The Philosophy Behind the Movie O Pagador de Promessas
The Illocutionary Logic and the Cohen Problem
Keywords:
illocutionary act, falacy, promiseAbstract
The Illocutionary Logic developed by John Searle and Daniel Vanderveken aims to study the logical properties of the so-called “illocutionary act” and its “illocutionary force”. In other words, this theory formally states the conditions of realization and satisfaction of the illocutionary acts in the context of the ordinary conversation. William Lycan formulated a problem called The Cohen Problem, inspired by a criticism made by Jonathan Cohen to the old Theory of Speech Acts created by John L. Austin, which demonstrates that if a declarative speech act is capable of altering our linguistic and, therefore, institutional reality, by the simple act of enunciation, then we should be able to shape the world at will, even if this is not the case, apparently. We will analyze how the theory of speech acts explains the social consequences suffered by the character Zé do Burro in the film O pagador de promessas.
Downloads
References
AUSTIN, J. L. How to do Things with Words: The William James Lectures, Delivered at Havard University in 1955. Oxford: Oxford Claredon Press, 1962.
CARNIELLI, W. A.; CONIGLIO, M. E. Paraconsistent Logic: Consistency, Contradiction and Negation. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2016.
COHEN, L. J. Do Illocutionary Forces Exist?. Philosophical Quarterly, Oxford, v. 14, n. 55, p. 118–37, 1964. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2955549.
FREGE, G. Sobre o Sentido e a Referência (1892). In: ALCOFORADO, P. (org. e trad.). Lógica e Filosofia da Linguagem. São Paulo: Cultrix/Edusp, 1978. p. 129-169.
GRICE, H. P. Logic and Conversation: William James Lectures, delivered at Harvard University in 1967. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975.
LYCAN, W. G. P. Philosophy of Language: A Contemporary Introduction. 2. ed. Trad. Desidério Murcho. Chicago: Loyola University of Chicago, 2008.
SEARLE, J. R. Expression and Meaning. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
SEARLE, J. R. Speech Acts. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1969.
SEARLE, J. R. VANDERVEKEN, D. Foundations of Illocutionary Logic. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
SOUSA MELO, C. Lex Universaux et le Transcendantal dans la Théorie des Actes du Discours. Dissertação (Mestrado em Filosofia) – Université du Quebec, Trois-revières, 1997.
SOUZA, E. Da teoria dos atos de discurso e o Problema de Cohen. 2021. Dissertação (Mestrado em Filosofia) – Programa de Pós-Graduação em Filosofia, Universidade Federal da Paraíba, João Pessoa, 2021. Disponível em: https://repositorio.ufpb.br/jspui/handle/123456789/21304. Acesso em: 2 set. 2025
SOUZA, E. Good Sense: A Philosophical Analysis of Intuition, Epistemology, and Practical Decision-Making. Forum for Philosophical Studies, v. 3, n. 1, p. 1-16, 2025a. DOI: https://doi.org/10.59400/fps3125.
SOUZA, E. O problema de Cohen nos atos de fala e a questão do comprometimento com o discurso. PRISMA – Revista de Filosofia, v. 7 n. 1: Crítica, Formação e Liberdade: Caminhos da Filosofia no Tempo Presente, Seção: Epistemologia e Crítica da Modernidade, p. 62–84, 2025b. Disponível em: https://periodicos.ufam.edu.br/index.php/prisma/article/view/17710/11520
SOUZA, E. The Philosophy Behind Grammar: Metaphysics, Epistemology and Pragmatics as Foundations of Grammatical Structures. Aya Editora, v. 1, p. 27-42, 2024. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.47573/aya.5379.2.274.3.
VANDERVEKEN, D. Meaning and Speech Acts. Cambridge University Press, New York, 1990. v. 1.
VANDERVEKEN, D. Meaning and Speech Acts: Formal Semantics of Success and Satisfaction. Cambridge University Press, New York, 2008. v. 2.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Euclides Barbosa Ramos de Souza

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Autores de artigos publicados pela RBLA mantêm os direitos autorais de seus trabalhos, licenciando-os sob a licença Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0, que permite que os artigos sejam reutilizados e distribuídos sem restrição, desde que o trabalho original seja corretamente citado.


