The Philosophy Of J L Austin

This is the first major study of J. L. Austin's philosophy in decades. Leading philosophers show the relevance of his work to current debates including scepticism and contextualism, the epistemology of testimony, and the semantics/pragmatics distinction. They demonstrate why Austin's work is of continuing value and interest to philosophers today

This work sets out Austin's conclusions in the field to which he directed his main efforts for at least the last ten years of his life. Starting from an exhaustive examination of his already well-known distinction between performative utterances and statements, Austin here finally abandons that distinction, replacing it with a more general theory of 'illocutionary forces' of utterances which has important bearings on a wide variety of philosophicalproblems.

This book offers a comprehensive reinterpretation of J.L. Austin's philosophy. It opens new ways of thinking about ethics and other contemporary issues in the wake of Austin's philosophical work. Austin is primarily viewed as a philosopher of language whose work focused on the pragmatic aspects of speech. His work on ordinary language philosophy and speech act theory is seen as his main contribution to philosophy. This book challenges this received view to show that Austin used his most well-known theoretical notions as heuristic tools aimed at debunking the fact/value dichotomy. Additionally, it demonstrates that Austin's continual returns to the ordinary is rooted in a desire to show that our lives in language are complicated and multifaceted. What emerges is an attempt to think with Austin about problems that are central to philosophy today--such as the question about linguistic inheritance, truth, the relationship between a language inherited and morality, and how we are to cope with linguistic elasticity and historicity. Lectures on a Philosophy Less Ordinary will appeal to scholars and advanced students working on Austin's philosophy, philosophy of language, and the history of analytic philosophy.

Looking at the work of J.L. Austin, who subjected language to a close and intense analysis, this book deals with his examination of the various things we do with words, and with the philosophical insights he believed could be gained by closely examining the uses of words by non-philosophers.

This book presents fresh perspectives on the context and significance of Austin's philosophies of language, truth, perception, and knowledge.

J. L. Austin (1911-1960) exercised in Post-war Oxford an intellectual authority similar to that of Wittgenstein in Cambridge. Although he completed no books of his own and published only seven papers, Austin became through lectures and talks one of the acknowledged leaders in what is called ‘Oxford philosophy’ or ‘ordinary language philosophy’. Few would dispute that among analytic philosophers Austin stands out as a great and original philosophical genius. Three volumes of his writing, published after his death, have become classics in analytical philosophy: Philosophical Papers; Sense and Sensibilia; and How to Do Things with Words. First published in 1969, this book is a collection of critical essays on Austin’s philosophy written by well-known philosophers, many of whom knew Austin personally. A number of essays included were especially written for this volume, but the majority have appeared previously in various journals or books, not all easy to obtain.

Austin was an towering presence in 19th-century English jurisprudence, and many of his ideas remain viable today. They include his conception of analytical jurisprudence, his sharp distinction between law and morality, and his utilitarian theory of resistance to government. Yet he has always had his critics and they have become ever shriller in the last 50 years. If it is not a requirement of political correctness to belittle his ideas, the tendency to do so is widespread. Critics often dismiss Austin with a wave of the hand, or reduce his jurisprudence to a few of his ideas, such as his conception of law as a command or his notion of a legally unlimited sovereign. Whatever approach is taken, Austin's doctrines tend to be abstracted from their historical context and vastly oversimplified. For example, the utilitarian ethical theories that he expounded in three of the six chapters of the only book that he published in his lifetime are usually ignored. Accordingly, there has been a failure to recognize the complexity and inner tensions of his legal philosophy. There is not one John Austin, but at least half-a-dozen. Nothing makes this clearer than the diverse responses to his work in the 19th century. Wilfrid E. Rumble's study thus fills a large gap in the literature about this important figure. It will be of substantial interest not only to historians of ideas, law, and the 19th century, but also to jurists, legal philosophers, and political theorists.