Character Quote by J. L. Austin

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

Usually it is uses of words, not words in themselves, that are properly called vague.

— J. L. Austin

The theory of truth is a series of truisms.

— J. L. Austin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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