On the logical-semantic structure of directives

Kazimierz Opałek

pp. 233-254

in: Kazimierz Opałek, Selected papers in legal philosophy, Berlin, Springer, 1999

Abstract

The term "directive" (or "directive statement") is used here in a broad sense, comprising norms, commands, requests, exhortations, suggestions, advice, rules (e.g., of games), and the like.¹ One would be tempted to say that they are"directive statements", having the same general kind of meaning (the "directive meaning")². The directives, as we see, are variously termed: a fact testifying to their differentiation. The terms mentioned above are, however, vague, and not apt to buildup a proper classification of directives. The classification which would be of interest to us would involve distinguishing, among directives, some groups of statements with peculiar kinds of meaning, constituting the subspecies of directive meaning. This matter, however, is not a simple one.³ For our analyses the general concept of directive meaning will suffice, together with roughly pointing to the extensiveness of the range of statements covered by the term "directive" and to their differentiation, to avoid some limitations of the analysis, not infrequently noted in this field.⁴