Uptake and Endorsement in Scientific Discovery: A Speech Act-Theoretic Perspective

Maciej Witek (Uniwersytet Szczeciński)

According to Jan G. Michel (2022), scientific discoveries are processes that characteristically exhibit three structural features: Finding, Acceptance, and Knowledge. In a nutshell, an individual researcher’s finding cannot be counted as scientific unless it is reported in a way — for example, in a conference presentation or a research paper — that meets certain accepted standards; in turn, it cannot be counted as scientific knowledge unless the content of the reported finding is accepted or recognized as a reliable hypothesis.
My focus in this contribution is on the discursive dimension of the processes of scientific discovery. Specifically, I use the framework of an Austin-inspired theory of speech acts (Witek 2015, 2022) to examine the role of assertoric utterances of the form ‘That a is an F’ — e.g., ‘That insect is a beetle’ — in reporting scientific findings. Following John L. Austin (1950/1979; cf. Fiengo 2017, Fiengo 2020; Fiengo and McClure 2002; and Sbisà 2024), I assume that, depending on the context in which it is produced, the utterance ‘That a is an F’ constitutes the performance of one of four types of situated assertions: Calling, Describing, Exemplifying, or Classing. 
In their recent unpublished paper “Reporting Scientific Findings: An Austinian Approach”, Jan G. Michel and Maciej Witek argue that Describings and Classings typically serve reporting theory-guided findings, whereas Callings and Exemplifyings can serve reporting theory-changing findings. My aim in this paper is to go further and use the Austin-inspired model of finding reports to cast light on the discursive dimension of the dynamics of scientific discovery, that is, to consider not only Finding, but also Acceptance and Knowledge. Specifically, I distinguish between uptake (Austin 1975), construed as the addressee’s recognition of the force of the speaker’s finding report, and endorsement, understood as the addressee’s acceptance of the content of the report. My proposal is that the uptake/endorsement contrast corresponds to the difference between what Jan G. Michel labels ‘Acceptance’ and ‘Knowledge’: Acceptance corresponds to uptake of a finding report, whereas Knowledge requires endorsement of its content.

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