1. “Napoleon ordered his troops to advance” is a performative. “To order” entails there is somebody doing the ordering, that is, Napoleon. The syntax of this sentence is straightforward. There are two participants: Napoleon, and the troops. Napoleon is the subject, the originator of the action described by the verb (“ordering”). The troops are the object, the target of the action originated by the subject (Napoleon).

2. “The troops were ordered by Napoleon to advance” (or, “The troops were ordered to advance by Napoleon”) is (1), reformatted in passive voice. Passive voice shifts focus from verb subject (Napoleon) to verb object (the troops). Although the troops now are the ostensible subject, however, they still are the ones whom Napoleon ordered to advance. There is no ambiguity as to who gave the order. The troops would not have advanced on their own accord, had it not been for the order. Napoleon therefore remains the “real” subject, and the troops remain the “real” object. Their respective roles as participants in the scenario of advancement have not changed. Neither has the relationship between the parties within the verb’s argument. Napoleon still is the originator of the action (the utterer of the performative), and the troops still are its target. The sentence still describes the same events in the world.

3. What were the circumstances under which Napoleon ordered his troops to advance? Surely Napoleon had not simply conceived an abstract desire to do so. Rather, he was responding to conditions on the ground. Such as: a breach in the enemy lines; an opportunity to encircle his foe; good prospects for a frontal assault; or any other military maneuver. He was a great general, because he could do this with ease and facility. We might say, “Assessing (evaluating) conditions on the ground, Napoleon ordered his troops to advance. This, however, only tells us something about Napoleon. It does not illumine the conditions on the ground, which prompted Napoleon to issue the order. We still do not know anything about the troops, other than they advanced. They did not advance on their own accord. They advanced because Napoleon ordered them to do so.

4. “Responding to (in response to) conditions on the ground, Napoleon ordered his troops to advance,” is a modest improvement. It eliminates some of the psychological features of “analyzing,” “considering,” and similar activities. So does “Conditions on the ground solicited Napoleon (afforded to Napoleon the opportunity) to order his troops to advance.” However, with both, we still have the imperious Napoleon.

5. “Napoleon was solicited (afforded) by conditions on the ground, to order his troops to advice. (5) is the passive reformat of (4). We already know Napoleon is the verb’s subject (the issuer of the order). (5) improves on (4), though, because it de-emphasizes his role. It eliminates redundancy, by refocusing the sentence on those aspects of the situation identified at (3). Although grammatically less correct, passive voice reduces the prominence of the subject, and promotes verb clause intelligibility.

(5) remains, however, just a verbose rendering of (1). We hypothesized performatives always imply a strongly-asserted self. We have not been able to devise a counter-example. Nor, in principle, will we ever be able to do so, no matter how exfoliated (and impractical) the expression.

Because of this, performatives are dissimilar to other world-changing verbs. “Napoleon’s troops advanced in response to conditions on the ground” is active voice. The troops might be lizards seeking out the heat, and we still could use this sentence to describe their activity, without fear of embarrassment or contradiction. It doesn’t commit us to a theory of mind – either as to Napoleon, or the troops. Rather than doing the ordering, “Napoleon’s” becomes an ascriptive predicate of the troops (an adjective). For that matter, they also wore blue jackets, fired muskets, and wore mustachios.

But enough with Napoleon, let’s consider a different example. What we are looking for is a series of words (an expression) highlighting the agent-actor characteristic of performatives, by juxtaposing it against a non-performative phrase. So, when asked, “why did you rob banks,” the depression-era outlaw Willie Sutton apocryphally replied: “Because that’s where the money is.”

Mr. Sutton did not say, “because I wanted to,” or use any other intention-importing verb. Properly understood, Mr. Sutton was responding to his milieu, i.e., financial institutions with currency. The bank made him do it, or predisposed him to do it, or made him feel like doing it, or activated his instinct to do it.

1. “I robbed the bank” leaves little doubt as to who did what. Mr. Sutton originated the action of robbing, and it was the bank that was robbed. Mr. Sutton, however, was not asked to make a first-person avowal. He was answering a question. His response yields improved action-to-world fit.

