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    Carmelics

    A reasoning platform. Break down any belief into clear reasons, explore both sides, and weigh the evidence honestly.

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    Made withinDC&Austin
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    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Representing in literature is a speech act

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Literary utterances are not genuine speech acts but rather 'imitations' of speech acts, as Searle argues in 'The Logical Status of Fictional Discourse'.
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    • 2.An expression can carry meaning through its place in a semantic system without the author performing any illocutionary act directed at a real-world audience.
      ?

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    • 3.Therefore, 'Milton!' in Wordsworth has meaning as a mimetic or quasi-assertive utterance, not because it constitutes a genuine speech act.
      ?

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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.On a Fregean or truth-conditional semantics, meaning is determined by sense and reference, not by speech act potential, making the Alston/Beardsley premise dispensable.
      ?

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    • 2.If the premise that 'meaning requires speech act potential' is false, the entire inference that literary representation must constitute a speech act collapses.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.If a linguistic expression were used in a representation without performing any speech act, it would have no speech act potential
      ?

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    • 2.On the Alston/Beardsley theory of meaning, an expression with no speech act potential has no meaning
      ?

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    • 3.The expression 'Milton!' in Wordsworth's poem evidently does have meaning
      ?

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