On the ideological underpinnings of the theory of speech acts Kanavillil Rajagopcilan

Este trabalho procura pleitear que a Teoria dos Atos de Fala, tal qual ela foi reformulada pelo filosofo norte-americano J. R. Searle, tem uma dimensao fortemente ideologico-politica. Essa constatacao em si nao deveria despertar nenhum espanto, nao fosse o fato de que os filosofos 'analiticos', contrariamente aos assim chamados 'Continentais', costumam insistir em que suas posicoes filosoficas estao acima de qualquer ideologia. A argumentacao desenvolvida neste trabalho se baseia numa leitura critica de um tratado politico (pouco conhecido entre nos) da autoria de Searle, intitulado de The Campus War, a fim de mostrar que, em ultima analise, a ideologia que sustenta a obra e a mesma que se depreende das demais obras do filosofo.

Iam convinced that speech act theory isfundamentally and in its mos!fecund, most rigorous and mos! interesting aspects (need I recall that it interests me considerably?J a theory of right or law, of convention, ofpoliticaI ethics or ofpolitics as ethics ...

PRElIMINARY REMARKS
T he theory of speech acts, in the fonu in which we know it, is due in large measure to the high1y significant contribution of John R. Searle of the University of California, Berkeley, who came across the basic ingredients of the theory in the pioneering work of his mentor, the Oxford philosopher, ].1.Austin.Although this fact has not gone unnoticed in the literature -quite on the contrary, most introductory text-books have not on1y recognised it but have, as I am inclined to believe, exaggerated its importance to the point of letting it eclipse the unique richness as well as the asyet-underexplored reach of Austin's original insights, the fact remains that a number of commentators have systematically attributed to the English philosopher ideas that they ought to have instead, in alI fairness, creclited to his North-American disciple. 1 Now, there is a fairly easy explanation for the fact mentioned above.There is a certain wide-spread belief that Searle's principal merit lies in having undertaken to, as it were, "streamline" his teacher's (supposedly) random and tentative thoughts on the topic of speech acts and related matters, giving them the form of a 'theory' in the rigorous sense of the termo A1though such a claim is unexceptionable as far as it goes, it is guilty of injustice on two counts: one, to Austin and the other, to Searle.
The injustice to Austin is that it has prevented people from asking what the Oxford philosopher himself had to say on the different issues involved, and hence from looking at his writings at alI, except through Searle's eyes.It is Searle's writings that are widely read, consulted and cited; to Austin is at best reserved some occasional "lip service".Here is how the author of a recent introductory text-book on pragmatics reports on the early development of the theory of speech aets: "Its main developers were the British philosopher John L. Austin (whose posthumous How to Do 7bings with Word5 (Austin, 1962) had an enormous impaet on linguistic philosophy, and thereby on linguistics, especially in its pragmatic variant), and the AmericanJohn R. Sear1e, who had studied under Austin at Oxford in the fifties, and who became the main proponent and defender of the former's ideas in the United States, and subsequently wor1d-wide."(CE, Mey, 1993: 109-110).ln other worcls, after Sear1e appearecl on tht~scene, most researchers were led to believe that what they read in his books (especially his first book -the one that won him wor1el-wiele recognition, viz., Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy ofLanguage (Searle, 1969), was nothing but Austin (in spirit) at his best anel, in aelelition, Austin systematiseel (Levinson, 1982: 238).The reasoning behinel such an attituele is the following: if it is indeeel the case that what Searle did was simply systematise Austin's thoughts, it makes no sense whatsoever to bother about what Austin may have written on the sarne subjeet, for the simple reason that one is, after all, most likely to come across the very sarne ieleas eliscusseel in a philosophically far more luciel manner in the writings of his elisciple.
The injustice to Searle consists in that the whole idea reduces the Berkeley philosopher to a mere 'second fiddler' whose only merit was that he happeneel to be at the right place at the right time.To put matters in a nut-shell: the vast literature on the theory of speech aets is replete with remarks that evidence an early misunderstanding of the role ofJohn Searle in its elevelopment.ln refusing to grant any originality worth the name to Sear1e's contribution to the field, many commentators have helped perpetuate the myth that there is a smooth continuity between the master anel the elisciple; that the one took over precisely where the other had left off.Nothing coulel be further from the truth.ln what fol1ows, I will not pursue the above question any further.I will simply treat it as a matter of fact that the speech aet theory as we know it tcx:tay carries the label 'Made in U.S.A', although some of the basic ingredients that went into its making may indeed have been imported from England.My main concem in what foliows will be with identifying some of the important traits of the ideology that underlies the speech act theory in its 'officia!' version.My main concern, in other words, will be with the fortunes of the theory in the hands of John Searle rather than the sort of treatment it was subjeeted to by its original creator, J.L. Austin.Now, scientific theories are historical products and as such refleet the socio-political circumstances that attend their moment of elaboration and acceptance by the academic community at large.And the theory of speech acts is no exception to the rule.So one fruitful way to study the ideological presuppositions that underwrite a theory is to consider in some detail the circumstances of its origino

THE BIRTH Of THE THEORY AND THE PREVAILlNG INTELLECTUAL MILlEU
