Abstract

Austin and Quine both reacted to the logical positivism of Carnap, but they did it from different positions. While Quine with his pragmatic rejection of the analytic – synthetic divide and confirmation holism represents a modification and continuation of the tradition, Austin challenges its underlying assumptions: the prominent role of mathematics as a model for natural language and the dichotomy physical object – sense datum. His criticism is paralleled here by the later Wittgenstein in On Certainty and Philosophical Investigations, reacting to his earlier logical phase. But there seems to be no room left for the traditional questions of the philosophy of mathematics in Austin’s natural language approach.