'Boa noite' which means 'Good night'. Searle would comment on this and say, using Grice's account of meaning, while my intention or intended effect to the Brazilians is to get them to think that what I am trying to tell them in my utterance of Boa noite was that "I am Brazilian", that doesn't necessarily transform the meaning of this word in the Portuguese language just because it was the intention which I wanted them to recognize. Searle would say that in effect, Grice's account would be that 'any sentence can be uttered with any meaning whatever, given that the circumstances make possible the appropriate intentions. But that has the consequence that the meaning of the sentence then becomes just another circumstance (1969:45). Further, it would seem that random ascription of meaning to words would undermine what they actually mean in the context of language. In the end, in the analysis of illocutionary acts, Searle believes that it is vital to capture both the intentional and conventional elements on words in their meanings. The second objection of Searle focuses on defending that illocutionary acts are different from perlocutionary acts. Perlocutionary acts7 are those acts intended to produce effects in the hearer. These effects may come as a belief or as a concrete response to what has been uttered. Searle argues that 1) not all intended effects of utterances meant by S are perlocutionary. Exceptions would be the simple greeting of 5 Grice (1957) differentiates non-natural meeaning from other senses of "mean" as used in the sentence: 'Those spots mean measles.' 6 Speech Acts (Searle 1969:44-45). Example of the American soldier apprehended by Italian troops. 7 When I say "Shut up!", I am implying the belief to the hearer that I want him to keep quiet. See How to do things with words (J.L. Austin, 1962), Lecture VIII for further demonstration. MENDOZA, KIM S. REPLY TO JOHN SEARLE'S CONJUNCTIVE CONDITIONS FOR NON-DEFECTIVE PROMISING, 4 "Hello" which does not educe any action-response apart from the knowledge that one is being greeted, as opposed to "Get out!" which invites H to leave; 2) I may say something and mean it without necessarily intending to produce that effect8, and 3) it is not always the case that despite me stating my intentions for believing what I have uttered at the same time would want you to believe, you must also carry the same belief system9. Again, Searle has shown that the Gricean account of meaning does not work. Instead, he proposes what he calls illocutionary effect10, which simply consists of the hearer understanding the utterance of the speaker. Searle's appeal to convention in his account to meaning extends to what he calls as 'rules'11 and 'institutional facts'12 to support his thesis that "speakers of a language are engaging in a rule-governed form of intentional behavior" (1969:53). C. Classifications of Illocutionary acts In "Expression and Meaning" (1979), Searle drafts his own taxonomy of illocutionary acts in the aim of determining how many kinds of illocutionary acts there really are. In so doing, he cannot but refer back to J.L. Austin's classifications13 and evaluate its adequacy, who first advanced these basic categories but with a different focus. Searle then provides an alternate taxonomy which he regards as the basic categories14 of illocutionary acts. A comprehensive discussion is found in Chapter 1 of "Expression and Meaning" (1979:12-20): 1. Assertives/ Representatives. The point or purpose of these performatives is to commit the speaker (in varying degrees) to the truth of the expressed proposition. Assertives have a true-false dimension which makes them assessable. The basis of this assessment is how true or false the words match the world, such as 'The sky is blue' where the sky is in fact blue, being the case. In uttering an assertive, one can be properly sincere in the expression of Belief (that p) as its psychological state. 2. Directives. Directives serve as attempts by the speaker to get the hearer to do something, specifically a future action, as in the case of a command, advice and request. It follows a world-to-word direction of fit and expresses a want, wish or desire as its psychological state. 8 An example would be convincing a jury that your alibi is true by saying, "I am telling the truth" without caring whether they would believe me or not. 9 I may states several arguments in this research and I intend you to believe it. As a reader, you have your own reasons for siding with my paper or not, but definitely it is outside your reasoning to believe me just because I intended you to believe what I say. 10 See Speech Acts (Searle 1969:47) 11 Searle differentiates regulative rules from constitutive rules. The former regulates antecendently or independently existing forms of behavior, while the latter serves to create or define new forms of behavior. He claims that speech acts are acts characteristically performed by uttering expressions in accordance with these sets of constitutive rules. See Chapter 2.5 of Speech Acts (1969). 