Why Austin still matters

Abstract

I review in this paper how J. L. Austin relativizes the question of truth to contexts of the use of sentence-tokens, especially to the specifi c purposes with which a given user employs them. This has the consequence that truth becomes more matter of only being ‘roughly’ accurate, relative to a certain uses of sentence-tokens, rather than an inherent property of sentences in their putative correspondence to the world ‘out there’. Austin’s unease with the way philosophers have traditionally handled the question of truth thus stands out independently of his trademark thesis of verediction taking precedence over verum, the latter only taking its strength from the authority commanded by the one behind the former. This in turns opens up several new avenues of research, a fact that goes to prove that Austin has a lot to teach future generations of researchers.