In this chapter, we think about the different things that we do when we produce utterances. Communication is not only about the exchange of information. We also perform acts and, in some cases, change the world when we speak, sign, or write. Speech act theory emerged as a means of understanding and analysing the things we do when we use language. We track the development of speech act theory, focusing on the work of two influential thinkers in the field: Austin and Searle. We begin by looking at what Austin called performatives and discuss how their meaning can be understood in terms of felicity conditions. We then move on to explore Austin’s distinction between locutionary acts, illocutionary acts, and perlocutionary acts. John R. Searle’s work responds to and develops the work of Austin. He identifies four categories of felicity condition and uses these to propose a classification system for illocutionary acts. We consider Searle’s discussion of indirect speech acts as a key contribution to speech act theory and pragmatics more widely. The chapter ends with a brief overview of how speech act theory has been applied and developed since the work of Austin and Searle.

The excitement of cognitive psychology as a viable paradigm for contemporary research and application developed from a number of trends deeply imbedded in psychology’s past. In the twentieth century, these influences were clearly evident among the functionalists, the Gestalt movement, Tolman’s purposive behaviorism, as well as in the extended subfields of psychology, such as developmental, social, personality and clinical. In the latter part of the twentieth century, such specified advances as Bartlett’s schema theory, Hebb’s neural networks, and Broadbent’s filter model of attention provided cognitive psychology with substantive direction. The question of artificial intelligence contributed to a paradigm shift through the efforts of pioneers such as Turing and the logical theorist studies of Newell, Shaw and Simon, leading to what is described by some as the cognitive revolution. The seminal research of George Miller, Jerome Bruner, and Ulric Neisser gave cognitive science its form and substance. The question of the sustainability of the cognitive paradigm remains a topic for reflection.

In this chapter, I present the notion of an indirect speech act originatingin Searle's classic speech act theory and I discuss how other accounts inthe field of philosophy of language have revisited this notion.

This chapter defines international societies as a set of polities that share foundational collective beliefs—a collective imagination regarding the nature and purposes of political and social organization. It discusses two challenges to ahistorical, positivist social science and international relations scholarship. Constructivist theory has convincingly demonstrated how international systems are social systems and that ideas and interests are inextricably linked. Similarly, the English School has championed the need for historical analyses and contextual nuance. This chapter acknowledges the affinity as well as differences between these approaches and my analysis. Furthermore, it articulates a methodology to conduct contextual, interpretative, and empirical analysis. Such an analysis demonstrates that political communities and international order do not depend solely or even primarily on material capabilities. In order to understand how political communities and order are constituted, one must acknowledge the importance of the ceremonial and the symbolic.