John Langshaw Austin (1911–1960) was White’s Professor ofMoral Philosophy at the University of Oxford. He made a number ofcontributions in various areas of philosophy, including important workon knowledge, perception, action, freedom, truth, language, and theuse of language in speech acts. Distinctions that Austin draws in hiswork on speech acts—in particular his distinction betweenlocutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts—have assumedsomething like canonical status in more recent work. His work onknowledge and perception places him in a broad tradition of“Oxford Realism”, running from Cook Wilson and HaroldArthur Prichard through to J.M. Hinton, M.G.F. Martin, John McDowell,Paul Snowdon, Charles Travis, and Timothy Williamson. His work ontruth has played an important role in recent discussions of the extentto which sentence meaning can be accounted for in terms oftruth-conditions.

• 1. Life and Work
• 2. Language and Truth
  • 2.1 Language and Philosophy
  • 2.2 Language and Truth
  • 2.3 Speech Acts and Truth
• 3. Knowledge and Perception
  • 3.1 Knowledge
  • 3.2 Sensory perception
• 4. Action and Freedom
  • 4.1 Actions and Excuses
  • 4.2 Freedom and Ability
• Bibliography
  • Primary Literature
  • Secondary Literature
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Life and Work

Austin was born in Lancaster, England 26 March 1911 to GeoffreyLangshaw Austin and his wife Mary Austin (née Bowes-Wilson).The family moved to Scotland in 1922, where Austin’s father wasSecretary of St. Leonard’s School, St. Andrews.

Austin took up a scholarship in Classics at Shrewsbury School in 1924,and, in 1929, went on to study Classics at Balliol College, Oxford. In1933, he received a First in Literae Humaniores (Classics andPhilosophy) in 1933 and was elected to a Fellowship at All SoulsCollege, Oxford. He undertook his first teaching position in 1935, asfellow and tutor at Magdalen College, Oxford.

Austin’s early interests included Aristotle, Kant, Leibniz, andPlato (especiallyTheaetetus). His more contemporaryinfluences included especially G.E. Moore, John Cook Wilson, and H.A.Prichard. (Austin attended Prichard’s undergraduate lectureswith such vigour that Prichard is reported to have made anunsuccessful attempt to exclude him.) It’s plausible that someaspects of Austin’s distinctive approach to philosophicalquestions derived from his engagement with the last three. All threephilosophers shaped their views about general philosophical questionson the basis of careful attention to the more specific judgments wemake. And they took our specific judgments (for instance, inMoore’s case, “I know that I have hands”) to be, ingeneral, more secure than more general judgments (for instance, againin Moore’s case, “I know things about externalreality”). Moreover, there are some continuities of doctrine,especially with Cook Wilson and Prichard, which align Austin with an“Oxford Realist” school of philosophy. The core componentsof the latter view are, first, that perception and knowledge areprimitive forms of apprehension and, second, that what we apprehendare ordinary elements of our environments that are independent of ourapprehending them. (All three thinkers were at one or another timecommitted to versions of both components of the position but forcomplex reasons sometimes wavered about the second. See e.g., Travisand Kalderon 2013.) Plausible cases can be made for two furtherinfluences on Austin’s early philosophical development, C. I.Lewis and Ludwig Wittgenstein. (On the former, see Rowe 2023:118–119 and Misak 2025. On the latter, see Harris andUnnsteinsson 2018.)

During the Second World War, Austin served in the British IntelligenceCorps. It has been said of him that, “he more than anybody wasresponsible for the life-saving accuracy of the D-Dayintelligence” (reported in Warnock 1963: 9). Austin left thearmy in September 1945 with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He washonoured for his intelligence work with an Order of the BritishEmpire, the French Croix de Guerre, and the U.S. Officer of the Legionof Merit. (For a very detailed account of Austin’s militaryservice, see Rowe 2023: 153–383.)

Austin married Jean Coutts in 1941. They had four children, two girlsand two boys.

After the War, Austin returned to Oxford. He became White’sProfessor of Moral Philosophy in 1952. In the same year, he took onthe role of delegate to Oxford University Press, becoming Chairman ofthe Finance Committee in 1957. His other administrative work for theUniversity included the role of Junior Proctor (1949–50), andChairman of the Sub-Faculty of Philosophy (1953–55). He waspresident of the Aristotelian Society 1956–57. He gave theWilliam James Lectures in Harvard in 1955 (a version of the lectureswas published asHow to Do Things With Words – see1962b in the Bibliography). He invented the card game CASE in1951.

During this period, Austin edited H.W.B. JosephLectures on thePhilosophy of Leibniz (1949) and produced a translation ofGottlob Frege’sGrundlagen der Arithmetik, so that itcould be set as an exam (1950). Austin wrote little and publishedless. Much of his influence was through teaching and other forms ofsmall-scale engagement with philosophers. (The excellence ofAustin’s teaching of Aristotle is reflected in a detailed set oflecture notes, some of which have been edited and published, withcommentary, by A. W. Price (Price 2018).) He also instituted a seriesof “Saturday Morning” discussion sessions, which involveddetailed discussions of a number of philosophical topics and works,including Aristotle’sNicomachean Ethics, Frege’sGrundlagen, Ludwig Wittgenstein’sPhilosophicalInvestigations, Merleau-Ponty’sPhenomenology ofPerception, and Noam Chomsky’sSyntacticStructures.

Austin died in Oxford on 8 February 1960.

(For more detail about Austin’s life, work, and influences seeespecially the comprehensive biography in Rowe 2023. See also Ayer1978; Baldwin 2010; Berlin 1973b; Dancy 2010; Garvey 2014; Gustaffson2011; Hacker 2004; Hampshire 1960; Travis and Kalderon 2013; Marion2000a,b, 2009; Misak 2025; Passmore 1957; Pears 1962; Pitcher 1973;Searle 2014; Urmson and Warnock 1961; Urmson 1967; Warnock 1963,1973a; Warnock 1989: 1–10.)

2. Language and Truth

2.1 Language and Philosophy

In this section, we’ll look at Austin’s views about therole of the study of language in philosophy more generally. It iscommon to count Austin as an “Ordinary LanguagePhilosopher”, along with, for example, Gilbert Ryle, P.F.Strawson, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. However, although each of thesethinkers was sometimes concerned, in one or another way, with our useof ordinary language, it is far from clear what in addition to thatthe label is supposed to entail. And it is equally unclear that thevarious thinkers so-labelled deserve to be grouped together.

Austin cared about language for two main reasons. First, language useis a central part of human activity, so it’s an important topicin its own right. Second, the study of language is anaide—indeed, for some topics, an important preliminary—tothe pursuit of philosophical topics. Many of Austin’s mostdistinctive reflections on the use of language arise in the course ofdiscussion of other topics (see especially his “A Plea forExcuses” 1957).

One route to understanding Austin’s general approach tophilosophy is provided by reflection on the following comment byStuart Hampshire:

[Austin] was constitutionally unable to refrain from applying the samestandards of truth and accuracy to a philosophical argument, sentenceby sentence, as he would have applied to any other serioussubject-matter. He could not have adopted a special tone of voice, orattitude of mind, for philosophical questions. (Hampshire 1960:34)

In short, it mattered to Austin that, in attempting to make outpositions and arguments, philosophers should meet ordinary standardsof truth, accuracy, and so forth. On the one hand, this presented ageneral challenge to philosophers, a challenge that they might easilyfail to meet. The challenge is either to make use of an ordinaryvocabulary, or ordinary concepts, in order to make claims or judgmentsthat are, according to ordinary standards, at least true (or accurate,etc.); or to do the serious work required to set up an appropriatetechnical vocabulary and then use it to say things that are byappropriate standards true (accurate, etc.). On the other hand, itprovided Austin with what he took to be a reasonably secure approachto general philosophical questions: first, find a connection betweenthose general philosophical questions and the more specific claims orjudgments that we ordinarily make and take ourselves to be secure inmaking; second, make sufficiently many of the relevant claims orjudgments, in a sufficient variety of circumstances, in order toaddress the general philosophical questions.

Austin held that, in their hurry to address general philosophicalquestions, philosophers have a tendency to ignore the nuances involvedin making and assessing ordinary claims and judgments. Among the risksassociated with insensitivity to the nuances, two stand out. First,philosophers are liable to miss distinctions that are made in ourordinary use of language and that are relevant to our concerns andclaims. Second, failure to exploit fully the resources of ordinarylanguage can make philosophers susceptible to seemingly forced choicesbetween unacceptable alternatives. Here Austin warns:

It is worth bearing in mind…the general rule that we must notexpect to find simple labels for complicated cases…howeverwell-equipped our language, it can never be forearmed against allpossible cases that may arise and call for description: fact is richerthan diction. (1957: 195)

On Austin’s view, language is likely to be well designed for theends to which it is ordinarily put. But special, or especiallycomplicated, cases may require special treatment. This is apt to be anespecial liability when it comes to the question whether a sentencecan be used in a particular circumstance to state something true orfalse:

We say, for example, that a certain statement is exaggerated or vagueor bold, a description somewhat rough or misleading or not very good,an account rather general or too concise. In cases like these it ispointless to insist on deciding in simple terms whether the statementis “true or false”. Is it true or false that Belfast isnorth of London? That the galaxy is the shape of a fried egg? ThatBeethoven was a drunkard? That Wellington won the battle of Waterloo?There are variousdegrees and dimensions of success in makingstatements: the statements fit the facts always more or less loosely,in different ways on different occasions for different intents andpurposes. (1950a: 129–130)

Austin makes two points here. First, when faced with a putative choiceof this sort, we should not insist on decidingin simpleterms whether a statement is true or false (or whether anexpression applies or fails to apply to something). Some cases arecomplicated, and, in some of those cases, we are capable of meetingsome of the complications by saying more: “Well, it is true thatBelfast is north of London if you understand that claim in thefollowing way….” Second, the complications can takedifferent forms, and can matter in different ways, on differentoccasions. Given the prior course of our conversation, and ourspecific intents and purposes in discussing the issue, it might bemanifest that, on that particular occasion, we willunderstand the complications, without a need for theirarticulation, so that the following is fine as it stands: “Yes,it is true that Belfast is north of London.”

Austin’s summarised his view of the role of attention toordinary language in philosophy thus:

First, words are our tools, and, as a minimum, we should use cleantools: we should know what we mean and what we do not, and we mustforearm ourselves against the traps that language sets us. Secondly,words are not (except in their own little corner) facts or things: weneed therefore to prise them off the world, to hold them apart fromand against it, so that we can realize their inadequacies andarbitrariness, and can re-look at the world without blinkers. Thirdly,and more hopefully, our common stock of words embodies all thedistinctions men have found worth drawing, and the connexions theyhave found worth making, in the lifetimes of many generations: thesesurely are likely to be more sound, since they have stood up to thelong test of the survival of the fittest, and more subtle, at least inall ordinary and reasonably practical matters, than any that you or Iare likely to think up in our arm-chairs of an afternoon—themost favoured alternative method. (1957: 181–182)^[1]

Austin holds, then, that an important preliminary to philosophising onat least some topics—for instance, where the topic is“ordinary and reasonably practical”—would be thedetailed study of the language we use to speak on that topic, and ofthe way that we use it.

