Lingo: Locutionary, Illocutionary, and Perlocutionary Acts

John: "Darling, do you want to go out to the show tonight?"

Laura: "I'm feeling ill."

John: "That's ok. You stay there and I'll make soup."

Notice how Laura didn't respond to John's question by saying, "No, I don't want to go out to the show tonight." What she actually said — her locutionary act — was "I'm feeling ill."

An illocutionary act is what a person does in saying something else. Locution is speech. In-locution (in speaking) becomes il-locution through phonetic assimilation. In saying that she feels ill, Laura was telling John that she doesn't want go out.

Beyond communicating the state of her health and the answer to John's question, Laura accomplished one more thing through saying "I'm feeling ill." She got John to make her some soup. A perlocutionary act (per-locutionary, through speaking) is focused on the response others have to a speech act.

These terms from J.L. Austin's 1962 book How to Do Things with Words are used extensively in philosophical literature today. And in fiction, having a character who is deaf to the illocutionary force of language is always good comedy.

Words Defined by Words Alone

In Chapter Three of The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood, Gleick (2011) wrote:

The dictionary ratifies the persistence of the word. It declares that the meanings of words come from other words. It implies that all words, taken together, form an interlocking structure: interlocking, because all words are defined in terms of other words. This could never have been an issue in an oral culture, where language was barely visible. Only when printing—and the dictionary—put the language into separate relief, as an object to be scrutinized, could anyone develop a sense of word meaning as interdependent and even circular. Words had to be considered as words, representing other words, apart from things. (p. 66)

This passage had the unintended effect of moving me farther away from Gleick's views than I was before reading it. It's an old rule to "define" words by using any other words but the one currently being defined, and a synonym for "definition" is "meaning," so it can be easy to think that some correct string of other words is what constitutes the meaning of a word. Gleick carries this to the conclusion that any given word only has meaning by virtue of other words which themselves only have meaning by still more words, or maybe the original word. He considers this as an insight gained through literacy and dictionary making; preliterate people simply weren't in a good position to notice that word meaning arises from a network map of individually meaningless words.

I consider this sort of view an illustrative overreaction to the crude philosophy of language that all words stand directly for things. Gleick would have us believe, instead, that all words stand for words. Not only would this fail to hook up to the world of things, it fails to hook up with the world of ideas. (At least, any ideas which can't be captured by graph theory.) A moderate take is that perhaps some words stand only for words or only for things, but many words stand for ideas. If I want to convey a certain idea to you, I select words intended to evoke that idea — or a similar enough idea — in your mind when you hear my speech or read my writing.

What are dictionary entries under this moderate view? Acts of communication. Dictionary writers are trying to evoke the ideas which are usually intended to be evoked by the use of a word. A good dictionary definition does two things: it correctly identifies the list of commonly-intended ideas behind the use of a word, and it successfully communicates these ideas to dictionary readers. Dictionaries may be artifacts of literate culture, but I would find it very hard to believe everyone waited for dictionaries to be invented before thinking to ask speakers for clarification of strange words. So under the moderate view, an analogue of dictionary use was probably already happening in oral culture. I suspect the major difference in written dictionaries is that authors were expected to define common words, and may have found unexpected challenges in that task.


Gleick, J. (2011). The information: A history, a theory, a flood. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.

Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom

The fields of Knowledge Management, Information Systems, and Information Science use a theoretical model called the knowledge hierarchy, the information pyramid, the DIKW model, and several other mix-and-match terms along these lines. Not only the name of the model but the details of the model itself change significantly depending on who is teaching it,¹ so it would be more accurate to say it's a family of models.

Three core features of these models:

• Data, information, and knowledge are distinct concepts (as opposed to synonyms).
• Information is higher-level than data. Knowledge is higher-level than information.
• There is at least one more level above knowledge.

From what I can tell, the relationship between data and information is the most common focus of this theorizing, with less agreement on what knowledge is and how it's supposed to relate to information, and even less agreement beyond that.