The theory of speech acts was born in an intel1eetual climate characterised by an acute distrust of ideology, especial1y in the United States.During the decade of the fifties -or in 1955 (the year of Austin's William James Leetures at Harvard) to be more precisewhen the ideas of Austin (1962) first made their impaet felt on the American philosophical community, and that of the sixties -or, to be more precise, the year 1969, when the theory in its 'spruced up' version (Cf.Searle, 1969) was announced to the academic publicthere was a general belief, albeit not entirely uncontested, in the U. S. that ideology was a thing of the pasto The end of ideology so confidently proclaimed and celebrated by Daniel Beli (1965) came as a source of comfort to a generation that had barely begun to recover from the trauma of World War II, the worst spectacle the world had ever witnessed until then of a whole nation acting under the spell of a crazy ideologue and playing untold havoc upon the rest of mankind.The very subtitle of Bell's best-seller is highly suggestive: The Exhaustion o/PoliticaI Ideas in the Fifties.ln Europe, however, the intelleetuals were a lot more cautious.Many, like the second generation theorists of the Frankfurt school knew alI too well that totalitarian ideologies such as Stalinism and Leninism were still around and held a treacherously seductive charm for many of their otherwise well-meaning colleagues who found it perfeetly normal that millions of people shoulel be maele to go through extreme, harclship anel eleprivation of their politicaI rights in the mune of public gooel anel a future 'promiseellanel'."Ieleology," wrote Bell 0968: 96), "is the conversion of ideas into sociallevers ....It is commitment to the consequence of ieleas .... What gives ieleology its force is its passion ... For the ieleologue, truth arises in action, anel meaning is given by the 'transforming moment'.Bell's English contemporary Ernest Gellner 0959: 1) hael, barely a year before the former publisheel his best-seller, elefmeel ideology as "a system of ieleas with a powerful sex appeal." So ieleology was passion, sex appeal anel impulsive action.Qne hael better elefend oneself against its insielious effects.What was neeeleel to holel it at bay was reason, self-control anel thought.Thus when Raymonel Aron 0968: 144) elefineel ideology as "a pseudosystematic formulation of a total vision of the historical world," his fury was direeted singularly at the 'pseudo-systematic vision' rather than the idea of the 'total vision' or, for that matter, the ielea of the 'historical worlel'.Aron, however, did not fai! to notice a certain irony about the whole ielea of elecreeing the death of ideology, especially at a time when the world was witnessing the gruesome speetacle of the Colel War.Like many others, he fully recogniseel that, with the World War II over, the Peace had 'broken out'.Writing in 1957, he noted: It may seem rather paradoxicaI to envisage the end of the icleologicaI age at a time when Senator (Joseph] McCarthy continues to play a leading role on the Washington stage, when LesMandarins has just won the Prix Goncourt and the flesh-and-blood "mand'lrins" are making the pilgrimage to Moscowand Peking.One is not so naive as to expect peace to blossom forth in the immediate future: the idealists disillusioned, the bureaucrats continue to reign.(Aron, 1968: 144).
But then Aron was the odd one out in his analysis.There was a general consensus that the American intelligentsia was no longer divided on an ideological basis.Talcott Parsons, a leading sociologist of the period, was to claim that sociology had made a "breakthrough" in the V.S. thanks to what he went on to describe as the country's intellectual openness and receptivity.For Parsons, what distinguished the American intellectuals of his day was their "relative illununity to the pressure to put problems in an ideological context."(Parsons, 1962: 313).

IDEOLOGY lN THE eONTEXT Of ANALYTle PHILOSOPHY
ln 1971, barely two years after the publication of hisbook on speech acts, Searle wrote a politicai treatise entitled 1be Campus War (Searle, 1971).2Curiously enough, this work hardly ever gets even a passing mention in the literature on sp~ech acts and related matters.This may well have to do with the general tendency among analytic philosophers to go about their business under the impression that philosophy has no consequences on material life, and hence a philosopher's views on philosophical matters can have no inlpact on her beliefs on politicaI and ethical issues, nor are they, for that matter, influenced in any way by the latter.ln this sense at least, the analytic philosophers are at one with their adversaries in the pragmatist camp who have made a point of emphasising that philosophers would do well to keep their politicaI views and religious beliefs strictly to themselves, not letting them interfere with their public work as philosophers.
It is probably neecUess to remind the reader at this juneture that the philosophers on the Continent, especially in France, are' completely unlike their Anglo-Saxon colleagues in this respect, as the lives and works of Sartre, Foucault and more recently Derridaamong countless others -amply demonstrate.ln France, philosophy has always been self-consciously politicaI and French philosophers have, as a matter of a general rule, not only not resisted the idea of making their philosophical reflections ideologically sensitive, but also, when challenged to act, frequently deemed it incumbent upon them to put their influence as philosophers at the service of politicaI causes.
But the truth of the matter is that analytic philosophers, no matter how emphatically they may deny having any trucks with ieleology, are no less ieleologically conunitteel.Furthennore, contrary to their own explicit daims, their philosophical views anel ideological predilections can fairly easily be shown to be of a piece with one another.If nothing else, the very daim that theirs is a philosophy elevoid of any ideological agenela can be shown to be itself a deft ieleological ginunick par excellence.For, isn't it true that ideology at its best is ideology that successfully manages to pass for something else, preferably something supposedlythe very antithesis of ideology -say, theory or science?

FOCUS ON THE CAMPUS WAR
A doser look at some of the central arguments contained in Tbe Campus War will bear out our suspicions.ln the next few paragraphs, I shall examine some qf the main arguments of Searle in that book wIth a view to backing up my daim that the ideology that sustains his avowedly politicaI treatise is aIso the one that underlies his work as a philosopher of language.
Subtitled A Sympathetic Look at the University in Agony, Ibe Campus War adclresses the issue of the celebrated student unrest in the U.S., beginning at Berkeley in 1964, and soon spreading like wild fire throughout the length and breadth of the country.Although the author recognises that what happened on the university campuses in America was part of a world-wide trend, he makes no attempt to link it directly to the more famous student revolts in France or England.