Austin didn’t think that the investigation of language was morethan a preliminary to theorising, either in philosophy or science. Hewasn’t averse to theory construction, even if its outcome werepotentially revisionary (see e.g., 1957: 189). His concern was onlythat such theorising should be properly grounded, and that it shouldnot be driven, for example, by an initial failure to keep track ofdistinctions that we mark in our ordinary use of language. Further,Austin draws an important distinction between “words and factsor things,” and he seems to suggest that we have ways ofinvestigating the world—that is, facts and things—whichcan bypass the “blinkers” sometimes imposed on us by ourwords. We’ll return to Austin’s distinction between theworld, including facts—which Austin thinks of as particular orconcrete—and words, including the statements we make in usingwords, insection 2.2. And we’ll return to Austin’s idea that we can haveunblinkered awareness of the world—unblinkered, that is, by thelinguistic or judgmental capacities that we bring to bear on what weexperience—insection 3.1.

It’s fair to say that Austin’s work has been caught up inthe stampede away from broadly ordinary language-based approaches tophilosophical questions. The work of Paul Grice, collected in hisStudies in the Way of Words (1989), has played an importantrole in the negative assessment of such approaches, including aspectsof Austin’s work. One central idea in Grice’s work is thatthe ways in which we use language—crudely, the pairings ofsituations and sentences that we find appropriate or inappropriate, orwhat we would or wouldn’t say in those situations—is not asimple function of the nature of the respective situations and thecorrectness conditions with which the sentences are associated.Rather, judgments about appropriateness are driven also by, forexample, our sensitivities to the demands of rational co-operationwith our conversational partners. And it has been thought that, in oneor another way, ordinary language philosophers, including Austin, havebeen insensitive to the additional parameters to which judgments ofappropriateness are beholden (for early attacks of this sort, see Ayer1967 and Searle 1966). It is beyond the scope of this entry to attemptto assess either the extent to which Austin should really be seen as atarget of such objections or, if he should, whether they demonstrateweaknesses in his work. However, in pursuing any such assessment, itis important to note that Austin’s exploitation of ordinarylanguage is never driven by simple appeal to whether, in a situationconsidered as a whole, we would take it to be simply appropriate orinappropriate to use some sentence or other. Rather, Austinis—as we are—sensitive to more fine-grained appraisals ofuses of bits of language and, when he judges that an utterance on anoccasion would be false or nonsensical, he intends that judgment tocontrast with less damaging negative appraisals—for example,about what it would be merely inappropriate or impolite to say.Moreover, Austin is sensitive to the specific features of situationsupon which we base one or another more fine-grained appraisal of usesof sentences. As he stresses, “It takes two to make atruth” (1950a: 124 fn.1). And Austin is sensitive to the detailsof both participants in that and other forms of transaction betweenword and world.^[2]

(For discussion of Austin’s approach to philosophical questions,with reference to his classification as an ordinary languagephilosopher, see Berlin 1973b; Cavell 1965; Garvey 2014; Grice 1989:3–21; Gustafsson 2011; Hampshire 1960, 1965; Harris andUnnsteinsson 2018; Kaplan 2018: 1–39; Longworth 2018a; Marion2009; Martin ms (Other Internet Resources); Misak 2025; Pears 1962;Pitcher 1973; Putnam 1994; Quine 1965; Reimer 2018; Sbisà 2024:285–355; Searle 1966; Soames 2003: 171–219; Travis 1991;Urmson 1965, 1967; Urmson and Warnock 1961; Warnock 1973a, 1989:2–10; White 1967.)

2.2 Language and Truth

The topic of this section is Austin’s views about truth.Austin’s views about truth are scattered throughout his work,but his most explicit discussion of the topic is in the paper“Truth” (1950a) (see also 1953, 1954ms, 1956b, 1962b,1962c). Amongst the distinctive claims Austin makes about truth arethe following:

(1)

The predicate “is true” has a descriptive function: itserves to characterize the obtaining of a relation betweenstatements andfacts (1950a: 117–121).

(2)

Thefacts that figure in determining whether or not astatement is true areparticulars, for example, things,features, events, and states of affairs (1950a: 121–124; 1954ms:passim).

(3)

The relation between statements and facts that underwrites thetruth or falsity of statements is itself underwritten by relationsbetween sentences and types of fact, and between episodes of statingand particular facts (1950a: 121–133).

(4)

Human judgment is involved in determining whether a particularfact makes true a statement. And judgment is involved in a way that issensitive to the intents and purposes with which a statement is made.For that reason, truth is not a simple relation between types ofsentences (given their meanings) and particular facts. A pair ofstatements made using the same sentence with respect to the same factsbut on different occasions—given different intents andpurposes—might differ in truth-value (1950a: 122 fn2; 1962a:40–41, 62–77, 110–111; 1962b: 142–147).^[3]

(5)

Despite (1), Austin appears to endorse a form ofdeflationism about truth—a view on which truth is athin or non-explanatory notion. According to this form ofdeflationism, saying that a statement is true is just a way of sayingthat the statement has one or another of a range of more specificpositive qualities—for example, that it is satisfactory,correct, fair, etc. (1950a: 130; 1956b: 250–251; 1957:180).

Let’s start with (1)–(3). Austin 1950a is ostensiblyresponding to a proposal in Strawson 1949 according to which thefunction of the predicate “is true” is to facilitate theperformance of acts of affirmation or agreement, and not to describethings—e.g., statements—as possessing the property oftruth. For short, Strawson claimed that “is true” has aperformative rather than adescriptive function. Andhe accused his opponents of committing thedescriptivefallacy: the alleged fallacy of treating expressions, or aspectsof the use of expressions, that really serve performative purposes ashaving (only) a descriptive purpose.^[4] One of Austin’s aims was to defend the view that the predicate“is true” has a descriptive function (perhaps in additionto its having one or more performative functions). In pursuing thataim, Austin also made a number of distinctive proposals about thedescriptive function of the truth predicate.^[5]

Let’s turn, then, to the core of Austin’s account oftruth. Austin presents his account of truth as an account of truth forstatements. However, “statement” is at least twoways ambiguous, covering both historical episodes in which somethingis stated—what I’ll refer to asstatings—and also the things or propositions that arestated therein—which I’ll refer to aswhat isstated. Austin isn’t especially careful about thedistinction, but it’s possible to reconstruct much of what hesays in a way that respects it (for discussion of the distinction seee.g., Cartwright 1962).

Austin’s primary interest appears to be the truth ofstatings. He writes of “statement” that it has“the merit of clearly referring to the historic use of asentence by an utterer” (1950a: 121). However, statings are notordinarily said to be true or false, except derivatively insofar aswhat is stated in them is true or false. Rather, statings are assessedas, for example, correct or incorrect, appropriate or inappropriate,and so forth. However, it is plausible that stating correctly isclosely associated with making a statement that is true. AndAustin’s account can be understood as an account of theconditions in which statings are such that what is stated in them is true.^[6]

Austin presents the core of his account of truth in the followingway:

When is a statement true? The temptation is to answer (at least if weconfine ourselves to “straightforward” statements):“When it corresponds to the facts”. And as a piece ofstandard English this can hardly be wrong. Indeed, I must confess I donot really think it is wrong at all: the theory of truth is a seriesof truisms. Still, it can at least be misleading. (1950a: 121)

The two obvious sources of potential misdirection in the formula thatAustin endorses here are its appeal tocorrespondence and itsappeal tofacts.^[7] Austin attempts to prevent our being misled by explaining how thosetwo appeals ought to be understood. Austin’s focus in his“Truth” (1950a) is mainly on the nature of correspondence.He deals more fully with facts in his “Unfair to Facts”(1954ms).

In giving an account of correspondence, Austin makes appeal to twotypes of (what he calls)conventions (as per (3) above):^[8]

• Descriptive conventions. These correlatesentences withtypes of situation, thing, event,etc., in the world.
• Demonstrative conventions. These correlatestatements (statings) withhistoric(particular, concrete) situations, things, events, etc., in the world.(1950a: 121–122)^[9]

Thedescriptive conventions associate sentences with (typesof) ways for things to be: ways for situations, things, events, etc.to be. For instance, the sentence “The cat is on the mat”is associated with a type of way for things to be in which the cat ison the mat. A variety of different historic situations might be ofthat type. For instance, one historic situation of that type mightinvolve Logos (Derrida’s cat), while a different historicsituation of the same type might involve Nothing (Sartre’s cat).Similarly, cat-mat pairings that took place at different times wouldbe different historic situations or events and yet might be of thesame type.

Thedemonstrative conventions, by contrast, associateparticular statings—themselves historic events—with someamongst the accessible historic situations, things, events, etc.Consider, for example, the following simplified case. There are twoaccessible situations, one of which is of the cat-on-mat type and oneof which is of the dog-on-linoleum type. The descriptive conventionsgoverning the English sentence “The cat is on the mat” donot, and cannot, determine which of the two accessible situations aspeaker aims to talk about on a particular occasion. In order toachieve that, the speaker must find a way of making manifest thattheir goal is to select, say, the dog-on-linoleum situation. Theymight achieve this by, for example, their use on a particular occasionof the present tense, or by pointing, etc. (1950a: 121–126).^[10]

With this machinery in place, Austin continues:

A statement is said to be true when the historic state of affairs [ore.g., situation, thing, event] to which it is correlated by thedemonstrative conventions (the one to which it “refers”)is of a type [footnote omitted] with which the sentence used in makingit is correlated by the descriptive conventions. (1950a: 122)

What does “is of a type with which” mean? Austin expandson his account in the omitted footnote:

“Is of a type with which” means “is sufficientlylike those standard states of affairs with which”. Thus, for astatement to be true one state of affairs must belikecertain others, which is a natural relation, but alsosufficiently like to merit the same“description”, which is no longer a purely naturalrelation. To say “This is red” is not the same as to say“This is like those”, nor even as to say “This islike those which were called red”. That things aresimilar, or even “exactly” similar, I mayliterally see, but that they are thesame I cannot literallysee—in calling them the same colour a convention is involvedadditional to the conventional choice of the name to be given to thecolour which they are said to be. (1950a: 122 fn.2)

