ordinary language philosophy | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

Episode 195: Truth-The Austin/Strawson Debate (Part Two)

July 30, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 6 Comments

Continuing on “Truth” by J.L. Austin and “Truth” by P.F. Strawson, both from 1950. We proceed to the Strawson article, which critiques the notion of a “fact” as explaining why a sentence might be true. A “fact” is not a thing in the world! So what do we add when we change “The cat is on the mat” to “‘The cat is on the mat’ is true”?

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Episode 195: Truth-The Austin/Strawson Debate (Part One)

July 23, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

On two articles in the “ordinary language” tradition of philosophy called “Truth” from 1950 by J.L. Austin and P.F. Strawson.

Is truth a property of particular speech acts, or of the propositions expressed through speech acts? Does truth mean correspondence with the facts, or does the word “fact” make this definition totally uninformative? Does saying “is true” add any information content to a sentence over and above just stating that sentence?

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