This essay addresses the question whether artificial speakers can perform speech acts in the technical sense of that term common in the philosophy of language. We here argue that under certain conditions artificial speakers can perform speech acts so understood. After explaining some of the issues at stake in these questions, we elucidate a relatively uncontroversial way in which machines can communicate, namely through what we call verbal signaling. But verbal signaling is not sufficient for the performance of a speech (...) act. To explain the difference, we elucidate the notion of a speech act developed by Austin in the mid-twentieth century and then discuss Strawson’s influential proposal for how that notion may be related to Grice’s conception of speaker meaning. We then refine Strawson’s synthesis in light of Armstrong’s reconceptualization of speaker meaning in terms of objectives rather than intentions. We next extend this conception of speech acts to the cases of recorded, proxy, and conditional speech acts. On this basis, we propose that a characteristic role for artificial speakers is as proxies in the performance of speech acts on behalf of their human creators. We also consider two objections to our position, and compare our approach with others: while other authors appeal to notions such as “quasi-assertion,” we offer a sharp characterization of what artificial speakers can do that does not impute intentions or similarly controversial powers to them. We conclude by raising doubts that our strategy can be applied to speech acts generally. (shrink)

The article shows how, by changing the formulations of habitual premises and critical questions for pre­sumptive argumentation schemes, one can evaluate an argument even before its type has become known. The argument from position to know is used to justify the possibility of detecting types of classical pre­sumptive schemes when we take into account the type of speech act used to implement them, and the speaker and listener’s awareness of each other’s propositional attitudes. The types of argument from posi­tion to (...) know are distinguished with respect to their epistemic and illocutionary variety. Following Austin one of these types can be considered a performative argument from position to know. The article describes the principles of its usage and outlines the evaluation procedure. (shrink)