J. L. Austin - Philosophical Papers (Clarendon Paperbacks)

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford
It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide in
Oxford New York
Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai
Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi
So Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto
Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press
in the UK and in certain other countries
Published in the United States
by Oxford University Press Inc., New York
Oxford University Press 1961, 1970, 1979
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
Database right Oxford University Press (maker)
First published 1961
Second edition 1970
Third edition 1979
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press,
or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate
reprographcs rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction
outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department,
Oxford University Press, at the address above
You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Austin, John Langshaw
Philosophical papers.3rd ed.
1. PhilosophyCollected works
I. Urmson, James Opie
II. Warnock, Geoffrey James
192'.08 B1618.A8 79-40630
ISBN 0-19-283021-X

To the Second Edition

Since 1961, when Austin's Philosophical Papers was first published, three further papers by him have appeared in print. Two of these are included in this new edition, and are further mentioned below. The third is 'Performatif-Constatif', which Austin presented at a (predominantly) Anglo-French conference at Royaumont in March 1958, and the original French text of which was published after his death in Cahiers de Royaumont, Philosophie No. IV, La Philosophie Analytique (Les Editions de Minuit, 1962). The editors felt in 1961 that this piece was too closely similar in content to 'Performative Utterances' for it to be reasonable to include both in a single volume, and of the two preferred 'Performative Utterances'partly, of course, because Austin's own English text of that paper was available. There seems no reason now to change that view; however, it should be noted that 'Performatif-Constatif' is now in print, and also that it has been translated into English (by G. J. Warnock, in Philosophy and Ordinary Language, edited by C. E. Caton, University of Illinois Press, 1963).

Of the two papers now added to this collection, ' and in the Ethics of Aristotle' is much the earlier in date. It was written before 1939, when Prichard, on whose views it comments, was still alive; but it was not published then, and there is no reason to think that in later years Austin intended that it should be, though he made in it certain changes and additions. That is largely why it was not included in the original edition of this book; another factor was that its text was imperfect in some passages. However, it has now appeared very fittingly in the collection Aristotle, edited by J. M. E. Moravcsik (Doubleday, New York, 1967: Macmillan, London, 1968), and should now be included with Austin's other published papers. 'Three Ways of Spilling Ink' is a rather different case,