Not Function but Function Conquered: Against a Functionalist Theory of Directives

Ordering, requesting, and inviting are examples of directive speech acts. Philosophers have offered different accounts of what it is to perform a directive, which they have developed using different theoretical resources. Attitudinal theories of speech acts try to explain what it is to perform a directive in terms of a speaker’s beliefs, desires, and intentions. Nonattitudinal theories of speech acts try to explain directives in terms of something else. This thesis is concerned with functionalism, a nonattitudinal theory of speech acts. According to functionalism, performing a directive is making an utterance with the etiological function of causing hearers to act in response to one’s utterance. I argue that functionalism is false. I develop counterexamples that show functionalism is too permissive about the kinds of causation suitable for generating directives. I argue further that the most plausible way to address these counterexamples is to become more attitudinal: rather than be permissive, functionalism should hold that directives and hearers’ responses to them are caused by specific internal processes.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Hill, John

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Khoo, Justin

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
• Copyright retained by author(s)

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/157880

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/157880