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
character heirs austin
Infelicity is an ill to which all acts are heir which have the general character of ritual or ceremonial, all conventional acts.
language used made
A sentence is made up of words, a statement is made in words.... Statements are made, words or sentences are used.
function should whole
Why should it not be the whole function of a word to denote many things?
acting purpose done
Let us distinguish between acting intentionally and acting deliberately or on purpose, as far as this can be done by attending to what language can teach us.
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.
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.
bad deny responsibility
In the one defence, briefly, we accept responsibility but deny that it was bad: in the other, we admit that it was bad but don't accept full, or even any, responsibility.