Mar. 26, 1911

J. L. Austin's Philosophical Papers (1970) contains a debate between the philosophers  P. F. Strawson (November 23, 1919 to February 13, 2006) and J. L. Austin. (March 26, 1911 to February 8, 1960). They were both  philosophers of language, and our discussion gives us a sense of what that means.

P. F. Stawson had contended that a distinction must be made between facts, and that which facts may be said to be "of." His argument included the point that a person is never considered a fact. So the setting here involves grasping that these philosophers are making a distinction between facts (conditions) and the thing itself (not a fact, but an entity to which facts adhere). Strawson argued  that facts are not really in the world. What fact are we using for an example here? A cat with mange. So the fact of mange is not really in the world, the way the cat is in the world. Austin found it difficult to take Strawson seriously. Both the facts and the entity (the mange and the cat) are in the world, and Austin rather assumed this was obvious. In similar circumstances Wittgenstein had taken the position that those both are in the world, with one, the facts, describable, and the other, the entity, not describable. Austin did not consider Wittgenstein as a sound thinker either.  All were Oxford philosophers.