Searle starts off with the observation that the course of history had shown within a matter of so few years that Daniel Bell and the other prophets of the doam of ideology were utterly wrong.Instead, observes Searle, the series of student revolts across the country-"not a series of isolated incidents but ... a comprehensible and more or less discrete social phenomenon" (Searle, 1971: 5) -had proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that ideology was very much alive and kicking.
For Se~rle, the key to a proper understanding of the student unrest in the U. S. was that it was a "religious movement.":.... by religious I do not mean that it has any necessary connections with any church or with a belief in the supernatural.Rather, I mean that it involves a search for the sacred.People in general, but especially young people have a need to believe in something and to act on behalf of something that they regard as larger than themselves.They need goals that they can regard as somehow transcending their own immediate needs and desire; these goals make more tolerable the mediocrity and insignificance of their daily Iives.(Searle, 1971: 5).
Before proceeding any further, it may be worth the while to detain ourselves a little over Searle's initial diagnosis of student unrest and look at some striking similarities between it and what Richard Rorty was to say a decade and a half later about politics in general. 3 Speaking at the Inter-American Congress of Philosophy at Guadalajara, Mexico, Rorty (Cf.MacCarthy, 1990: 360) recol1l1nended that ... philosophy should be kept as separate from politics as religion ... We should think of politics as one ofthe experimental rather than af the theoretical disciplines.
It doesn't take any great ingenuity to identify in Searle's diagnosis all the essentiaI ingredients of the typicaI pragmatist distrust of politics at the macro-Ievel.For both Searle anel Rorty Calthough, in alIlikelihood, neither of them would welcome the idea of being braneleel along with the other), politics is like religion in that in both cases what one is ultimately looking for is something realIy anel truly sacred.Furthermore, both involve the exteriorization of a private, eleeply inlaiel need víz. the neeel for a father figure, be it the Godhead, Ataturk, Feuhrer, Duce, or quite plainly, the Father of the Nation. 4 The one major difference between Rorty anel Searle on the shareel issue of keeping politics away from philosophy Cin the final analysis, this may even help explain why the former ended up in the pragmatist camp while the latter continues to ding steadfastly to the gooel olel anaIytic ieleaIs) is that Rorty thinks that no philosophy can in principIe come to the rescue of politics.By contrast, Searle seems to think that the problem with the stuelem revolts is that they are impelled by passion borelering on the religious, rather than sober reasoning.Referring to the "extraorelinary sense of community" CSearle, 1971: 5) anel "the remarkable ielealism" of "this generation of students" (Searle, 1971: 6), Searle goes on to observe: "Someone must play the role of the enemy.Indeeel, lacking a coherent ideology, the in-group of US is defined by our shared hostility to the outgroup of THEM" Cibid).Surely, alI this business of locating a common, formidable enemy in oreler to foster the in-group feeling is so very typical ofthe world's religions, from themost 'primitive' to the most 'sophisticateel' -what else was Satan conjured up for, one núght ask, if not to provide God with a raison d'être?
For Searle, what lies at the bottom of the student unrest is that the stuelent boely is under a religious spell: the solution therefore is to awaken them from their 'dogmatic slumber', as it were."ln this respect," continues Searle, immediately after the last passage cited in block quotation, the style of this particular generation of student reformers sharply contrasts with that of the previous reformers.I can recall, for example, that when I was an activist student leader, we were constantly seeking the co-operation of other groups, even though they did not share our general outlook, and were even seeking the co-operation of administrators (Searle, 1971: 6-7).
To put matters simply, theirs is a god of strife.Ours, by contrast, was a god of harmony and co-operation -alas, what a pity that all that belongs to a bygone past!What they fai! to perceive is that, in general, efforts at compromise are doomed to failure simply because any compromise with the evi! is regarded by the militants as morally unacceptable, a sell-out to the enemy (Searle, 1971: 7).
A sizeable portion of the rest of Searle's politicaI treatise is taken up byan examination of how the three segments that make up the university -viz., the students, the administration, and the facultyreact to the new set of circumstances.I shall skip over the details here.The general thrust of Searle's remarks may however be summarised as fol1ows: the student body as a whole al10ws itself to be carried away by empty sIogans and Utopian ideaIs; the administration watches dumbfoundecl1y, unable to decide what to do; while the members of the faculty either refuse to take a stand for fear of adverse reaction fram the stuclents or openly come out in their favour to gain easy popularity.Says Searle: ... it takes a good deal of courage today to oppose student radicaIs than it does to oppose university administrations and trustees.Blackmai! is both particular and general; many professors support radical positions not out of personal fears, but in the hope of bringing peace to the campus.(Searle, 1971: 127-128).
Chapter 6 of rbe Campus War contains arguments that are crucial to Searle's overall thesis.ln this chapter, the author addresses the issue of academic freedom.Searle's basic strategy here is to argue that there are two concepts of academic freeelom that are in theory distinc"t but in practice not always elistinguished: the 'Special Theory' and the 'General Theory'.The special theory of academic freedom, says Searle, was imported from Germany along with the very model of university for which, as many historians have registered, the early educationists in the United States turned to Germany rather than Great Britain.It basically consisted in the kind of thing encompasseel by the German words Lebrfreibeit anel Lernfreibeit i.e., the professors' right "to teach, coneluct research, anel publish their research without interference", anel the students' right "to stuely anel learn", respectively (Searle, 1971: 184).The general theory of acaelemic freedom is tied to the society at brge.Uneler it, the members of the academic conununity are said to have the same rights (and eluties) as any other citizen qua citizen.lf the special theory presupposes a theory of the univeI'sity, the general theory makes sense only against the backgrounel of "a theory of society anel of man's relation to society."(Searle, 1971: 191).
