Sense and Sensibilia is a landmark 1962 work of ordinary language philosophy by J. L. Austin, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Austin attacks sense data theories of perception, specifically those of A. J. Ayer.
The book was published posthumously having been reconstructed from Austin's manuscript notes by fellow Oxford philosopher Geoffrey Warnock. Austin's first lectures, which formed the basis for the manuscript, were delivered at Oxford in Trinity Term 1947 under the general title "Problems on Philosophy".
The Guardian described it as:
"... a philosophical classic.. Mr Warnock has performed his task in a way that is quite remarkable. His brilliant editing puts everybody who is concerned with philosophical problems in his debt."
Famous quotes containing the word sense:
“Every living language, like the perspiring bodies of living creatures, is in perpetual motion and alteration; some words go off, and become obsolete; others are taken in, and by degrees grow into common use; or the same word is inverted to a new sense or notion, which in tract of time makes an observable change in the air and features of a language, as age makes in the lines and mien of a face.”
—Richard Bentley (1662–1742)