Twardowskian Semantics for Performative Utterances

Abstract

Works of Twardowski in the early 20th century contain an outline of a general semantic framework for natural languages. This framework, proposed within Twardowski’s theory of actions and ‘products,’ provides a drastic alternative to Frege’s semantic framework based on the notion of proposition (Gedanke in Frege). The latter has to a great extent shaped the following development of logical semantics. However, some recent works state that Twardowski’s theory allows to dissolve a number of problems characteristic of proposition-based semantics. In this paper, I show that it also provides a ground for a certain reconsideration of speech act theory. Since speech act theory was suggested by Austin as a fundamental alternative to standard proposition-oriented view on language, its emergence in a sense has divided philosophy of language into barely connected realms. The turn to Twardowskian semantics arguably allows to develop a more consistent understanding of how language works.