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J. L. Austin: Philosopher and D-Day Intelligence Officer
The first biography of the philosopher who became a mastermind of Allied intelligence in World War Two.
Austere, witty, and formidable, J. L. Austin (1911-1960) was the leader of Oxford Ordinary Language Philosophy and the founder of speech-act theory. This book--the first full-length biography of Austin--enhances our understanding of his dominance in 1950s Oxford, examining the significance of his famous Saturday morning seminars, and his sometimes tense relationships with Gilbert Ryle, Isaiah Berlin, A. J. Ayer, and Elizabeth Anscombe. Throwing new light on Austin's own intellectual development, it probes the strengths and weaknesses of his mature philosophy, and reconstructs his late unpublished work on sound symbolism.
Austin's philosophical work remains highly influential, but much less well known is his outstanding contribution to British Intelligence in World War Two. The twelve central chapters thus investigate Austin's part in the North African campaign, the search for the V-weapons, the preparations for D-Day, the Battle of Arnhem, and the Ardennes Offensive, and show that, in the case of D-Day, he played a major role in the ultimate Allied victory.
While exploring Austin's dramatic and romantic personal history, Rowe pays close attention to his harsh schooling and pre-war affair with a married Frenchwoman; his wartime marriage, bomb injury, and response to a colleague's murder; and his post-war family life, the growing influence of America, and his tragically premature death. Adding considerably to our knowledge of World War Two, and Austin's diverse and enduring influence, this biography reveals the true complexity of his character, and the full range and significance of his achievements.
Austere, witty, and formidable, J. L. Austin (1911-1960) was the leader of Oxford Ordinary Language Philosophy and the founder of speech-act theory. This book--the first full-length biography of Austin--enhances our understanding of his dominance in 1950s Oxford, examining the significance of his famous Saturday morning seminars, and his sometimes tense relationships with Gilbert Ryle, Isaiah Berlin, A. J. Ayer, and Elizabeth Anscombe. Throwing new light on Austin's own intellectual development, it probes the strengths and weaknesses of his mature philosophy, and reconstructs his late unpublished work on sound symbolism.
Austin's philosophical work remains highly influential, but much less well known is his outstanding contribution to British Intelligence in World War Two. The twelve central chapters thus investigate Austin's part in the North African campaign, the search for the V-weapons, the preparations for D-Day, the Battle of Arnhem, and the Ardennes Offensive, and show that, in the case of D-Day, he played a major role in the ultimate Allied victory.
While exploring Austin's dramatic and romantic personal history, Rowe pays close attention to his harsh schooling and pre-war affair with a married Frenchwoman; his wartime marriage, bomb injury, and response to a colleague's murder; and his post-war family life, the growing influence of America, and his tragically premature death. Adding considerably to our knowledge of World War Two, and Austin's diverse and enduring influence, this biography reveals the true complexity of his character, and the full range and significance of his achievements.
682 pages, Hardcover
Published August 11, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 16, 2023
A fascinating, scrupulous, and well-written biography that is really two books in one, an exciting story of military intelligence and a... well, exciting story of peace-time philosophy.
One area which I felt was perhaps not adequately covered was Austin's politics. A fair amount is made of his having been left wing, but apart from his involvement with the famous Oxford by-election of 1938, it's not clear where the evidence is. Not that I doubt the claim, but I wanted to see more about his professions of political views or engagement in political activities.
One small point where I feel I can offer some illumination of my own, just connecting two dots that Rowe does not, is this. Rowe professes some surprise over how many philosophers, after Austin's death, described him as Burkean (especially given his left-wing politics). However, the famous passage on method that Rowe rightly emphasizes from "A Plea for Excuses" -
"...our common stock of words embodies all the distinctions men have found worth drawing, and the connections they have found worth marking, in the lifetime of many generations: these surely are likely to be more numerous, more sound, since they have stood up to the long test of survival of the fittest, and more subtle, at least in all ordinary and reasonable practical matters, than any that you or I are likely to think up in our armchair of an afternoon—the most favourite alternative method"
is surely pure Burke.
