J. L. Austin Quotes - Page 2

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• "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."

  J. L. Austin

  Truth, Eye, Past

  "Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society". "Truth" by J. L. Austin, "Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society", 1950.

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• I begin, then, with some remarks about 'the meaning of a word.' I think many persons now see all or part of what I shall say: but not all do, and there is a tendency to forget, or to get it slightly wrong. In so far as I am merely flogging the converted, I apologize to them.

  J. L. Austin

  Thinking, Apologizing, Forget

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• There are more ways of killing a cat than drowning it in butter; but this is the sort of thing (as the proverb indicates) we overlook: there are more ways of outraging speech than contradiction merely.

  J. L. Austin

  Cat, Way, Speech

  "How to Do Things with Words". Book by J. L. Austin, p. 48, 1975.

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• Is it true or false that Belfast is north of London? That the galaxy is the shape of a fried egg? That Beethoven was a drunkard? That Wellington won the battle of Waterloo? There are various degrees and dimensions of success in making statements: the statements fit the facts always more or less loosely, in different ways on different occasions for different intents and purposes.

  J. L. Austin

  Truth, Eggs, Battle

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• It should be quite clear, then, that there are no criteria to be laid down in general for distinguishing the real from the not real.

  J. L. Austin

  Real, Criteria, Should

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• 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.

  J. L. Austin

  Fun, Philosophy, Discovery

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• The trouble is that the expression 'material thing' is functioning already, from the very beginning, simply as a foil for 'sense-datum'; it is not here given, and is never given, any other role to play, and apart from this consideration it would surely never have occurred to anybody to try to represent as some single kind of things the things which the ordinary man says that he 'perceives.

  J. L. Austin

  Men, Expression, Data

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• Sentences are not as such either true or false.

  J. L. Austin

  Fake People, True Or False, Austin

  "Sense and Sensibilia" by J. L. Austin, (p. 111), 1962.

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• 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.

  J. L. Austin

  Giving, Nonsense, Recognizing

  "Philosophical Papers" by J. L. Austin, James Opie Urmson, Geoffrey James Warnock, 3rd ed., New York: Oxford, (p. 58), 1979.

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• In one sense 'there are' both universals and material objects, in another sense there is no such thing as either: statements about each can usually be analysed, but not always, nor always without remainder.

  J. L. Austin

  Materials, Objects, Statements

  "Philosophical Papers". Book by J. L. Austin, edited by James Opie Urmson, Geoffrey James Warnock, p. 43, 1979.

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• 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.

  J. L. Austin

  Names, Quality, Different

  "Philosophical Papers" by J. L. Austin, James Opie Urmson, Geoffrey James Warnock, 3rd ed., New York: Oxford, (p. 73), 1979.

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• 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?

  J. L. Austin

  Giving, Done, May

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