2. The passive voice formulation is, “The bank was robbed by me.” As we observed earlier, passive voice is less preferable grammatically, than active. Mr. Sutton’s response, though, better accommodates the relationship between the parties, as Mr. Sutton’s answer explains. This is not so with performatives. Implied verb intentionality can’t be eliminated, regardless of voice.

Austin certainly was aware of the world-changing nature of performatives. He does not, however, dwell on the issue of the agent uttering the performative; the conditions in the world prompting its utterance, or, for that matter, conditions in the world thereafter. Like his fellow British Empiricists, he tacitly assumes a “self in opposition to “world.” The former incants a verb formulation, and a new iteration of the latter magically appears.

How to Do Things with Words was infelicitously titled. Possible reformulations such as How Things Are Done with Words, or How to Accomplish the Doing of Things with Words, or How Words Are Used to Accomplish the Doing of Things, only exacerbate the problem. Regardless of what else may be going on, no “things” are being “done.” The existing title emphasizes the existence of these “things,” whatever they may be. This results in the needless proliferation of unwanted objects, and is ontologically superfluous. A more accurate title might be, How to Accomplish Results with Words, or How You Can Change World-States with Words.

How to Do Things with Words implies there is someone doing whatever it is that is being done. It emphasizes the existence of counterpart “selves” using words – not changed world-states. In this respect, it is like the performatives it describes and evaluates.

Austin’s use of the verb “do” also is annoying. It shares this with the Hollywood locution, “let’s do lunch,” or, “I’ll do the meatloaf” (instead of the performative, “I order the meatloaf”). In German, the verb “machten” means either “do” or “make,” depending on context. The improper speakers of “do” certainly don’t mean they intend to cook lunch (or fabricate the meatloaf).  If Austin was German, but retained a British sensibility, he might have entitled his book, How to Make Things with Words.  If he had “gone native,” he might have evolved this to, How the World Makes You Use Words to Say Things.

Best might be a title such as, How a State of Affairs in the World Solicits a Language User to Deploy a Certain Style of Verb in Order to Modify that State of Affairs. I concur it is unlikely Austin ever would adopt this formulation. Its tongue-twisting absurdity shows how the syntax of performatives can lead to a potentially counter-intuitive result. Austin’s Theory of Performatives accounts for a self; words; and an altered world. It does not account, however, for the pre-altered world, which is integral to understanding the performative’s context and meaning.

Now, there’s a significant difference between uttering “words,” and actually “doing something.” This can be summed up in the colloquialism, “actions speak louder than words,” and its cognates, “if you can’t walk the walk, then don’t talk the talk,” “money talks but bullshit walks,” and the like. These reflect a common-place, folkloric kind of wisdom. Even so, as Dmitri Karamazov found out to his detriment in The Brothers Karamazov, there is a difference, say, between talking about murdering one’s father, and actually doing so.

“The law” primarily is about evaluating the consequences of “actions.” For example, the term “homicide” simply describes an event in the real world; whereas, the term “murder” is an evaluation of the homicide, made by a jury, which has determined that certain propositions can be applied to the homicide (they are “ascriptive predicates” of the homicide), such as, it was committed by a person who had a particular mental state.

There is another category of events with legal consequences, however, where the only action is somebody talking (it also could be writing, though “talking” presents an even more outlandish juxtaposition). In other words, a speaker might incur significant legal consequences, not by doing anything, but rather, merely by uttering certain words. Some examples of what I have in mind are: extortion; slander; forming an oral contract; getting married; committing an anticipatory breach of contract; and even treason.

No question but these are “speech acts.” However, they aren’t speech acts per se, using Austin’s definition, see the previous note. Although various speech acts may be undertaken during the course of their performance, such as, for example, “promising” or “threatening,” in truth we’re dealing with a higher order concept or conclusion. This is the result of amalgamating spoken words, together with a legal evaluation of those words. The underlying words themselves need not be speech acts, classically understood.

