J.L. Austin's linguistic method: towards a reassessment

This paper claims that Austin’s so-called linguistic method is little understood and attempts to go beyond its received picture. It starts by commenting on Austin’s statement of method in “A plea for excuses” as a product of his metaphilosophical reflection. Then it discusses two main charges, conservatism and philosophical irrelevance, which have been levelled at Austin’s philosophical method, and rejects both. It claims that greater attention should be paid to Austin’s own proposal of naming his method “linguistic phenomenology” and develops a comparison between Austin’s linguistic method and Husserl’s epoché or phenomenological reduction, which shows that in both cases a “bracketing” operation takes place, while each of the two philosophers apply it to a different dividing-line.