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.
latin done austin
Going back into the history of a word, very often into Latin, we come back pretty commonly to pictures or models of how things happen or are done.
fake-people use vague
Usually it is uses of words, not words in themselves, that are properly called vague.
real knowing needs
Next, 'real' is what we may call a trouser-word. It is usually thought, and I dare say usually rightly thought, that what one might call the affirmative use of a term is basic--that, to understand 'x,' we need to know what it is to be x, or to be an x, and that knowing this apprises us of what it is not to be x, not to be an x. But with 'real' (as we briefly noted earlier) it is the negative use that wears the trousers.
fun philosophy discovery
But I owe it to the subject to say, that it has long afforded me what philosophy is so often thought, and made, barren of - the fun of discovery, the pleasures of co-operation, and the satisfaction of reaching agreement.
red-and-blue quality might
But surely, speaking carefully, we do not sense 'red' and 'blue' any more than 'resemblance' (or 'qualities' any more than 'relations'): we sense something of which we might say, if we wished to talk about it, that 'this is red.
lasts ordinary language
Certainly ordinary language has no claim to be the last word, if there is such a thing.
fake-people austin true-or-false
Sentences are not as such either true or false.
world littles facts
Words are not (except in their own little corner) facts or things: we need therefore to prise them off the world, to hold them apart from and against it, so that we can realize their inadequacies and arbitrariness, and can relook at the world without blinkers.
real names dimensions
Like 'real', 'free' is only used to rule out the suggestion of some or all of its recognized antitheses. As 'truth' is not a name of a characteristic of assertions, so 'freedom' is not a name for a characteristic of actions, but the name of a dimension in which actions are assessed.
materials objects statements
In one sense 'there are' both universals and material objects, in another sense there is no such thing as either: statements about each can usually be analysed, but not always, nor always without remainder.
names quality substance
But suppose we take the noun 'truth': here is a case where the disagreements between different theorists have largely turned on whether they interpreted this as a name of a substance, of a quality, or of a relation.
mean profound ugly
You are more than entitled not to know what the word 'performative' means. It is a new word and an ugly word, and perhaps it doesnot mean anything very much. But at any rate there is one thing in its favor, it is not a profound word.
real should criteria
It should be quite clear, then, that there are no criteria to be laid down in general for distinguishing the real from the not real.