ABSTRACT
It is often remarked that if one utters 'It's cold in here' to one's butler, the utterance has the force of an order (an order to close the window, perhaps). This may be so, but it is not to say, and I suggest that we should not say, that the utterance is an order. 2 In general, x has the force of y (or counts as y, to use another phrase of Searle's) only when x is not y. 3 Even in this specialized social situation, while the butler can indeed be expected to treat the utterance as if it were an order, this does not entail that the utterance is an order. Of course, I have not yet given any argument for this claim. I do think that, intuitively, this is the right thing to say (or, not say), but my argument for this claim is primarily methodological. I do not see any need to postulate a second speech act, or a second illocutionary force to account for what are usually called indirect speech acts. Here, I am in complete agreement with the sort of criticism Searle offers against, for example Gordon and Lakoffs (1971) conversational postulates and it will be helpful to next review that criticism along with objections to the view that sentences such as 'Can you reach the salt?' are ambiguous.