For example, if you’re a party to a contract, you might commit an anticipatory breach of that contract by instilling in your counterpart party a concern that you don’t intend to perform your part of the deal. If the contract is about painting a fence, you might say, “I’m not going to paint that fence.” While the speech act of “repudiation” is involved, repudiation itself has no social significance. Rather, it’s only after those words have been spoken, and analyzed in a certain way, that they have legal consequences.

I wonder how many other examples there might be, of “speech acts,” in this specialized “legal” context.

Parties enter into a business transaction. Disagreement arises, and lawsuits break out. The plaintiff’s burden, at least initially, is to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. “A complaint … shall contain … [a] statement of the facts constituting the cause of action, in ordinary and concise language,” Cal. C. of Civ. Proc. §425.10(a). [I think the word “comprising” would be a better choice here, than the word “constituting.”] Let’s assume the plaintiff meets this burden. What’s the defendant to do?

Well, he has two alternatives. Faced with the plaintiff’s complaint, the defendant must admit or deny all material allegations. “A material allegation in a pleading is one essential to the claim … and which could not be stricken from the pleading without leaving it insufficient,” Cal. C. of Civ. Proc. §431.10. That sounds confusing, with a triple-negative, but what it means is that if you could strike the allegation, and the pleading still was sufficient, then the allegation isn’t material. Once he has figured this out, “The answer to a complaint shall contain the general or specific denial of the material allegations of the complaint controverted by the defendant,” Cal. C. of Civ. Proc. §431.30(b)(1).

However, even if the defendant admits that everything the plaintiff says is true, he still is permitted to set forth “A statement of any new matter constituting a defense,” Cal. C. of Civ. Proc. §431.30(b)(2), that is, affirmative defenses. These affirmative defenses, if proven, will tend to diminish or defeat the plaintiff’s recovery, even if the plaintiff is fully capable of establishing a prima facie case.

Affirmative defenses therefore are the legal system’s equivalent of Austin’s excuses. The defendant admits the plaintiff’s allegations, but also says: even so, consider this. For this reason, many commercial transactions can best be analyzed, by looking at the affirmative defenses available to a party, in the event of litigation. By thinking first of ways in which he can get his client out of the deal, the business lawyer will do a better job of negotiating and drafting agreements to prevent disputes, to begin with.

I think Austin would agree with this approach, though with at least two important caveats. First, the variety of excuses acceptable in real life is far more vast than the affirmative defenses cognizable in a court of law. This is to be expected, because fortunately, our legal system does not yet, at least, purport to pass on everything. And second, just because we can take a transaction apart, doesn’t mean we can paste it back together, like some latter-day Humpty Dumpty. To put this in “logical” terms, the negation of a proposition is often far from equivalent to the opposite of its affirmance.

Let me explain a little more clearly. Predicate calculus has bequeathed to us a bizarre formulation known as the “law of the excluded middle.” No, it’s not some new kind of diet. Rather, it’s the proposition that the entire universe of logical entities can be expressed by the proposition {p v –p}.* In other words, everything in the world either is the table I’m writing on, or something else.

However, as Austin is careful to point out, this kind of negation is inappropriate when we start talking about real-world occurrences. “Involuntarily” is not the opposite of “voluntary.” “Consciously” is not the opposite of “unconsciously.” Reason why: we apply, and use, these words differently. One can come up with any number of examples, of this sort.

Austin’s technique of breaking down actions into their various components, and then analyzing the constituent parts, also leads us right into the law of evidence. Another illustration of Austin’s principle of “no modification without aberration” is the “excited utterance” exception to the hearsay rule. A “hearsay statement” is one made by a witness other than while testifying, which is offered to prove the truth of that which is asserted. Cal. Evid. C. §1240 provides:

“Evidence of a statement is not made inadmissible by the hearsay rule if the statement: (a) purports to narrate, describe, or explain an act, condition or event perceived by the declarants; and (b) was made spontaneously while the declarants was under the stress of excitement caused by such perception.”

In other words, “excited utterances” can be offered for the truth of that which is asserted. Example: If I come across you as you’re getting out of your car, having just run over your neighbor’s prized jacaranda bush, and you say, “Good God, I really smashed that one,” this statement can be introduced at trial, even if you don’t testify. It can be offered not only to show you were agitated by the circumstances (which is something other than for the truth of the matter, and hence not hearsay), but also to prove that you did in fact run over the jacaranda bush. It’s also, incidentally, an admission, which is another exception to the hearsay rule.

