J. L. Austin and literal meaning

Hansen, N. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5074-1075 (2012) J. L. Austin and literal meaning. European Journal of Philosophy, 22 (4). pp. 617-632. ISSN 1468-0378 doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0378.2011.00510.x

Abstract/Summary

Alice Crary has recently developed a radical reading of J. L. Austin's philosophy of language. The central contention of Crary's reading is that Austin gives convincing reasons to reject the idea that sentences have context-invariant literal meaning. While I am in sympathy with Crary about the continuing importance of Austin's work, and I think Crary's reading is deep and interesting, I do not think literal sentence meaning is one of Austin's targets, and the arguments that Crary attributes to Austin or finds Austinian in spirit do not provide convincing reasons to reject literal sentence meaning. In this paper, I challenge Crary's reading of Austin and defend the idea of literal sentence meaning.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/28673
Identification Number/DOI	10.1111/j.1468-0378.2011.00510.x
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Humanities > Philosophy
Publisher	Wiley-Blackwell
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