One area which I felt was perhaps not adequately covered was Austin's politics. A fair amount is made of his having been left wing, but apart from his involvement with the famous Oxford by-election of 1938, it's not clear where the evidence is. Not that I doubt the claim, but I wanted to see more about his professions of political views or engagement in political activities.
One small point where I feel I can offer some illumination of my own, just connecting two dots that Rowe does not, is this. Rowe professes some surprise over how many philosophers, after Austin's death, described him as Burkean (especially given his left-wing politics). However, the famous passage on method that Rowe rightly emphasizes from "A Plea for Excuses" -
"...our common stock of words embodies all the distinctions men have found worth drawing, and the connections they have found worth marking, in the lifetime of many generations: these surely are likely to be more numerous, more sound, since they have stood up to the long test of survival of the fittest, and more subtle, at least in all ordinary and reasonable practical matters, than any that you or I are likely to think up in our armchair of an afternoon—the most favourite alternative method"
is surely pure Burke.
August 28, 2023
I special ordered this book to a cute little book store in Berlin because I couldn't wait until I got home to read about the combo of ordinary language philosophy and WWII history—the perfect intersection of my work and leisure interests. But that meant that I had to carry it around with me when traveling around this summer, which is a big commitment because it weighs *a ton*. It might be the sheer density of footnotes that makes it weigh so much. There are about 200+ pages on Austin's work in WWII, and the level of detail is kind of incredible.
One detail from the WWII sections struck me as very cool and interesting: British photo reconnaissance planes used a camera set on a timer to take two pictures at short intervals so that they could be viewed through a stereoscope to produce a 3-D image of stuff on the ground, which made it much easier to interpret what one was looking at. (In Austin's essay "Truth" he uses the phrase "air mosaic", which took me a while to figure out what it was referring to—learning Austin was in Allied intelligence made it clear that it's a bunch of aerial recon photos placed together to give coverage of a wider area.)
The most shocking revelation from the book is that in a late interview, Gilbert Ryle says of Austin that "He was a martinet to his heels...I hated him" (p. 480).
There's a really good chapter dissecting Austin's very distinctive literary style, and I loved the descriptions of Austin's time in the USA, especially his wonder at the "luxury and lushness" of 1950s southern California (p. 572). Imagine the contrast between wintertime in postwar Britain and hanging out in houses surrounded by lemon groves in Santa Barbara!
One detail from the WWII sections struck me as very cool and interesting: British photo reconnaissance planes used a camera set on a timer to take two pictures at short intervals so that they could be viewed through a stereoscope to produce a 3-D image of stuff on the ground, which made it much easier to interpret what one was looking at. (In Austin's essay "Truth" he uses the phrase "air mosaic", which took me a while to figure out what it was referring to—learning Austin was in Allied intelligence made it clear that it's a bunch of aerial recon photos placed together to give coverage of a wider area.)
The most shocking revelation from the book is that in a late interview, Gilbert Ryle says of Austin that "He was a martinet to his heels...I hated him" (p. 480).
There's a really good chapter dissecting Austin's very distinctive literary style, and I loved the descriptions of Austin's time in the USA, especially his wonder at the "luxury and lushness" of 1950s southern California (p. 572). Imagine the contrast between wintertime in postwar Britain and hanging out in houses surrounded by lemon groves in Santa Barbara!
November 7, 2025
The story behind this book is brilliant. Rowe was writing an intellectual biography of a philosopher, and came across a couple of hearsay anecdotes about how he did important intelligence work before D-Day. He wanted to check this, started digging, and before long found himself committed to the years-long task of piecing together the story of a man who was absolutely integral to the Allied war effort and never told a soul. Austin seemed comfortable with keeping the secret, in part thanks to a personality that most readers will not warm to but which made me go ‘he’s just like me fr fr’. Further thoughts here.
July 22, 2026
This is a pretty thorough biography of the short but busy life of Austin.
