ABSTRACT
Lear's 'question' is our starting point. And a question is the name of an action performed with words, an illocutionary act (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969). A speaker performs an utterance. He has done something. Besides issuing those sounds, with that linguistic form, he has also performed an action such as 'stating', 'promising', 'questioning', 'commanding', and so on. These terms package up a great deal of information. Such illocutionary acts are of the class of intentional human actions, performed as a means of attaining a goal and therefore having reasons which explain or rationalize them. Characterization essentially involves the manifestation of inner states, desires, motives, intentions, beliefs, through action, including speech acts. We can ask 'why' a speaker said what he did and propose an intentional description as an answer.