Data vs. Information

There is a lot of emphasis on the etymology of "data" as something which is "given"; it's there from the start and needs to be processed, refined, selected, vetted, etc. in order to produce information. A common analogy is the refining of pure metals (information) from ore (data). Sure, someone had to mine the ore or collect the data, but it's only useful as raw material for the process of creating information.

Problems with Data vs. Information

"Data" and "information" are both common words in non-technical English which don't convey the kind of sharp contrast used in DIKW models. We can already talk about "raw data" as opposed to "processed data" or "organized data." There's nothing odd about using "personal information" to refer to a Social Security Number, though this would fall under the data category in many DIKW models.

Considering (1) these are fairly close synonyms in non-technical English, and (2) the important distinction captured by DIKW's contrast of data vs. information can be conveyed by a variety of evocative phrases like "raw data" vs. "processed data," I argue that re-using these words in a technical sense muddies up communication without a good reason.

Plus, one person's given data is another's processed data. For example, the global average temperature in 1845 may look like a simple point of data to someone collecting such numbers for use in climate research. But that number has a complex origin story involving instrument calibration, tree ring measurements, statistical analysis, etc. There isn't a natural distinction between input stuff and output stuff when data/information is so often processed in an iterative or recursive way.

Information vs. Knowledge

According to different versions of DIKW, knowledge concerns the application of information, or "know-how" as opposed to "know-what," or expertise that exists within a human being, or an understanding of how different kinds of information relate. I'm seeing all sorts of ideas here, usually (but not always) about the transition from inert facts to taking action.

A Problem with Information vs. Knowledge

In non-technical English and in mainstream philosophy of knowledge, we do understand that what we know — or at least what we believe — has a profound effect on the way we take action, but also that knowledge is more-or-less inert before adding motivation or goals. "The application of knowledge" is synonymous with "the application of information."

The most charitable way I can see knowledge working as a "next step" to information is to focus on the implication that knowledge is internal to a decision-maker. The word "information" seems to more easily allow disembodiment; but then again, we don't think it strange to point at shelves of books and talk about "all that knowledge."

Overlapping Meanings, Not Hierarchy

You may have figured out by now that I'm not a fan of the DIKW hierarchy. I believe its success is due to the way it suggests new value or new information can be added to existing data/information/knowledge by doing some work with it. Information professionals would, of course, want to promote this general idea. It is an important idea!

However, the DIKW hierarchy doesn't seem to reflect either the common usage of its terms or how the world works. Nor are the technical uses of its terms well-defined enough to let professionals in these fields communicate precise concepts without further clarification. Its vices outweigh its virtues as a conceptual model.

If someone could come up with a catchy way (besides a pyramid chart) to convey the key idea about adding value through working with information, I think we could manage to do away with DIKW.


1. Rowley, J. (2007). The wisdom hierarchy: representations of the DIKW hierarchy. Journal of Information Science, 33(2), 163-80.

Metaethics Summary

I've added a My Metaethics link to the sidebar. Hopefully this will serve as a quick introduction to my views on the nature of moral judgments. Might footnote it up a bunch later.

And if you haven't noticed it yet, farther down the sidebar there is a new external link to the Directory of Open Access Journals' category on philosophy.

Objective Moral Facts vs. Objectively Moral Facts

Having a rule capable of kicking out "right" or "wrong" for any particular act (cross-culturally, across time, no matter who is appraising the situation, etc.) is not sufficient to demonstrate the sort of objective morality that skeptics are skeptical about.

It's one thing to say, "Here's an objective fact; this sort of fact is what morality is about; so here's an objective moral fact." It's quite another to uniquely justify the middle step of saying what morality is about. Some examples...

Objective fact: Action X increases overall suffering in the world.
Middle step: Moral wrongness consists in increasing overall suffering in the world.
Conclusion: Action X is objectively morally wrong.

Objective fact: Action X would not be effective if everyone acted similarly.
Middle step: Moral wrongness consists in doing what would be ineffective if everyone acted similarly.
Conclusion: Action X is objectively morally wrong.

