J'ai vraiment beaucoup aimé JL Austin.
Faudrait que je m'y replonge un de ces jours.

Je l'avais d'abord lu en traduction française en préparant l’agrégation de philo (le thème au programme devait être le langage je crois, ou la vérité peut-être). Puis, plus tard, quand je suis devenu psychanalyste, en anglais (vers 2004-2005 j'imagine, à l'époque où j'étais immergé dans la pensée de Bion, et suivais les séminaires de Pierre-Henri Castel)

#JLAustin

(toute une période de ma vie passée qui aura laissé des traces bien entendu dans mes pensées d'aujourd'hui)

Comme on demandait à John Langshaw Austin, pourquoi il avait si peu publié (quelques articles dans des revues philosophiques spécialisées), il répondait : "il y a bien assez de livres comme ça".

Pour ceux qui l'ignorent, JL Austin est un des philosophes les plus importants du siècle passé, et, donc, probablement, un des moins prolifiques - auteur notamment de How to Do Things with Words (1962), Sense and Sensibilia (1962), et des Philosophical Papers (1979), trois volumes publiés après son décès à l'âge de 48 ans, en 1960.

Dans ces quelques centaines de pages rédigées avec un humour british absolument délicieux, auront été élaborés quelques-unes des théories les plus importantes de notre temps (les actes de langage, le performatif, la critique du sens commun, etc.), mais celle qui aura exercé la plus grande influence sur mon propre travail (notamment en psychanalyse), c'est sans aucun doute la perspective du langage ordinaire.

https://www.francetvinfo.fr/culture/livres/moins-de-temps-a-deballer-les-cartons-davantage-de-temps-pour-conseiller-les-clients-des-libraires-decident-de-faire-une-treve-dans-l-achat-de-nouveautes_7104285.html

C'est marrant, mais en relisant ce truc complètement indigeste que j'avais écrit dans ma période Wittgenstein, Austin, Bion - je me dis que tout de même, il se trouve le ferment de quelque chose qui est devenu extrêmement important pour moi aujourd'hui, l'usage queer de la langue.

(un usage particulier, tordu, queer, qui conduit à faire dire avec les mots quelque chose qui veut ne pas être dit, que la structure de domination inhérente à la langue "mainstream" fait tout pour que ce ne soit pas dit)

Voilà le truc indigeste (à l'époque, ça me paraissait sensé 😅 )

https://outsiderland.com/danahilliot/grammaire/

#JLAustin

NB : comme vous l'aurez noté en lisant les lignes qui précèdent, je me fous complètement de ce que font ou pas les libraires et les éditeurs (et ils me le rendent bien) 😅

There was a development from 19th century into 20th century empiricism of the positivists movement with its insistence that all knowledge claims must meet the standards of empirical science, but a number of things led to the demise of logical positivism....
#language #linguistics #wittgenstein #jlaustin #Ayers #BertrandRussell #Searle #dialectic #knowledge #gilbertryle #positivism #philosophy #historyofphilosophy #fmdnetwork https://philosophyindefinitely.wordpress.com/2020/07/18/ordinary-language-philosophy/

I was fascinated to learn that J.L. Austin was a major figure in British intelligence during the second world war, with a particular focus on drawing out the operational implications of intelligence. I find it hard to read about this and not infer that his sensitivity for how to do things with words must have been shaped by managing the diffusion of this knowledge during the war:

But in 1942 he took over the direction, at G.H.Q. Home Forces, of a small section which had recently been formed, to do the preliminary intelligence work for an invasion of Western Europe; and this was the field in which he became an unrivalled authority. His section, whose earlier days had been rather haphazard, was soon operating with method, rapidity, and a clear purpose. Though his standards were exacting, those under his command were enlivened by the confident sense of solid work getting done, of real progress being made. Professor A.J. Beattie, who served with Austin at this time, records that ‘his superiors in rank very quickly learned that he was an outstanding authority on all branches of intelligence work, and they soon depended on his advice far more than would normally have been considered proper in any headquarters’.

