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After all we speak of people 'taking refuge' in vagueness -the more precise you are, in general the more likely you are to be wrong, whereas you stand a good chance of not being wrong if you make it vague enough.

J. L. Austin

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J. L. Austin
Age: 48 †
Born: 1911
Born: March 26
Died: 1960
Died: February 8
Linguist
Pedagogue
Philosopher
University Teacher
John Langshaw Austin
Wrong
Vague
Chance
Precise
Speak
Refuge
Enough
Whereas
Make
Likely
Good
General
People
Taking
Stand
Vagueness

More quotes by J. L. Austin

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The theory of truth is a series of truisms.
J. L. Austin
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Certainly ordinary language has no claim to be the last word, if there is such a thing.
J. L. Austin
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Words are not (except in their own little corner) facts or things: we need therefore to prise them off the world, to hold them apart from and against it, so that we can realize their inadequacies and arbitrariness, and can relook at the world without blinkers.
J. L. Austin
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But surely, speaking carefully, we do not sense 'red' and 'blue' any more than 'resemblance' (or 'qualities' any more than 'relations'): we sense something of which we might say, if we wished to talk about it, that 'this is red.'
J. L. Austin
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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.
J. L. Austin
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In one sense 'there are' both universals and material objects, in another sense there is no such thing as either: statements about each can usually be analysed, but not always, nor always without remainder.
J. L. Austin
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There are more ways of killing a cat than drowning it in butter but this is the sort of thing (as the proverb indicates) we overlook: there are more ways of outraging speech than contradiction merely.
J. L. Austin
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It should be quite clear, then, that there are no criteria to be laid down in general for distinguishing the real from the not real.
J. L. Austin
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Sentences are not as such either true or false.
J. L. Austin
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But I owe it to the subject to say, that it has long afforded me what philosophy is so often thought, and made, barren of - the fun of discovery, the pleasures of co-operation, and the satisfaction of reaching agreement.
J. L. Austin
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Ordinary language embodies the metaphysics of the Stone Age.
J. L. Austin
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Usually it is uses of words, not words in themselves, that are properly called vague.
J. L. Austin
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Like 'real', 'free' is only used to rule out the suggestion of some or all of its recognized antitheses. As 'truth' is not a name of a characteristic of assertions, so 'freedom' is not a name for a characteristic of actions, but the name of a dimension in which actions are assessed.
J. L. Austin
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A sentence is made up of words, a statement is made in words.... Statements are made, words or sentences are used.
J. L. Austin
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Let us distinguish between acting intentionally and acting deliberately or on purpose, as far as this can be done by attending to what language can teach us.
J. L. Austin
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Faced with the nonsense question 'What is the meaning of a word?' and perhaps dimly recognizing it to be nonsense, we are nevertheless not inclined to give it up.
J. L. Austin
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Are cans constitutionally iffy? Whenever, that is, we say that we can do something, or could do something, or could have done something, is there an if in the offing--suppressed, it may be, but due nevertheless to appear when we set out our sentence in full or when we give an explanation of its meaning?
J. L. Austin
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I feel ruefully sure, also, that one must be at least one sort of fool to rush in over ground so well trodden by the angels.
J. L. Austin
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Fact is richer than diction.
J. L. Austin