Why in the world should excited utterances be trustworthy, at least, more so than ordinary utterances? Well, one reason is that they wallow up, if you will, directly from the ready-to-hand, without the intervention of any conscious activity. There is no time to fabricate a story. Something happens – the aberration – and there is an immediate assertion, or modification.

The excited utterance example also illustrates another point, which is that there is no necessary connection between thinking and language. You just open your mouth, and words roll right out, without too much thought. [This is, of course, a characteristic of lawyers, in general.]

Analyzing where these words come from, and the ways in which any one string of utterances is “better” than any other – with reference to a specific objective – is one of Austin’s main tasks, at least, later on. Here’s an example, from Robert A. Wenke’s famous book, The Art of Selecting a Jury (1979). He is discussing voir dire, or the process during which the lawyers interrogate potential jurors. He says:

“Be direct, yet diplomatic. Ask, for example, “Is it Miss, Ms., or Mrs. J?” Instead of “Are you married?”; “Mrs. J, is there presently a Mr. J?” (This covers divorcees as well as widows.) Never ask a pregnant woman if she is a Miss or a Mrs.”

The first question that comes to mind is, so what? What’s the point? I mean, they both get to the same issue – have the same propositional content, if you will. According to Austin, we now have reached the nub of philosophical analysis – to see why we say different things, and why different utterances are appropriate for different situations.

Wenke is concerned with a very practical task, that is, one of the steps in convincing an ultimate trier of fact. The illocutionary act being performed is that of “persuading.” A certain formulation of words might be more conducive to accomplish this result, than some other. If that’s the case, then it’s the one that should be adopted. [Note that neither expression is “true” or “false.” Rather, we employ a different set of criteria, such as “efficacy,” for evaluating them.] I’m reminded of a great remark from John Fowles: “Language is like shot silk; so much depends on the angle at which it is held,” Fowles, J., The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969).

If there is a practical moral to Austin’s work, at least as far as lawyers are concerned, it is just this. Say what you mean, and mean what you say. A litigator is an advocate of interests. His (or her) mission is to persuade an ultimate trier of fact. Why adopt a formulation or expression, which isn’t conducive to that result?

The problem then becomes one of deciding between competing expressions. Faced with two phrases, both of which “say” the same thing, which one do you use? At the risk of overextending myself, I would like to formulate a general rule: use the simplest one possible. I say this not to demean ultimate triers of fact. Rather, I say it because, given their radically different backgrounds and experiences, it is well nigh akin to a miracle that people are able to use the same language to communicate, at all. The more attenuated one’s use or application of a particular phrase or utterance, the less likely one is to be understood.

There is a related principle, which is as follows. Once you’ve said it, stop. There is too much oration. Much of legal writing is unnecessary. I would wager there is not a brief in the world that could not be cut by at least 50%. Too often, talking after you have made your point – or even saying anything at all – can jeopardize your position.

This is a famous rule of cross examination: “The mark of the master is to do as little as possible; the courage to stand up and say, ‘No questions,’ when there is nothing to be gained by cross-examination, is the mark of supreme mastery,” Younger, I., The Art of Cross-Examination (1976).

But this also ties in with the mundane practice of most everyday lawyers. Much of their time is spent drafting long, involved declarations, or points and authorities, which tend to stray rather far from the basic objective: to win the motion. Sometimes, by saying too much, the litigator gives the other side ammunition, which they then can use against the client, for example, in a subsequent deposition. In fact, properly considered, each page of declaration probably is worth about an hour’s time in deposition, when properly taken apart. “On page two, you say thus-and-such. How do you know? Have you considered? What if?” Etc. In this way, the inarftul declaration writer gets hoisted on his own petard. He (she) says things he (she) may not mean. Or, he (she) means them in one specific context, but then fails to limit the scope of application, and thereby gets committed to meaning them in other analogous contexts, which may not be true. There is a needless proliferation of unnecessary entities, and concepts. It is hard enough to clearly understand those already hanging around – the inevitable detritus of the client’s position.