The aspect of his life that it emphatically and lengthily highlights as biographically novel and noteworthy is his work for British intelligence (or "Intelligence" as Rowe likes to write it) during WW2. That section, the middle of 3, takes up close to 250 pages of this 600-ish-page book. While I can see why Rowe felt it worth including all this material, and it is indeed fairly interesting, I would have been happy with, say, a 15-page chapter summarising the main points. Happier, in fact. Be that as it may, Rowe does a pretty thorough job of demonstrating that Austin's war work was indeed significant and consequential, and that it deserves to be known about and recognised. After a while I switched to skimming ruthlessly for bits with actual narrative interest.
The first and third sections cover, no surprises, his life before and after WW2: his philosophical studies and career straddle the war. I found the life story per se interesting - I'd known nothing about Austin the man, who seems a typically or even a bit extremely mixed bag, very nice and likeable in some ways, and pretty darn unpleasant in certain contexts.
Rowe suggests that his success in the war work brought out an ambitious side, among other things, and a sort of confidence that was at times manifested in breathtaking rudeness and unpleasantness.
On the other hand he was a devoted husband and father (in the style of the period), and Rowe quotes numerous letters to his wife Jean that he would surely have been mortified - and livid - to see published. But of course he didn't, since he died rather abruptly from a late-diagnosed lung cancer at age 49 in early 1960.
I enjoyed reading about his relations and interactions with numerous other familiar names of the time in philosophy - Ryle, Ayer, Anscombe, Wittgenstein, Quine, Russell, to name a very few; and it was interesting to read about his takes on people such as Chomsky and Merleau-Ponty. Likewise the trips to, and his enjoyment of, the USA were fun to read about.
In short, for anyone interested in Austin - and for that matter, I expect for lots of people interested in WW2 history and the history of the modern intelligence service - there is plenty of interest here, even if for those who don't have a strong interest in both, there is also plenty that may feel skipworthy. But one can't begrudge that: Rowe's acknowledgements make it very clear that he put in a lot of work on this over a long period, and all the fruits of it have some value.
The aspect of his life that it emphatically and lengthily highlights as biographically novel and noteworthy is his work for British intelligence (or "Intelligence" as Rowe likes to write it) during WW2. That section, the middle of 3, takes up close to 250 pages of this 600-ish-page book. While I can see why Rowe felt it worth including all this material, and it is indeed fairly interesting, I would have been happy with, say, a 15-page chapter summarising the main points. Happier, in fact. Be that as it may, Rowe does a pretty thorough job of demonstrating that Austin's war work was indeed significant and consequential, and that it deserves to be known about and recognised. After a while I switched to skimming ruthlessly for bits with actual narrative interest.
The first and third sections cover, no surprises, his life before and after WW2: his philosophical studies and career straddle the war. I found the life story per se interesting - I'd known nothing about Austin the man, who seems a typically or even a bit extremely mixed bag, very nice and likeable in some ways, and pretty darn unpleasant in certain contexts.
Rowe suggests that his success in the war work brought out an ambitious side, among other things, and a sort of confidence that was at times manifested in breathtaking rudeness and unpleasantness.
On the other hand he was a devoted husband and father (in the style of the period), and Rowe quotes numerous letters to his wife Jean that he would surely have been mortified - and livid - to see published. But of course he didn't, since he died rather abruptly from a late-diagnosed lung cancer at age 49 in early 1960.
I enjoyed reading about his relations and interactions with numerous other familiar names of the time in philosophy - Ryle, Ayer, Anscombe, Wittgenstein, Quine, Russell, to name a very few; and it was interesting to read about his takes on people such as Chomsky and Merleau-Ponty. Likewise the trips to, and his enjoyment of, the USA were fun to read about.
In short, for anyone interested in Austin - and for that matter, I expect for lots of people interested in WW2 history and the history of the modern intelligence service - there is plenty of interest here, even if for those who don't have a strong interest in both, there is also plenty that may feel skipworthy. But one can't begrudge that: Rowe's acknowledgements make it very clear that he put in a lot of work on this over a long period, and all the fruits of it have some value.
January 6, 2025
Back when I was a graduate student this was the book I wish I could have written. It's a marvelous work of scholarship that brings people and places back to life. Austin is a classic 'you had to be there' phenomenon, but the author comes as close as possible to capturing him. It's also is a gripping detective story to uncover Austin's role in WWII.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews