Words are not (except in their own little corner) facts or … - John Langshaw Austin

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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.

John Langshaw Austin

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About John Langshaw Austin

John Langshaw Austin (28 March 1911 – 8 February 1960) was an English philosopher of language and speech theorist, remembered primarily as the developer of the theory of .

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Alternative Names: J. L. Austin

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Originators like John Langshaw Austin:

Ludwig Wittgenstein Niels Bohr John Searle Douglas Hofstadter Samuel Butler

Additional quotes by John Langshaw Austin

But surely, speaking carefully, we do not sense "red" and "blue" any more than "resemblance" (or "qualities" any more than "relations"): we sense something of which we might say, if we wished to talk about it, that "this is red."

However well equipped our language, it can never be forearmed against all possible cases that may arise and call for description: fact is richer than diction.

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.

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… - John Langshaw Austin

About John Langshaw Austin

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