The English sentence “This is red” is correlated by thedescriptive conventions with a type of way for things to be: a typeinstanced by all and only those historic situations or states ofaffairs in which a selected thing is red. According to Austin, astating by use of that sentence would be correct if the thing selectedin the stating via the demonstrative conventions were sufficientlylike standard situations or states of affairs in which a selectedthing is red. So, we rely on the existence of a range of standardinstances that are assumed to be of the required type. We can see thatthe thing selected in this stating, via the demonstrative conventions,is now in various ways similar and dissimilar from those standardinstances. The question we need to answer is this: Is this thing ofthesame type as the standard instances with respect to itscolour? That is, is it the same colour as they are? According toAustin, we cannot answer that question simply by looking. In an atleast attenuated sense we must make a decision as to whether thepresent instance is, in relevant respects,sufficientlysimilar to the standard instances as to mandate treating it as of thevery same type.^[11]

Notice that, on Austin’s view, states of affairs (etc.) do notper se mandate that they belong to one or another type. Tothat extent, they do not alone determine which propositionalstatements are true of them. The things to which true statingscorrespond, then, are (in at least that sense)particulars (see (2) above). The things to which statings correspond, then, appear to be quitedifferent fromfacts as the latter are commonly understood byphilosophers. For facts are often thought of asproposition-like—as exhaustively captured by instances of theform “The fact thatp”. And it seems thatelements of that type would mandate the correctness of one or anotherclassification. Austin’s views about facts are developed a bitmore fully in his “Unfair to Facts” (1954ms). There Austinmakes clear, first, that he uses “facts”, withetymological precedent, to speak of particulars. Second, Austinsketches a view of propositional fact talk on which it is used as away of indirectly denoting particulars as the elements that make thespecified propositions true. However, Austin’s basic account oftruth can for the most part be detached from his views about facts and fact-talk.^[12]

The role for human judgment or decision in mediating theclassification of particulars leaves open that their correctclassification as to type might vary depending on specific features ofthe occasion for so classifying them (see (4) above). It may be, for example, that for certain purposes an historic stateof affairs involving a rose is sufficiently like standard situationsinvolving red things as to warrant sameness of classification, whilefor different purposes its likeness is outweighed by itsdissimilarities from the standard cases. Moreover, what are counted asstandard cases may vary with the purposes operative in attempting toclassify, and may shift as new cases come to be counted as of aspecific type.^[13]

The precise ways in which our statings depend for their correctness orincorrectness on the facts can vary with variation in specificfeatures of the occasion, in particular with variation in the intentsand purposes of conversational participants. As Austin puts it,

It seems to be fairly generally realized nowadays that, if you justtake a bunch of sentences…impeccably formulated in somelanguage or other, there can be no question of sorting them out intothose that are true and those that are false; for (leaving out ofaccount so-called “analytic” sentences) the question oftruth and falsehood does not turn only on what a sentenceis,nor yet on what itmeans, but on, speaking very broadly, thecircumstances in which it is uttered. Sentencesas such arenot either true or false. (1962a: 110–111. See also 40–41,65)

And the circumstances can matter in a variety of ways, not simply bysupplying, or failing to supply, an appropriate array of facts:

…in the case of stating truly or falsely, just as in the caseof advising well or badly, the intents and purposes of the utteranceand its context are important; what is judged true in a school bookmay not be so judged in a work of historical research. Consider… “Lord Raglan won the battle of Alma”, rememberingthat Alma was a soldier’s battle if ever there was one and thatLord Raglan’s orders were never transmitted to some of hissubordinates. Did Lord Raglan then win the battle of Alma or did henot? Of course in some contexts, perhaps in a school book, it isperfectly justifiable to say so—it is something of anexaggeration, maybe, and there would be no question of giving Raglan amedal for it…“Lord Raglan won the battle of Alma”is exaggerated and suitable to some contexts and not to others; itwould be pointless to insist on its [i.e., thesentence’s] truth or falsehood. (1962b: 143–144,interpolation added)

It’s important here to separate two questions. First, is thesentence “Lord Raglan won the battle of Alma”true? Second, iswhat is stated in using that sentence on aparticular occasion, true? In order for the first question to get anaffirmative answer,every use of the sentence would have tobe—or issue in a statement that is—true.^[14] But although the sentence can be used in a schoolbook to make astatement that is true, it might also be used in a work of historicalresearch, or in support of Raglan’s decoration, in making afalse statement. Hence, the sentence doesn’t take the sametruth-value onevery occasion: the sentenceper seis neither true nor false. By contrast, there is no reason to denythat the things that are stated in using the sentence on occasions aretrue: in particular, there is no reason to deny that what is stated bythe schoolbook occurrence of the sentence is true. So, the secondquestion can be given an affirmative answer, as long as we are willingto allow that a sentence can be used to make different statements ondifferent occasions (see also Austin’s discussion of“real” inSense and Sensibilia (1962a:62–77) for an array of relevant examples).

We should avoid a possible misunderstanding of Austin here. Hisargument shows, at most, that whatever combines with the facts todetermine a particular truth-value varies from occasion to occasion.That does nothing to dislodge the natural view that a sentence cancarry itsmeaning with it from occasion to occasion, and thuspossess a literal meaning. However, if we wish to retain that idea, wemust give up on the idea that sentence meaning simply combines withthe facts that are being spoken about to determine truth-value: wemust reject the idea that sentence meanings determinetruth-conditions. Plausibly, we should also give up the idea thatmeaning alone determines what is stated (at least insofar as thelatter determines truth-conditions). In taking this line, we wouldreject views of meaning according to which it is given by appeal to truth-conditions.^[15]

Austin’s account gives rise to the possibility of utterances inwhich no truth-evaluable statement is produced:

Suppose that we confront “France is hexagonal” with thefacts, in this case, I suppose, with France, is it true or false?Well, if you like, up to a point; of course I can see what you mean bysaying that it is true for certain intents and purposes. It is goodenough for a top-ranking general, perhaps, but not for ageographer… How can one answer this question, whether it istrue or false that France is hexagonal? It is just rough, and that isthe right and final answer to the question of the relation of“France is hexagonal” to France. It is a roughdescription; it is not a true or a false one. (1962b: 143)

What Austin characterises in his final denial is thesentence“France is hexagonal”, in relation to France. Heneedn’t, and doesn’t, deny that on occasion, forparticular intents and purposes, one might use the sentence tostate a truth. However, he suggests that, in some cases, thecircumstances of utterance may be such that no truth-evaluablestatement is made by the use of a sentence.

Suppose, for example, that someone uttered “France ishexagonal” out of the blue, without making manifest any intentsand purposes. In that case, there would be nothing to go on, inseeking to establish whether the utterance was true or false, otherthan the words used, given their meanings. But those words might havebeen used to make a variety of statements, statements whose truth orfalsehood depends on the facts in a variety of ways. Hence, unless weare willing to allow that the utterance is both true and false, weshould withhold that mode of assessment: although such an utterancewould involve a perfectlymeaningful sentence, it would failto be either true or false. Austin thought that our uses of words arealways liable to that sort of failure, especially when we are doingphilosophy. When used in cases that are out of the ordinary, or in theabsence of the background required to sustain the statement of truthsor falsehoods, words might—in that sense—fail us.

Austin makes no claims to generality for the account of truth that hesketches. However, it’s natural to wonder to what extent theaccount can naturally be extended in order to take in types ofstatement that he doesn’t explicitly attempt to bring within itspurview. Potential pressure points here include statements whoseexpression involves negation (see 1950a: 128–129, 129 fn.1),quantification (see 1962b: 144), or conditionals, and statements ofnecessary truths. The three main options open to the defender ofAustin here are the following. First, an attempt might be made tobring some cases within the purview of a natural generalization ofAustin’s account (see, for example, Warnock 1989: 56–61).Second, it might be allowed that some such cases require distinctivetreatment, but argued that they can still be connected with theaccount Austin offers as further species of the truth-genus. Third, anattempt might be made to argue that some such cases are so distinctivethat the forms of positive appraisal that are appropriate to them arenot really forms of appraisal as to truth.^[16]

Let’s turn to(5), the question of the extent to which Austin endorses a deflationaryaccount of truth. The promiscuity of the classifier“deflationist” has a tendency to render the questiondifficult to discuss in a useful way. However, we can at leastconsider some ways in which Austin might be thought to give anexplanatory role to truth, or to deny it such a role. It’s clearthat Austin wishes to reject Strawson’s very strong form ofdeflationism, according to which the function of truth is exhaustivelyperformative: saying that a statement is true amounts, precisely, toendorsing that statement oneself. Moreover, there is no sign thatAustin thinks an account can be given of the expression of statementsby statings that isn’t bound up with consideration of theconditions in which their stating would be subject to one or anotherform of positive appraisal—at the most general level,consideration of their correctness-conditions. However, Austin oftencharacterizes truth and falsity themselves as, in effect, mere labelsfor positive and negative poles, respectively, in a variety of morespecific forms of appraisal.

We become obsessed with “truth” when discussingstatements, just as we become obsessed with “freedom” whendiscussing conduct. So long as we think that what has always and aloneto be decided is whether a certain action was done freely or was not,we get nowhere: but so soon as we turn instead to the numerous otheradverbs used in the same connexion (“accidentally”,“unwillingly”, “inadvertently”, &c.),things become easier, and we come to see that no concluding inferenceof the form “Ergo, it was done freely (or not freely)” isrequired. Like freedom, truth is a bare minimum or an illusory ideal(the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about, say, thebattle of Waterloo or thePrimavera). (1950a: 130; see also1956b: 250–251, 1957: 180)

Austin’s idea here seems to be the following. There are numerousspecific forms of positive appraisal that we employ with respect tostatings: they might be fair, reasonable, accurate, precise, adequate,satisfactory and so forth. (Recall that Austin would have taken eachform of assessment to be occasion-bound: a matter, for example, ofwhat would be fair and reasonable to judge on this particularoccasion.) In saying that what is stated in a stating istrue, we are in effect saying that the stating meets the“bare minimum” condition of being susceptible to one oranother of those specific forms of positive appraisal. It’sconsistent with this type of view that our conception of the naturesof what we state, and of how our statings come to be expressions ofthose things, is bound up with our conception of the conditions inwhich our statings, and what we thereby state, are susceptible to oneor another form of positive appraisal. To that extent, it differs fromsome stronger forms of deflationism on which no truth-related mode ofpositive appraisal plays a non-derivative explanatory role. Moreover,the view can take more or less radical forms. Its most radical formtreats truth as a mere disjunction of the more specific modes ofpositive appraisal, with no uniform underlying commonality amongstthose specific modes. That view would be a distinctive form ofdeflationism about truth, since it would reject the idea that truthper se plays an essential role in explanation. Its lessradical form allows that truth might impose a uniform necessarycondition on the specific modes of positive appraisal, and therebyplay an essential role, through its government of the specific modes,in the explanation of what is stated in statings. The latter form ofview wouldn’t count as an interesting form ofdeflationism, although it might well be an interestingposition in its own right.

