Kant's pragmatics

McHoul, A. (1996) Kant's pragmatics. Journal of Pragmatics, 25 (4). pp. 587-592.

Abstract

In a recent issue of Journal of Pragmatics, Nerlich and Clarke (1994: 440) quote Searle (1984: 25) on the recency (hence the supposed ‘fun’) of speech act analysis. He says: “You can't go and find Kant's view on apologising or congratulating, as far as I know”. They go on: “We intend to show that one can go and find views on speech acts, such as orders or demands in the past, perhaps not in Kant himself, but certainly in the writings of some of his followers and contemporaries”. In this exchange Searle, Nerlich and Clarke all betray a fundamental ignorance of Kant's writing which I would like to correct, albeit briefly.