3 ms·
"We hold these truths to be self-evident..." The statement is explicitly performative. It is a statement of belief, not fact.
by XorNot 4y ago
"We hold these truths to be self-evident..."
The statement is explicitly performative. It is a statement of belief, not fact.
- foldr 4y agoThe truth of the statements is presupposed (“these truths”). It’s only the self-evidence of their truth that’s asserted. There’s no component of the statement that’s performative in Austin’s sense (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performative_utterance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performative_utterance). For example, a statement of the form “A holds B to be C” is clearly truth evaluable, and so doesn’t qualify as performative.