'Social Meaning' and the explanation of social action

Tully, J., & Skinner, Q. (1989). Chapter 4: "Social Meaning" and the explanation of social action. In Meaning and context: Quentin Skinner and his critics (pp. 79–96). essay, Princeton University

Annotated Link

Context

Social action has meaning for the performer. This statement is used simultaneously by anti-naturalist ( examplified by Dilthey, phenomenologist, and Wittgenstein) and naturalist. They just draw different conclusions from subjective meaning behind social behavior.

Anti-naturalist:

There is a connection between the meanning of a social action and the agent's motives for performing it. Recovery of the agent's motives for acting as a matter of placing the agent's action within a context of social rules.

1. Thesis A: Decoding the meanning of a social action is equivalent to giving a motive-explanation for the agent's performance of that action

2. Thesis B: Recovery of an agent's motives is a matter of placing the agent's action in a context of rules rather than causes. So this form of explanation (use motive to explain meaning) is incompatible with a causal explanation of the same action

Naturalist

1. Thesis C: Decoding social action meaning merely provides a method of redescribing, and redescription cannot be explanatory in itself. So it is incorrect to assume placing social action in its context can serve as an explanation.

2. Thesis D: If the idea of decoding social action meaning is extended to be equivalent to recovering the agent's motives, then there is no incompatibility between ideas of social meaning and causal explanation. Because the provision of an explanation by citing an agent's motive or intention is itself a form of causal explanation.

New analysis of the "meaning" in social action

Using lingustic actions provided by J. L. Austin, the author stresses that any spoken communication is itself a social action. E.g., a policeman saying "The ice over there is very thin" (locutionary act) has an illocutionary act (warning the skatter). By extension Skinner makes two claims about the sense of "meaning":

1. Decoding the meaning of an action is equivalent to understanding illocutionary act

2. Ask about the non-natural sense of meaning (illocutionary act in the context of lingustic action) is equivalent to asking about the agent's intention in performing the social action

Arguments against all four thesis

Argument against thesis A: There needs to be a distinction between motives and intentions, and intention, not motive, is what needed to recover in order to decode the meaning of social action

Argument against thesis B: Explanation through intention is only first stage of explanation, there could be subsequent further explanations.

Argument against thesis C: Illocutionary act is a redescription of a social action (lingustic action) and does explain certain features of the social action.

Argument against thesis D: Provision of an explanation through providing illocutionary act information is not causal explanation. (i.e., looking at "policeman is trying to warn the skatter" is not a causal explanation of "policeman yelling 'ice is thin'", but still an explanation indeed).

Methodological implications

1. Beliefs matters in order to explain social action

2. Rationality matters

3. We should start with conventions around action instead of action itself