SPEECH ACTS. AN ESSAY IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE.

SEARLE, John R.

ISBN 10: 0521071844 / ISBN 13: 9780521071840

Published by Cambridge University Press,, Cambridge,, 1969

About this Item

First Edition. Hardback. Dust Jacket. 8vo. pp 203. Original black cloth lettered gilt at the spine. Covers faintly marked else VG in VG+ d/w. No inscriptions, not price-clipped. Small Reynolds Stone style calligraphic bookplate on patedown of Godfrey Huddle (1936 - 2024) Suffolk musician (cellist) and book collector (philosophy / music/ William Blake.) D/w complete and clean -- designed by R B Kitaj. Sound decent copy of Searle's first book, a study of speech acts in the tradition of J. L Austin. Very good in very good dust jacket.

Seller Inventory # C101438

Bibliographic Details

• Title: SPEECH ACTS. AN ESSAY IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE.
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press,, Cambridge,
• Publication Date: 1969
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521071844
• ISBN 13: 9780521071840
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included

About this title

Synopsis

This outstandingly clear and lively 1969 book provokes its readers to rethink issues they may have regarded as long since settled.

Review

'This small but tightly packed volume is easily the most substantial discussion of speech acts since John Austin's How to do things with words and one of the most important contributions to the philosophy of language in recent decades.' The Philosophical Quarterly

'This book has immediately, and justly, been accorded the status of a major contribution to the philosophy of language. The brilliant but programmatic insights of Austin's How to do things with words are systematically developed and integrated with the more recent work of philosophers such as Grice, Rawls and Searle himself to produce an apparently comprehensive and certainly illuminating general theory, summarized in what Searle terms the 'main hypothesis' of the book, 'speaking a language is engaging in a rule-governed form of behaviour.' Mind

'The main merit of Searle's book - and it is a very substantial merit indeed - is that by attempting to construct a systematic theory of speech acts it substantially advances out knowledge of the problems that have to be solved in this fascinating field. Even if Searle himself has not yet found a wholly satisfactory way through the jungle, he has certainly established a number of clearings which will greatly facilitate subsequent explorations.' Philosophical Review

'Written in an outstanding clear and lively style, it provokes its readers to rethink issues they may have regarded as long since settled.' The Times Literary Supplement