Talk:Adolf Reinach

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To the author:

There is nothing in this article to indicate the notability of the subject. He seems to have attended some lectures and qualified as a lawyer, and that's all. If there is really a reason why this person deserves an encyclopedia article I suggest adding it to the article. DJ Clayworth 15:20, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I believe what might be suggested is that his importance is largely due to developing a theory speech acts before more notable figures in philosophy did so. Also, perhaps, that questions about pragmatics were arising in early in the twentieth century in more phenomenological circles as well as more analytic philosophy.

[edit] Adolf Reinach is (somewhat) important!

The idealistic turn of Husserls phenomenology has succeded along with the first world war to prevent that the realist phenomonology became known in the english speaking world, but this has been changing in the efforts to bridge the gap between continental and analytical tradition. Reinach had concepts of social intentionality almost identical to recent ideas of Searle, and made rigorous analysis of speech acts that in some respects avoids the critisiscm that Searle has received. Unfortunately, Searle does not seem to have noticed Reinach or the early Husserl.

I am inclined to agree with DJ Clayworth. Reinach died too soon and had no significant followers as to count as "very important". I've read Reinach's paper, and I think there are important things stated by Austin/Searle that are simply missing in Reinach's account; for instance, curses and interjections are arguably speech acts, yet they do not work as "social acts" (well, cursing may be a social act...), or any foundation for civil law. Reinach had other goals in mind (the a priori foundations of civil law), not a general theory of speech acts. Furthermore, our anonymous contributor seems to be a little bit partisan. So I keep the claim that Reinach did some work ahead of Austin/Searle, but I still maintain that speech act theory is a fully independent development by the latter couple alone. See speech act Talk Page.- Louie 23:31, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

DJ Clayworth wrote his comment IIRC when I was still writing the article, and there was only the first two sections or so there. So I do not think he intended to dismiss Reinach's influence altogether. Indeed, due to unfortunate circumstances, Reinach has not received as much attention as he deserved. So we cannto truly say that in contemporary respect he was very important, as he has had too little impact. Nevertheless he is indeed to be credited with a ful fledged theory of social acts, which does anticipate a very large part of speech act theory. In my opinion, if Austin, Grice and Searle had paid any attention to philosophers like Reinach, they would have been able to produce a much more advanced and sophisticated theory, by building on prior foundations, instead of doing all the groundwork all over again. It's just sad to see so many people re-discover and repeat prior advances simply because they do not know their history. Cat 15:03, 1 April 2006 (UTC)