Intersubjective exchanges

Richard Moran's "social-relational" account of illocutionary acts such as telling takes off from, and develops, a particularly powerful version of Reid's notion of "social acts of mind". On his version, the other's contribution, or uptake, is essential to making such acts the acts ofmindthey are. The questions I pursue are the following. (1) What does this social dependence amount to in Moran's account? What does it take, on his account, for another's contribution to be essential to the existence and nature of thementalaspects of a speaker's illocutionary act? Much turns here, I will be suggesting, on how we should understand the role he gives address and the second person in explaining the nature of illocutionary acts. (2) What are implications of putting centre stage Moran's account of such acts for the general story we should tell about the nature of our thought and knowledge of both others and ourselves. To explore this, I lay out progressively radical readings of such implications, and raise questions about which of these Moran would be happy to endorse.