Philosophers in Depth

Philosophers in Depth Series Editor: Constantine Sandis Philosophers in Depth is a series of themed edited collections focusing on partic- ular aspects of the thought of major figures from the history of philosophy. The volumes showcase a combination of newly commissioned and previously published work with the aim of deepening our understanding of the topics covered. Each book stands alone, but taken together the series will amount to a vast collection of critical essays covering the history of philosophy, exploring issues that are central to the ideas of individual philosophers. This project was launched with the financial support of the Institute for Historical and Cultural Research at Oxford Brookes University, for which we are very grateful. Titles include : Alison Denham ( editor ) PLATO ON ART AND BEAUTY Edward Feser ( editor ) ARISTOTLE ON METHOD AND METAPHYSICS Brian Garvey ( editor ) J.L. AUSTIN ON LANGUAGE Philip Goff ( editor ) SPINOZA ON MONISM Leonard Kahn ( editor ) MILL ON JUSTICE Arto Laitinen and Constantine Sandis ( editors ) HEGEL ON ACTION Katherine Morris ( editor ) SARTRE ON THE BODY Charles R. Pigden ( editor ) HUME ON MOTIVATION AND VIRTUE Sabine Roeser ( editor ) REID ON ETHICS Henrik Rydenfelt and Sami Pihlström ( editors ) WILLIAM JAMES ON RELIGION Daniel Whiting ( editor ) THE LATER WITTGENSTEIN ON LANGUAGE Forthcoming titles : Alix Cohen ( editor ) KANT ON EMOTION AND VALUE Pierre Destree ( editor ) ARISTOTLE ON AESTHETICS David Dolby ( editor ) RYLE ON MIND AND LANGUAGE Christopher Pulman ( editor ) HART ON RESPONSIBILITY Bernhard Weiss ( editor ) DUMMETT ON ANALYTICAL PHILOSOPHY Also by Brian Garvey PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY Philosophers in Depth Series Standing Order ISBN 978–0–230–55411–5 Hardback 978–0–230–55412–2 Paperback ( outside North America only ) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and one of the ISBNs quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England J.L. Austin on Language Edited by Brian Garvey Lancaster University, UK Selection, introduction and editorial matter © Brian Garvey 2014 Chapters © Individual authors 2014 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-32998-1 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-46078-6 ISBN 978-1-137-32999-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137329998 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Contents Acknowledgements vii List of Contributors viii Introduction ix Brian Garvey Remembering J.L. Austin xxi Ann Lendrum 1 Recollections of J.L. Austin 1 John R. Searle Part I Speech-Act Theory 2 Austin on Language and Action 13 Marina Sbisà 3 When Words Do Things: Perlocutions and Social Affordances 32 Charles Lassiter 4 Etiolations 50 Joe Friggieri 5 How to Do Things without Words 70 Tom Grimwood and Paul K. Miller Part II Ordinary Language and Philosophical Method 6 Austin’s Method 89 Hanno Birken-Bertsch 7 Getting the Philosopher Out of the Armchair: J.L. Austin’s Response to Logical Positivism in Comparison to That of Arne Naess 108 Siobhan Chapman 8 Verbal Fallacies and Philosophical Intuitions: The Continuing Relevance of Ordinary Language Analysis 124 Eugen Fischer v vi Contents 9 Sense and Sensibilia and the Significance of Linguistic Phenomenology 141 Roberta Locatelli Part III Language, Perception and Mind 10 Austin on the Philosophy of Perception 161 Paul F. Snowdon 11 Austin on Conceptual Polarity and Sensation Deception Metaphors 177 Dale Jacquette 12 The Importance of Intentions in Introspection 197 Kevin Reuter 13 Ordinary Language and the Nature of Emotions and Motives 212 Harry Lesser References 227 Index 239 Acknowledgements This book grew out of the J.L. Austin Centenary Conference that was held at Lancaster University in April 2011. That conference would not have been possible without the generous support of the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster, and without the help of John O’Neill and Sarah Hitchen. Sarah also transcribed the talk by John R. Searle to make the chapter in the present volume and helped me with the Austin quotations in the Introduction. I thank Constantine Sandis for help and advice in preparing the initial book proposal for submission to Palgrave Macmillan, and Brendan George for helping to see the manu- script through to final submission. Austin’s sister Ann Lendrum and his daughters Fanny Mitchell and Lucy Nusseibeh have been supportive of the project from the beginning. I also thank Mark Rowe and Tim Austin for carefully fact-checking the biographical details in Ann Lendrum’s contribution. vii List of Contributors Hanno Birken-Bertsch is an independent scholar, previously at the Universities of Jena and Magdeburg. Siobhan Chapman is Professor of English at the University of Liverpool. Eugen Fischer is a senior lecturer in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia. Joe Friggieri is Professor of Philosophy and Pro-Rector at the University of Malta. Brian Garvey is a lecturer in Philosophy at Lancaster University. Tom Grimwood is a senior lecturer in the faculty of Health and Science at the University of Cumbria. Dale Jacquette is Senior Professorial Chair in Logic and Theoretical Philosophy at Universität Bern, Switzerland. Charles Lassiter is a visiting lecturer at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, USA. Harry Lesser is an honorary research fellow and former Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Manchester. Roberta Locatelli is a PhD candidate in Philosophy at the University of Warwick and the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne (joint supervision). Paul Miller is a senior lecturer in Social Psychology, and executive consultant for the Health and Social Care Evaluation Unit, within the faculty of Health and Science at the University of Cumbria. Kevin Reuter is a postdoctoral fellow in the Philosophy Department of the Ruhr University in Bochum. Marina Sbisà is Professor of Philosophy of Language at the Department of Humanities of the University of Trieste. John R. Searle is the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. Paul F. Snowdon is Grote Professor of Mind and Logic at University College London. viii Introduction Brian Garvey Language is at the heart of all of J.L. Austin’s philosophical work, being both a subject of inquiry for him, and a methodological tool of central importance. He was one of the leading figures of the Oxford school of philosophers of the mid-twentieth century, who put the investigation of language in all its various uses at the centre of their philosophical inquiries. Like his contemporary Wittgenstein at Cambridge, Austin challenged the widespread assumption that asserting propositions was the core function of language, and investigated in depth the many other things that people are doing when they use words. In the Philosophical Investigations , Wittgenstein argued that superficial similarities in the form of sentences make philosophers blind to the variety of different things that sentences are used to do: It is like looking into the cabin of a locomotive. We see handles all looking more or less alike. (Naturally, since they are all supposed to be handled.) But one is the handle of a crank which can be moved continuously (it regulates the opening of a valve); another is the handle of a switch, which has only two effective positions, it is either off or on; a third is the handle of a brake-lever, the harder one pulls on it, the harder it brakes; a fourth, the handle of a pump: it has an effect only so long as it is moved to and fro. (Wittgenstein 1953: §12) Austin, though wary of Wittgenstein – as John R. Searle tells us in his contribution to the present volume – had a similar insight, which he developed in How to Do Things with Words and elsewhere. What they both emphasized was the sheer variety of ways that words are used and how that boded ill for any prospect of a unitary account of those properties of sentences, ‘truth’, ‘meaning’, and so forth. For both, it makes no sense to ask what – for example – ‘meanings’ are in general . Wittgenstein’s lever-metaphor makes clear his aversion to this kind of quest for general accounts, and Austin expresses a similar aversion in his paper ‘The Meaning of a Word’: Suppose that I ask: ‘What is the point of doing so-and-so?’ For example, I ask Old Father William ‘What is the point of standing on ix x Introduction one’s head?’ He replies in the way we know.

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