Quotes by J. L. Austin

J. L. Austin

“What is truth?” said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Pilate was in advance of his time. For “truth” itself is an abstract noun, a camel, that is, of a logical construction, which cannot get past the eye even of a grammarian. We approach it cap and categories in hand: we ask ourselves whether Truth is a substance (the Truth, the Body of Knowledge), or a quality (something like the colour red, inhering in truths), or a relation (“correspondence”). But philosophers should take something more nearly their own size to strain at. What needs discussing rather is the use, or certain uses, of the word “true.” In vino, possibly, “veritas,” but in a sober symposium “verum.”

Eye

Past

Truth

A sentence is made up of words, a statement is made in words…. Statements are made, words or sentences are used.

Language

Made

Used

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.

Chance

People

Vagueness

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?

Done

Giving

May

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.

Discovery

Fun

Philosophy

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.

Different

Names

Quality

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.’

Blue

Might

Quality

Certainly ordinary language has no claim to be the last word, if there is such a thing.

Language

Lasts

Ordinary

Certainly ordinary language has no claim to be the last word, if there is such a thing. It embodies, indeed, something better thanthe metaphysics of the Stone Age, namely, as was said, the inherited experience and acumen of many generations of men.

Age

Men

Philosophical

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.

Giving

Nonsense

Recognizing

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Age

Angel

Apologizing

Austin

Battle

Blue

Cat

Chance

Character

Criteria

Data

Defense

Diction

Different

Dimensions

Discovery

Done

Drawing

Eggs

Expression

Eye

Facts

Fake People

Fool

Forget

Fun

Function

Giving

Heirs

Knowing

Language

Lasts

Latin

Littles

Made

Materials

May

Mean

Men

Might

Minimum

Names

Negative

Nonsense

Numbers

Objects

Obsessed

Ordinary

Past

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Quotes by J. L. Austin

J. L. Austin

A sentence is made up of words, a statement is made in words…. Statements are made, words or sentences are used.

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.

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.

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.

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.’

Certainly ordinary language has no claim to be the last word, if there is such a thing.

Certainly ordinary language has no claim to be the last word, if there is such a thing. It embodies, indeed, something better thanthe metaphysics of the Stone Age, namely, as was said, the inherited experience and acumen of many generations of men.

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.

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