How to do things with words elevated my understanding of language and interpretive skills as a historical researcher finding the tools to allow deeper analysis is the key to good scholarship i have read countless books and articles that attempt to apply austins theories to their work and for the most part they do a great job. How to do things with words john l austin was one of the leading philosophers of the twentieth century the william james lectures presented austins conclusions in the field to which he directed his main efforts on a wide variety of philosophical problems these talks became the classic how to do things with words. Austin j l how to do things with words topics libertario philosophy language william james lectures collection opensource language english austin j l how to do things with words addeddate 2015 11 01 190707 identifier howtodothingswithwordsaustin identifier ark ark 13960 t6934jq57 ocr. 2003 university of miami school of law 119 how to do things with words j l austin 1 lecture i what i shall have to say here is neither difficult nor contentious the only merit i should like to claim for it is that of being true at least in parts. Jl austin how to do things with words 1962 austin develops the notion of an illocutionary act from his earlier doctrine of performative utterances expressions which roughly defined as not being true or false but rather being uttered in the performance of an illocutionary act according to austin these performative utterances