12 Institutional facts presuppose the existence of certain human institutions. These institutions are said to be what he mentions earlier as constitutive rules. For the case of the holy water, it only retains its meaning to be sacred given the institution of what it means to be holy in the context of the Catholic religion. Otherwise, it would be perceived as plain water splashed into your face for no definite reason. See Chapter 2.7 of Speech Acts (1969). 13 See Classification of Illocutionary Acts by John Searle (1976): Cambridge University Press, for an in-depth discussion. 14 Apart from his alternate taxonomy, Searle also provided in Expression and Meaning (1979) twelve dimensions of variation that serve to distinguish each of the illocutionary acts. Among the twelve, only three types of differences did Searle believe to be the most important: a) differences in the point (or purpose) of the (type of) act, b) direction of fit between words and the world, and c) in expressed psychological states. Dimension (1) corresponds to what Searle terms as 'illocutionary point'. Recalling the structure of illocutionary acts, illocutionary point is different from illocutionary force in such a way that the latter indicates what illocutionary acts are to be performed through its indicators (e.g. Suppose the statement: 'Please stay at home while I am away', the word 'please' indicates a request with reference to the hearer), while the former signifies the point or purpose of these forces. In the case of a request and command, its point is to attempt to get the hearer to do something. The illocutionary point is only part of the illocutionary force. Dimension (2) acts as the consequence of the illocutionary point. In this dimension, either the word (or speech act) matches or fits what is in the world, hence 'word-to-world direction of fit' (i.e. as evident in descriptive utterances) or a "worldto-word direction of fit" where the world is supposed to correspond with the words (i.e. as evident in requests, vows, or promises). Either utterances have a direction of fit between word-to-world, world-to-word, dual direction of fit or none at all. Dimension (3) refers to being properly sincere relative to the issued speech act. This sincerity condition varies from one illocutionary act to another (i.e. expression of belief is to assertions and statements, while expression of intention is to promises). MENDOZA, KIM S. REPLY TO JOHN SEARLE'S CONJUNCTIVE CONDITIONS FOR NON-DEFECTIVE PROMISING, 5 3. Commissives15. Following a world-to-word direction of fit, this type of illocutionary act intends to commit or obligate the speaker (in varying degrees) to some future course of action. The foundation of commissives is intention, which can be found in promises, oaths, contracts, covenant, and bets. 4. Expressives. These performatives function to express the psychological state specified in the sincerity condition about a state of affairs specified in the propositional content. Expressives presuppose the truth of the expressed presupposition and does not attempt to change the world or word, which explains why they have no direction of fit. Examples of expressives are gratitude, congratulations, condolences, apologies, and welcoming. 5. Declarations. This class of illocutionary acts bring into existence some state of affairs it declares to exist, cases where 'saying makes it so', provided that the performance of the declaration is successful (e.g. If I have successfully fired you as my employee, you are fired.). Successful performance of the foregoing usually involves the appeal to institutions and the special positions the speaker and hearer occupy in them as proper context of these declarations. Declarations contain the direction of fit of both word-to-world and world-to-word, and express no pyschological state. III. Promises As we have learned, promises are illocutionary acts of the commissive type whose point or purpose is to intend to commit the speaker to some future course of action, expresses intention as its psychological state, and follows a world-to-word direction of fit. This section on Promises is a major part of my paper as it brings to focus my main discussion in this research. I shall first provide a formal definition of 'promising' followed by an exposition of Searle's necessary and sufficient conditions for a non-defective promising. I will show you later that these conditions are conjunctively insufficient. A. Promises defined By formal definition, to paraphrase Searle in "How to Derive Ought from Is" (1964:45), promising is an act of placing oneself under an obligation to do the thing promised. The analysis of the concept of promising will not suffice without making the promisor be subjected to the obligation of following through some future action, normally for the benefit of the promisee. B. How to promise Among all illocutionary acts, Searle chooses to provide an in-depth discussion of how to promise for the reason that for him, promises are 'fairly formal and well-articulated' (1969:54). This discussion is composed of necessary and sufficient conditions for a non-defective act of promising using literal utterances. But first he states the scope by which his analysis of the illocutionary act of promising applies. B.1. Qualifications In Chapter 3 of Speech Acts (1969), Searle spells out a few qualifications (1969:55-56) in the limit of his discussion given the said analysis: a. Confined to full blown explicit