Objective fact: Action X is forbidden by God.
Middle step: Moral wrongness consists in doing what is forbidden by God.
Conclusion: Action X is objectively morally wrong.

Objective fact: Action X is out of line with God's nature.
Middle step: Moral wrongness consists in doing what is out of line with God's nature.
Conclusion: Action X is objectively morally wrong.

Objective fact: Action X goes against the overall desires of the person performing it.
Middle step: Moral wrongness consists in going against one's own overall desires.
Conclusion: Action X is objectively morally wrong.

Objective fact: Action X shortens the life expectancy of the person performing it.
Middle step: Moral wrongness consists in shortening one's own life expectancy.
Conclusion: Action X is objectively morally wrong.

Objective fact: Action X is done out of ill will.
Middle step: Moral wrongness consists in acting out of ill will.
Conclusion: Active X is objectively morally wrong.

Moral skeptics don't typically question the facts in the first lines above (except maybe the God ones). Instead, we question whether there is an additional objective fact that makes one "middle step" true and the others false.

P.S. — I wrote this post after reading the Sep/Oct 2011 Philosophy Now article "Our Morality: A Defense of Moral Objectivism." It's a defense of objectivism which doesn't seem to do much more than affirm metaethical relativism. But if you do get a chance to read it and disagree, let me know.

P.P.S. — Some of the above uses of 'objective' are questionable, but they're questionable in the direction of being too inclusive for objectivity so it's not a rounding error in my favor.

The Establishment Clause

Time to take a break from summarizing ACLU policies. The policy guide is due today and I don't intend to check it back out for a while. (If you're wondering, I did get through roughly 40% of the guide by number of pages, not counting the internal ACLU policies I don't intend to cover anyway.)

Instead, I would like to explain one major point of disagreement I have with the ACLU.

Establishment Clause → Non-Endorsement

First I want to make it clear that I agree with the ACLU when it comes to interpreting the Establishment Clause as a ban on the government endorsing a particular religion or religion over non-religion. At least I believe it does now that the Bill of Rights has been largely understood as affirming individual rights against the government as a whole (thanks to Incorporation).

Even if there does turn out to be a flaw in such legal reasoning, I still wholeheartedly support the principle of government neutrality toward religious beliefs.

Non-Endorsement → Exclusion on the Basis of Religion

The ACLU overcorrects by insisting that non-endorsement requires that no public funds go to religious groups. Take the issue of school vouchers, for example. Here is a recent and typical formulation of the ACLU's stance:

This is not to say that parents don't have the right to provide their children with a religious education. The principles of religious liberty protect the rights of those who wish to observe their faith as they see fit. What these legal precepts should not allow, however, is for a religious education to be provided at taxpayer expense.¹

I believe what's happening here is that the ACLU (rightly) understands that public funds going to religious organizations is often a bad means to the end of religious freedom, but failing to notice that it can be a neutral or good means to the end of religious freedom.

In the case of vouchers, the government would not be favoring one kind of religion over another, or religion over non-religion. The entirety of that kind of choices would lie with parents. So the money and the endorsement come apart in this situation, nullifying the usual grounds for objecting to public funds going to religious organizations.

I'll go one step farther. Imagine if voucher programs were implemented but parents were not allowed to choose otherwise-acceptable religious schools, simply because of the religious element. Wouldn't this discrimination be a clear violation of the Free Exercise clause?

By the way, why does the ACLU keep mentioning a "right" for parents to send their children to religious schools, while admitting poor parents might not have the ability to do so?

Freedom of religion does not extend so far that parents may withdraw children from classes which they feel conflict with their religious principles, even when they cannot practically avail themselves of the right to send their children to private schools.²

Can we infer that poor defendants have a "right" to counsel, but that it's acceptable for them to lack counsel because they can't afford attorney fees?

1. http://www.aclu.org/blog/religion-belief/school-vouchers-inflict-more-harm-good
2. American Civil Liberties Union (1986-1995). Policy guide of the american civil liberties union. New York, New York: ACLU. Policy 86. p. 168.