Abstract
It is sometimes argued that the study of grammar is irrelevant or unimportant in the business of comparative philosophy, or that it ought to be avoided in favor of methods that presuppose a strongly pragmatic point of view. In this regard, some philosophers have expressed skepticism about whether facts about grammar have anything to offer in the adjudication of competing theories of interpretation or translation. This essay argues that a strongly pragmatic orientation in comparative philosophy invariably overlooks an important role that the study of grammar can play in shedding light on the nature of intention and communicative practice, and that an essential part of the methodology of comparative philosophy should involve a grammatical approach to interpretation and translation. These points are supported by a semantical analysis of passages from Confucius’ Analects that clarifies the relationship between illocutionary force and grammatical mood.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alston, William P. 1964. Philosophy of Language. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
Comrie, Bernard, and Corbett, Greville G. 1993. The Slavonic Languages. London and New York: Routledge.
Davidson, Donald. 1984. “Moods and Performances.” In Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Grice, Paul. 1989. “Logic and Conversation.” In Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Originally published in 1967.)
Lewis, G. L. 2000. Turkish Grammar. 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Leys, Simon. 1997. The Analects of Confucius. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Li, Charles, and Sandra A. Thompson. 1989. Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Luo, Ji. 2003. Mood-Indicators in the Northern Song Dynasty and Their History 北宋語氣詞及其源流. Chengdu 成都: Bashu Shushe 巴蜀書社.
Palmer, F. R. 1986. Mood and Modality. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University.
Searle, John R. 1975. “Indirect Speech Acts.” In Syntax and Semantics, 3: Speech Acts. Edited by P. Cole and J. L. Morgan. New York: Academic Press, 59–82.
_____. 1995. “John R. Searle.” In A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind. Edited by Samuel Guttenplan. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 544-50.
Strawson, Peter. 1950. “On Referring.” Mind, 59: 320-44. Reprinted in Martinich (ed.) 2001: 228-42.
Xiao, Yang. 2006. “Reading the Analects with Davidson: Mood, Force, and Communicative Force in Early China.” In Davidson’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy: Constructive Engagement. Edited by Mou Bo. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers.
Yang, Bojun 楊伯峻. 1980. Lun Yu Yi Zhu 論語譯注 (The Analects with Translation and Comments). Beijing 北京: Zhonghua Shuju 中華書局.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Willman, M.D. Illocutionary Force and Its Relation to Mood: Comparative Methodology Reconsidered. Dao 8, 439–455 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11712-009-9135-8
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11712-009-9135-8