promises (and not those which have turns of phrase, hints, metaphors, etc) b. Dealing only with categorical promises (rather than hypothetical ones) 15 See Meaning and Speech Acts, Vol.1, Principles of Language Use (Vanderveken 200:182-188) for a discussion of the different English commissives such as vow, pledge, undertake, swear, etc. MENDOZA, KIM S. REPLY TO JOHN SEARLE'S CONJUNCTIVE CONDITIONS FOR NON-DEFECTIVE PROMISING, 6 c. Existence of grammatically well-formed sentences d. Ignore promises made in the course of uttering sentences which contain elements irrelevant to the making of the promise e. Ignore marginal, fringe, and partially defective promises By restricting his analysis to that of simple and idealized case of promises, Searle believes that a systematic account on the act of promising is put in order. B.2. Conjunctive Conditions for Promising Searle offers these necessary and sufficient conditions (1969:57-61) for a non-defective act of promising in the objective of being able to provide a general standard of analysis applicable to all types of illocutionary acts. These conjunctive conditions will be the central topic to be evaluated in this paper. Given that a speaker S utters a sentence T in the presence of a hearer H, then in the literal utterance of T, S sincerely and non-defectively promises that p to H if and only if the following conditions16 (1-9) obtain: (1) Normal input and output conditions obtain. (2) S expresses the proposition that p in the utterance of T. (3) In expressing that p, S predicates a future act of A of S. (4) H would prefer S's doing A to his not doing A, and S believes H would prefer his doing A to his not doing A. (5) It is not obvious to both S and H that S will do A in the normal course of events. (6) S intends to do A. (Sincerity Condition) (7) S intends that the utterance of T will place him under an obligation to do A. (Essential Condition). (8) S intends (i-I) to produce in H the knowledge (K) that the utterance of T is to count as placing S under an obligation to do A. S intends to produce K by means of the recognition of i-I, and he intends i-I to be recognized in virtue of (by means of) H's knowledge of the meaning of T. (9) The semantical rules of the dialect spoken by S and H are such that T is correctly and sincerely uttered if and only if conditions 1-8 obtain. 16 Explication of Searle's conditions are as follows: Condition (1) specifies that there be a speaker (input) and hearer (output). Both must be conscious and not physically restrained (e.g. speaker is deaf or suffers from laryngitis) or engaged in parasitic forms of communications such as telling jokes or play acting. Both S and H must also understand the language used and the rules governing that language in a particular utterance. Condition (2) places the spotlight on the proposition alone, most especially to the referring act. Condition (3) requires that the act be predicated of a speaker in the present tense, which includes refraining from acts (e.g. I promise not to do that X), performing series of acts (e.g. I promise to do things repeatedly or sequentially), or remaining in certain states or conditions. Conditions (2) and (3) are called propositional content or the "what" of a speech act. Condition (4) implores that in a non-defective promise, the thing promised must be in the interest of the hearer and that the speaker is well aware or believes that the hearer wants the thing promised done to him/her. Condition (5) requires the act of promising to have a point. It becomes pointless [to promise, request, or apologize] when the said act is obviously something I will perform eventually, currently doing, or an apologizing for an event that is yet to occur, respectively. Conditions (4) and (5) are called preparatory conditions or the background of a speech act. Condition (6) is called the sincerity condition or the hearer's accompanying pyschological feelings and thoughts. To be sincere in making promises means 1) the speaker intends to do the act promised and 2) the speaker believes it is possible for him to do the act (or refrain from doing it). 1 entails 2. Condition (7) is known as the essential condition. It refers to what the speaker wants to accomplish linguistically in the issuance of a speech act. Searle analyzes this in terms of intent, and say that for the case of a promise, in the utterance of the promise, one intends to place oneself in the obligation to perform the promise one committed into. Without this essential feature given a particular uutterance, it can be said that it is not a promise at all. MENDOZA, KIM S. REPLY TO JOHN SEARLE'S CONJUNCTIVE CONDITIONS FOR NON-DEFECTIVE PROMISING, 7 IV. Demonstration In this section, I shall evaluate one promise example which satisfies both the conditions for a nondefective act of promising and the qualified types of promises for the said analysis. Second, I shall provide a counter-example which again meets both requirements but persist to be a problematic case. I shall argue that not all sincere promises are non-defective, making the conditions for promising conjunctively insufficient. A. First Demonstration: "I promise to tour you around Manila." A1. Satisfying Searle's Qualifications "I promise to tour you around