Performative language and the perspective of the believer
Not so long ago, in a seminar devoted to Durkheim's Elementary Forms, a student expressed distress that Durkheim started from the position that "religious beliefs are wrong." I responded by saying that was a crude way of describing Durkheim's method: it's not that Durkheim thinks the beliefs are WRONG, but rather, it's that they are not explanatory. Rather than be a militant atheist in support of Durkheim's method, I chose to defend him based on the performative theory of language, utilizing theories of language by Austin and Crapanzano.
Crapanzano and Austin both discuss the performative function of language, as opposed to its referential or descriptive function. Both rely on Austin’s initial definition; performatives are characterized by the following: “A. they do not ‘describe’ or ‘report’ or constate anything at all, and are not ‘true or false’; and B. the uttering of the sentence is, or is a part of, the doing of the action, which again would not normally be described as saying something.” Austin’s understanding also requires that performative utterances have the first person indicative active.
What is interesting about performative utterances is that they cannot serve as a proposition in a logical argument (based on formal rules of logic). That is, one cannot base an argument upon a performative utterance, because nothing is logically constrained to follow from it in the same way that conclusions can follow from descriptive/declarative propositions, which must have either a true or false value.
Durkheim’s starting point was problematized by the aformentioned student for dismissingthe potential truth value of beliefs. If, however, we consider all religious discourse from the believer to be “performative,” in the sense that it is performed in the experience a lived religion, then all stated beliefs become performative utterances upon which logical arguments cannot be based. That is, religious beliefs when stated by the believer could be understood not simply as a declaration that “X exists” (or whatever) but really as a performance of “I believe that X exists.” In a sense, expressing the beliefs is integral to the performance of the religion as a whole. Seen from this perspective, I think it becomes all the more clear why we cannot use the content of beliefs as explanations for religion. By their very nature, they are not propositions and so no explanatory argument can be created in which actions or consequences logically follow from them.
By reorienting the perspective on belief from a description to a performance, as I did above, I think I have problematized even further the explanatory power of belief. Austin and Crapanzano, among others, highlight the performative function of language, and this is all too often ignored in the study of religion. Instead of being conceived as performative utterances, beliefs are typically taken as declarations or descriptions, which have an inherent truth value. However, if we situate them in the entire context of the lived religion, we can reorient our understanding of what beliefs are, and so understand them in a different way. Performative utterances do not have truth value in the same way that descriptive or declarative statements do, and so we do not need to get sidetracked by worrying about the accuracy of the beliefs.
I find it shocking that the question of the truth of belief is still a matter of debate for scholars of religion. Haven't we thought of more creative, useful ways to understand beliefs, other than simply grading them as true or false?
Crapanzano and Austin both discuss the performative function of language, as opposed to its referential or descriptive function. Both rely on Austin’s initial definition; performatives are characterized by the following: “A. they do not ‘describe’ or ‘report’ or constate anything at all, and are not ‘true or false’; and B. the uttering of the sentence is, or is a part of, the doing of the action, which again would not normally be described as saying something.” Austin’s understanding also requires that performative utterances have the first person indicative active.
What is interesting about performative utterances is that they cannot serve as a proposition in a logical argument (based on formal rules of logic). That is, one cannot base an argument upon a performative utterance, because nothing is logically constrained to follow from it in the same way that conclusions can follow from descriptive/declarative propositions, which must have either a true or false value.
Durkheim’s starting point was problematized by the aformentioned student for dismissingthe potential truth value of beliefs. If, however, we consider all religious discourse from the believer to be “performative,” in the sense that it is performed in the experience a lived religion, then all stated beliefs become performative utterances upon which logical arguments cannot be based. That is, religious beliefs when stated by the believer could be understood not simply as a declaration that “X exists” (or whatever) but really as a performance of “I believe that X exists.” In a sense, expressing the beliefs is integral to the performance of the religion as a whole. Seen from this perspective, I think it becomes all the more clear why we cannot use the content of beliefs as explanations for religion. By their very nature, they are not propositions and so no explanatory argument can be created in which actions or consequences logically follow from them.
By reorienting the perspective on belief from a description to a performance, as I did above, I think I have problematized even further the explanatory power of belief. Austin and Crapanzano, among others, highlight the performative function of language, and this is all too often ignored in the study of religion. Instead of being conceived as performative utterances, beliefs are typically taken as declarations or descriptions, which have an inherent truth value. However, if we situate them in the entire context of the lived religion, we can reorient our understanding of what beliefs are, and so understand them in a different way. Performative utterances do not have truth value in the same way that descriptive or declarative statements do, and so we do not need to get sidetracked by worrying about the accuracy of the beliefs.
I find it shocking that the question of the truth of belief is still a matter of debate for scholars of religion. Haven't we thought of more creative, useful ways to understand beliefs, other than simply grading them as true or false?
posted by The Fools at Wednesday, January 28, 2009
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