Austin discusses an important range of ways in which assessment as totruth can cover a variety of more fine-grained modes of appraisal inhis “How to Talk” (1953). See also the discussions of thispaper in Chisholm 1964 and Warnock 1989: 47–56.

(For discussion of Austin’s account of truth, see Barwise andEtchemendy 1987; Bennett 1966; Crary 2002; Davidson 1969; Grice 1989:3–40; Hansen 2014; Kirkham 1995: 124–140; Mates 1974;Narboux 2011; Putnam 1994; Recanati 1994: 1–5, 121–130,141–153; Sbisà 2024: 199–281; Searle 1966; Strawson1950, 1965; Travis 1991, 2005, 2008: 1–18, 2011; Warnock 1973c,1989: 45–64, 135–145, 163–4 fn.74; White 1967;C.J.F. Williams 1973.)

2.3 Speech Acts and Truth

In this section, we’ll consider some aspects of Austin’streatment of speech acts—things done with words (the mainsources here are: 1962b, 1956b, and 1963; see also 1946: 97–103,1950a: 130–133, 1953). The topics we’ll consider are thefollowing.

(1)

In his work on speech acts, Austin presents a different reason forwhy sentences, given their meanings, do not combine with the facts todetermine truth-values. The second reason is based on the fact thatany sentence can be used in performing a variety of linguistic acts.Although in stating, we typically produce statements that areassessable as true or false, in performing other linguistic acts, weneed not produce things that are assessable in that way. The secondreason depends, then, on two sub-claims: first, that whether asentence is used on an occasion to make astatement—more generally, somethingtruth-assessable—is dependent on more than just what it means;second, that some uses of sentences to perform linguistic acts otherthan the making of statements are not properly assessable as true orfalse.

(2)

Connected with (1) is Austin’s discussion of a distinctionbetweenconstative utterances—broadly, utterances of atype suitable to be appraised as to truth—andperformativeutterances—broadly, utterances that are suitable only forother forms of appraisal (1962b: 1–93).

(3)

In addition to discussing the putative constative-performativedistinction, Austin sketches a distinction amongst speech act types,betweenlocutionary acts,illocutionary acts, andperlocutionary acts—broadly, the distinction betweensaying anything at all, saying something with a specific force (e.g.,making a statement, asking a question, making a request), and thefurther effects of saying something with a specific force (e.g.,getting an audience to believe something, getting them to tell yousomething, or getting them to do what you request). The need to drawsuch a distinction is now very widely accepted and probably amounts toAustin’s central contribution to more recent work (1962b:83–164).

(4)

Austin makes some cryptic suggestions about the wider significanceof his discussion of topic (3), concerning their bearing on, forexample, what he calls “the true/false fetish” and“the value/fact fetish” (1962b: 148–164).

A topic that has figured in some recent discussions, but that wewon’t discuss here, is this:

(5)

In the course of discussing his main topics, Austin sometimesmakes use of a distinction betweenserious andnon-serious uses of language, and suggests that non-serioususes of language are derivative from serious uses. (Roughly, thedistinction is a generalisation of distinctions between genuineassertions and mock assertions in fiction or on the stage. See e.g.,Austin 1962b: 104.) Jacques Derrida challenged the standing of thedistinction and the priority that Austin seemed to accord to some ofwhat he counted as serious uses. John Searle responded to Derrida andthe issue has become a source of some attempts at engagement betweenthose sympathetic to Searle’s more “Analytic”approaches to issues in this area and those sympathetic to more“Continental” approaches. (See Derrida 1977 and Searle1977. For recent discussion of aspects of the controversy see deGaynesford 2009, A.W. Moore 2000, Richmond 1996, Ricks 1992.)

Austin presents the second reason for why sentences do not conspirewith the facts to determine truth-values in considering whether thereis a useful distinction to be drawn between (indicative) sentencesthat are used to make statements—which Austin labelsconstatives—and sentences that are useable in theperformance of some act—which Austin labelsperformatives (or sometimesperformatory) (topic (2) above).^[17] Austin’s opening list of examples of putative performativesincludes: “I take … to be my lawfully wedded…”—as uttered in the course of the marriageceremony; “I name this ship theQueenElizabeth”—as uttered when smashing a bottle againstthe stern; “I give and bequeath my watch to mybrother”—as occurring in a will; “I bet you sixpenceit will rain tomorrow” (1962b: 5). About these examples, Austinwrites:

In these examples it seems clear that to utter the sentence (in, ofcourse, the appropriate circumstances) is not todescribe mydoing of what I should be said in so uttering to be doing…[fn.Still less anything that I have already done or have yet todo.]…or to state that I am doing it. None of the utterancescited is either true or false: I assert this as obvious and do notargue it. (1962b: 6)

Austin is sometimes read as seeking to defend this view ofperformatives. However, four features of his presentation suggest thathis view is not so straightforward. First, Austin presents the issueas concerning the classification by use of utterances oftypes ofsentence, and we have already seen that he is in generalsceptical about alleged associations between sentences and theiroccasional uses. Second, Austin fails here, and elsewhere, to offerserious arguments for his assertion that none of the cited utterancesis either true or false. Third, Austin’s assertion is made usingthe apparently performative form, “I assert …”—a form that appears, moreover, to falsify thegeneralisation that performatives lack truth-values. Finally, Austinissues the following warning in a footnote, two pages earlier:“Everything said in these sections is provisional, and subjectto revision in the light of later sections” (1962b: 4 fn.1).

Austin goes on to discuss two apparently quite different modes ofassessment for utterances of the two apparently different types.Constatives, as already noted, are assessed along the dimension oftruth and falsehood. By contrast, performatives are assessed alongdimensions ofhappiness andunhappiness, orfelicity andinfelicity. Taking the example of anutterance of “I take … to be my lawfully wedded …”, and simplifying Austin’s discussion, there are two mainsorts of unhappiness, or infelicity, to which this performative isliable. First, there aremisfires:

…if we…utter the formula incorrectly, or if…weare not in a position to do the act because we are…marriedalready, or it is the purser and not the captain who is conducting theceremony, then the act in question, …marrying, is notsuccessfully performed at all, …[it] is not achieved. (1962b:15–16)

Second, there areabuses: in these cases, the act isperformed, but insincerely, perhaps for example in instituting amarriage of convenience.

It’s important to see that, even if it were true, in general,that some things done using performatives—e.g., marrying,naming, bequeathing, and betting—are neither true nor false, butrather are subject to assessment as happy or unhappy, it would notfollow that truth is out of the picture. That would depend, not onlyon the basic claim that actions of those typesper se are nottrue or false, but also on the claim that particular actions of thosetypes are not also of other types thatare assessable as trueor false. And Austin recognised that actions can be of more than onetype (or, perhaps, that distinct actions might be performedsimultaneously):

To say that I believe you ‘is’ on occasion to accept yourstatement; but it is also to make an assertion, which is not made bythe strictly performatory utterance “I accept yourstatement”. (1950a: 133)

In the examples that Austin cites, things are done that are notassessable as true or false—marrying, naming, betting, etc. Butas Austin points out, those examples might also involve other thingsbeing done—e.g., the making of statements—that are, orinvolve things that are, assessable as true or false. However, eventhough this undermines Austin’s provisional characterisation ofperformatives, the possibility that we might sometimes do more thanone thing in using a performative puts pressure on the idea that thereis a simple connection between sentences and the various things we doin using them.

I’ve suggested that Austin’s view of the putativedistinction between performatives and constatives is lessstraightforward than it might at first seem. And the structure ofAustin (1962b) bears out that assessment. Although much of the bookseems to be devoted to pursuit of a distinction between performativesand constatives, none of the attempts succeeds. It is possible, butimplausible, that in the course of the lectures Austin found that hewas unable to draw a distinction that he thought should be drawn. Amore plausible interpretation is that Austin’s purpose is not todraw such a distinction. Rather it is to argue—through thefailures of various attempts to draw the distinction—that thereis no such simple distinction—no sorting of sentences into thoseapt for performative, and those apt for constative, use.

Austin argues against the distinction by appeal to the fact that thesame forms of assessment are applicable to utterances apparently ofboth sorts:

…unhappiness…seems to characterize both kinds ofutterance, not merely the performative; and…the requirement ofconforming or bearing some relation to the facts, different indifferent cases, seems to characterize performatives… (1962b:91)

Attempts to make a statement are liable both to misfires and abuses.For example, an attempt to make a statement using “France ishexagonal” might misfire if there were no such country asFrance, or (as discussed above) if no suitable intents and purposeswere manifest (1962b: 47–52). And an attempt might be an abuseif the speaker failed to believe that France was hexagonal. Attemptsat performative utterance are liable to assessment either in terms oftruth or falsehood, or in terms similarly dependent on conformity withthe facts: my utterance of “I warn you that the bull is about tocharge” may be liable to criticism asmistaken ratherthan unhappy if the bull is not about to charge (1962b: 55). Moregenerally, it is often impossible to decide, just from the words aspeaker uses, whether their utterance is susceptible to one or anotherform of assessment. And there are cases like “I state that…” which seem to satisfy all formal and lexicalrequirements for being performative, and yet are used in utterances“…which surely are the making of statements, and surelyare essentially true or false” (1962b: 91). (Austin’sideas here also bear ontopic (4) above.)

(For discussion of Austin’s views about performative utterances,see Bach 1975; G. Bird 1981; Black 1963; Cohen 1964, 1974; Forguson1966; Heal 1974; Hornsby 1988, 2006; Jack 1981; Lemmon 1962; Lewis1972; Schiffer 1972; Sinnott-Armstrong 1994; Tsohatzidis 2018; Urmson1977; Warnock 1973b, 1989: 105–151.)

From the wreckage of the initial distinction, Austin assembles a newmodel (topic (3) above). The new model is founded on distinctions among various kinds of thingspeakers do—variousacts they perform—when theyproduce an utterance.

