Not Function but Function Conquered: Against a Functionalist Theory of Directives

Abstract

Ordering, requesting, and inviting are examples of directive speech acts. Philosophers have offered different accounts of what it is to perform a directive, which they have developed using different theoretical resources. Attitudinal theories of speech acts try to explain what it is to perform a directive in terms of a speaker’s beliefs, desires, and intentions. Nonattitudinal theories of speech acts try to explain directives in terms of something else.

This thesis is concerned with functionalism, a nonattitudinal theory of speech acts. According to functionalism, performing a directive is making an utterance with the etiological function of causing hearers to act in response to one’s utterance. I argue that functionalism is false. I develop counterexamples that show functionalism is too permissive about the kinds of causation suitable for generating directives. I argue further that the most plausible way to address these counterexamples is to become more attitudinal: rather than be permissive, functionalism should hold that directives and hearers’ responses to them are caused by specific internal processes.