In the following year Austin’s section was vastly enlarged and transferred, under the name of the Theatre Intelligence Section, to 21st Army Group. Of this larger affair Austin as a Major – and later, when S.H.A.E.F. was formed, a Lt.-Col. – was of course not formally in command; but by this time his knowledge was so voluminous, his expertise so great, and his judgement so highly valued, that in practice he continued in charge of all the work. Before D-Day he had accumulated a vast quantity of information on the coast defences of northern France, on the base areas, supplies, formations, and transport system behind them, and indeed on every aspect of the German defence forces and civilian administration in that ‘theatre’. Weekly, and later daily, reports were issued recording changes in the German dispositions; and a kind of guidebook was compiled for the use of the invading troops, in whose title – Invade Mecum – those who know Austin’s writings will recognize his style. It has been said of him that he directed this huge volume of work ‘without ever getting into serious difficulty of any kind’ and, more impressively, that ‘he more than anybody was responsible for the life-saving accuracy of the D-Day Intelligence’.

https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publishing/memoirs/pba-49/austin-john-langshaw-1911-1960/#:~:text=He%20left%20the%20Army%20in,service%20of%20the%20highest%20value.

Thanks to Milan Sturmer for pointing out there’s a book about this, recently reviewed in the LRB by Thomas Nagel:

Austin died of cancer in 1960 at the age of 48. Though he published only a handful of substantial essays during his lifetime, there are also significant posthumous publications, and Austin’s philosophical ideas, the power of his personal influence and his central position in the philosophical developments of his time make him a natural subject for an intellectual biography. But M.W. Rowe’s book isn’t just an intellectual biography. He has discovered that Austin was one of the most important Allied military intelligence officers during the Second World War, overseeing the team that made the Normandy landings possible. More than a third of the book is taken up with Austin’s five years in the army, and with the achievements he never talked about, even to his wife.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n17/thomas-nagel/leader-of-the-martians

https://markcarrigan.net/2024/06/30/how-did-j-l-austins-war-time-experience-shape-his-theory-of-performativity/

#JLAustin #performativity #speechActs #war

Very nice review by Andrew Milne of Nikhil Krishnan's new history of philosophy at Oxford in the mid-20th century. (Spoiler alert: Milne likes Krishnan's book.)
https://theconversation.com/english-philosophers-thought-they-had-sloughed-off-the-dead-weight-of-history-but-history-suggests-otherwise-205400
#Philosophy #Oxford #GilbertRyle #JLAustin

Nagel has an excellent review at the New Statesman of Nikhil Krishnan's new book on "ordinary language" philosophy, A Terribly Serious Adventure: Philosophy at Oxford 1900-60
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/book-of-the-day/2023/05/plain-speaking-philosophers
#Philosophy #Ryle #JLAustin

Finally, Nat continues:

3:

Also, he argued against historian C.B. Macpherson, that John Locke could not have been basing his writing on capitalism because it had not yet codified into an available language. (But would soon do so.) I studied with Pocock but disagreed with him about Macpherson.

Anyway, you can see how that fits into "Babel 17." BTW, In those days no one would bring up SF in a grad class.

#SamuelRDelany #JLAustin #wittgenstein #ThomasKuhn #JGAPocock #CBMacpherson

Nat:

2:

His argument for a linguistic empiricism contradicted political theorist Leo Strauss's combination of ahistoricism & conspiracy theory that, sadly, most of the current Supreme Court justices pretend to base their decisions on.

#SamuelRDelany #JLAustin #wittgenstein #ThomasKuhn #JGAPocock #CBMacpherson

Nat:

1:

In the 1970s & 1980s the historian J.G.A. Pocock introduced a concept he called "available languges," based on such ideas as Wittgenstein's "family resemblance," J.L. Austin's "speech acts, & Thomas Kuhn's "paradigms." The idea was that at any given moment folks could only make political arguments given the concepts/languages available to them.

#SamuelRDelany #JLAustin #wittgenstein #ThomasKuhn #JGAPocock