“Like 'real', 'free' is only used to rule out the suggestion of some or all of its recognized antitheses. As 'truth' is not a name of a characteristic of assertions, so 'freedom' is not a name for a characteristic of actions, but the name of a dimension in which actions are assessed.”

—  J. L. Austin

Source: Philosophical Papers (1979), p. 180.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Like 'real', 'free' is only used to rule out the suggestion of some or all of its recognized antitheses. As 'truth' is …" by J. L. Austin?
J. L. Austin photo
J. L. Austin 23
English philosopher 1911–1960

Related quotes

“Racial prejudice is thus a generalized set of stereotypes of a high degree of consistency which includes emotional responses to race names, a belief in typical characteristics associated with race names, and an evaluation of such traits.”

Daniel Katz (1903–1998) American psychologist

Daniel Katz and K.W. Braly (1935) "Racial prejudice and racial stereotypes". Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. p. 191-2 Cited in: Mark P. Zanna, James M. Olson (1994) The Psychology of Prejudice. p. 16

Shahrukh Khan photo

“I've become a free-for-all brand. I hope they come out with a rule that they can't use a person's name without paying him for it!”

Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality

From interview with Anshul Chaturvedi

François Quesnay photo

“You recognize but one rule of commerce; that is (to avail myself of your own terms) to allow free passage and freedom of action to all buyers and sellers whoever they may be.”

François Quesnay (1694–1774) French economist

François Quesnay in letter from M. Alpha to de Quesnay, 1767; cited in: Antony Jay (2010). Lend Me Your Ears: Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations. p. 253.

Ursula K. Le Guin photo

“The name of our beautiful reward is not profit. Its name is freedom.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

National Book Awards, November 2014 https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/national-book-awards-ursula-le-guin
Context: I think hard times are coming, when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies, to other ways of being. And even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom: poets, visionaries—the realists of a larger reality. Right now, I think we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. The profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable; so did the divine right of kings. … Power can be resisted and changed by human beings; resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art—the art of words. I’ve had a long career and a good one, in good company, and here, at the end of it, I really don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river.... The name of our beautiful reward is not profit. Its name is freedom.

Richard Stallman photo

“While free software by any other name would give you the same freedom, it makes a big difference which name we use: different words convey different ideas.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

1990s, Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source" (1998)
Context: While free software by any other name would give you the same freedom, it makes a big difference which name we use: different words convey different ideas.
In 1998, some of the people in the free software community began using the term "open source software" instead of "free software" to describe what they do. The term "open source" quickly became associated with a different approach, a different philosophy, different values, and even a different criterion for which licenses are acceptable. The Free Software movement and the Open Source movement are today separate movements with different views and goals, although we can and do work together on some practical projects.
The fundamental difference between the two movements is in their values, their ways of looking at the world. For the Open Source movement, the issue of whether software should be open source is a practical question, not an ethical one. As one person put it, "Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement." For the Open Source movement, non-free software is a suboptimal solution. For the Free Software movement, non-free software is a social problem and free software is the solution.

Marilyn Manson photo
John Dryden photo

“[T]he Famous Rules which the French call, Des Trois Unités, or, The Three Unities, which ought to be observ'd in every Regular Play; namely, of Time, Place, and Action.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668) Full text online http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/drampoet.html.

Rudolf Steiner photo
William Grey Walter photo

“[Walter even gave the tortoises a mock-biological name, Machina speculatrix] because they illustrate particularly the exploratory, speculative behaviour that is so characteristic of most animals.”

William Grey Walter (1910–1977) American-born British neuroscientist and roboticist

Source: An imitation of life (1950), p. 43 as cited in: Owen Holland (2003) " The first biologically inspired robots http://robotics.cs.tamu.edu/dshell/cs689/papers/holland02first.pdf"

Related topics