Problemas epistemológicos asociados a la implementación de la ilocutividad en teorías pragmáticas naturalistas

Abstract

El objetivo de la tesis es identificar algunos problemas conceptuales originados por el intento de implementar los actos de habla en teorías pragmáticas inferencialistas. Especialmente, en aquellas que se preocupan especialmente en cumplir con las exigencias del programa naturalista. Para ello, se realizan las siguientes tareas:

1. Se analizan los requisitos para que una teoría pragmática pueda ser considerada naturalista. 2. Se ubica el análisis conceptual dentro del programa naturalista. 3. Se aplica el análisis conceptual a algunos conceptos clave en la teoría de los actos de habla, ejemplificándose con la noción de "intención" y las de "conocimiento mutuo"/ "conocimiento compartido"/ "entorno cognitivo mutuo". 4. Se desarrolla un recorrido genealógico por las distintas concepciones que históricamente ha albergado la noción de "ilocutividad". 5. En consonancia con el punto 4, se vislumbra de qué forma se ha procurado asociar, por la parte del código lingüístico, la noción de modalidad enunciativa con la de la asignación de una ilocutividad genérica (hipótesis de fuerza literal). 6. Se idea una explicación original de la función de la modalidad enunciativa en la asignación de la ilocutividad genérica a partir de un enfoque interaccionista de los actos de habla. 7. Se analiza el cumplimiento del requisito ontológico del naturalismo en el tratamiento de la ilocutividad en la obra de Searle a partir de su obra "Intencionalidad" y posteriores. 8. Se ensaya una explicación del origen de la convención comunicativa dentro de la obra de Searle sin apelar a la noción de "intencionalidad colectiva". 9. Se disecciona la inclusión de la dimensión normativa en el discurso acerca de la ilocutividad y hasta qué punto es necesario su tratamiento para explicar el funcionamiento de los intercambios comunicativos. 10. Se ensaya una integración de algunos efectos normativos, como los efectos ilocutivos, dentro de la teoría de la relevancia, siendo para ello sensible a los hallazgos obtenidos a partir del punto 4, conectándola además con la teoría de la cultura de Sperber.

Con ello se consigue no solo identificar problemas conceptuales, sino también proponer ciertas soluciones a partir de la argumentación racional. Esta tesis sigue una metodología propia de la filosofía analítica, como es el análisis conceptual. Por tanto, aborda problemas propios de la pragmática y la filosofía del lenguaje con una técnica filosófica, sin renunciar a discutir y a contar con los hallazgos empíricos propios de la ciencia lingüística.

With the basic framework which contextualizes the goal of this research outlined, I will proceed to relate the problems which have been dealt, formulated below in the following questions: 1. What are the ontological and methodological requirements imposed by the naturalist programme? Can these requirements be met in human sciences? What difficulties can be found? Is Intentionality, a property present in the most part of mental phenomena, an obstacle to implementing naturalism into humanities? What strategies can be followed to deal with Intentionality from a naturalist point of view? Is representationality the same as Intentionality? Is Intentionality a final constituent of reality or can other more elemental constituents be analysed? How can Intentionality be expressed into illocutivity?

2. What is illocutivity? How is illocutivity characterized? What relation exists between the illocutionary act and the adoption of commitments? Can the hearer negotiate what illocutionary act has been performed by the speaker? From what central feature has the speech act been historically defined? Are these definitions logically incompatible? Which have remained? How do they currently coexist?

3. In which way has the illocutionary dimension been inserted into communicative models? What features did Austin’s communicative model have? How was illocutivity implemented into Gricean paradigm? What illocutionary features are selected in each case to make the implementation of illocutivity operative in each model? Are these models sufficient to deal completely with illocutivity?

4. What elements are interconnected with the performance or the recovery of illocutivity in each communicative model? In models where the intention is a defining feature of the determination of illocutivity, what characteristics do these have? Is mutual knowledge a theoretically indispensable notion for this purpose? Does the related, but different, notion of mutual cognitive environment offer fewer difficulties than the former one? In the notion of mutual cognitive environment, how is it possible to guarantee that all the participant subjects have representations, at least, similar to that which is represented?

5. Is illocutivity a term which is characterized ambiguously? If so, what features adhere closest to the communicative phenomenon? Is it right to characterize illocutivity through some of these features although they have a different nature? Can these features be ordered according to a distribution of levels? Is there only one kind of codified illocutivity or do the semantic levels simply serve to recover this type of illocutivity with the others being extralinguistic features?

6. What relation is there between illocutionary forces and grammatical moods? How was this relation established in the so-called hypothesis of literal force? Is there actually any kind of meaning linked to the grammatical mood? What relation is there between grammatical mood and enunciative modality? Do grammatical mood and the enunciative modality denote the same reality? How canthe enunciative modality be defined? Is this definition problematic? Is there a different association between enunciative modality and illocutionary force in the pure codification and in its enunciation in context? What role is assigned to the hearer in the determination of the disposition assigned to a specific modality? Is this assignation linked to any kind of commitment assigned to speaker or hearer? What is a generic speech act? Can the generic speech act fulfil a role in the problems related to the determination of different taxonomies of speech acts?

7. What exactly is “intention” in pragmatics and, specifically, in the intentionalist characterization of speech act? Is the notion of “intention” in pragmatics identified with the used in folk psychology? Which properties does the notion of “intention” have that are not ordinarily taken into account in the pragmatic literature? What consequences do these properties have for pragmatics?

8. What is the epistemological statute for entities denoted by pragmatic terms? Why are the notions of “speech act” and “illocutivity” methodologically more accurate than “pragmatic acts” and “pragmemes”? With relation to naturalism, do they meet the scientific demands of theories such as Relevance or neo-Gricean? Given that how i illocutivity is implemented into Relevance Theory is under examination, is the principle of relevance scientific? Can conceptual analysis as a technique be inserted inside the naturalist programme? What relation is there between pragmatics and conceptual analysis?

9. What role does conventionality play in Austin’s work and in Searle’s Speech Acts? How are the conditions performed in its communicative diagram? Should conventionality necessarily be shaped by rules? Historically, did a step take place from illocutivity conceived as convention to an illocutivity conceived as intention? If this is the case, what consequences does this have? If the base of speech acts is Intentionality what repercussion does this have? How is it possible to solve the problem that, despite the fact that Intentionality is individual, acts may demand some kind of intersubjectivity? Is it possible to devise a form to constitute an intersubjective convention from a subjective intentional structure? Is there a way of integrating the normative dimension from the notion of achieved convention?

10. How has illocutivity been integrated until now into Relevance Theory? What are the consequences of the fact that illocutivity has basically been reduced to propositional attitudes? Why is this reduction of illocutivity to propositional attitudes insufficient to deal with what illocutivity really is? Which aspects of illocutivity could be implemented and which ones can not? Why? Could an alternative approach to implementing illocutivity be proposed into relevance theory in a more inclusive way? If this were possible, how would this be?