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Not Exactly Pretending

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

Cyril Barrett
Cyril Barrett
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
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Extract

In his paper ‘Pretending’ J. L. Austin says that (a) philosophers have exaggerated the scope and distorted the meaning of pretending, and (b) the clarification of this notion has a place in the ‘long-term project of classifying and clarifying all possible ways and varieties of not exactly doing things, which has to be carried through if we are ever to understand properly what doing things is.’

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 44 , Issue 170 , October 1969 , pp. 331 - 338
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1969

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References

1 Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Sup. vol. XXXII 1958. Pp. 261–278Google Scholar. Reprinted in Philosophical Papers, pp. 201–219.Google Scholar

2 Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. 1956–1957Google Scholar

3 Proceedings of the Atistotelian Society. Sup. vol. XXXII p. 290.Google Scholar

4 Loc. cit. p. 283. Presumably the person could not tell that what he was taking was poison, otherwise he could not have pretended that it was poison that he took.

5 Austin does not seem quite certain about this; for on a previous page (p. 268) he says: ‘Nevertheless it seems clear that it still is an important feature of pretending, in classic cases if not in all, that the pretender is concealing or suppressing something.’ (My italics).

6 The moral issue is not quite as simple as I have suggested. There may be times when it is right to dissemble and times when it is wrong to simulate. But since dissembling always involves deception (at least the attempt to deceive) whereas simulation does not, a case must be made for dissembling and only against simulation.

7 Cf. MissAnscombe, loc. cit. p. 279.Google Scholar

8 My attention was drawn to this by Mr. David Holdcroft to whom I am grateful for the help he has given in composing this article.