Manila" appears to meet the criteria of full blown explicit/ categorical promises. A 'tour', as directly defined in an English dictionary (www.freedictionary.com), means 'a going from one place to another; a journey'. By application using our promise above, 'to tour' means to go from one place to another [around Manila]. What is intended to be performed is clear and simple in form, and the sentence is grammatically well-formed. A2. Satisfying Searle's conditions for promising Given that a speaker S utters "I promise to tour you around Manila" (T) in the presence of a hearer H, then in the literal utterance of T, S sincerely and non-defectively promises that p (to tour H around Manila) to H if and only if the following conditions (1-9) obtain: Condition (1): It is evident that there is a speaker and hearer as signified by "I" and "you" in the sentence uttered, respectively. Both speak and understand the English language and the meaning of the words found in the utterance. Both are also conscious and possess no physical impediments which may obstruct facilitation of understanding in their communication. Condition (2): The speaker expresses the proposition: "to tour you around Manila" in the utterance of the statement: "I promise to tour you around Manila" composed of the referring expression "you" (pertaining to the hearer), and the predication expression for the former, that is "to tour around Manila". Condition (3): In the expression of the foregoing proposition, the predicated act of touring the hearer around Manila is a future act. Condition (4): It is in the interest of the hearer to be guided by the speaker in going from one place to another around Manila. The speaker is well aware that the hearer wants to be toured around the said area. Condition (5): The act of promising the hearer that he/ she shall be toured by the speaker around Manila has a point because it is intended to happen in the future. Condition (6): The speaker intends to tour the hearer around Manila and he/she believes that it is possible for him/her to perform the said intended act. If intention entails believing that it is possible for the speaker to do the predicated act, the speaker intending to tour the hearer around Manila entails that he/ she believes that him touring the hearer around Manila can actually be performed. Condition (7): By uttering: "I promise to tour you around Manila", the speaker makes himself obligated to do the forementioned. MENDOZA, KIM S. REPLY TO JOHN SEARLE'S CONJUNCTIVE CONDITIONS FOR NON-DEFECTIVE PROMISING, 8 Condition (8): The speaker intends to produce in the hearer the knowledge that by uttering the sentence "I promise to tour you around Manila", he/ she is placing himself/ herself under the obligation to fulfill touring the hearer around Manila. The speaker intends to produce this knowledge by getting the hearer to recognize this intention, and the speaker intends to be recognized in virtue of the hearer's understanding of the meaning of the sentence uttered. Condition (9): The semantical rules of the dialect spoken by S and H are such that T is correctly and sincerely uttered if and only if conditions 1-8 obtain. B. Second Demonstration: "I promise to love you all the days of my life." B1. Satisfying Searle's Qualifications The commissive "I promise to love you all the days of my life" is particularly used in a Catholic Wedding Ceremony, particularly in the Exchange of Vows or Declaration of Consent17 to one another. "To love you all the days of my life" seems to meet the criteria of full blown explicit/ categorical promises for "to love" is defined in www.dictionary.com as "to have a profoundly tender, passionate affection for (another person)". What is to be performed is stated in a definite manner and is constructed free of grammatical errors. B2. Satisfying Searle's Condition for promising18 Given that a speaker S utters "I promise to love you all the days of my life" (T) in the presence of a hearer H, then in the literal utterance of T, S sincerely and non-defectively promises that p (to love H all the days of his/her life) to H if and only if the following conditions (1-9) obtain: Condition (2): The proposition expressed is "to love you all the days of my life" composed of the referring expression "you" (pertaining to the hearer), and the predicating expression for the former, that is "to love all the days of my life". Condition (3): In the expression of the proposition, the predicated act of loving the hearer all the days of his/ her life is an act to be done in the future. Condition (4): It is in the interest of the hearer to be loved by the speaker all the days of his/her life. The speaker is well aware that the hearer wants to be loved all the days of his/her life. Condition (5): The act of promising the hearer that he/ she shall be loved by the speaker all the days of his/her life has a point because it is intended to happen in the future. Condition (6): The speaker intends to love the hearer all the days of his/her life and his/she believes that he/she can perform the intended act. If intention entails believing that it is possible for the speaker to do the predicated act, the speaker intending to love the hearer all the days of his/her life entails that he/ she believes that