Ideas of J.L. Austin, by Theme

[British, 1911 - 1960, Born in Lancaster. Professor at Oxford University.]

green numbers give full details    |    back to list of philosophers    |     unexpand these ideas    |    
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 5. Linguistic Analysis
Ordinary language is the beginning of philosophy, but there is much more to it
     Full Idea: Ordinary language is not the last word: in principle it can everywhere be supplemented and improved upon and superseded. Only remember, it is the first word.
     From: J.L. Austin (A Plea for Excuses [1956], p.185), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics Intro
     A reaction: To claim anything more would be absurd. The point is that this remark comes from the high priest of ordinary language philosophy.
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 1. Correspondence Truth
True sentences says the appropriate descriptive thing on the appropriate demonstrative occasion
     Full Idea: A sentence is said to be true when the historic state of affairs to which it is correlated by the demonstrative conventions (the one to which it 'refers') is of a type with which the sentence used in making it is correlated by the descriptive conventions.
     From: J.L. Austin (Truth [1950], §3)
     A reaction: This is correspondence by convention rather than correspondence by mapping. Personally I prefer some sort of mapping account, despite all the difficulty and vagueness of specifying what maps onto what.
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 3. Correspondence Truth critique
Correspondence theorists shouldn't think that a country has just one accurate map
     Full Idea: Correspondence theorists too often talk as one would who held that every map is either accurate or inaccurate; that every country can have but one accurate map.
     From: J.L. Austin (Truth [1950], n 24)
     A reaction: A well-made point, for those who intuitively hang on to correspondence as not only good common sense, but also some sort of salvation for a realist view of the world which might give us certainty in epistemology.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / a. Problem of vagueness
Austin revealed many meanings for 'vague': rough, ambiguous, general, incomplete...
     Full Idea: Austin's account brought out the variety of features covered by 'vague' in different contexts: roughness, ambiguity, imprecision, lack of detail, generality, inaccuracy, incompleteness. Even 'vague' is vague.
     From: report of J.L. Austin (Sense and Sensibilia [1962], p.125-8) by Timothy Williamson - Vagueness 3.1
     A reaction: Some of these sound the same. Maybe Austin distinguishes them.