Having maele the distinction between the special theory and the general theory, or between a narrow sense anel a broad sense of academic freedom, Searle goes on to show how the two tend to get conflated all too frequent1y, although he hastens to aelel: "At one leveI the elifference between those who accept only the Special Theory and, those, like myself, who accept the General and the Special Theories, is purely verbal.lt all depends on what one means by 'acaelemic freedom'" (Searle, 1971: 196).
But the fact that it is difficult to sustain the distinction at a conceptual level does not mean that it has no use at the level of practice.As a matter of fact, argues Searle, a university committed only to the special theory will have no objections to keeping a tab on the extramural activities of both the faculty members and the students.This is because such prized items as the freedom of speech and the right to support whatever politicaI causes one chooses to are not part of the special theory; they belong to the general theory.Searle draws our attention to the fact the original conception of Lehrfreiheit diel not incluele the right of the professor to engage in active politics -for the simple reason that it was elevelopeel in Imperial Germany, where the authority floweel exclusively from the emperor anel always elownwards.But when the concept was imported to the elemocratic Uniteel States where the ultimate authority was -at least on paper -"of the people, by the people, anel for the people," such a restrictive ielea of acaelemic freeelom hael to be substituted by a more comprehensive one.
The elifference between the Imperial Germany anel the People's Vniteel States as far as the concept of university is concerneel is, in Searle's view, quite simply the following: in Germany, the concept of acaelemic freeelom was elevelopeel as an exception to the role; whereas in the V.S. it was, right from the very beginning, seen as a natural corollary to the general concept of freeelom of the inelivielual, enshrineel in a elemocratic constitution.
Nevertheless, argues Searle, the Special Theory eloes not cease to have its usefulness at a praticaI leveI.To quote him, "The General Theory incorporates the Special Theory because it inclueles the theory of the university, but aelels to it the following: stuelents and faculty members maintain as stuelents anel faculty members the sarne rights they have as citizens ofa free society' (the emphasis is mine) (Searle, 1971: 192).ln other worels, care should be taken not to confuse between the rights of the stuelents and the professors qua stuelents anel professors on the one hanel, anel the rights of the very sarne stuelents anel professors qua orelinary citizens.Searle therefore elraws the conclusion that, in a democratic set-up, the freedom of speech that the stuelents and teachers are entitleel to qua stuelents anel teachers is confineel to strictly acaelemic matters.Any attempt to use the classroom for expressing politicaI views woulel constitute overstepping the limits of the freeclom guaranteeel by the Special Theory.ln Searle's own worels, ... the professor does not have unlimited free speech in the classroom.He is only entitled to lecture on lhe subject of the course ar lecture senes, and he is not entitled to use the classroom for, say, politicaI propaganda.If he reconstitutes his lecture series as a politicaI indoctrination session, he both violates the academic freedom of the student and abuses his academic freedom as a professor.TIle General theory is an extension of the concept of freedom, because under it the academic role preserves the rights accorded the citizenship role, except insofar as those rights are regulated to realize the purposes of the university.CThe emphasis is Searle's) (Searle, 1971: 193).
Before proceeding any further, it is important to pause a little and ask if Searle's argument for the thesis that the professor has no right to express his politicaI views in the classroom is all that cogent and self-evident as it seems at first blush.Recal1 that the whole argument rests on a certain distinction between two senses of acadenúc freedom which Searle refers to as the 'Special Theory' and the 'General Theory'.Now, Searle himselfwas the first to admit that the distinction is far from being clear-cut at the conceptual leveI.Indeed, his only excuse for continuing to invoke the distinction was that he felt that the terms were still useful at a purely praeticalleveI.
But then this note of caution is precisely what he forgets when he so confidently distinguishes the rights of the academics qua academics from the rights of the same academics qua ordinary citizens.For, how can he justify the putative distinction between the two sets of rights, other than by invoking a c1ear (mind you, not just praetical, but conceptual) distinetion between the Special Theory and the General Theory?It will certainly not do to say that we all know what rights a professor is entitled to as an ordinary citizen like anybody else and what additional rights she may lay a claim to as a member of the academic community she belongs to -a seleet group of people entrusted (by the community at large) with the task of furthering the cause of knowledge and higher education.Quite on the contrary, to the extent that such a distinction between the two sets of rights makes any sense at all' it alleady presupposes the prior acceptance of there being a dear-cut distinetion between the Special Theory (the one that specifies the academic's rights as an academic) and the General Theory Cthe one tbat spells out an academic's rights as an ordinary citizen).ln other words, Searle is simply begging the question when he daims to know in advance when a leeture ceases to be an academic matter and begins to take on politicai connotations -a conclusion that should come as no surprise, especially if one recalls that the very word 'academy' carries with it a whole history of politicaI machinations and questionable goverrunentaI patronage in ancient Greece (Plato could comfortably label the sophists whom he despised as the 'peddlers of cheap knowledge' for colleeting fees from their pupils, given that his own financiai security was fully guaranteed by a generous subsidy to his State-sponsored Academy).

