Western Philosophy 20th-century philosophy
Name:	John Langshaw Austin
Birth:	March 28, 1911
Death:	February 8, 1960
School/tradition:	Linguistic philosophy, Analytic philosophy
Main interests:	Philosophy of language, Philosophy of mind, Ethics, Ordinary language philosophy
Notable ideas:	Speech acts, Intentionality
Influences:	G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, Gilbert Ryle
Influenced:	John Searle, R.M. Hare, Judith Butler

John Langshaw Austin (March 28, 1911 – February 8, 1960) was a philosopher of language, who developed much of the current theory of speech acts. He was born in Lancaster and educated at Balliol College, Oxford. After serving in MI6 during World War II, Austin became White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford. He occupies a place in philosophy of language alongside Wittgenstein in staunchly advocating the examination of the way words are used in order to elucidate meaning. Unlike many ordinary language philosophers, however, Austin disavowed any considerable indebtedness to Wittgenstein's later philosophy.^[1] His main influence, he said, was the exact, exacting, and common-sense philosophy of G. E. Moore. The 20th century brought with it upheavals that produced a series of conflicting developments within philosophy over the basis of knowledge and the validity of various absolutes. ... March 28 is the 87th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (88th in leap years). ... 1911 (MCMXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar). ... February 8 is the 39th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1960 calendar). ... Ordinary language philosophy is less a philosophical doctrine or school than it is a loose network of approaches to traditional philosophical problems. ... Analytic philosophy is the dominant philosophical movement in University philosophy departments in English-speaking countries and in Scandinavia, although one of its founders, Gottlob Frege, was German, and many of its leading proponents, such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Rudolf Carnap, Kurt Gödel, Karl Popper, Hans Reichenbach, Herbert Feigl, Otto Neurath... Philosophy of language is the branch of philosophy that studies language. ... A Phrenological mapping of the brain. ... Ethics (from the Ancient Greek ethikos, meaning arising from habit) is a major branch of philosophy. ... Ordinary language philosophy is less a philosophical doctrine or school than it is a loose network of approaches to traditional philosophical problems. ... A speech act is an action performed by means of language, such as describing something (), asking a question (Is it snowing?), making a request or order (Could you pass the salt?, Drop your weapon or Ill shoot you!), or making a promise () For much of the history of linguistics... Intentionality, originally a concept from scholastic philosophy, was reintroduced in contemporary philosophy by the philosopher and psychologist Franz Brentano in his work Psychologie vom Empirischen Standpunkte. ... George Edward Moore George Edward Moore, also known as G.E. Moore, (November 4, 1873 - October 24, 1958) was a distinguished and hugely influential English philosopher who was educated and taught at the University of Cambridge. ... Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970), was a British philosopher, logician, and mathematician, working mostly in the 20th century. ... Gilbert Ryle (1900–1976), was a philosopher, and a representative of the generation of British ordinary language philosophers influenced by Wittgensteins insights into language, and is principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the phrase the ghost in the machine. He referred to some... John Rogers Searle (born July 31, 1932) is Mills Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, and is noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and consciousness, on the characteristics of socially constructed versus physical realities, and on practical reason. ... R.M. Hare Richard Mervyn Hare (March 21, 1919 – January 29, 2002) was an English moral philosopher, who held the post of Whites Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford from 1966 until 1983. ... Image:J Butler. ... March 28 is the 87th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (88th in leap years). ... 1911 (MCMXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar). ... February 8 is the 39th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1960 calendar). ... Philosophy of language is the branch of philosophy that studies language. ... The speech act is a concept in linguistics and the philosophy of language. ... Statistics Population: 45,952 (2001) Ordnance Survey OS grid reference: SD475615 Administration District: City of Lancaster Shire county: Lancashire Region: North West England Constituent country: England Sovereign state: United Kingdom Other Ceremonial county: Lancashire Historic county: Lancashire Services Police force: Lancashire Constabulary Ambulance service: North West Post office and telephone... College name Balliol College Named after John de Balliol Established 1263 Sister College St Johns Master Andrew Graham JCR President Jack Hawkins Undergraduates 403 Graduates 228 Homepage Boatclub Balliol College, founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. ... The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), more commonly known as MI6 (originally Military Intelligence Section 6), or the Secret Service, is the United Kingdom external security agency. ... This article is becoming very long. ... Endowed in 1621 by Thomas White (c. ... The University of Oxford (often called Oxford University), located in the city of Oxford, England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (IPA: ) (April 26, 1889 – April 29, 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who contributed several ground-breaking works to contemporary philosophy, primarily on the foundations of logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of mind. ... In linguistics, meaning is the content carried by the words or signs exchanged by people when communicating through language. ... George Edward Moore George Edward Moore, also known as G.E. Moore, (November 4, 1873 - October 24, 1958) was a distinguished and hugely influential English philosopher who was educated and taught at the University of Cambridge. ...

