How To Do Things With Words (Oxford Paperbacks): The William James Lectures delivered in Harvard University in 1955 - Softcover

Austin, J. L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 019281205X ISBN 13: 9780192812056

Publisher: Oxford Higher Education, 1973

This work sets out Austin's conclusions in the field to which he directed his main efforts for at least the last ten years of his life. Starting from an exhaustive examination of his already well-known distinction between performative utterances and statements, Austin here finally abandons that distinction, replacing it with a more general theory of 'illocutionary forces' of utterances which has important bearings on a wide variety of philosophical problems.

Review:

Immensely worth reading...What is made available here is a choice work by one of the most acute and original minds that England has produced in our time...The myth that Oxford philosophers in general, and Austin in particular, do nothing but examine the details of ordinary linguistic usage should be exploded once and for all by this new book.

Austin had an extraordinarily keen ear for the subtleties of English and a remarkable sensitivity to the aptness of one expression as opposed to another in a given linguistic situation. To read him is not only a pleasure; it is also to learn much about English and to gain a new respect for its proper use.

About the Author:

J. L. Austin is at University of Oxford.

• Publisher: Oxford Higher Education
• Publication date: 1973
• ISBN 10: 019281205X
• ISBN 13: 9780192812056
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 198