THE RELEVANCE Of THE CAMPUS WAR TO SPEECH ACT THEORY
What has all this got to do with the theory of speech aets?The answer is: quite a loto As I wish to argue from now on, Searle's explicitly politicaI treatise as contained in The Campus War foreshadows with admirable precision a number of theses he has zealously defended in the quarter of a century or so since the book saw the light of the day.The majority of these theses are among those that one would normally be inclined to dassify as having to do with topics in the philosophy ofIanguage or the philosophy ofmind (For Searle, the former is but a subdiscipline under the latter -Cf.Searle, 1992 for a categorical statement of this view).Yet Searle himself seems, as we have already noted, to hold the view that a philosopher's politicaI views are entirely independent of her philosophicaI theses.I shall postpone further discussion ofthis matter until I have explored in some detail how Searle's politicaI views dovetail neatly into his overdll position as a philosopher of language.
Mary Louise Pratt 0981: 5) has suggested that the ideal speaker envisaged by the speech act theory is "an Oxford cricket player, or maybe a Boy Scout, an honorable guy who always says the right thing and real1y means it".Pratt goes on to add that the speech aet theory thus distinguishes itself from the Bloomfieldean structural linguistics that imagined its ideal speaker as some sort of a linguistic Noble Savage, the Labovian sociolinguistics for which the ideal speaker is Eliza Doolittle, Bernstein's approach in which Lady Chatterly's lover emerged as the ideal speaker, and finally Chomskyan linguistics that puts forth an MIT graduate student as its ideal speaker.The facetious intent of these remarks aside, Pratt's remarks do capture an important truism about the prototypical subjeet of language around whom the theory of speech aets seems to have been so painstakingly constructed.For the speech act theory, the subject of language is a rational agent fuliy and always in control of her thoughts and decisions, cultured in middle class mannerisms (especially, as they are understood in the V.S.)politeness ("Would you be so kind as to .... "), table manners ("Could you please pass the salt?"), and ali the rest of it.
The whole idea of indireet speech acts (Cf.Searle, 1975), for instance, crucially rests on the concept or such a subject of language.For Searle, communication is an aetivity carriecl out by rational agents in accordance with a set of constitutive rules whose unwritten premise is the PrincipIe of Co-operation fonnulated by Grice (975).He says, ln inelirect speech at.'tS the speaker communicates to the hearer more than he actually says by relying on their mutually shareel backgrounel information, both linguistic anel non-linguistic, together with the general powers of rationality anel inference on the part of the hearer (Searle, 1971: 60-61).
More interestingly however, Searle also claims en passant (Searie, 1975: 61) that the concept of indirect speech acts has important implications for the thesis in ethics which says that words like 'good', and 'right' etc. have an action-guiding meaning.Thus, just as one cannot conclude from the sentence 'Can you pass the salt?' that 'can' has an imperative meaning, so too, says Searle, it is foolhardy to conclude that 'good' has an aetion-guiding sense from the faet that to say about something that it is good is one way of reconunending it.

SEARLE AND THE ISSUE Of 'ETHICAL NATURALlSM'
The issue of ethics and rationality has been an important element in Searle's philosophical thought right from the very beginning.ln a review article publisheel in 1990 in lbe New York Review, he declares his conviction that the slow corrosion of moral requirements is to be blameel for the growing decline of academic stanclards.The following worcls of the philosopher are packed with a strong sense of nostalgia: Why do we lack the conflclence to require that each undergraduate acquire the mcliments of a good general eclucation?After alI, we were not always 50 lacking in self-confldence.When my granelfadler gracluatecl from Oberlin after the Civil war, he set out on his horse for what was then Inelian territory, carrying Milton's Paradise Lost anel dle Bible in his saeldle-bags.After the Seconel World War, when I began my eelucation, it was no longer a matter of eelucating "Christian gentlemen," but we were quite confldent of our theory of a liberal education.(Searle, 1990: 42).
Alongsiele ofPhilippa Foot (1967), Searle has hael an important role to play in the revival of what is referreel to as 'ethical naturalism' in the latter half of this century.Ethical naturalism is the thesis that says that moral juelgements can perfectly well be logically eleriveel from factual statements.
Historically, philosophers in the Anglo-Saxon worlel have as a matter of a general mIe been averse to the ielea of brielging the gap between fact anel value.The classic statement of this view is to be founel in Hume's Treatise, where one reaels: ln every system of morality, which l have hitherto met with, l have always remark'd, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning '" when of a sudden l am surpris'd to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, l meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought or an ought not (Hume, 1888) ln his Principia Ethica, G.E. Moore (903) declared it a fallacy to confiate the two kinds of statements and called it 'the naturalistic fallacy'.The idea that factual statements must be clearly distinguished from value judgements was also subscribed to by Bertrand Russell in the form ofwhat is often called 'ethical subjectivism'.According to Russell (1935:237), "... iftwo men differ about values, there is not a disagreement as to any kind of truth, but a difference of taste."Ethical subjectivism subsequently gave way to the theory known as 'emotivism' whose principal advocates were Charles Stevenson (963) and A. J. Ayer ( 936), acclaimed by many as the principal spokesman for Logical Positivism in England.So much for a quick look at the philosophical dogma Searle was reacting to.
ln Chapter VI of his Speech Acts, there is a whole section devoted to what Searle baptises 'the naturalistic fallacy fallacy' Le., the fallacy of considering naturalism a fallacy.Searle contests the thesis defended by].O.Urmson 0953: 120) that a term like 'valid' is an evaluative expression, so that "to call an argument valid is not merely to classify it logically, as when we say it is a syllogism or modusponens; it is at least in part to evaluate or appraise it; it is to signify approval of it."For Unnson this means that what guarantees the validity of deductive logic is something necessarily e.'JCternal to it, since the claim that a deductive system is valid does not itself logically follow from its premises.
