Austin's Sense and Sensibilia

This book ¹ was reconstructed by G. J. Warnock from notes Professor J. L. Austin prepared for a course of lectures he first gave in Oxford in Trinity Term, 1947, under the title Troblems of Philosophy’. The title was changed to ‘Sense and Sensibilia’ the following year. Mr Warnock deserves to be commended for a piece of work which must have been as difficult as its result is excellent. It is a considerable feat of sympathetic identification to have achieved the kind of continuity and order of thought as well as the stylistic continuity found in the book from the sketchy lecture notes a practised lecturer like Austin would need. Mr Warnock assures the reader in his Foreword that ‘… in all points of substance (and in many points of phraseology) his argument was the argument which this book contains’, and there can be no doubt whatever that Austin's thoughts have been recorded meticulously and with admirable clarity.