Performative Truth
Meaning that is created by a statement or a symbolic event, or even by a thought. For example, a contract or a commitment between two or more people is brought into being by a deliberately-articulated statement—a performative utterance: “I challenge you”, “I promise”, “we celebrate”, “I do”, “I will”. As the theologian Ian Robinson notes, a change in attitudes can change some things for real—marriage for instance:
Mount Everest will remain the same whatever I make of it in my thoughts and emotions, and will not be changed if others make something quite different. Marriage is not similarly an unchanging object, and is affected by people’s attitudes to it.P17
A religious liturgy brings into being a performative truth; not an as-if truth, but a truth which is as real as—and in many ways the same as—a contract. Something happens.P18
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