• The locutionary act: the production of an utterance thatcan be classified by its phonetic, grammatical, and lexicalcharacteristics, up to sentence meaning (thephatic act). Itis also the performance of an act that can be classified by itscontent (therhetic act)—a featuredistinctively of acts of speech. If I promisethat I’ll behome for dinner and then promisethat I’ll worklate, my actions are instances of two different locutionary acts:one with the content that I’ll be home for dinner, and one withthe content that I’ll work late (1962b: 94–98).
• The illocutionary act: an act classifiable not only byits content—as with the locutionary act—but also by itsforce (stating, warning, promising, etc.). If Ipromise that I’ll be home for dinner and laterstate that I’ll be home for dinner, my actions areinstances of the same locutionary act: both actions involve thecontent that I’ll be home for dinner. However, my actions areinstances of different illocutionary acts: one has the force of apromise, while the other has the force of a statement (1962b:98–101).
• The perlocutionary act: an act classifiable by its“ … consequential effects upon the feelings, thoughts, oractions of the audience, or of the speaker, or of other persons… ”. If I warn that the ice is thin, and so perform oneillocutionary act, I may thereby perform a variety of perlocutionaryacts: I maypersuade someone to avoid it, orencourage someone to take a risk, and so forth (1962b:101).

Austin’s interest in the types of act so distinguished was“…essentially to fasten on the second, illocutionary actand contrast it with the other two…” (1962b: 103). Whatdid Austin think was important about the illocutionary act? And whatdid he think were the dangers inherent in failing to mark it off fromthe other types?

Austin appears to have thought that the various modes of assessmentthat he discusses—e.g., true/false, happy/unhappy—applymost fundamentally to theillocutionary act, rather than thelocutionary or the perlocutionary act.^[18] One point is that Austin thought that philosophers have had atendency to view some assessments as to happiness (or felicity) asreally applying to perlocutionary acts, so as not bearing on thespecifically linguistic things that speakers are up to. Anotherpoint—and perhaps the point of primary importance—is thatAustin thought that philosophers have had a tendency to viewassessments as to truth as applying most fundamentally to locutionaryacts. Moreover, he thought that philosophers had conceived locutionaryacts, not as abstractions from illocutionary acts, but rather asthings that might be done without any illocutionary purpose, just byvirtue of the linguistic expressions employed or their meanings. Bycontrast, Austin held that locutionary acts are abstracted frominstances of illocutionary acts, and that assessment as to truth isdirected most fundamentally to the illocutionary act. (We’llconsider below a stronger and a weaker reading of the idea thatassessment as to truth applies most fundamentally to the illocutionaryact.)

For Austin, then, assessment as to truth is of a piece with variousforms of assessment as to happiness, etc., and like those forms it isthe assessment of an act with respect to its goodness or badness. ThusAustin’s discussion of illocutionary acts is bound up with hisother discussions of the ways in which assessment of utterances as totruth is dependent upon specific features of the circumstances ofutterance. He writes:

The truth or falsity of statements is affected by what they leave outor put in and by their being misleading, and so on. Thus, for example,descriptions, which are said to be true or false or, if you like, are“statements”, are surely liable to these criticisms, sincethey are selective and uttered for a purpose. It is essential torealize that “true” and false’, like“free” and “unfree”, do not stand for anythingsimple at all; but only for a general dimension of being a right andproper thing to say as opposed to a wrong thing, in thesecircumstances, to this audience, for these purposes and with theseintentions. (1962b: 144–145)

According to Austin, there is more involved in any such assessmentthan a simple comparison of requirements imposed by linguistic meaningwith the facts. Reflection on the assessment of actions in which wespeak and the speech acts that classify them indicates two things:first, the distinction between assessment as to happiness andassessment as to truth is ultimately unprincipled; and, second, somemixture of various types of assessment applies to all, or nearly all,utterances. These ideas appear to be the basis for a cryptic claim ofAustin’s (mentioned above as topic (4)). Exploiting the various modes of appraisal to distinguish five verygeneral classes of speech act verbs, Austin writes that

They are…quite enough to play Old Harry with two fetishes whichI admit to an inclination to play Old Harry with, viz. (1) thetrue/false fetish, (2) the value/fact fetish. (1962b: 151)

Austin’s cryptic suggestion appears to be to the effect that, inone or another way, classifications of utterances along the true-falsedimension, or according to whether they are expressions of fact orexpressions of value, is—for at least some purposes—toocrude. The suggestion is susceptible of a weaker and a strongerreading. On the weaker reading, the suggestion is to the effect that,when the assessment of anutterance is at issue, it isessential to consider the force or forces that attach to theillocutionary act or acts thereby performed. Since various such actsmay have been performed, and since assessment of each act involvesconsideration of a mix of facts and values, there is no clean way ofsorting utterances on the basis either of whether or not their primarymode of assessment is on the true-false dimension, or of whether theirprimary function is the expression of fact, rather than the expressionof value. That leaves open that, with respect to at least some speechacts, a locutionary core—a proposition, or propositions, orpropositional-like element—may be assessed in a way that makesno reference to force, for example, along the true-false dimension. Onthe stronger reading, the claim would be that it is not possible todetach a locutionary core from the force with which it is expressed insuch a way that that core can be assessed without reference to force.On its stronger reading, Austin’s suggestion would have tocontend with an aspect of what is known as theFrege-Geachproblem: the challenge of explaining logical connections amongstspeech acts with different forces where those connections appear todepend upon their sharing (elements of) a locutionary core (see Geach1965).

(For discussion of Austin’s distinction amongst locutionary,illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts see Bach 1975; Bach and Harnish1979; G. Bird 1981; Black 1963; Cerf 1966; Chisholm 1964; Cohen 1964,1974; Fiengo 2018; Forguson 1966, 1973; Furberg 1969; Garvey 2014;Geach 1965; Hornsby 1988, 1994, 2006; Katz 1986; Moltmann 2018;Sbisà 2024: 17–62; Schiffer 1972; Searle 1968, 1969;Strawson 1964a, 1973; Urmson 1977; Vendler 1972; Warnock 1973b, 1989:105–151. For discussion specifically of the interaction ofAustin’s views about the natures of speech acts with his viewsabout truth, see Crary 2002; Quine 1965; Travis 2011; Warnock 1989:140–150, 163–164 fn. 74.)

3. Knowledge and Perception

Austin’s main discussions of knowledge and perception take placein “Other Minds” (1946) andSense and Sensibilia(1962a; see also “Unfair to Facts” [1954ms], whichoverlaps with parts of the lecture series on whichSense andSensibilia was based that are excised from the book, and“Ifs and Cans” [1956a: 230]).^[19] Stated more baldly than would have been acceptable to Austin, andreconstructing slightly, his distinctive views in this area includethe following.

(1)

Knowledge is a basic form of apprehension of how things are,rather than a hybrid of belief conjoined with additional conditions.Knowing provides a sort of guarantee about one’s environment.That is, in at least some sense, the following is true: “If youknow, you can’t be wrong.” What a subject’sknowledge guarantees can include truths about the environment that areindependent of the subject (1946: 77–78, 84–103; 1962a:104–131). Austin’s commitment to (1) aligns him with thetradition of “Oxford Realism” (see Travis and Kalderon2013; Marion 2000a,b, 2009; Martin ms (Other Internet Resources);Williamson 2000).

(2)

Knowledge arises through the successful exercise of judgmentalcapacities in propitious circumstances—that is, through acombination ofacumen andopportunity (1946:79–97; 1962a: 20–61).

(3)

Like all other human capacities, human judgmental capacities areinherently limited and fallible. The capacities are inherently limitedin that there are bound to exist cases with respect to which they areinsufficiently reliable to give rise to knowledge. And they areinherently fallible in that, even in the most propitiouscircumstances, it is possible that their exercise is unsuccessful.(The risk of fallibility is liable to increase, of course, as thecapacities approach the limits within which their application isreliable.) (1946: 90–97; 1962a: 104–131)

(4)

The fact that capacities that are essentially involved in theacquisition of knowledge are inherently limited and fallible isconsistent with their operating successfully in a variety ofcircumstances so as to give rise to knowledge (1946: 83–103;1962a: 104–131).

A consequence of (3) and (4) is thatfoundationalism isundercut: there are no foundational claims that are especiallyinfallible; and there are no non-foundational claims that aredistinctively fallible. It is possible for our judgmental capacitiesto misfire with respect to any subject matter, including e.g., our ownfeelings or experiences. And it’s possible for their exercise tobe sufficiently reliable to give rise to knowledge about ordinarymatters, e.g., that there is a pig before one.

(5)

In order for exercises of capacities to make perception-basedjudgments to sustain knowledge about the subject-independentenvironment, perception must put the perceiver in contact with thatenvironment, rather than being restricted in its reach tosense-data (1946: 86–97, 1962a: 10). Again, thiscommitment aligns Austin with “Oxford Realism” (see Hinton1973; Travis and Kalderon 2013; Marion 2000a,b, 2009; Martin ms (OtherInternet Resources), 1997; Snowdon 1981).

(6)

Some standard forms of argument that perception cannot put theperceiver in the required type of contact with theirenvironment—arguments that have been presented in support of theclaim that our basic form of perceptual contact is with sense-data(e.g., the so-called “argument from illusion”)—are,at best, unconvincing (1962a:passim).

Three further side claims that have assumed some importance in recentwork are the following.

(7)

Austin stresses that being told something by someone who knows itcan put one in a position to know that thing (1946: 81–83,97–103, 114–115).

(8)

Connected with (7), Austin sketches a view on which claims to theeffect that someone knows something can serve asassurances,on the basis of which others are entitled to act, form beliefs, orclaim to know (1946: 97–103).

(9)

Austin sketches a view on which utterances of the form “Iknow that such-and-such” serve aperformative andnot adescriptive function. According to this view,the function of “I know” is very similar to the functionof “I promise”: both serve as ways of giving one’sword, the first (typically) about how things are, the second(typically) about how one intends them to be (1946:97–103).

3.1 Knowledge

Let’s begin with some of what Austin says in support of(1). In his “Other Minds” (1946), Austin sketches adistinction between knowing and believing through appeal to thedifferent kinds of challenges that are appropriate to claims to knowversus claims to believe. First, Austin points out that one who claimsto know may be challenged to explainhow they know, whilesomeone who claims to believe may be challenged to explainwhy they believe. The consequences of failing adequately tomeet those challenges are also different: in the first case, theconsequences might include that the subject doesnot know; inthe second, the consequence might include, not the subjectdoesn’tbelieve, but that theyoughtn’tto believe. Later, Austin indicates a further basis for thedistinction between knowing and believing:

…saying “I know”…isnot saying“I have performed a specially striking feat of cognition,superior, in the same scale as believing and being sure, even to beingquite sure”: for thereis nothing in that scalesuperior to being quite sure. (1946: 99)

Importantly, and moving on to claim(2), Austin holds that knowledge is the upshot of the successful exerciseof judgmental capacities—which he thinks of as essentiallylanguage involving—in appropriate circumstances: the successfulexercise of (judgmental)acumen given (perception- ortestimony-based)opportunity. The following two passages arecentral to understanding Austin’s views in this area:

Any description of a taste or sound or smell (or colour) or of afeeling, involves (is) saying that it is like one or some that we haveexperienced before: any descriptive word is classificatory, involvesrecognition and in that sense memory, and only when we use such words(or names or descriptions, which come down to the same) are we knowinganything, or believing anything. But memory and recognition are oftenuncertain and unreliable. (1946: 92).

