Pragma-semantic a priori as a Condition of Possibility of Utterance

Abstract

The author intends to expand upon Michel Foucault’s idea of the historical a priori by introducing the concept of pragma-semantic a priori. In Foucault’s The Order of Things the concept of historical a priori is used to determine the patterns of observation and description that were prevalent at a peculiar epoch. In The Archaeology of Knowledge, it was used to identify the condi­tions of possibility of utterances within discourses and discursive practices. Through introducing the notion of the pragma-semantic a priori we suggest to take into account the proper linguistic aspects. It reflects the transition from the “Pure Self” responsible for context-independent propositions, to the “I-speaker” and conditions for the context-dependent utterances. Humboldt pointed out the deictic parameters – I and related to it: You – Here – Now (Speaker, addressee, time and place of uttering). In relation to these coordinates and thanks to them, conditions of meaningfulness and truth (certainty) are created. Following the relevance and quality maxims proposed by P. Grice, if interlocutors are adhered to, only true (reliable) statements can be made within the scope of a speech act. Establishing the context of a statement implies separating it from its historical surroundings. Historical reality, through language, is ab­sorbed by the utterance that represents it and becomes the reality of discourse. In this way, the pragma-semantic a priori is detached from the historical one. A concrete speech act, with its uniquely defined “I”, is not so much a repre­sentation as an “appropriation” (Benveniste) of a universal linguistic pragma-semantic a priori, characterizing the unique event of a given utterance