Page 527 - Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language

John Langshaw Austin (1911-60) White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford from 1952-1960, was a prominent figure in what became known as Ordinary Language Philosophy and, through his hugely influ- ential, posthumously published, William James Lectures How To Do Things With Words, the initiator of speech act theory in its modern form.
Austin's philosophical work, which ostensibly cov- ered traditional problems such as free will, truth, other minds, knowledge, and meaning, was characterized by a close attention to the ordinary uses of words, those involved, for example, in offering excuses, or in judgments using 'ifs and cans' or centered on words like 'real' and 'see,' in the belief that such an exam- ination would turn up important and neglected dis- tinctions or connections. His paper 'A plea for excuses' (Austin 1961) explained the rationale for his methods and is perhaps the seminal work in Ordinary Language Philosophy. His posthumously published lectures, Sense and Sensibilia, an attack on the then fashionable sense-datum theory and logical empiri- cism, particularly of A. J. Ayer, is a sustained appli- cation of the 'ordinary language' method.
His work on speech acts, which culminated in How To Do Things With Words, began with an interest in what he called 'performative utterances,' that is, utterances of the kind 'I promise to do such-and-such,' or 'I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth" which he contrasted with statements or 'constatives.' His view was that performatives, unlike constatives, should not be assessed for their truth but for their 'felicity'; a range of different criteria, other than 'corresponding to the facts,' existed for judging the success or other- wise of performatives and this, Austin thought, was a salutary reminder to philosophers that truth is not the only aim of language. Significantly, when writing about truth itself, Austin defended a traditional 'cor- respondence' view(see 'Truth' in Austin 1961), though his followers, notably P. F. Strawson, sought to apply a performative analysis even to utterances like That statement is true'. Austin came to see that the performative/constative distinction was not as hard-
and-fast as he first believed and that statements too could bejudged for their 'felicity' as well as their truth. Thus was speech act theory born.
Austin now introduced a threefold distinction: between a locutionary act (the act o/saying something, with a particular sense and reference), an illocutionary act (an act—such as promising, stating, asking a ques- tion, ordering—performed in saying something), and a perlocutionary act (an act—such as convincing or advising—performed by saying something). These are not exclusive categories; indeed many utterances will involve all three classes of acts. Austin held that an illocutionary act is essentially conventional, while a perlocutionary act is causal. Unfortunately, Austin left his theory largely unrefined, due to his early death, though he did attempt a rudimentary taxonomy for illocutionary acts. J. R. Searle, who had studied under Austin, developed the theory in his influential Speech Acts (1969), though he was critical of several aspects of Austin's pioneering work, particularly the distinction between locutionary and illocutionary acts. Since then speech act theory has become a central component not only in pragmatics but also in argumentation theory, in literary criticism, and many other disciplines.
See also: Ordinary Language Philosophy; Speech Act Theory: Overview.
Bibliography
Austin J L 1961 In: Urmson J O, Warnock G J (eds.) Philo- sophical Papers. Clarendon Press, Oxford
Austin J L 1962 Sense and Sensibilia. Clarendon Press, Oxford
Austin J L 1962 In: Urmson J O (ed.) How To Do Things With Words. Clarendon Press, Oxford
Fann K T (ed.) 1969 Symposium on J L Austin. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London
Searle J R 1969 Speech Acts. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Warnock G J 1989 J L Austin. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London
b) 20th Century
Austin, J. L. P. V. Lamarque
Austin, J. L.
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