Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Performative Utterances

Performative Utterances (from here on: PU) welcomes comments. Well, sort of; it would be nice if you comment, because it will incite me to further fill the known universe with narcissistic rambling. On the other hand, I don't seem to need excuses.

An utterance becomes a performative when, by being uttered, something is changed. "I bet", "I do", "I bequeath" are all stereotypical performatives. Usually, PUs are not either true or false. They just are.

Let's talk about the pope. The pope is Mr. PU. His utterances are so performative that they transcend the usual rules, and define the truth. Yipes.

And so will mine be. The initial posts will be taken from responses to Times blogs that have been floating around for a while, and some other stuff.

Comment, contribute. Send pictures of your pets.

No comments:

Post a Comment