J. L. Austin Philosopher

John Langshaw "J. L." Austin (26 March 1911 – 8 February 1960) was a British philosopher of language. He is remembered primarily as the developer of the theory of speech acts.Prior to Austin, the attention of linguistic and analytic philosophers had been directed almost exclusively to statements, assertions, and propositions — to linguistic acts that (at least in theory) have truth-value. This led to problems when analyzing certain types of statements, for example in determining the truth conditions for such statements as "I promise to do so-and-so."Austin pointed out that we use language to do things as well as to assert things, and that the utterance of a statement like "I promise to do so-and-so" is best understood as doing something — making a promise — rather than making an assertion about anything. Hence the name of one of his best-known works How to do Things with Words.

Personal facts

Alias (AKA)	Austin J. L.
Birth date	March 26, 1911
Birth place	Lancaster Lancashire
Date of death	February 08, 1960
Place of death	Oxford
Era	20th-century philosophy
Main interest	Ethics Philosophy of perception Philosophy of language Philosophy of mind

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Philosopher

influenced	Stanley Cavell John Searle
influenced by	Gilbert Ryle
notable idea	Performative utterance Speech act
philosophical school	Analytic philosophy Ordinary language philosophy Linguistic philosophy