him loving the hearer all the days of one's life can actually be performed. Condition (7): By uttering: "I promise to love you all the days of my life", the speaker makes himself obligated to do the forementioned. Condition (8): The speaker intends to produce in the hearer the knowledge that by uttering the sentence "I promise to love you all the days of my life", he/ she is placing himself/ herself under the 17 See the "Rite of Marriage" in www.catholicliturgy.com 18 Condition 1 & 9 follow exactly the same analysis from the first demonstration. See Section IV.A2 of this paper. MENDOZA, KIM S. REPLY TO JOHN SEARLE'S CONJUNCTIVE CONDITIONS FOR NON-DEFECTIVE PROMISING, 9 obligation to fulfill loving the hearer until he lives. The speaker intends to produce this knowledge by getting the hearer to recognize this intention, and the speaker intends to be reocgnized in virtue of the hearer's understanding of the meaning of the sentence uttered. C. Discussion of Results for Second Demonstration19 For both promise examples, it is evident they both meet all requirements needed for a felicitous act of promising, from the qualifications down to the conjunctive conditions. More importantly, they satisfy the sincerity condition which makes the promise sincere in nature or contain an intention. V. Insufficiency of Searle's Conditions Clearly from the second demonstration, what S commits himself to do is the future act of 'loving' or 'to love'. In other words, that which S promises, given the literal utterance of T is 'to love' ("to have a profoundly tender, passionate affection for (another person)") alone. However, the Catholic Church may contest this and say that love, far from being a feeling, also consists of being committed to one's spouse, being faithful, staying married forever, etc. In short, in the context of a Marriage where the promise to love is used as a wedding vow, the couples do not only promise love but several other things that come with it. This poses a problem because: 1) If one is ignorant of how love is defined in the context of marriage (multiple meanings of love apart from being a feeling), then one can be misled to believe that he/she only committed himself to have that profound tender affection for the other person all the days of his life, nothing more, nothing less, resulting to misunderstandings as to what is being promised; 2) Despite the sincerity of S in keeping the promise, it would still not suffice in making a successful execution of a promise; and 3) If this type of problem exists despite Condition #1 for promising, it seems that one of the conditions provided by Searle, either in his qualifications or conjunctive conditions for promising is faulty. A. Point of Analysis A.1. Sincerity Condition The sincerity condition is taken to be the heart of the act of promising for it contains the psychological state or feeling distinct in a promise as a type of illocutionary act, which is expression of an intention (to do A). Without this, the utterance can be mistaken to express any other psychological state such as the expression of belief (that p) present in an assertive or an expression of a wish or desire is used in directives, etc. In its components, where a) S intends to do the act promised, and b) S believes it is possible for him to do the act (or refrain from doing it), and 1 entails 2, the second component seems to contain the ambiguity particularly on the word 'possible'. It is vague in a sense that it does not explicate what counts as 'possible to do'. I tried tracing an answer for this ambiguity from the basic qualifications Searle had specified in his promise analysis, that is, to entertain only full blown or categorical promises; simple and ideal in case, of which the marriage promise to love satisfies. 19 The main difference of the commissive type used in the second demonstration is that it takes the form of a vow which is "not essentially hearer directed as is a promise or a threat" (Vanderveken, 1990:183) and usually performed in a solemn practice. However, since the predicating act is explicitly referred to the hearer "you", then, the vow is directed to the hearer in this particular vow example. MENDOZA, KIM S. REPLY TO JOHN SEARLE'S CONJUNCTIVE CONDITIONS FOR NON-DEFECTIVE PROMISING, 10 Reconciling this restraint with the sincerity condition, it can be said that what is possible to do is a full blown explicit20 act. However, the problem still stands for cases such as the promise to love, where love, in the Marriage context, is assumed to promise several other acts where love manifests, despite being explicit in form. Second, the word 'believes' attached to the word 'possible to do', relative to the speaker, in the second component of the sincerity condition, suggests a subjective connotation of what we are currently resolving 'that can be performed' basing from the capabilities of the speaker alone. A.2. Propositional Content Clause Despite the propositional content clause focusing on the background of the predicated act, the propositional content and preparatory conditions prove to provide no answer for the ambiguity at hand for they only make specific in what time dimension should the speaker commit himself to do the act and that it must be for the hearer's benefit, as well as the speaker being fully aware of this. B. Resolution: Discharge Condition (DC) As a response to the insufficiency of Searle's conditions, I patch up this dilemma by adding another condition that concentrates on making sure that predicated acts that satisfy this condition are fulfillable or able to be carried out. I call this: the "Discharge Condition". 