How to Do Things With Words

How to Do Things With Words is perhaps his most influential work. Austin points out that philosophers of language gave most of their attention to those sentences which state some fact, but that these form only a small part of the range of tasks that can be performed by saying something. Indeed, there is an important class of utterances – Austin calls them performative utterances – that do not report a fact, but instead are themselves the performance of some action (speech act). For example, in the appropriate circumstances to say “I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth” is to do nothing less than to name the ship. Other examples include: "I take this man as my lawfully wedded husband," or "I bequeath this watch to my brother." All three examples demonstrate that the sentence is not used to describe or state that one is 'doing' something, but to actually 'do' it. In linguistics, a sentence is a unit of language, characterised in most languages by the presence of a finite verb. ... Performative utterances are speech acts which perform the action the sentence describes. ... The speech act is a concept in linguistics and the philosophy of language. ...

In the second half of the book, Austin produces a useful way of analysing utterances.

Consider what happens when John Smith turns to Sue Snub and says ‘Is Jeff’s shirt red?’, to which Sue replies ‘Yes’. Firstly, John has produced a series of bodily movements which result in the production of a certain sound. Austin called such a performance a phonetic act, and called the act a phone. John’s utterance also conforms to the lexical and grammatical conventions of English – that is, John has produced an English sentence. Austin called this a phatic act, and labels such utterances phemes. John also referred to Jeff’s shirt, and to the colour red. To use a pheme with a more or less definite sense and reference is to utter a rheme, and to perform a rhetic act. Note that rhemes are a sub-class of phemes, which in turn are a sub-class of phones. One cannot perform a rheme without also performing a pheme and a phone. The performance of these three acts is the performance of a locution – it is the act of saying something.

John has therefore performed a locutionary act. He has also done at least two other things. He has asked a question, and he has elicited an answer from Sue.

Asking a question is an example of what Austin called an illocutionary act, the performance of an illocution. Other examples would be making an assertion, giving an order, and promising to do something. An illocutionary act is to use a locution with a certain force. It is an act performed in saying something, in contrast with a locution, the act of saying something. Illocutionary act is a technical term that has been introduced by John L. Austin in the course of his investigations concerning what he calls performative and constative utterances. According to Austins original exposition in his famous How to Do Things with Words, an illocutionary act is an act (1...

Eliciting an answer is an example of what Austin calls a perlocutionary act, an act performed by saying something. Notice that if one successfully performs a perlocution, one also succeeds in performing both an illocution and a locution. A perlocutionary act is any speech act that amounts to persuading, convincing, scaring, enlightening, inspiring, or otherwise getting someone to do or realize something. ...

In the theory of speech acts, attention has focused on the locution, illocution and perlocution, rather than the phone, pheme and rheme.

