Meaning

Abstract

Grice’s growing unease with ordinary language philosophy brought him into conflict with J. L. Austin. Speaking long after leaving Oxford, he mentioned that he himself had always got on well with Austin, at least ‘as far as you can get on with someone on the surface so uncosy’.¹ But he clearly found that engaging with him in philosophical discussion could be a frustrating enterprise. Austin would adopt a stance on some particular aspect of language, often formed on the basis of a very small number of examples, and defend his position against a barrage of objections and counter-examples, however obvious. His tenacity in this would be impressive; Grice knew he himself had won an argument only on those occasions when Austin did not return to the topic the following week.