‘We don’t just speak to state matters of fact by speaking we also do things’Īustin argued that philosophy had traditionally got language wrong, by presuming that it merely described reality by referring to its various objects. Some words hurt, others heal, and some change our lives forever… In many ways, language does a lot more than it says. How did he do it? An important explanation can be found in the work of the English philosopher John Austin (1911-1960), who showed how words act on reality. But not on closer inspection: your colleague happens to be a master of passive-aggressive communication, and with these few words he somehow managed to ruin the atmosphere in just a few seconds. But what does he mean? At face value, the phrase seems perfectly innocuous. “Each to their own”, says your colleague as he leaves the room, thus abruptly ending the conversation.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |