For this second edition, the editors have returned to Austin's original lecture notes, amending the printed text where it seemed necessary.

This book is the one to put into the hands of those who have been over-impressed by Austin 's critics....[Warnock's] brilliant editing puts everybody who is concerned with philosophical problems in his debt.

Austin takes on the problem of other minds, of how to respond to the question ‘how do you know?’, if this question is raised with regard to the thoughts, feelings, sensations, minds of other creatures. This problem has traditionally been understood as the problem of justifying our belief in the existence of other minds. Austin argues that believing in other persons, in authority and testimony, is an essential part of the act of communicating, and as such is an irreducible part (...) of our experience. While we can state certain advantages of communicative performances, there is no justification for our doing them as such. (shrink)