Conversing in the Dark: Off-Off Record Speech Acts and the Cooperative Creation of Uncertainty | Sam Berstler (MIT)

Abstract

I argue that cooperative interlocutors do and should work together to save each other’s face.  Because of this, interlocutors sometimes do and should work together to fail to coordinate on what’s happening in the conversation.  This shows that some popular assumptions about the relationship between meaning and context must be either false or much less attractive than philosophers previously thought.  My argument proceeds via a case study of what I call off-off record speech acts.  When a speaker intends to issue an off-off record speech act, she intends that (i) her addressee recognizes what she means, (ii) that she herself not know whether (i), and (iii) that her addressee know (ii).  Going off-off record enables the addressee to “play dumb:” the addressee can ignore the speaker’s speech act without revealing that she is intentionally doing so.  My analysis of off-off record speech acts reveals the collaborative way in which cooperative speakers cultivate and maintain uncertainty about what’s happening in the conversation.

The Institute of Philosophy hosts a regular workshop series entitled ‘The Practical, the Political, and the Ethical’.
The series was created in 2015 by Véronique Munoz-Dardé (UCL) and Hallvard Lillehammer (Birkbeck) in order to discuss work in progress from visiting speakers. This year the series is convened by Elise Woodard (KCL) and Michael Hannon (Nottingham). Talks are normally 45 minutes (no pre-circulation of the paper), followed by discussion. All are welcome.