Abstract:If we accept the hypothesis that we can get confused about gestures, which seems to be a quite ordinary experience, the next task in order is to pro-vide an account of ambiguous gestures or, at the very least, of the conditions under which they can become ambiguous. That is the subject of the presentpaper : investigating the conditions of possibility for the ambiguity of gestures. Inwhat follows, I shall address several possible causes for this ambiguity. The first one would be categorial : the idea is that an incomplete metaphysics of gestures would leave us in a situation where we cannot make a difference between complete and incomplete gestures, so much so that all gestures would become ambiguous on a priori grounds. The second one is contextual : depending on the way weassent to gestures, they can (or so it seems) always be downgraded to a lower status, incomplete gestures or mere acts. Finally, I shall take advantage of Anscombe’s philosophy of intention to show in which ways our environment can contribute to the ambiguity of gestures.
Keywords:Peirce, Charles S, Anscombe, Elizabeth, ambiguity, intention, felicity(of speech acts), degenerate (categories), categories