What Searle finds most objectionable in Unnson's thesis is the consequence that no system of logic, anel hence, a [ortiori, no coelifieel set of propositions whatsoever, can be claimeel to be selfsustaining and that all systems are therefore always open to question, no matter how impeccable their internallogic is.Searle on the other hand reveaIs himself committed to the position that the Iegitimacy of no code can be called into qu~stion without at the same time necessarily questioning its 'internal' Iogic.And as he would argue, what gives a system of deductive Iogic its internal rigour is the very principIe of rationality.So for Searle even to doubt the validity of a deductive system is to be totally irrationa!.From Searle's point of view, then, Urmson's thesis must be wrong if only because it Iays open the outrageous possibility that the Iogic of deduction may not be valido Before Iooking at Searle's specific arguments against Urmson, it is important to see in what way the whole issue is tied to a key idea defended by the Berkeley philosopher in his rbe Campus War.Recall that for Searle academic freedom has certain absoIute limits (whose absoIuteness is guaranteed by Iogic); an academic is not, for instance, entitled to question it from within the confines of the very system which instituted it in the first pIace (by using that freedom for, say, promoting her own politicaI opinions).ln other words, the validity of the system of principIes we call academic freedom is guaranteed by the simpIe fact that one is enjoying it -for the simpIe fact of enjoying it means one is aIreadyan 'insider' to the system.Accepting the principIe of academic freedom entails endorsing its absoIute bounds; so an academic cannot both avail herself of the system academic freedom vouchsafed her and question the Iarger system that instituted it, because that can only be done by trespassing the very limits imposed by Iogic -or, what amounts to the sarne, by getting caught in a web ofabsurdity.lhe very illogicality of such a move will, in Searle's view, be sufficient ground for proscribing it -given his own case for ethicaI naturalism which authorises the passage from the descriptive 'is' to the ethicaI 'ought'.By the way, note that Searle's own strategy in arguing for there being strict limitations on academic freedom consists in deflecting the whoIe question from the domain of ethics to the domain of semantics and Iogic.
Searle's argument against Urmson, and indeed all those philosophers who have endorsed the thesis of naturalistic fallacy, is essentially a semantic one.He claims that although the expression 'valid' is indeed evaluative as Urmson rightly urges, the expression 'valid deductive argument' is perfectly well capable of being explicated in purely descriptive tenlls, contrary to what Urmson's thesis would predict.Searle's strategy consists in providing a definition such as the following for the expression in questiono Here is his definition (Searle, 1969: 133): X is a valid deductive argument = X is a deductive argument df and the premises of X entail the conclusion of X Since the right-hand side of the equational statement does not contain any evaluative expression, the thesis of naturalistic fallacy would predict that either (a) the equation as a whole is not true or (b) the left-hand side does not contain any either.But, says Searle, both (a) and (b) are false, and simultaneously so: the equation is correct and its left-hand side does contain an evaluative expression viz., 'valid'.Searle concludes therefore that the thesis of naturalistic fallacy must be false.(Searle considers and rejects the possibility of 'entail' being an evaluative expression on the grounds that there are a number of equivalent expressions such as 'The conclusion follows logically from the premises' which can do the job just as well).
Searle's argument above does seem unexceptionable at first glimpse.There is, however, one important hitch.Searle has not really shown us that the right-hand side of the equation contains no evaluative element whatsoever.What about the expression 'dfthat Searle stealthily introdu ces at the beginning?For, a moment's retlection would reveal tllat, short of the force of the definition being invoked, there is no reason to accept the very equation, and hence, the whole question of validity itself depends on the definition being aécepted unquestioningly.ln other words, the truth of the equation, and hence the whole question of validity depends on the definition.
There is, however, a nasty question that insists on crapping up at this stage: whose defmition are we talking about?Why should it be binding on alI and sundry?Recal1 that Unnson's whole point was that the validity of a deductive argument simply cannot be read off fram its internal structure.All that Searle has shown is that it is definitional1y guaranteed.But then that definition itself is by no means part of that internal strueture.Wh~t is guaranteed by defmition here, as it is any where else -is guaranteed by fiat.As a matter of faet, if Searle had bothered to consultthe list of verbs Austin gives under the category of performatives he cal1s 'expositives', he would have found the verb 'defme' right there.And a quick look at Austin's remarks on 'expositives' would have convinced him that the matter is far fram being that simple.Here are Austin's words: Expositives are used in acts of exposition involving the expounding of views, the conducting of arguments, and the clarifying of usages and of references.We have said repeatedly that we dispute as to whether these are no't verdictive, excercitive, behabitive, or commissive acts as well; we may also dispute they are not straight descriptionsofourfeelings,practice, &c., espedally sometimes over matters of suiting the action to the words, as when I say 'I tum next to', 'I quote', 'I cite', 'I recapitulate', 'I repeat that', 'I mention that'.(Emphasis added) (Austin, 1962:161) Austin is here arguing that expositives behave in ways strikingly similar to imperatives in virtue of "suiting the aetion to the words"(or, as Searle himself was to characterise it later on (Cf.Searle, 1979), their 'words-to-world-fit').
ln Chapter VIII of Speech Acts, Searle acldresses another version of the thesis of naturalistic fal1acy that turns on the metaphysical distinction between fact and value: the alleged.impossibility of deriving 'ought' fram 'is', discussed by Hume in the passage citecl earlier on.Searle's strategy here is to counter such arguments with facts about human institutions.This is in marked .contrast with the strategy adopted by Philippa Foot (who has, by the way, abandoned her position since then -Cf.Norman, 1983: 234)).