…sensa [the things we sense or perceive] are dumb, and onlyprevious experience enablesus to identify them. If we chooseto say that they “identify themselves” (and certainly“recognizing” is not a highly voluntary act of ours), thenit must be admitted that they share the birthright of all speakers,that of speaking unclearly and untruly. (1946: 97)

We perceive various things, features, events, and states of affairs.The things we perceive are not presented to us as already classifiedinto types. Yet propositional knowledge essentially involvesclassification: for example, we know that that thingis apig. In order to know, we must exercise judgmental capacities,taking stands with respect to the ways the things, features, events,and states of affairs are. We must classify the elements into typesbased on their similarities with elements that we have alreadyclassified into types. (Notice that Austin’s view that theseelements are particulars, articulated in his “Truth”(1950a) and “Unfair to Facts” (1954ms), figuresessentially here.)

Returning to(1), let’s consider what Austin says about the conditions in which asubject wouldfail to know. Austin’s discussion ishaunted by the following condition: “If Iknow, Ican’t be wrong”. He never quite endorses thecondition. He admits at one point that its third person counterpartmakes sense, but characterizes the sense it makes by appealto a prohibition onsaying “I know it is so, but I maybe wrong” (1946: 98).

It’s clear that Austin would reject the claim that it is anecessary condition on knowing that it beimpossible for oneto have been wrong—impossible, that is, for one to haveexercised the same capacities in the same circumstances and to havejudged incorrectly. For given that he holds that judgmental capacitiesare inherently fallible ((3) above), it would follow that we can never know anything.

The human intellect and senses are, indeed,inherentlyfallible and delusive, but notinveterately so. Machines areinherently liable to break down, but good machines don’t(often). It is futile to embark on a “theory of knowledge”which denies this liability: such theories constantly end up byadmitting the liability after all, and denying the existence of“knowledge”. (1946: 98)

What Austin says here is consistent with the operation of thecapacities being reliable in some circumstances, and with theirreliable operation being such as to give rise to knowledge. So it isopen to Austin to hold a view on which knowledge requires that theparticularexercises of the capacity to judge on which theyare based couldn’t have occurred and yet the output judgment bemistaken. And it is open to him to hold that if the exercise ofjudgmental capacities is to give rise to knowledge, those capacitiesmust bereliable in the circumstances in which they areexercised and given the way they are exercised on that occasion (e.g.,carefully). However, Austin doesn’t make fully explicit that hisview about knowledge includes either component. And some of what hesays—especially in discussion of his performative proposal aboutthe use of “I know”—is in tension with the firstclaim, on which knowing is incompatible with being mistaken.^[20] (It’s possible that Austin viewed his “Ifs andCans” (1956a) discussion of abilities as providing furtherillumination concerning the proper understanding of the formula“If one knows, one can’t be wrong”.)

One potential consequence of Austin’s account concernsfoundationalism. Foundationalism typically involves the followingthree claims. First, many of the ordinary judgments that wemake—for example, judgments to the effect that there is a pighere—are inherently risky in the following sense. It’spossible for us to make such judgments mistakenly, even in cases inwhich we operate as carefully as possible. Second, some of thejudgments we make, or could make, are not inherently risky: forexample, where we are careful only to judge about how things presentlyappear to us, the judgments we make carry no risk of error. Third,then, if our aim is to achieve absolute security, we should avoidjudgments of the first sort except insofar as they are securely basedupon judgments of the second sort. (On one view of this type, thesecond sort of judgment would be taken to provideevidence onwhich judgments of the first sort are based.) Austin’s accountundermines the first two components of this view. The first componentis undermined because, although it is alwayspossible tojudge incorrectly, there are ordinary cases in which our judgmentsabout our environment are, in fact, absolutely secure ((4) above):

…if I watch or some time an animal a few feet in front of me,in a good light, if I prod it perhaps, and sniff, and take note of thenoises it makes, I may say, “That”s a pig’; and thistoo will be “incorrigible”, nothing could be produced thatwould show that I had made a mistake…if the animal then emergesand stands there plainly in view, there is no longer any question ofcollecting evidence; its coming into view doesn’t provide mewith moreevidence that it’s a pig, I can now just seethat it is, the question is settled. (1962a: 114–115)

The second component is undermined because there is notypeof judgment, and notype of subject matter, with respect towhich error is impossible ((3) above). In order to have propositional knowledge even about what I amexperiencing right now, I must classify it together with other thingsof the same type. And that requires the exercise of capacities thatare inherently fallible: I may not have had enough experiences ofthings of the same sort to classify this one securely; I may not haveattended to what I am experiencing with sufficient care; I may failadequately to remember similar things that I experienced earlier; andso forth (1946: 90–97; 1962a: 104–131).

Ordinary challenges to judgments or claims, including claims to know,are sometimes invitations to detail ourcredentials—ourpossession of appropriate acumen in making judgments of the type inquestion. Sometimes, however, they are invitations to detail ourfacts—the features of the circumstance that figure inour judging in the way that we do. For example, we might claim to knowthat that presented thing is a goldfinch “by the shape of itshead”. If we were to detail our facts in that sort of way, thenwe might be open to further challenge: someone might claim thatthat’s notenough of a basis on which to judge that thepresented thing is a goldfinch. In addition to emphasizing the role ofspecial acumen in this type of case—not just anyone can tell agoldfinch by the shape of its head—Austin makes two importantclaims about such potential challenges to our facts. First, Austinclaims that, in order for such a challenge to be appropriate, thechallenger must have in mind some more or less definite lack, forexample by pointing out that birds other than goldfinches have headsof that shape. Second, Austin writes:

Enough is enough: it doesn’t mean everything. Enough meansenough to show that (within reason, and for present intents andpurposes) it “can’t” be anything else, there is noroom for an alternative, competing description of it. It does notmean, for example, enough to show it isn’t astuffedgoldfinch. (1946: 84.)

There are at least three, non-exclusive ways of reading Austin’sclaim here. The first is as the claim that what suffices forthishere to be a goldfinch may not be enough with respect to anythingin any circumstance. There may be other birds, or other things, withheads of the same shape. However, we might still know full well thatthere are no such birds, and no such things, here; or we may knowenough about this thing to know it isn’t a bird of that sort, orone of those other things, even though we haven’t specified howwe know in answer to the initial challenge. That is, we may know thatthis isn’t a stuffed goldfinch—given the rest ofwhat we know, and the circumstances in which we judge—eventhough what we explicitly point to in answer to challengesdoesn’t alone rule out the possibility. The second way ofreading Austin here is as allowing that we can know that this is agoldfinch, even though we know that if it’s a stuffed goldfinch,then it is not a goldfinch, and we don’t know that itisn’t a stuffed goldfinch. We are entitled—either ingeneral, or in circumstances of this sort—to assume or rely uponits not being a stuffed goldfinch, even though that is something wecan’t rule out and don’t know (see Kaplan 2011 fordevelopment of the second way of reading Austin’s views in thisarea). The third way of reading the passage is as claiming that therange ofpossibilities can vary from occasion to occasion forjudging or claiming that one knows that this is a goldfinch. On thethird reading, it might beimpossible, on this occasion, forthe presented thing to be a stuffed goldfinch, even though there areother occasions on which it would be a possibility. Hence, our factsdo not need to foreclose on that possibility on this occasion,although there might be other occasions on which our facts would needto do so. (Travis 2005 develops the third approach. See Millar 2005for objections.)

Let’s turn, then, to(7)–(9), focusing attention on(9), the view that utterances of the form “I know thatsuch-and-such” serve a performative and not a descriptivefunction. This is puzzling for at least two reasons: first, the claimthat “I know” lacks a descriptive function is apt to seemobviously false; and second, it is unclear what, if any, function theclaim has in Austin’s account as a whole.

The main focus of objection to Austin here isn’t the claim that“I know that such-and-such” can, on occasion, servedistinctive performative functions. Rather, the concern withAustin’s proposal is focused on two more specific claims. First,it is focused on the claim that “I know thatsuch-and-such” always and only serves a distinctive performativefunction and so is never at the service of self-description. Second,it is focused on the claim that, in cases in which “I know thatsuch-and-such” is used to serve a performative function, neitherthe felicity conditions of using the sentence in that way, nor thetruth of what, if anything, one thereby states, depend in turn onwhether the speaker knows that such-and-such.

Austin is misled here, I think, due to three factors. First, he ismisled by similarities between saying “I know thatsuch-and-such” and saying “I promise thatsuch-and-such” or “I swear that such-and-such”. Butthe cases are importantly different. For example, unlike the case ofpromising, in which saying “I promise…” inappropriate circumstances makes it so that one has promised…,saying “I know that such-and-such” does not make it sothat one knows. Now, as Austin later saw, it is possible to develop anaccount on which saying “I know that such-and-such” canserve more than one purpose and so can function well with respect toone such purpose while functioning poorly with respect to others (seee.g., 1950a: 133 and 1962b). Accordingly, it would be possible todevelop a view on which, for example, saying “I know thatsuch-and-such” in cases in which one doesnot knowwould be improperqua statement (since saying itdoesn’t remove the deficit by making it so that one knows),while properly serving the purpose of giving an audience one’sassurance. However, and this is the second reason for which Austin ismisled, he had not in “Other Minds” (1946) yet attainedthe later perspective on which that is a clear possibility. Since henonetheless believes that “I know that such-and-such”serves purposes other than statement making, he is forced to effaceits statement-making function. Finally, and more speculatively, itseems that Austin is misled due to his attempting to build into hisaccount a response to a doctrine, common to his Oxford Realistpredecessors Cook Wilson and Prichard, according to which whether oneknows or merely believes something is transparent to one. (Fordiscussion of that feature of Cook Wilson’s and Prichard’sviews, see Longworth 2018b, Travis and Kalderon 2013 and Travis 2005.)Although Austin rejects the letter of the doctrine, he retains itsspirit in attempting to provide an account on which avowals of theform “I know that such-and-such” can never be false. (Forfurther discussion of Austin’s performative proposal, seeWarnock 1989: 24–33, Bremner 2020, Lawlor 2013.)

(For critical engagement with Austin’s work on knowledge, seeAyer 1967; Baz 2011; Chisholm 1964; Hetherington 2018; Kaplan 2011,2018; Lawlor 2013, 2018; Leite 2011; Longworth 2018b, Marion 2000a,b;Martin ms (Other Internet Resources); Millar 2005; Putnam 1994;Sbisà 2024: 115–196; Soames 2003: 171–193; Stroud1984: 39–82; Travis 2005; Travis and Kalderon 2013; Warnock1989: 32–44; M. Williams 1996: 135–171.)

