David Holdcroft

Features collected extracts from key texts in jurisprudence, with commentary. These discuss the nature of law, and modern attempts to find an acceptable theory of justice. The book is intended for students of law.

The book presents a theory of illocutionary acts. It argues that the study of speech acts initiatied by Austin complements the truth theoretic approach to speaker meaning. It is shown that there are aspects of speaker meaning which cannot be explained by truth theoretic approaches. Though the nature of a speech act is partially determined by the semantic type of the the sentence uttered the speaker's intention and context of utterance are important also.

I want to try to elucidate passages like the following which are not only to be found frequently in Bradley’s writings, but which articulate a position central to his metaphysics