- From: Alan Ruttenberg <alanruttenberg@gmail.com>
- Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 23:26:09 -0400
- To: John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org>
- Cc: Chris Bizer <chris@bizer.de>, www-tag@w3.org, semantic-web@w3.org, Linking Open Data <linking-open-data@simile.mit.edu>
Hi John, Indeed there are cases of this, but such perforative acts are sanctioned by a social convention or by law. In the case of the web, considering the presence of spammers and other nasties not to mention general sloppiness, it should not be the case that any statement that happens to be made from a URI that you are in control of is considered to be true. -Alan On Jul 19, 2007, at 11:12 PM, John Cowan wrote: > Alan Ruttenberg scripsit: > >> Hardly. Dan claims that the correctness of an assertion saying they >> are the same depends on Tim saying so. I say that this has something >> to do with truth. > > Both views are correct. Such a claim is called a performative in the > study of speech acts: the act of uttering it makes it true. The > classical > case is "I now pronounce you man and wife", where when said by the > right > person and embedded in the legal system actually does make the persons > in question man and wife. > > There are many other cases. In some cultures, "My real name is X" is > sufficient to make your real name X. "I give you the grade of B" > means > that your grade is B if the speaker is entitled to give you a grade. > Performatives may be challenged on procedural or evidential grounds, > but if those are satisfied, they are inherently true. > > -- > We do, doodley do, doodley do, doodley do, John Cowan > <cowan@ccil.org> > What we must, muddily must, muddily must, muddily must; > Muddily do, muddily do, muddily do, muddily do, http:// > www.ccil.org/~cowan > Until we bust, bodily bust, bodily bust, bodily bust. --Bokonon
Received on Friday, 20 July 2007 03:26:49 UTC