3.2 Sensory perception

Let’s turn now to Austin’s views specifically aboutperception ((5) and (6) above). Once we have detailed the facts on which a perception-based judgmentof ours relies, a more general challenge arises concerning our accessto those facts. In order to exploit the bird’s head shape as thebasis for our judgment that it is a goldfinch, it is arguable that wemust be able to see (or perhaps feel) the bird and its shape. On someviews of perception, however, birds and their shapes are not amongstthe things that one can perceive. Austin’s main aim inSense& Sensibilia is to undermine considerations that have beenoffered in favour of the general doctrine that, as he puts it,

…we never see or otherwise perceive (or “sense”),or anyhow we neverdirectly perceive or sense, materialobjects (or material things), but only sense-data (or our own ideas,impressions, sense, sense-perceptions, percepts, &c.). (1962a:2)

Central to those considerations are those organized by versions ofwhat is known as the argument from illusion ((6) above).^[21] The version of the argument that Austin criticizes can bereconstructed as follows. (i) There are cases of illusion in which wehave a sensory experience as of seeing something of some sort withspecific features but in which nothing has those specific features.This might be because, although we experience something of the sort inquestion, the thing we experience lacks the features in question; orit might be because we don’t experience a thing of the sort inquestion at all. (ii) In those cases, there must be something weexperience that has the features in question. Call the things weexperience in such casessense-data. (iii) Since the cases inwhich we experience sense-data include cases in which no materialthings of the sort in question, or with the features in question, areexperienced, it follows that sense-data are not (in general) materialthings, or elements in the environment independent of the individualexperiencer. It follows that, in the cases in question, we experiencethings (ordirectly experience things) that are distinct frommaterial things and we do not thereby experience (ordirectlyexperience) material things. (iv) Now it is a general principle aboutexperiences that if we cannot discriminate the objects of twoexperiences on the basis of introspection, then those experiences musthave objects of the same sort. Hence, if one experience has onlysense-data as its objects, and not material things, and a secondexperience has as its objects something that we cannot discriminate onthe basis of introspection from the objects of the first experience,then the second experience also has sense-data rather than materialthings as its objects. (v) Since every experience stands in therequired relation to an experience with only sense-data as itsobjects, every experience has sense-data rather than material thingsas its objects. Hence, we never experience—or neverdirectly experience—material things

Austin objects to every step in the argument just reconstructed.Amongst other complaints, he argues that key terms in the argumenthave not been properly defined or explained—for instance,“material thing” and “sense-data” (1962a: 4,7–14, 55), and “directly” (1962a: 14–19). Andhe objects to the general principle, to which appeal was made in (iv),pointing out that there are no grounds for thinking that we cannothave experiences with different kinds of object that we nonethelesscan’t discriminate on the basis of introspection. For instance,we might experience a bar of soap that looks just like a lemon, and bein a position where we couldn’t discriminate the soap from thelemon on the basis of introspection. Nonetheless, we would hold thatthe two experiences have different kinds of objects (1962a: 50–52).^[22] However, what are perhaps his most important complaints target (i)and (ii) by exploiting the distinction, initially articulated in“Other Minds” (1946), between two elements in perceptuallybased judgment: the opportunity afforded by sensory perception andjudgmental acumen.

The distinction between sensory perception and judgmental acumenenables Austin to distinguish between central cases ofillusion and central cases ofdelusion, and also tosketch explanations of what is going on in those cases that do notmake appeal to sense-data. Austin takes the defender of (i) and (ii)to argue as follows. First, consider an illusion, for example a stickthat looks bent but really isn’t. Such an illusion has two keyfeatures. First, it clearly involves a distinctive sensory experience.Second, the distinctive sensory experience that it involves is apt togive rise to an erroneous perceptual judgment, to the effect that thestick is bent. Now one way of explaining the erroneous perceptualjudgment is to view it asdictated by the sensoryexperience—that is, to view it as accurately representingfeatures presented in the experience: the bent-ness of that which isexperienced. Since the stick isnot in fact bent, and thatwhich is experiencedis bent, we have reason to claim thatthat which is experienced is not identical with the stick. What weexperience issense-data rather than a stick. Moreover, wemight also consider more extreme cases in which we make erroneousperceptual judgments: cases of delusion or hallucination. For example,there is the case in which an alcoholic person judges that pink ratsare visible, when in fact there are none. Now, given the proposedaccount of the case of illusion, that case cannot be distinguishedfrom the case of delusion by appeal to the fact that, in the former,an environmental feature is experienced while, in the latter, there isno suitable environmental feature to be experienced. It thereforeseems natural to treat the two cases as of the same basic type, and tooffer the same type of explanation for both. Thus, one might betempted to view the rat-delusion as having the following threefeatures. First, it involves a distinctive sensory experience. Second,the distinctive sensory experience that it involvesdictatesan erroneous perceptual judgment to the effect that pink rats arevisible. Third, that judgment is dictated because it accuratelyrepresents features present in the experience.

Austin responds as follows. First, he exploits the role of judgmentalacumen in perceptual judgment in order to provide an alternativeexplanation of cases of illusion (or more generally of things lookingways that they are not). He allows that some things really dolook the way they are sometimes taken to be—the sticklooks bent, even though it is not in fact bent. But he holds thatthose looks are not private features of individual’sexperiences. For example, they are available to other perceivers andmight be recorded in a photograph. (Austin discusses talk about howthings look, and distinguishes it from talk about how thingsseem—which he associates with judgment rather than withexperience, inSense and Sensibilia (1962a: 33–43). Seealso Jackson 1977: 30–49; Martin 2010; Travis 2004.) However,the way the stick looks, just as much as features like thestick’s straightness, can be the basis for perceptual judgments.We can explain why someone is prone to judge that the stick is bent byappeal to the stick’slooking bent, rather toanything’s being bent, together with the ways in which exercisesof judgmental acumen can respond erroneously to looks. More generally,there needn’t be anything in particular—any specificfeature of what is experienced or any specific look—that figuresin explaining why individuals are prone to make a specific type ofjudgment on the basis of the experience. For the explanation for eachindividual’s judgment will depend, not only on what theyexperience, but also on the types of judgmental capacities that theyhave. In support of this form of explanation, Austin notes that noteveryone would be inclined to judge that the stick is bent. Forexample, noting the presence of water, those whose judgmentalcapacities are sufficiently well trained might withhold judgment aboutthe stick’s shape (Hinton 1973: 114ff includes a usefuldiscussion of some of Austin’s claims about illusions).

Standard cases of illusion or misleading appearance of the sortwe’ve just considered involve sensory experiences of ordinarythings and their features, including their looks, feels, and so forth.However, because the connection between what is experienced and whatone judges on its basis is not straightforward—becausejudgmental acumen is involved in moving from one to theother—there is no general way to read back from the judgmentssomeone is prone to make to specific features of their sensoryexperiences. Because such cases of illusion involve experience ofordinary things, while standard cases of delusion do not, we thus havea ground on which to distinguish the two sorts of case. For example,we have grounds to distinguish the case in which someone erroneouslyjudges that a submerged stick is bent from the case of the alcoholicperson who judges that pink rats are visible. But having distinguishedthe cases in that way, we are liable to become open to two newquestions. First, should we allow that the judgment in the delusorycase is based on sensory experience? Perhaps, for example, some casesof delusion involve dysfunction in the systems responsible forperceptual judgment of a sort that give rise to perceptual judgmentsin the absence of any sense-experiential basis for those judgments.Second, even if we allow that a particular delusory judgment is basedupon sensory experience, should we allow that it involves sensoryexperience of anything other than elements that are present in thedeluded subject’s environment? Perhaps some cases of delusioninvolve dysfunctional judgmental responses to what is seen or heard.For example, an alcoholic subject judgment that a pink rat is visiblemight be a disordered response to an experience of a shadow. Unless weare forced to answer both questions affirmatively, we lack the basisfor an argument that the deluded subject experiences anything distinctfrom the ordinary things and features that they can see, hear,etc.

Austin doesn’t suggest that there could be no grounds for givingaffirmative answers to either of those questions. Moreover, it is veryplausible that such groundscan be provided. It is plausible,for example, that there are distinctive sensory experiences involvedin what we call seeing double, or seeing afterimages, that cannot beexplained simply by appeal to what is present in subjects’environments. And it is plausible that genuine sensory hallucinationsare possible—indeed, it is plausible that such hallucinationsmight figure in explaining the alcoholic person’s judgment.However, although the style of response just considered is indecisiveagainst such additional developments of the argument, the resourcesthat it deploys will surely figure in serious engagement with thosedevelopments. Austin sketches an approach to issues raised by suchexperiences by attempting to give an account of the reports we areinclined to make in such cases—“I see two pieces ofpaper”, “I see pink rats”. Austin’s sketchaims to explain how such reports can be non-committal about the natureof the experiences so-reported, and in particular about whether suchexperiences have objects at all (1962a: 84–103). It is here inparticular that Austin comes close to endorsing a form ofdisjunctivism about perception (see Soteriou 2009).

(For critical engagement with Austin’s work on perception, seeAyer 1967, 1969; Burnyeat 1979; Firth 1964; Forguson 1969b; Garvey2014; Hinton 1973: 114ff; Hirst 1963; Jackson 1977; Travis andKalderon 2013; Leite 2011; Longworth 2019, Marion 2000a,b; Martin ms(Other Internet Resources), 2000, 2010; Pears 1979; Putnam 1994;Sbisà 2024: 142–161; Schwartz 2004, 2018; Snowdon 2014;Soames 2003: 171–193; Thau 2004; Travis 2004; van Hulst andCresswell 2016; Warnock 1989: 11–31; Williams 1962.)

4. Action and Freedom

The core of Austin’s work on freedom and action is contained in“A Plea for Excuses” (1957) and developed in “Ifsand Cans” (1956a), “Three Ways of Spilling Ink”(1966), and “Pretending” (1958a). The three mostdistinctive features of his views in this area are the following.

(1)

Austin proposes that philosophers should attend to the details ofthe ways in which we talk about particular actions of specific typesrather than attempting a more direct assault on general questionsabout freedom and action (1957: 175–181; 1966: 273).

(2)

Austin holds that in order for someone to count as responsible foran action, nothing more need be true than that the action is a normalor standard instance of something they do. For example, it need not betrue of the actor, in addition, that they did what they didvoluntarily oron purpose (1957: 189–204;1966).

(3)

Austin is inclined to think that, insofar as he understands thethesis of determinism, it isincompatible with what weordinarily take to be true of human action (1956a: 218 fn.1,231).