In conclusion, I would simply like to point out that anything I have said, or for that matter, anything that Austin says, does not necessarily imply a methodological conservatism. You can have the craziest entities that you want, in your conceptual scheme. Just make sure there aren’t too many of them, and that you can explain what they are. Many people think that if you put, say, twelve people in a room, with instructions to deliberate, then it’s inevitable they’ll come to a conclusion. [Unfortunately, a sub-species of individuals known to hold this belief are called “judges.”] However, impasse can occur, even though we understand each other perfectly. It’s not always just a matter of saying the same thing, using simpler words, and perhaps slower cadence, with a louder tone of voice. Using the same tools, all of us can reach different conclusions.

In this way, Austin is at the forefront of what loosely has come to be known as “hermeneutic analysis” – that is, interpreting and understanding phenomena in the context in which they occur. Or, to paraphrase Wittgenstein, it doesn’t matter what might be the case, it’s what is the case, that counts.
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*Though some people called “intuitionists” maintain that, when you’re talking about potentially infinite classes of entities, especially mathematical ones, disproof of a universal statement is not automatically a proof of its denial. Rather than bouncing off the roof, as it were, of a closed set, you’ve got to start the proof from the ground up, because you literally don’t know where the outer limits are. This has some important consequences, but more on that later.

Austin had several insights about subjects that, up to his time, pretty much had been taken for granted. Traditionally, philosophers and logicians were concerned to show that sentences are reducible to propositions with a definite “truth value,” such as, “The cat is on the mat.” You can tell if the sentence is true, simply by determining if the cat indeed is on the mat. Pre-Austin, many contended all sentences could be reduced to propositions of this sort, which either were true, or false.

Austin, however, observed this was not the case. Unlike sentences that are true or false, which Austin called “constative,” there are a large number of sentences that have no truth value whatsoever. These are sentences, the very utterance of which consists of performing an act. For example, when I say, “I promise to be there,” I am engaging in an elaborate social ritual called “promising,” with its own rules and criteria for what counts as a promise. The sentence isn’t a report. It isn’t true or false. That mode of evaluation simply doesn’t make sense. Rather, when I say those words, I actually am making a promise. I am performing the “speech act” of promising. Austin called these types of sentences, “performative.”

Austin later refined his theory and identified what he called “illocutionary forces.” These are the things one does when one says something. “Promise” is one example. There are a number of others, including exclaiming, naming, persuading, ordering, and judging. Much of Austin’s later work consisted of developing his theory of illocutionary forces, which is one of the critical starting points for current “research” in the philosophy of language.

Today, though, we will be taking a look at Austin’s paper, “A Plea for Excuses,” in Urmson, J. O. & Warnock, G. J. (eds.) Philosophical Papers (2d ed. 1970). Unlike what we have come to think of as traditional “philosophy” papers, this one is easy to read. Austin’s style isn’t hard to follow, because he stays away from complicated philosophical abstractions. Instead, he concentrates on specific cases, and specific examples, that are more-or-less easy to understand. Austin therefore reveals his theory, only by showing how it works, in practical application.

Prior to Austin, philosophers were not all that fond of examples. One of the paradigm examples of such a philosopher is Ludwig Wittgenstein, at least in what has come to be called his “early phase.” Wittgenstein wrote a book called Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1961 tr. by Pears, D. & McGuinness, B.), which is one of the densest and most opaque books ever published. The Tractatus comprises a series of propositions, each of which either is self-evident, or can be deduced from the others, or so Wittgenstein claims. Proposition 1 is “The world is all that is the case.” Proposition 1.1 is “The world is the totality of facts, not of things.” Proposition 2 is “What is the case – a fact – is the existence of states of affairs.” Proposition 2.01 is “A state of affairs (a state of things) is a combination of objects (things).” At the very end, Wittgenstein concluded by asserting as Proposition 7, “What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.”

Here, in the space of a few sentences, Wittgenstein has introduced a number of, what for him, are highly technical terms. Yet, nowhere do we find examples of “that which is the case,” “facts,” “things,” “states of affairs,” “states of things,” or “objects.” Rather, we are presumed to know just what these mean, when in fact we don’t have the slightest idea.

