Page 78 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

55 What Is Universal Pragmatics?

context—if the interpersonal relations intended in them are to
come to pass.
It seems to me that what Austin had in mind with his (later
abandoned) classification into constative versus performative ut-
terances is captured in the distinction between the cognitive and
the interactive uses of language. In the cognitive use of language,
with the help of constative speech acts, we thematize the propo-
sitional content of an utterance; in the interactive use of language,
with the help of regulative speech acts, we thematize the kind of
interpersonal relation established. The difference in thematiza-
tion results from stressing one of the validity claims universally
inhabiting speech, that is, from the fact that in the cognitive use
of language we raise truth claims for propositions and in the
interactive use of language we claim (or contest) the validity of
a normative context for interpersonal relations. Austin himself
did not draw this consequence because, on the one hand, he took
only one universal validity claim into consideration, namely,
propositional truth interpreted in terms of the correspondence
theory of truth; but he wanted, on the other hand, to make this
single validity claim compatible with many types of speech acts
other than constative speech acts. In his words: “If, then, we
loosen up our ideas of truth and falsity we shall see that state-
ments, when assessed in relation to the facts, are not so different
after all from pieces of advice, warnings, verdicts and so on.” 88
This loosening of the concept of truth in favor of a broad dimen-
sion of evaluation, in which an assertion can be just as well char-
acterized as exaggerated or precise or inappropriate as true or
false, results somehow in the assimilation of all validity claims to
that of propositional truth. “We see that, when we have an order
or a warning or a piece of advice, there is a question about how
this is related to fact which is not perhaps so different from the
kind of question that arises when we discuss how a statement is
related to fact.’’ 5° It seems to me that Austin confuses the validity
claim of propositional truth, which can be understood in the first
instance in terms of a4 correspondence between statements and
facts, with the validity claim of normative rightness, which does
not fit the correspondence theory by truth.
To the extent that warnings or pieces of advice rest on predic-