The Austinian conception of illocution and its implications for value judgments and social ontology

This paper deals with J.L. Austin’s conception of illocution and some of its philosophical implications as to value judgments and social ontology. It is argued that according to Austin, illocutionary acts have conventional effects, and that conventional effects are defeasible and depend upon intersubjective agreement. In support of the claim that all illocutionary acts have conventional effects, it is explained how illocutionary effects can be described and this mode of description is applied to Austin’s classes of illocutionary acts. Then, the implications of Austin’s classification of illocutionary acts for value judgments are discussed and it is claimed that Austin challenges the fact-value dichotomy by assimilating statements of fact to value judgments. The Austinian conception of illocution is also relevant to social ontology. Many social realities can be described as sets of deontic states of the agents involved, and illocution is part of the picture because it involves the active production of deontic states of social agents by means of intersubjective agreement. In conclusion, a possible counterintuitive consequence of the conception of illocution presented is discussed and a solution is proposed.