Primarily for this reason, the Tractatus is a difficult book to understand. Wittgenstein constructs an elaborate logical edifice, without any kind of reference to what you and I might refer to as the “real world” (and indeed, the possibility of doing this may be one of the book’s main points). But this makes it seem all the more empty, and artificial.

Interestingly, Wittgenstein later changed his mind about this way of looking at things. He developed an approach that relied primarily upon examples, and the ways in which they illustrate various kinds of language problems. In that respect, he and Austin both came to be engaged in the same general sort of activity, though it does not appear either of them was influenced by the other.

In “A Plea for Excuses,” Austin is not concerned with examples, simply for their own sake. Rather, there is something unusual about the specific types of examples he uses. They’re all about things going wrong. We’re not just looking at “ordinary” examples, but rather, situations that have been turned on their head, if you will. Something has happened, the ebb and flow of conversational discourse is interrupted, and an excuse, or explanation of extenuating circumstances, is required. In this way, the content of the paper – that is, the subject of “excuses” – is a unique approach. Rather than simply speculating about something, from the ground up, we learn more about it, in a context where it is, or has become, dysfunctional. That is, rather than studying its ordinary operation, or usage, or mode of existence, instead we should examine instances in which it becomes an exception to the norm, a variance from routine, or a deviation from what is expected.

We can see how this principle works in our own lives. Ordinarily, we just “do things,” we are in a mode of activity and orientation. We’re not consciously thinking about, or reflecting on, what’s happening. Martin Heidegger (who has nothing to do with either Austin or Wittgenstein) provides what I think is one of the best examples of this, which involves using a simple tool — a hammer. When a carpenter is hammering in a nail, he isn’t thinking about either the hammer, the nail, or the piece of wood. Rather, he simply is hammering in the nail. Heidegger called this mode the “ready-to-hand.” He developed a theory of existential modes in Being and Time (1962 tr. by Macquarrie, J. & Robinson, E.).

But then, something happens – the head flies off the hammer. “The tool turns out to be damaged, or the material unsuitable.” The first consequence of this is disruption, in that a result no longer flows naturally from the activity or task. It is tempting to call this an “intended” result, but that would be over-stating the case, particularly if one views “intention” as requiring some kind of consciousness. While the carpenter might “intend” to construct what is being built, in a broad sense, it is unlikely he (or she) “intends” to hammer in the nail. Rather, it simply is an activity, almost autonomic in its performance; it is ready-to-hand.

Often this sequence of events (and here, I am interpolating Austin), calls for an excuse. Often, even if an excuse is not called for, an event like this provokes an examination of the circumstances – not necessarily with a view to justification, but rather, to understand, and rationalize or explain, what happened.

Heidegger calls this attitude, this critical or reflective state, the “present-at-hand.” Again using the metaphor of the hammer, “We discover its unusability, however, not by looking at it and establishing its properties, but rather by the circumspection of the dealings in which we use it. When its unusability is thus discovered, equipment becomes conspicuous.”

There are less trivial examples than the one with the hammer. Most of us live our daily lives without much thought for our position, or circumstances. Then, something happens – for example, you are involved in a car crash. One of the possible consequences of this is a conceptual “explosion,” causing you to reflect not only on the circumstances of the collision, but also on what we might describe as “broader” issues. Some of these may be mundane, such as, “why did I take that particular route,” or, “why didn’t somebody else run that errand.” Others may have potentially wider applicability, such as “why am I always in such a hurry,” or “am I paying enough attention to what I’m doing.” All of them are triggered, or provoked, by the occurrence of the crash; it is unlikely they would have occurred, in the normal course.

I suppose that too much present-at-hand is bad, because then you would become enmeshed in a reflective stasis, like the mastodons at the La Brea tar pits. You worry so much about what’s going on, that you don’t get anything done. Heidegger isn’t concerned about this type of reflective thinking, though. Rather, the tension between ready-to-hand and present-at-hand illustrates the shift of focus that occurs after an event or incident in the world, the bringing-to-the-foreground of activity that otherwise would go unnoticed, or unremarked upon.