Foot's main argument consisted in trying to show that there are certain facts about human needs, wants etc. that are -as she believed at that time -absolute and universal.
Searle argues that within theinstitution of promising it is a faet that a person who has promised to do something has undertaken to do it.For Searle, the obligation to carry out the promise is constitutive of the very act of promising, and not something external to it.For Searle, in other words, it can be proved by dint of a series of analytic steps that the statement 'Jones uttered the words "I hereby promise to pay you, Smith, five dollars'" entails 'Jones ought to pay Smith five dollars'.
It is interesting to see how Searle's view of academic freedom and, more specifically, his view of the 'abuse' of academic freedom by those dons who use the classroom for giving vent to their politicai opinions, is an offshoot from his conunitment to (his own brand oD ethical naturalismo Thus when he discusses what he calls the eSpecial Theory' oE academic freedom, the one that encompasses Lebrfreibeit and Lernfreibeit), Searle makes a point of observing the following: It is important to emphasize at the very beginning that in the special theory the right to teach, conduct research etc., without interference are not general human rights like the right to free speech.They are special rights that derive from particular institutional structures, which are created by quite spedfic sets of constitutive rules.(Searle, 1971: 184-5) It is noteworthy that a footnote indicated at the end of the passage quoted above directs the reader to Chapter II of the author's Speecb Acts "for an explanation of the notion of constitutive roles".The so-called constitutive roles are contrasted with what Searle calls 'regulative' roles."I am fairly confidentabout the distinetion," says he, "but do not find it easy to clarify" (Searie, 1969: 33).Whereas "regulative roles regulate antecedently or independently existing behaviour", "constitutive roles do not merely regulate, they create or define new forms of behavior" (emphasis added).The italicised words clearly show that the regulative role is common to both kinds of role, which means that one should be careful not to conclude, as Searle seems to implicitly, that constitutive roles are descriptive through and through O.e., not prescriptive or nonnative as the roles of ethics typically turn out to be).
Anyhow, having made the distinction along the proposed lines, Searle does go on to note that "regulative roles charaeteristically take the form of or can be paraphrased as imperatives" (Searle, 1969: 34) but hastens to adel that constitutive roles also can be expressed as imperatives.The important thing is the following caveat he enters: If our paraeligms of mies are imperative regulative mies, ... nonimperative constitutive nlles are likely to strike us as extremely (''llriOUS anel hardly even as mies at alI.Notice that they are almost tautological in character, for what the mie seems to offer is part of a elefinition ... (Searle, 1969: 34) At this stage, we are in a much better position to unelerstanel Searle's position when he argues that If [a professor] reconstitutes his lecture series as a politicai ineloetrination session, he both vio/ates the acaclemic freeclom of the stuclent anel abuses his acaelemic freeelom as a professor.(Searle, 1971: 193).Now, surely no one woulel want to elispute Searle's claim that indoetrination is totally unbecoming of a university worth its name anel hence unquestionably reprehensible in a university professor.But the point is: how elo we know where teaching stops and ineloctrination takes over?Any attempt to elraw a neat line of elemarcation between the two woulel require that we already have a clear elistinetion between what is strietly acaelemic anel what is in adclition politico-ieleological-an impossible requirement, given that, as noteel earlier, the very worel 'acaelemy' has an etymology strongly reminiscent of an ieleological tug of war between conteneling factions anel unabasheel state favouritism of one of them to the eletriment of the other.Searle does try to address the question but it is easy to notice that he is at a Ioss.On the one hand, he admits (anel here we can only agree with him) being scepticaI about the claim made by certain university administrators to the effec1: that, as an institution, a university must be politically neutral.On the other hand, and somewhat paradoxically, he is equally not convinceel by the arguments of those (Searle calls them 'radicaIs' ) who insist that, whether one Iikes it or not, the university can never be neutral.Thus he exclaims with evielent reprobation: "Even refusing to take a stanel on the war in Vietnam, the radicaIs argue, is itself a stanel, since it gives tacit acquiescence to the present policy".5 Searle's conviction as to why a university shoulel keep away from politics is based on the argument that the university has no right within the tenns of its theory of legitimacy to become a politicaI agency, and it would destroy itself as a university if it chose to do soo ... as a specialized institution it is not entitled to alter the terms of its contract with society and still retain its rights, any more than a hospital is entitled to tum itself into a theater or the Foreign üffice of a country into a yachting club (Searle, 1971: 200-201).
Says Searle: "The failure to perceive the existence and nature of constitutive rules is of some importance in philosophy" (Searle,1969: 35)."Anel in the world of practical affairs too," he coulel have adeled: But be didn't and it is not diflicult to see wby.As suggested at the beginning of this paper, analytic philosophers are not generally very enthusiastic about Ietting their philosophical views get reviewed alongside of their politicaI views, or for that matter, even remotely admitting that the two sorts of views may have some ultimate connection.But it is very clear that, in Searle's case, his politicaI views, or more milelly, his views on politicaI matters, are of a piece with his views as a philosopher.Thus Searle's final message in 1be Campus War is that the failure on the part of the left-wing raelicaIs to recognise that the university should not be allowed to get involveel in politics is "a failure to perceive the existence and nature of a constitutive rule" viz., that "the university is an institution designed for the advancement and dissemination of knowledge" (Searle, 1971:185).Ineleeel, this is a string Searle has been fond of harping on ever since.Thus, in a recent artide in Daedalus, Searle (993) insists that there are two 'sub-cultures' in faculties, across departments, one "that of the traelitional university, dedicated to the discovery, extension, anel dissemination of knowledge as traditionally conceived" and another which he dismissively designates 'postmodernism'.(It is interesting to note here, albeit parenthetically, that in branding all those who do not fit into his cherisheel ieleal of the traditional university as 'postmodernists', Searle ' implicitly consiclers postmoclernism a raelically left-wing movement -in clirect contrast with someone like FreclrickJameson (991), for whom postmoclernism bespeaks a right-wing ieleology or in his own words, "the culturallogic of late capitalism".This in itself, I believe, is sufficient to show how slippery and ill-unclerstood the term 'postmodernism' is in the context of contemporary intellectual scenario).Just how arbitrary anel flippant Searle's accusations are would become immediately dear if one were to slightly modify one of the examples he cites in the last passage quoteel above: woulel the fact that the particular Foreign üffice he presumably has in mind has long servecl as a cover-up for activities not envisagecl in the U.N. Charter thereby merely 'violate' a 'constitutive role', or shouldn't we rather be suggesting that the repeated 'violations' of supposedly 'constitutive' roles justify an urgent revision of the very way we have traclitionally viewed the venerable institution in question ?