'Discharge' is defined by the Encarta Dictionary as 'to carry out a duty, responsibility or a promise'. DC follows right after the Preparatory Condition since it is still concerned with the predicated act. A. The Discharge Condition is stated as follows: A is fulfillable if A is explicit in form. A is explicit IFF: 1) A is literal in form, where A can have either 1 basic or multiple meanings 2) The meaning of A, whether basic or multiple, with respect to its context is directly stated in the sentence uttered. 20 Searle defines 'full blown explicit' as that of a promise opposite to promises he states to ignore in his discussion: promises made by elliptical turns of phrase, hints, metaphors (1969:55-56). An example of a promise with a hint of metaphor is: "I promise you the exam was a breeze." This statement does not mean that the exam is equated to a breeze which is defined in a Meteorology dictionary (www. http://meteorology.geography-dictionary.org/) as "a gentle wind", but rather metaphorically, it means that the exam was easy. If that's the case, it seems that 'full blown explicit' contains the greater degree of ambiguity as opposed to what is said to be 'possible' to do, esp. so that this definitive qualification of promises sets the scope of the types of promises to be considered in the said analysis. In inquiring into this concern, we must be able to answer the following questions: 1) What are explicit promises and how is the full blown explicit promise different from non-full blown explicit types? 2) How explicit is explicit? Searle provides no elucidation as to what full blown explicit promises mean (except for the absence of metaphorical connotations) in his Speech Acts (1969) apart from prescribing that whatever sentence S utters in the presence of H, it must take the form of a literal utterance. Further, to speak literally means "being able to say exactly what you mean" (Searle 1969:18). Friedrich Christoph Doerge (2004:79) points out a similar concern regarding what Searle meant by full blown explicit, and reads him as follows: "To say that a sentence "indicates" an illocutionary act, in Searle's terms, is (at least roughly) to say that it "indicates" a certain illocutionary act with respect to both its illocutionary act type as well as its propositional content. Such sentences, which "indicate" both an illocutionary act type and a propositional content I shall call "Searle-explicit" sentences." Granting Doerge's reading of what Searle meant by full blown explicit, I say that the promise to love perfectly satisfies the conditions it requires: 1) The illocutionary act is indicated using an explicit illocutionary force indicator 'I promise', and 2) The promise to love predicates future act of 'to-love'; yet we are stuck with our quandary of surface ambiguity somewhere. MENDOZA, KIM S. REPLY TO JOHN SEARLE'S CONJUNCTIVE CONDITIONS FOR NON-DEFECTIVE PROMISING, 11 B. Why add another condition?21 Questions pertinent to the necessity for adding another condition in the act of promising may arise, such as 'Is it really needed? Why not just supplement the preparatory condition? Why is the sincerity condition deficient to justify this? Allow me to address each of those possible concerns: First, I say that an additional condition is necessary for us to be able to place special focus to the nature of the predicated acts. More importantly, it serves to account for acts in promises containing multiple meanings not directly stated in the promise and to consider those people who are ignorant of the context by which the promise uttered is situated in; hence, to make promises universalizable and rid the speaker/hearer to misunderstand what they are promising. Second, to only supplement the preparatory condition would be demanding several things in one condition: the time dimension the speaker commits himself to perform the act, the act being beneficial for the hearer, the act stated in the utterance in its explicit form and a further qualification what counts as explicit, and the relationship all of these components have with another, which would only result to confusion. Third, as I have shown in my analysis earlier, the second component ("possible to do") provided in the SC is ambiguous in requiring what acts are attainable and how. Also, SC appears to be speaker-directed as it only accounts for acts being fulfillable with respect to the capability of the speaker ("the speaker believes it is possible for him to do A"), and makes no mention of how these acts are able to be fulfillable by nature (which DC accounts for). VII. Modifying the Second Demonstration22 After seeing for yourselves the necessity to add another condition to Searle's entire list of conjunctive conditions for non-defective promising, I shall now modify my demonstration of the marriage promise example by making explicit the context in the first condition and adding the DC accordingly: Condition (1): Both the speaker and the hearer are aware of the context of the sentence uttered, if otherwise stated in the proposition. Discharge Condition (6): "To love the hearer all the days of his/her life" is fulfillable by the speaker because the act is phrased in its explicit form. Doing the foregoing explicit act is fulfillable because it is literally stated. 