To evaluate every utterance by its truth value is a descriptive fallacy, failing to account for J.L Austin's preformative utterances; utterances with more complex appraisals than mere truth or falsity (Austin, 1961, 237). The verification theory of names commits the descriptive fallacy when it turns to empirical evidence for meaning, where it holds a statement's meaning as dependent upon its the verification (or lack thereof). This ignores statements which hold meaning, but to which verification do not apply.
Austin's preformative utterances operate, essentially, as actions themselves which do not concern truth values. Speech-acts do not have an innate truth value to them, just as standalone acts such as 'running' cannot be evaluated for its truth or falsity. J.L Austin's focus on this class of utterances introduces a new extension of language, where it no longer is used as an intermediary, descriptor, or representative, but instead takes on a quasi-physical form directly in the world's causal order.
J.L Austin raises the parameter that preformative utterances must have the proper circumstances and situation otherwise it is a "misfire" (Austin, 1961, 225). I wonder if these parameters must be met in full, or whether a certain amount of them can be met for a preformative utterance to avoid misfiring. There are certainly many types of weddings, so what wedding parameters must be satisfied for "I do" to actually take effect? This is true of all parameters for preformative utterances, where I wonder if it is like descriptive theory of reference which is reliant upon 'a weighted majority of descriptors' being satisfied.
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