ABSTRACT
John R. Searle says that ‘asking questions is really a special case of requesting’, which ‘partly explains’, he supposes, ‘why the verb “ask” covers both requests and questions’. Underlying requesting, therefore, is the presumption that people are generally disposed to help others when asked if they will do so in the absence of overriding reasons for doing otherwise. Requesting is thus founded on the presumption of a shared end of social co-operation and appeals to the better nature of others. Both advising and requesting are founded on a general presumption of equality among persons. The situations where talk of requesting information occurs naturally are somewhat special, such as making an application for official information under a Freedom of Information Act. In smothering the distinction between requesting to be supplied with information and requesting to be informed or told, the account also smothers the distinction between non-interrogative and interrogative specifications of information.
