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J. L. Austin

Analytic · Europe · 1911 to 1960

English philosopher who studied what we do with words. He showed that to say something can be to do it, as in a promise.

What it is

J. L. Austin (1911 to 1960) was an English philosopher of language and one of the leading figures of ordinary language philosophy. Born in Lancaster, he studied classics at Balliol College, Oxford, and later became White's Professor of Moral Philosophy there. He is best known for the theory of speech acts, the idea that we use words to do things.

He made an important point about language: when someone says "I promise to do so and so", they are not describing a promise, they are making one. This and many other observations were gathered in How to Do Things with Words, based on lectures given at Oxford. He died in 1960, and some of his best-known books were put together from his lecture notes afterwards.

The main ideas

  • Doing things with words. Many sentences do not describe anything. Saying them performs an act, such as promising, warning, naming or apologising.
  • Three kinds of act. He separated what is said, what is done in saying it and what follows from saying it, and these distinctions have become standard.
  • Look at how we talk. He thought philosophers should pay close attention to what we actually say about particular cases, since our words record many careful distinctions.
  • Knowing is not believing. A person who claims to know can fairly be asked how they know, while a person who only believes can be asked why. The two claims are open to different challenges.
  • Excuses. In "A Plea for Excuses" he suggested that studying the ways we excuse, justify and explain actions can tell us more about freedom and responsibility than broad theories can.
  • Truth as a relation. To call a statement true is to say it stands in the right relation to the facts.

What it looks like in practice

Think of what happens when someone says "I do" at a wedding, or "I name this ship" at a launch. They are not reporting anything. Austin would say that the words are the act, provided the right person says them in the right setting. This is an illustration of his line of questioning, not a passage from his writing.

Books and moments

  • How to Do Things with Words (lectures of 1955, published 1962) is his most influential work, on performatives and speech acts.
  • Sense and Sensibilia was published after his death and is a critical look at theories of perception.
  • Philosophical Papers, collected by J. O. Urmson and G. J. Warnock, gathers his essays, among them "Other Minds" and "A Plea for Excuses".

Questions and criticism

  • What is "ordinary language philosophy"? He is usually counted among philosophers of ordinary language, but it is far from clear what the label means beyond a concern with ordinary talk.
  • Is paying attention to words enough? It is fair to ask how far careful study of everyday speech can settle philosophical questions.
  • Published after his death. Several of his best-known works, among them How to Do Things with Words and Sense and Sensibilia, appeared after his death, and his papers were collected afterwards.

Close neighbours

Gilbert Ryle, P. F. Strawson and Ludwig Wittgenstein are the thinkers most often grouped with him as ordinary language philosophers.

Written by epchē in our own words, and checked against independent sources on 29 October 2026. The sources are listed below.

Who they connect to

Influenced

  • H. P. Grice · He worked beside Austin in the Oxford circle of philosophers of ordinary language. (scholars disagree about this link)
  • John Searle · Searle studied under him at Oxford and built his own theory of speech acts on his lectures.

Other Analytic thinkers

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