Sense and sensibilia

In the posthumously published Sense and sensibilia -- the title was, no doubt, chosen for its match with Sense and Sensibility by that "other" Austin, Jane Austen -- Austin famously criticises sense-data theories of perception, particularly that of Alfred Jules Ayer in The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge. Austin argues that Ayer fails to understand the proper function of words such as "illusion", "hallucination", "looks", "appears" and "seems". He argues that these words allow us to express reservations about our commitment to the truth of what we are saying, and that the introduction of sense-data adds nothing to our understanding or ability to talk about what we see. Ayer responded to this critique in the essay "Has Austin refuted the sense-date theory?", which can be found in Metaphysics and Common Sense (1969). For other uses, see Sense and Sensibility (disambiguation). ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The concept of sense data (singular: sense datum) is very influential and widely used in the philosophy of perception. ... Alfred Jules Ayer (October 29, 1910 _ June 27, 1989), better known as simply A. J. Ayer (and called Freddie by friends), was a philosopher who helped popularise logical positivism in English-speaking countries in his books Language, Truth and Logic (1936) and The Problem of Knowledge (1956). ...

Philosophical Papers

Austin's papers were collected and published posthumously as Philosophical Papers by J. O. Urmson and Geoffrey Warnock. The book originally contained ten papers, two more being added in the second edition and one in the third. Sir Geoffrey Warnock was a philosopher and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University. ...

Are there A Priori Concepts

This early paper contains a broad criticism of Idealism. The question set, the existence of a priori concepts, is treated only indirectly, by dismissing the concept of concept that underpins it. Idealism is an approach to philosophical enquiry which asserts that everything is of a mental nature. ... A priori is a Latin phrase meaning from the former or less literally before experience. In much of the modern Western tradition, the term a priori is considered to mean propositional knowledge that can be had without, or prior to, experience. ...

The first part of this paper takes the form of a reply to an argument for the existence of Universals. The argument he is criticising proceeds from the observation that we do use words such as "grey" or "circular"; and that since we use a single term in each case, there must be a something that is named by such terms - a universal. Furthermore, since each case of "grey" or "circular" is different, it follows that universals themselves cannot be sensed. Universals (used as a noun) are either properties, relations, or types, but not classes. ...

Austin carefully dismantles this argument, and in the process other transcendental arguments. He points out firstly that universals are not "something we stumble across", and that that they are defined by their relation to particulars. He continues by pointing out that, from the observation that we use "grey" and "circular" as if they were the names of things, it simply does not follow that there is something that is named. In the process he dismisses the notion that "words are essentially proper names", asking "...why, if 'one identical' word is used, must there be 'one identical object' present which it denotes". Transcendental idealism is a doctrine founded by 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant. ...

In the second part of the article, he generalises this argument against universals to concepts as a whole. He points out that it is "facile" to treat concepts as if they were "an article of property". Such questions as "Do we possess such-and-such a concept" and "how do we come to possess such-and-such a concept" are meaningless, because concepts are not the sort of thing that one possesses. A concept is an abstract, idea, notion, or entity that serves to designate a category or class of entities, events, phenomena or relations between them. ...

In the final part of the paper, Austin further extends the discussion to relations, presenting a series of arguments to reject the idea that there is some thing that is a relation.

The Meaning of a Word

His paper The Meaning of a Word is a polemic against doing philosophy by attempting to pin down the meaning of the words used; for 'there is no simple and handy appendage of a word called "the meaning of the word (x)"'. Austin warns us to take care when removing words from their ordinary usage, giving numerous examples of how this can lead one down a philosophical garden path. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ...

A Plea For Excuses

A Plea For Excuses is both a demonstration by example, and a defence of, linguistic philosophy:

...our common stock of words embodies all the distinctions men have found worth drawing, and the connections they have found worth marking, in the lifetime of many generations: these surely are likely to be more numerous, more sound, since they have stood up to the long test of survival of the fittest, and more subtle, at least in all ordinary and reasonable practical matters, than any that you or I are likely to think up in our armchair of an afternoon – the most favorite alternative method.^[2]

He proposes some curious philosophical tools. For instance, he uses a sort of word game for developing an understanding of a key concept. This involves taking up a dictionary and finding a selection of terms relating to the key concept, then looking up each of the words in the explanation of their meaning. Then, iterating this process until the list of words begins to repeat, closing in a “family circle” of words relating to the key concept.

