J. L. Austin: Wording

J. L. Austin was English philosopher. Explore interesting quotes on wording.

J. L. Austin: 46 quotes 1 like

“Going back into the history of a word, very often into Latin, we come back pretty commonly to pictures or models of how things happen or are done. These models may be fairly sophisticated and recent, as is perhaps the case with 'motive' or 'impulse', but one of the commonest and most primitive types of model is one which is apt to baffle us through its very naturalness and simplicity.”

J. L. Austin

Austin (1956) " A Plea for Excuses http://www.ditext.com/austin/plea.html", in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1956-7.

History , Motivation , Nature

“Ordinary language is not the last word: in principle it can everywhere be supplemented and improved upon and superseded.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.”

J. L. Austin

Source: Philosophical Papers (1979), p. 185.

“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

Source: Philosophical Papers (1979), p. 58.

Question

“Why should it not be the whole function of a word to denote many things?”

J. L. Austin

Source: Philosophical Papers (1979), p. 38.

“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 relook at the world without blinkers.”

J. L. Austin

Source: Philosophical Papers (1979), p. 182.

World

“Faced with the nonsense question "What is the meaning of a word?"”

J. L. Austin

and perhaps dimly recognizing it to be nonsense, we are nevertheless not inclined to give it up.

p. 58
Philosophical Papers (1979)

Question