How to Do Things Without Words: A Theory of Declarations

J. P. Smit; Filip Buekens

doi:10.1177/0048393117697073

How to Do Things Without Words: A Theory of Declarations

J. P. Smit^*, Filip Buekens

^*Corresponding author for this work

Tilburg Center for Logic, Ethics and Philosophy of Science

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Scientific › peer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Declarations like this meeting is adjourned make certain facts the case by representing them as being the case. Yet surprisingly little attention has been paid to the mechanism whereby the utterance of a declaration can bring about a new state of affairs. In this paper, we use the incentivization account of institutional facts to address this issue. We argue that declarations can serve to bring about new states of affairs as their utterance have game theoretical import, typically in virtue of the utterer signaling a commitment to act in an incentive-changing way.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	235-254
Number of pages	20
Journal	Philosophy of the Social Sciences
Volume	47
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/0048393117697073
Publication status	Published - Jun 2017

Keywords

declarations
institutions
incentivization account
Searle
REALITY
MONEY

Access to Document

10.1177/0048393117697073

Cite this

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