CONCLUDING REMARKS
Before rouncling off our eliscussion, we must consider the fortunes of the 'naturalistic fallacy' in the light of all our discussion.Doesn't our finding that Searle's philosophical views on the topic of speech acts mesh in neatly'with his allegedly unconnected views on politicaI issues constitute strong evidenci~in favour ofhis own thesis of 'the naturalistic fallacy fallacy'?The: answer is that it does noto Ethical naturalism states that 'ought' is derivable from 'is'.The question as to whether the reverse of this process also holds good is hardly ever contemplated by those who address the issue.Rather, the derivational history is typically viewed as inconsequential.For a hard-core analytic philosopher history is anathema and alI appeal to history pure gibberish.Cold-blooded reasoning, they say, is ahistoric, and reason itself immune to the laws of history.So the real issue, they would argue, is not whether 'ought' is derivable from 'is' or the derivation works the way round, Le., it is 'is' that is to be derived from 'ought'.The real issue, they would insist, is that 'is' and 'ought' do not belong to water,..tight compartments.Thus the major thrust of Searle's arguments against the thesis of naturalistic fallacy is that, given the roles of general human conduct and morality and more specificalIy, the fundamentaIs of his own version of the speech act theory, 'ought' can clearly be demo{lstrated to follow from 'is'.Now, Searle's thesis is open to a fairly obvious objection.The 'is' from which he claims to be able to derive the 'ought' is not the familiar ontological 'is'.Within the terms of his own claims as to the ubiquitous nature of the speech act, it would follow that the 'is' in question is the product of an act of assertion by someone.To recall Searle's own example of the case of promise, the utterance of the would-be debtor "I promise to pay etc." has to be ratified and endorsed by a third-party before it can become "X promised Y to pay etc.".What we should not lose sight of in this passage from a first person (hence, presumably 'subjective') to the third person (hence, presumably 'objective') premise -or, equivalently, to the validity of the premise 'X is a (moral) debtor' (the one from which Searle triumphantly derives the 'ought' statement) -is that the thirdparty endorsement is not itself a constitutive act; it is a regulative one to the extent that the felicity of the illocutionary act of promise is simply not to be read off from the words themselves but from an appreciation of a host of extraneous factors including the attendant circumstances.ln other words, what Searle derives his 'ought' from is not an ontologicaI 'is' but an 'is' whose validity is a funetion of the regulative powers investeel in the third-party that authorises the move; its valiclity, in other worels, is assertarial, not ontological.
More interestingly, however, there is a sense in which Searle's arguments against the thesis of 'naturalistic fallacy' may be seen as in fact backfiring.The primary, if not the ultimate, aim of those Iike Searle who aelvocate ethicaI naturalism is to urge that certain moral choices are not choices at alI, but follow Iogical1y, anel hence unnegotiably, from certain factual statements.ln the ultimate analysis, this is Searle's strongest argument against the politicaI involvement of university professors: a university being what it is (Never minel who has the final say on this or any other question), a professor who recognises her role as eminently politicaI is Iogically trespassing the bounels of the cognitive space allocateel to her.But our brief eliscussion of the issue seems to inelicate precisely in the opposite elirection.For in Searle's own case, not only his politicaI views, but also his self-proclaimeelly non-politicaI philosophicaI views (on such topics as speech acts) turn out, upon eloser inspeetion, to be unelerwritten by the sarne ieleologicaI agenela.NOTES 3 Of alI contemporary philosophers who ielentify with pragmatism, Richard Rorty has been remarkably consistent on this issue.ln his several books (Cf. Rorty, 1982, 1989), he has tirelessly argued for a neat separation of philosophy and politics.Unlike the Continental philosophers whom he otherwise admires a great deal, Rorty is of the opinion that the enterprise of philosophy has outlived its usefulness.
4 Interestingly enough, Searle consielers anel immeeliately rejects Cp.2) the possible explanation of the stuelent revolt as "an Oedipal response of hatred for father symbols".ln Searle's view, the students see the revolts, quite on the contrary, as a way of escaping fram "the mediocrity anel insignificance of their daily lives".ln other worels, accorcling to Searle, it is the desperate neeel for a father figure that makes the stuelents behave the way they elo -the kind of a father figure that presumably the society at large, induding the university authorities, had failed to pravide them with.ln other words, for Searle, it is the absence of paternal authority that is the raot cause of ali the confusion on the campus.On doser inspection, ali this is but the ancient wiselom as encapsulated in the English proverb: Spare the rod and spoil the child.