At the End of the Morning

---- By J. L. S.


-------------- ONE of the most terrific (not in Liza Minnelli´s sense, but meaning "terrifying") idioms of the last decade or so has been, they say, "at the end of the day". You turn on the television and everybody is saying it!

--- I find myself proposing (to Kramer, etc.) the semi-equivalent,

"at the end of the morning"


The reference being, of course, to those famous "Saturday mornings" held from 1945 to 1967 at Oxford.

There were two main periods:

Austin alive
Austin dead

--- Austin alive: 1945 to 1960.

--- Austin dead: 1960 to 1967 (when Grice left for Harvard, etc. -- and that was it: the strange death of ordinary language philosophy as we knew it!

The Saturday mornings, or "Sat. mngs", for short, have been pretty carefully studied by philosophers. The main reference has to be that very academic article, by Sir Geoffrey Warnock (once Vice-Chancelor of Oxford -- this is the TOP: The Chancelor is Queen Elizabeth, dear!), called "Saturday Mornings".

--- These were helds about tenish to noonish. Austin, particularly, lived in the suburbia of suburbia, and he drove a Morris minor. Grice lived closer, and could walk.

--- They were held mainly at Grice´s St. John´s, a special room that had Austin brimming with joy at the sight of a scruple of Griceans sharing a table.

Students who were allowed in the later meetings organised by Grice would recall that they felt the thing pretty unorganised. Especially, the lack of a board did not help.

----

These were NOT official meetings, of course.

Austin was particular as to age, and rightly so. Everyone had to be his junior. Since he was born in 1911, that was pretty easy, since the creme de la creme of Brit. philosophers then was younger than that.

Ryle lamented, "I´m afraid I never could participate in those charmers. But then I´m 1900 vintage."

--- The Saturday Morningers held various views. If they all agreed on something, e.g. that Popper was exaggerating when he said that "All swans are black" had been refuted, Austin would say, "Well, if a whole scruple of Griceans agree on something, there must be something to it."

Grice recalls, "Since he seldom explicited the reference of "it" some of us were held in the dark."

One one occasion someone went with the robin to Grice. Austin had been heard complaining that HE had heard people complain at his leadership. "Well, they have to be LED by someone. And if it´s not ME, who?"

Oddly, when he passed away (died) of cancer in his 50s, in 1960.

Let me check

1960
- 1911
_______
49

(No, in his late forties).

the leadership went naturally to our clubee.