ABSTRACT
Three features of Austin’s remarks on method stand out as distinctive. One is his claim that “to proceed from ‘ordinary language’” in one’s way of philosophizing means “examining what we should say when.” A second feature is his view that ordinary language “is not the last word: in principle it can everywhere be supplemented and improved upon and superseded. Only remember, it is the first word.” And third: “When we examine what we should say when (…), we are not looking merely at words but also the realities we use words to talk about.”
If these three features are taken by themselves, it may seem as if Austin did have a dogmatic view of philosophy and that “ordinary usage” was given an unwarranted kind of privilege in his thinking. But, if seen in the light of the investigations he actually was involved in and in relation to the kinds of problems he was troubled by, the picture changes quite a lot. Central thoughts here are that the emphasis on linguistic elasticity, and the uncovering of the limitations of theoretical attempts to once and for all spell out the sense of our expressions, should encourage us to always look at the whole situation in which we speakers move.
