Uptake in Document Acts

Barry Smith (2012, 2014) provides a theory of document acts - namely, a theory regarding the acts that we perform by means of documents. This proposal is supposed to supplement the Reinach-Austin-Searle theory of speech acts, and to focus especially on written and conventional illocutionary acts. Smith, however, claims that the success of document acts depends on the same felicity conditions involved in speech acts. The main aim of this paper is to question this view. Document acts are performed within legal institution, they are thus characterized by a high level of formality and cannot be explained in the way in which we usually explain communicative speech acts. The need to distinguish between communicative and conventional illocutionary acts is found already by Bach and Harnish (1979). In communication, an act is an act of a certain sort if people involved grasp their mutual beliefs about its nature. This does not apply, however, to conventional acts where people have to take into account a further element, - namely, the convention. Although this distinction is acceptable, I point out that their account of conventional acts fails and cannot be extended to document acts. In order to demonstrate this point, I focus especially on the so-called uptake and on the role of the addressee. According to Bach and Harnish, the addressee has to verify that a certain utterance falls under a convention. This thesis depends on three assumption: i) the addressee knows very well the conventions, ii) the addressee has the authority to validate or invalidate a conventional act, iii) the addressee knows that the act exists. These assumptions are untenable. People often do not know the conventions governing their acts, and the phenomenon of deferring to experts is widespread. This applies to both informal and formal institutions. In addition, the recognition thesis entails that the addressees have the power to validate a conventional illocutionary act. Yet many areas of the social world are marked by a clear hierarchy; therefore, people do not share the same authority and status, which is particularly evident within formal institutions wherein only few people have the power to establish the validity (or invalidity) of document acts. Finally, the recognition of an act requires that the addressees and/or the onlookers are aware of its existence. This may be true for conventional illocutionary acts performed just with uttered words. In contrast, this does not apply to document acts that may be valid even though no one is aware of their existence. The performance of a document act implies the production of a document. This document proves that the act has been performed in a certain way. If this way is in accordance to the laws and the system of laws is respected by the majority, it is not so relevant that the addressee of this specific act recognizes it as an act of a certain sort. That act is already an act of a certain sort.