J. L. Austin - Case Quotes

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Going back into the history of a word, very often into Latin, we come back pretty commonly to pictures or models of how things happen or are done. These models may be fairly sophisticated and recent, as is perhaps the case with 'motive' or 'impulse', but one of the commonest and most primitive types of model is one which is apt to baffle us through its very naturalness and simplicity.

J. L. Austin

However well equipped our language, it can never be forearmed against all possible cases that may arise and call for description: fact is richer than diction.

J. L. Austin

But suppose we take the noun 'truth': here is a case where the disagreements between different theorists have largely turned on whether they interpreted this as a name of a substance, of a quality, or of a relation.

J. L. Austin

The Nicomachean Ethics is only intended as a guide for politicians, and they are only concerned to know what is good, not what goodness means... and in any case one can know what things are good without knowing the analysis of 'good'

J. L. Austin