4.1 Actions and Excuses

Let’s begin with(1). Austin holds that we can make progress on questions about freedom andaction by descending from reflection at the general level—i.e.,reflection on freedom and action,per se—to reflectionon the more specific ways in which we characterize and appraiseactions. Austin’s view about the general notions of acting, andof acting freely or responsibly, is structurally similar to his viewabout the general notion of truth: he thinks of such general notionsasdimension words, grouping a range of more specificcharacterizations. The basic range here consists in the variousspecific ways in which we can characterize happenings asactions—for example, as someone running to the shop, or as theirreading a book. In addition to that basic range are what Austin callsaggravations: the various specific ways in which wecharacterize someone asdistinctively responsible forsomething that happens—for example, when we characterize someoneas having done something on purpose, intentionally, or deliberately.The latter three aggravations are the topic of his “Three Waysof Spilling Ink” (1966).

In his “A Plea for Excuses” (1957), Austin argues that theminimal requirement for an agent to be responsible for an action oftheirs is that it beincorrect to characterize the action inone or another way as something for which they werenot fullyresponsible—as something for which they have anexcuse.We might, for example, characterize a happening as an accident, amistake, involuntary, unintentional, inadvertent, or as due (in part)to clumsiness, lack of appreciation of circumstances, or incompetence.Where an act is performed, and where no excuse is available, theaction is one for which the actor counts as fully responsible. Whereone or another type of excuseis available, the specific typeof excuses that are available mitigate in one or another specific waythe subject’s responsibility for the occurrence of an action orits consequences, and so the extent to which the action is to becounted as free. An excuse may do this by mitigating in various waysthe subject’s responsibility either for an action considered asa whole, or for proper sub-components of the action, or forconsequences of the action, or by indicating ways in which a happeningis not (a paradigmatic case of) an action. The varieties ofpretending that Austin discusses in his“Pretending” (1958a) are of importance to him, at least inpart, because they provide for some distinctive forms of excuse. Forinstance, one might seek to excuse what appeared to be an action oftypeA by claiming that the agent was only pretending toA, pretending to beA-ing, or pretending that theywereA-ing. (One of Austin’s aims in the paper is todistinguish those ways of pretending.)

One of Austin’s central aims in considering the variety ofexcuses and aggravations is to shed light on the inner composition ofresponsible action: the division between an action and itsconsequences; the decomposition of an action into its varioussub-components or phases; and what Austin calls the machinery ofaction:

…the detail of the complicated internal machinery we use in“acting”—the receipt of intelligence, theappreciation of the situation, the invocation of principles, theplanning, the control of execution and the rest. (1957: 179)

Turning now to(2), Austin thinks that there is a range of normal or standard cases ofattributions of action with respect to which modification, by appealeither to aggravations or excuses, is impermissible. With respect tosuch normal or standard cases, it suffices, in order to characterizethe agent’s role within them, simply to say what the agent did.To add that the agent did the thing, for example, either voluntarilyor involuntarily would be inappropriate, incorrect, or evensenseless. Austin summarizes this idea in the slogan, “Nomodification without aberration”. Amongst the supportingexamples he gives are the following:

I sit in my chair, in the usual way—I am not in a daze orinfluenced by threats or the like: here, it will not do to say eitherthat I sit in it intentionally or that I did not sit in itintentionally, nor yet that I sat in it automatically or from habit orwhat you will. It is bedtime, I am alone, I yawn: but I do not yawninvoluntarily (or voluntarily!), nor yet deliberately. To yawn in anysuch peculiar way is just not to just yawn. (1957: 190)^[23]

Austin holds that modifiers like “voluntarily” and“involuntarily” are used to assert the respective presenceand absence of specific elements in the general machinery of action.(He suggests that such apparent pairs do not invariably target thevery same specific elements. See 1957: 189–193.) Austin thinksthat philosophers have tended to assume that, given that someone hasdone a specific thing, it will always be a further question whetherthose pieces of machinery are present or absent. Moreover,philosophers have aligned that question with the question whether theactor was responsible for what they did or acted freely. Thosephilosophers have in effect been making the following pair ofassumptions. They’ve assumed, first, that there is a single typeof piece of machinery such that forany action, the actionwill be free and responsible just in case it involves that machinery.Second, they’ve assumed that the various aggravations serveindiscriminately to mark the presence of the required type ofmachinery, while the various excuses serve to mark its absence.

Characteristically, Austin suggests that the situation is morecomplicated. In particular, although he thinks that, in normal orstandard cases, actors are responsible for what they do and actfreely, he holds that what makes that so can vary from case to case:different types of machinery can account for freedom andresponsibility with respect to different types of action. He holdsmoreover that different aggravating and excusing modifiers targetdifferent pieces of machinery. And, finally, he holds that theappropriate use of a modifier doesn’t depend only upon thepresence or absence of instances of the type of action-machinery thatit targets. In addition, it depends upon whether the targetedmachinery figures in normal cases of actions of the type in question.^[24]

(For discussion of Austin’s views about actions and excuses seeForguson 1969a; Heintz 1981; Holdcroft 1969; Laugier 2018; Narboux2011; New 1966; Petrie 1971; Sbisà 2024: 65–112; Searle1966; Zimmerman 2004; Warnock 1989: 65–79; White 1967.)

4.2 Freedom and Ability

Let’s turn now to Austin’s discussion of whetherdeterminism is compatible with free action ((3) above). One general form of excuse for doing something would be that onecouldn’t avoid doing it. Similarly, a general excusefor failing to do something—failing to apply one’s brakes,for example—would be that onecouldn’t do it.Excuses of that general type have figured centrally in discussions ofhuman freedom and the bearing of determinism on whether we ever actfreely. Suppose that, wherever an excuse of this form is correctlyapplicable, we are not responsible for the action targeted by theexcuse and did not act freely. If this supposition were correct, ademonstration that there are no things that we do that we could haveavoided doing, and no things that we do not do that we could havedone, would amount to a demonstration that we are never responsiblefor doing, or refraining from doing, what we do and, so, never actfreely. And some philosophers have held that determinism provides thebasis for such a demonstration.

Such a demonstration might take the following form. The all-in claimthat someone could have done something att requires that thecircumstances att are consistent with their doing that thingatt. But according to determinism, the circumstances,C, att determine that one set of events,E, occurs att rather than any others. That is,according to the thesis of determinism, it couldn’t be that(C & not-E). Now, given that what the individualin question in fact did att (/refrained from doing att) is a member ofE, it couldn’t have beenthatC and yet they failed to do it (/failed to refrain fromdoing it). Hence, because ofC, it’s not the case thatthey could have avoided doing what they did (/refraining from doingit).

Austin considers this issue in his “Ifs and Cans” (1956a).There, he discusses and rejects attempts in G.E. Moore 1912 andNowell-Smith 1954 to provide accounts of what we can do on which itbeing true that we can do things (/refrain from doing them) iscompatible with its being determined by our circumstances that wedon’t in fact do them (/refrain from doing them). Austin thinksthat his objections to the accounts on which he focuses providepartial support to the view that our ordinary claims about what we cando are incompatible with determinism.

The first proposal of Moore’s that Austin considers is that theclaim that someone,S, can do something,A, isequivalent to the following claim:S willA, ifS chooses toA. Austin argues that Moore’sfirst proposal is based on a mistaken view about the functioning ofthe claims of the form: “S canA, ifS chooses”.^[25] The second proposal of Moore’s that Austin considers is theclaim that “S canA” is equivalent to aclaim of the form “If it were thatC, thenSwouldB”. For example, “I could have holed theputt” might be taken to be equivalent to “If I had triedto hole the putt, I would have succeeded in holing the putt.”Here again, it seems that the proposal might be of service insidestepping the challenge posed by determinism. Suppose that inactual circumstancesC, I don’t try to hole the putt.According to determinism, it follows that it is impossible that(C and I do try to hole the putt). But that is consistentboth with its being possible, in slightly different circumstances,that I try to hole the putt, and with it being the case that, if Iwere to try, I would succeed. Austin doesn’t pursue the proposalin detail, though his discussion of Nowell-Smith pursues connectedissues (219–230). However, in a footnote, Austin presents animportant putative counterexample:

Consider the case where I miss a very short putt and kick myselfbecause I could have holed it. It is not that I should have holed itif I had tried: I did try, and missed. It is not that I should haveholed it if conditions had been different: that might of course be so,but I am talking about conditions as they precisely were, andasserting that I could have holed it. There is the rub. (1956a: 218fn.1)

Austin’s thought here is that attributions of this sort manifestour belief that,

…a human ability or power or capacity is inherently liable notto produce success, on occasion, and that for no reason (or are badluck and bad form sometimes reasons?). (218: 218 fn.1)

Now a committed determinist would claim that the events thatconstitute such failures must be determined—and in that senseexplained—by the circumstances at and before the failure. ButAustin believes—for reasons in effect consideredabove—that the existence of such an explanation would make itthe case that, in fact, the golfercould not have made theputt in the circumstances as they precisely were.

We have here, then, a point at which Austin expresses his view thatordinary attributions of ability, power, and capacity are incompatiblewith the thesis of determinism. In response, the compatibilist isforced, I think, to deny that its being true that a golfer could haveholed the putt, or even that he could have holed the putt in preciselythe same conditions, entails that he would have holed the putt in aperfect duplicate of the actual world. Leaving that issue toone side, Austin presents the proposed analysis with a case ofmasking—a case in which, although ability is retained,successful exercise of the ability is somehow precluded, for instanceby outside interference (for discussion of masking, see A. Bird 1998;Clarke 2009; Fara 2008; and Johnston 1992). The challenge facing thedefender of the analysis is to spell out the analysis so as to copewith masking. Arguably, meeting the challenge depends upon provisionof a non-circular specification of all possible masks. Austin would, Ithink, claim that it is impossible to meet the challenge. For on hisview, abilities are sometimes maskedbrutely, without anyspecifiable mask. Even if he is wrong about that, it remains an openquestion whether the challenge can be met, or whether the endlessheterogeneity of potential masks makes it impossible to provide anexplanatory specification.

(For discussion of Austin views about freedom and ability see Ayers1966; Clarke 2009; Kaufman 1963; Locke 1962; New 1966; Nowell-Smith1960; Pears 1973; Thalberg 1969; Warnock 1989: 80–97.)

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Other Internet Resources

• Martin, M.G.F., 2007, “Austin:Sense & Sensibilia Revisited”, online manuscript.
• A recording of Austin’s voice (1959)
• Wikipedia Entry for J.L. Austin

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to Cora Diamond, Ruth Groff, Henry Hardy, Barry Lee, HemdatLerman, Matthew Soteriou, Peter Sullivan, Charles Travis, and JonathanWestphal.