Taking a plunge: a Cavellian reappraisal of Austin’s unhappy analogy

British Journal for the History of Philosophy 27 (6):1215-1238 (2019)
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Abstract

This paper presents and defends a reappraisal of J.L. Austin’s infamous analogy between saying ‘I know’ and ‘I promise’ in ‘Other Minds.’ The paper has four sections. In §1, I contend that the standard reading of Austin’s analogy is a strawman that distorts the terms of the analogy and superimposes philosophical commitments that Austin was precisely trying to combat. In §§2 and 3, I argue that to understand the point of the analogy we must contextualize ‘Other Minds’ as a response to logical positivism. I recap A.J. Ayer’s influential account of positivism, before arguing that ‘Other Minds’ and its centrepiece analogy should be read as an attack on Austin’s colleague’s organizing positivist assumptions – specifically, descriptivism and the fact/value dichotomy that it props up. My main thesis is that Austin sought to show that epistemic discourse is imbricated with ethical commitments. This reading is anticipated by Cavell, to whom I turn in §4. I bring together insights from across Cavell’s oeuvre to develop this reading of Austin’s analogy and finally to critique certain aspects of it. This paper adds to the recent resurgence in Austin scholarship and aims to get clear the philosophical and historical stakes of his historically maligned analogy.

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Joel De Lara
The New School

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The problem of uptake.Joel de Lara - 2024 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 67 (10):3893-3929.

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References found in this work

Assertion.Peter Geach - 1965 - Philosophical Review 74 (4):449-465.
How to Do Things With Pornography.Nancy Bauer - 2015 - Harvard Univeristy Press. Edited by Sanford Shieh & Alice Crary.
Language, Truth and Logic.[author unknown] - 1937 - Erkenntnis 7 (1):123-125.

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