The beginning of sense, not to say wisdom, is to realize that 'doing an action,' as used in philosophy, is a highly abstract expression--it is a stand-in used in the place of any (or almost any?) verb with a personal… — J. L. Austin Copy Share Image
Words are not (except in their own little corner) facts or things: we need therefore to prise them off the world, to hold them apart from and against it, so that we can realize their inadequacies and arbitrariness, and can… — J. L. Austin Copy Share Image
We become obsessed with 'truth' when discussing statements, just as we become obsessed with 'freedom' when discussing conduct...Like freedom, truth is a bare minimum… — J. L. Austin Copy Share Image
Usually it is uses of words, not words in themselves, that are properly called vague. — J. L. Austin Copy Share Image
In the one defense, briefly, we accept responsibility but deny that it was bad: in the other, we admit that it was bad but… — J. L. Austin Copy Share Image
Are cans constitutionally iffy? Whenever, that is, we say that we can do something, or could do something, or could have done something, is… — J. L. Austin Copy Share Image
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… — J. L. Austin Copy Share Image
The beginning of sense, not to say wisdom, is to realize that 'doing an action,' as used in philosophy, is a highly abstract expression--it… — J. L. Austin Copy Share Image
Is it true or false that Belfast is north of London? That the galaxy is the shape of a fried egg? That Beethoven was… — J. L. Austin Copy Share Image
Certainly ordinary language has no claim to be the last word, if there is such a thing. It embodies, indeed, something better than the… — J. L. Austin Copy Share Image
Our common stock of words embodies all the distinctions men have found worth drawing, and the connexions they have found worth marketing, in the… — J. L. Austin Copy Share Image
It should be quite clear, then, that there are no criteria to be laid down in general for distinguishing the real from the not… — J. L. Austin Copy Share Image
In one sense 'there are' both universals and material objects, in another sense there is no such thing as either: statements about each can… — J. L. Austin Copy Share Image