References

Books

• Sense and sensibilia. 1959. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1964.
• Philosophical Papers. Ed. J. O. Urmson and G. J. Warnock. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1961. 1979.
• How to do things with Words: The William James Lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955. Ed. J. O. Urmson. Oxford: Clarendon, 1962.

To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Papers

• Performative Utterances In Austin, Philosophical Papers. Ed. J. O. Urmson and G. J. Warnock. Oxford, 1961.
• "A Plea for Excuses". In Austin, Philosophical Papers. Ed. J. O. Urmson and G. J. Warnock. Oxford, 1961.
• Performative-Constative. In The Philosophy of Language. Ed. John R. Searle. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1971. 13-22.

in translation

• Otras mentes. In Austin, Ensayos filosóficos. Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1975. 87-117.
• Un alegato en pro de las excusas. In Austin, Ensayos filosóficos. Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1975. 169-92.
• Quand dire c'est faire Éditions du Seuil, Paris. Traduction française de "How to do things with words" par Gilles Lane, 1970.
• Palabras y acciones: Cómo hacer cosas con palabras. Buenos Aires: Paidós, 1971.
• Cómo hacer cosas con palabras.: Palabras y acciones. Barcelona: Paidós, 1982.
• Performativo-Constativo. In Gli atti linguistici. Aspetti e problemi di filosofia del linguagio. Milano: Feltrinelli, 1978. 49-60.
• Ensayos filosóficos. Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1975.

See also

• Linguistics
• Pragmatics
• John Searle
• Adolf Reinach

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language, and someone who engages in this study is called a linguist. ... Pragmatics is generally the study of natural language understanding, and specifically the study of how context influences the interpretation of meanings. ... John Rogers Searle (born July 31, 1932) is Mills Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, and is noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and consciousness, on the characteristics of socially constructed versus physical realities, and on practical reason. ... Adolf Bernhard Philipp Reinach (December 23, 1883, Mainz, Germany - November 16, 1917, Diksmuide, Belgium), German philosopher, phenomenologist (from the Munich phenomenology current) and law theorist. ...

Notes

1. ^ . The Wittgenstein scholar Grayling (Grayling, A.C., Wittgenstein, Oxford University Press, (Oxford), 1988, p.114) is certain that, despite the fact that Wittgenstein’s work might have possibly played some "second or third-hand [part in the promotion of] the philosophical concern for language which was dominant in the mid-century", neither Gilbert Ryle nor any of those in the so-called "Ordinary language philosophy" school that is chiefly associated with J.L. Austin (and, according to Grayling, this school included philosophers such as G.E. Moore, C.D. Broad, Bertrand Russell and A.J. Ayer) were Wittgensteinians. And, moreover, even more significantly, Grayling asserts that "most of them were largely unaffected by Wittgenstein’s later ideas, and some were actively hostile to them".
2. ^ A Plea for excuses, in Austin, J. L., Philosophical Papers, p. 182

Gilbert Ryle (1900–1976), was a philosopher, and a representative of the generation of British ordinary language philosophers influenced by Wittgensteins insights into language, and is principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the phrase the ghost in the machine. He referred to some... Ordinary language philosophy is less a philosophical doctrine or school than it is a loose network of approaches to traditional philosophical problems. ... George Edward Moore George Edward Moore, also known as G.E. Moore, (November 4, 1873 - October 24, 1958) was a distinguished and hugely influential English philosopher who was educated and taught at the University of Cambridge. ... Charlie Dunbar Broad (known as C.D. Broad) (30 December 1887 - 11 March 1971) was an English philosopher known for his thorough and objective analysis in works such as Scientific Thought (1930) and Examination of McTaggarts Philosophy (1933). ... Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970), was a British philosopher, logician, and mathematician, working mostly in the 20th century. ... Alfred Jules Ayer (October 29, 1910 - June 27, 1989), better known as simply A. J. Ayer (and called Freddie by friends), was a British philosopher. ...

External links

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Related reading

• Kirkham, Richard (Reprint edition: March 2, 1995). Theories of Truth. The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-61108-2. Originally published 1992. Chapter 4 contains a detailed discussion of Austin's theory of truth.