Page 71 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

48 Communication and Evolution of Society

a’) Share-the-speaker presupposition (a).
b’) Fulfill-the-speaker presupposition (b), that is, actually identify
the object referred to,
c’) Undertake for his part the act of predication (c).
It is otherwise with the zllocutionary components of utterances
(3) and (4). A hearer can understand the meaning of notifying
or asking under the condition that he has learned to take part in
successful speech acts of the following type:

6) “I (hereby) notify you that...”

7) “I (hereby) ask you whether .. .”

that is, has learned to assume both the role of the (acting) speaker
as well as that of the (cooperating) hearer. The performance of
an illocutionary act cannot serve to report an observation as the
use of a propositional sentence can; and the ability to have per-
ceptions is also not essentially presupposed here. Rather, con-
versely, the execution of a speech act is a condition of possibility
of an experience, namely the communicative experience that the
hearer has when he accepts the offer contained in the attempted
speech action and enters into the requested connection with the
speaker.
Whereas understanding (5) presupposes the possibility of
sensory experiences (experiences of the type: observation), un-
derstanding (6) and (7) itself represents a communicative ex-
perience (an experience of the type: “‘participant observation’”’).
The difference between originally illocutionary and originally
propositional meanings (force and meaning in Austin’s sense)
can be traced back to differences in possible learning situations.
We learn the meaning of illocutionary acts only in the performa-
tive attitude of participants in speech actions. By contrast, we
learn the meaning of sentences with propositional content in the
objectivating attitude of observers who correctly report their ex-
perfiences in propositions.”® We acquire originally illocutionary
meanings in connection with communicative experiences that we
have in entering upon the level of intersubjectivity and estab-
lishing interpersonal relations. We acquire originally proposi-
tional meanings in reporting something that happens in the world.