Three Ways of Spilling Ink

Parts I, II, and III of the following paper are taken, almost verbatim, from J. L. Austin's longhand draft, found among his papers after his death, of a lecture he gave to the American Society of Political and Legal Philosophy, which met in Chicago in I958. Authenticity of expression can be claimed for these sections, though no doubt Austin would have changed much had he himself completed his revisions for publication in the yearbook of the Society: Responsibility (Nomos III), edited by Carl Friedrich (New York, i960). An outline of this lecture, which was distributed at the meeting and available to the participants, was published as an appendix to this volume. The introductory section was not fully written out in Austin's manuscript, but has been pieced together from notes made on several separate sheets, and with the help also of Austin's notes for seminars he conducted at Oxford, over a period of many years, under the general title Excuses. In these seminars he discussed not only material incorporated in the present paper, but also much on which A Plea for Excuses was based. The manuscript bears the title Responsibility, since this was the general topic of the meeting of the Society at which the lecture was given. The published appendix, however, is entitled Three Ways of Spilling Ink, and this is most probably the title Austin himself would have chosen had he published the paper. The editor is grateful to Mrs. Austin for permission to submit the paper for publication and to Mr. G. J. Warnock, who has read both the manuscript and the present paper and has made many valuable suggestions for its improvement. L. W. FORGUSON