ABSTRACT
The idea of performativity has two facets. One, now quite widely discussed in the social sciences, is rather clear and perhaps even a bit banal in some respects. It refers to operational knowledge, reflexive modernization, performative utterances, the effects of science, the theatricality of practice, and so on. Performativity is also best known to some as something distinctively associated with the ideas of Michel Callon. The other facet, perhaps less understood, is more profound in its philosophical engagement. It links to pragmatism and comparable currents of thought, as well as to classical discussions on the reality of ideas. One crucial point here is that reality is really real when it is provoked. Discussions on performativity often struggle with the problem of description. The problem, more exactly, is in distinguishing between two types of situations. On the one hand you may have statements, methods, texts and other apparatuses that are meant to describe a reality that is exterior to them.
