Peter Hanks is an Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota
"Propositional Content and Types of Speech Acts"
Abstract: Classical speech act theory, in the tradition of Austin and Searle, is founded on a picture of propositional content due to Frege. This picture takes propositions to be the primary bearers of truth conditions, and it incorporates a sharp distinction between content and force. The concepts of an illocutionary act and illocutionary force are inextricably tied up with this Fregean picture of content. In this paper I develop and defend an alternative picture of propositional content, on which the primary bearers of truth conditions are the actions we perform in thinking and speaking about the world. Propositions are types of these actions, and they inherit their truth conditions from them. This picture abandons the distinction between content and force and it leads to a three-way distinction between different kinds of propositions. Here I explore the consequences of this alternative picture for the nature and taxonomy of speech acts