'To love' directly means 'to have a profoundly tender, passionate affection for (another person)'. To love, with respect to the context of Marriage, has multiple meanings such as: faithfulness, commitment, staying married, et.al. 21 Granting that in adding this condition we retain the vagueness implicit in what is required in the sincerity condition, the sincerity condition then acts to affirm A's ability to be fulfilled and reconcile it with the speaker's ability and belief in this ability on the grounds that: 1) A is fulfillable (Discharge Condition), and 2) S believes it is possible for him to do A (Sincerity Condition, second component); thereby giving this subjective utterance of intention some definite basis with regards to its feasibility and actualization. Necessarily, in my account, A must be both attainable with respect to A's nature of being doable, and how the speaker sees himself/herself able to perform A, giving the speaker further right to intend to keep it. I bank on the premise that you cannot promise to do what you cannot do. More importantly, the Discharge Condition highlights the premise that one cannot do what cannot be done. 22 Other requirements by Condition (1) for non-defective promising are retained apart from what I have added above. To fully understand the modified demonstration, see complete explication of example in all conditions found in Section IV, Second Demonstration, B2 of this paper. MENDOZA, KIM S. REPLY TO JOHN SEARLE'S CONJUNCTIVE CONDITIONS FOR NON-DEFECTIVE PROMISING, 12 In supplying another condition to make the steps for non-defective promising more conclusive, this obtains the effect of necessarily editing the marriage promise to love, and individually state in enumeration all that we promise when we predicate the act of love by mere utterance of the said promise. In other words, the revised promise may look like this: "I promise to love you, be committed and faithful, and remain married..." and all other things the Catholic Church claims love is in the context of Marriage. VII. Conclusion To recap, I have shown you that while the sincerity condition is the definitive condition in distinguishing promises of the commissive type to the other illocutionary acts, intention does not suffice in so far as its second component is presented in its ambiguous form, and thus fails to account how predicated acts are fulfillable. Given the inadequacy of one condition, all of Searle's conditions for non-defective promising in producing sincere promises becomes conjunctively insufficient. As a first attempt to resolve this ambiguity, I appealed to the definition of 'full blown explicit' promises and discovered that this is the form which Searle says vaguely in his sincerity condition as possible to do. Since this requirement is not explicated in any of the conditions, adding another condition becomes necessary to make Searle's analysis more conclusive. I argued that the Discharge Condition, which I proposed, will not only aid in avoiding misunderstandings in promise interpretation esp. for promises with acts containing multiple meanings not directly stated in the utterance, but also consider promisors/promisees who are ignorant of the context by which the promise is situated in; hence, to make promises universalizable. More importantly, the Discharge Condition places special focus to the act being fulfillable by nature and not only by the speaker (as affirmed by the sincerity condition). MENDOZA, KIM S. REPLY TO JOHN SEARLE'S CONJUNCTIVE CONDITIONS FOR NON-DEFECTIVE PROMISING, 13 Reference List Austin, J.L. 1962. How to do things with words. Clarendon Press. Doerge, Friedrich. 2004. Illocutionary acts: Austin's account and what Searle made out of it. Inaugural Dissertation for earning a Doctorate in Philosophy presented at Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen. Fotion, Nick. 2000. John Searle. Princeton University Press. Grice, Paul. 1957. Meaning. The Philosophical Review, Vol. 66, No. 3. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2182440 Laig, M., et.al. (2004): Marriage and Family: A Life of Love and Commitment: UST Publishing House Searle, John. 1979. Expression and Meaning. Cambridge University Press. Searle, John. 1964. How to derive ought from is. Searle, John. 1969. Speech Acts: Cambridge University Press. Searle, J. Classfication of Illocutionary acts. Language in Society, Vol. 5, No. 1. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4166848 (accessed February 7, 2013). Vanderveken, Daniel. 1990. Meaning and Speech Acts: Volume 1, Principleso of Language Use. Cambridge University Press. "Rite of Marriage". http://www.catholicliturgy.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/textcontents/index/4/subindex/67/textindex/8 www.freedictionary.com www.dictionary.com www. http://meteorology.geography-dictionary.org/ Encarta Dictionary