Austin picks up on all of this. He says we can examine the “normal” functioning of a situation, by seeing how it breaks down, where it goes wrong. We do this, however, after the fact. It would be conversationally inappropriate – “infelicitous,” as Austin later says – to start dissecting situations, at a time when they are functioning normally. To do so would suggest an excuse is required, when this isn’t the case – something like “crying wolf.”

For example, to paraphrase one of Austin’s examples, let’s consider the peculiarly British institution of tea-time. One typically would not comment on the qualities of the tea-tray, unless, say, it was particularly ornate or beautiful. “Ornateness” and “beauty” therefore might be considered as exceptions to, or deviations from, what counts as an ordinary, run-of-the-mill tea-tray.

It is likely, however, that one would comment on the qualities of even an ordinary tea tray if, say, it suddenly broke in half, and fell to the ground, thereby spilling the tea. The host thereupon probably would say something like, “what an awful tea-tray,” thereby commenting on its lack of functionality for its intended purpose, that is, carrying tea. There are any number of other utterances one might make, but all of them would tend to have similar propositional content. The rapid descent of the tea tray, and the subsequent dispersion of the tea, have created an exception to the ordinary, normal activity of tea-time, which, in principle, consists of bringing in the tea, pouring it into cups, etc.

This leads Austin to hypothesize a “general lesson” about excuses: they always are proffered in an environment of deviation from the norm, or what is expected. Austin’s phrase for this is, “no modification without aberration.” What he means by this is that it would be weird, or even peculiar, to offer an excuse for something, in a context where it isn’t called for. In fact, like the beating of Poe’s tell-tale heart, the inappropriate proffer of an excuse might lead one to wonder exactly what it is the speaker is attempting to conceal, or deflect, or divert attention from. That is, because there is no modification without aberration, if we are offered an excuse and there is no apparent aberration, it’s likely we’ll go looking for one. I’m not suggesting we all turn in to amateur Sherlock Holmeses, but this should be one of the first axioms of good detective work, if it isn’t already.

An extension of this idea is that we really never assert anything unless there is a reason for doing so. The only reason why we say something – bring it up – is because we want to express it. The expression of the idea, however, doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Rather, it’s intended to make a request, or illustrate a point, or comment on some form of activity that is “other than” the background matrix, or environment, against which the expression occurs.

For example, if you are watching a football game, and you conceive a desire to drink a refreshing beverage, you might say to your wife, “Darling, would you mind getting me a beer.” You say this because that particular item is not an element of the feature-set of your environment, as it then is constituted. It is not likely you would say this if you were surrounded, say, by cases of beer. To think geometrically, the desire to drink beer becomes a kind of mountain or promontory, if you will, on the otherwise flat plane of your conceptual scheme. One gravitates towards it, not so much for what it is per se, but rather, because it exists in such contrast with, or juxtaposition to, its surroundings. [The expression of the idea, of course, is different than the reasons why the idea forms in the first place, and how, but that’s a different topic.]

John Searle probably would disagree with this analysis. In his paper, “Assertions and Aberrations,” [reprinted in Fann, K. (ed.) Symposium on J. L. Austin (1969)], Searle states he is “puzzled” by Austin’s thesis. Among other things, it “runs counter to a whole tradition of discussing these concepts in philosophy.” Searle prefers an analysis based more on free will, or voluntary action.

I think Searle, however, is missing the force of what Austin is saying. To begin with, Searle would not have written his paper, unless he was concerned about some anomaly, or dissonance, in his conceptual scheme — that is, something that needed explication. Thus, ironically, his own paper provides a perfect illustration of Austin’s theorem, at work.

Second, Austin is not trying to debunk the concepts of free will, or voluntary action. Rather, he is describing the conversational (and, I believe, the psychological) context within which such activities take place. It would be difficult, or impossible, or boring, to analyze each of, say, a million different actions. Rather, the best way to discern their critical components is to look at them in the condition of dysfunctionality that Austin describes. This doesn’t mean the actions aren’t “voluntary.”