J. L. Austin
J. L. Austin
John Langshaw "J. L." Austinwas a British philosopher of language and leading proponent of ordinary language philosophy, perhaps best known for developing the theory of speech acts...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth28 March 1911
J. L. Austin quotes about
diction facts
Fact is richer than diction.
may facts diction
However well equipped our language, it can never be forearmed against all possible cases that may arise and call for description: fact is richer than diction.
men thinking drawing
Our common stock of words embodies all the distinctions men have found worth drawing, and the connexions they have found worth marketing, in the lifetimes of many generation; these surely are likely to be more numerous, more sound, since they have stood up to the long test of thee survival of the fittest, and more subtle, at least in all ordinary and reasonably practical matters, than any that you or I are likely to think up in our arm-chairs of an afternoon-the most favoured alternative method.
men expression data
The trouble is that the expression 'material thing' is functioning already, from the very beginning, simply as a foil for 'sense-datum'; it is not here given, and is never given, any other role to play, and apart from this consideration it would surely never have occurred to anybody to try to represent as some single kind of things the things which the ordinary man says that he 'perceives.
angel fool wells
I feel ruefully sure, also, that one must be at least one sort of fool to rush in over ground so well trodden by the angels.
giving done may
Are cans constitutionally iffy? Whenever, that is, we say that we can do something, or could do something, or could have done something, is there an if in the offing--suppressed, it may be, but due nevertheless to appear when we set out our sentence in full or when we give an explanation of its meaning?
age stones ordinary
Ordinary language embodies the metaphysics of the Stone Age.
people vagueness chance
After all we speak of people 'taking refuge' in vagueness -the more precise you are, in general the more likely you are to be wrong, whereas you stand a good chance of not being wrong if you make it vague enough.
giving nonsense recognizing
Faced with the nonsense question 'What is the meaning of a word?' and perhaps dimly recognizing it to be nonsense, we are nevertheless not inclined to give it up.