“Tragic Implication” looks at the links between the first and last essays in Must We Mean What We Say? Cavell’s concept of acknowledgment as it emerges in the last two essays in this collection has received a fair amount of attention. This essay, by contrast, looks at his work on and in ordinary language philosophy as it emerges in this first extension and radicalization of Austin’s work in the title essay, and shows the latency of tragedy in that early work, even as Cavell goes on to find Austin’s work unable to accommodate tragedy. It thus links Cavell’s earliest work on Austin, with his latest work in A Pitch of Philosophy, and returns to Cavell’s reading of Lear to show that it is King Lear that teaches him his differences with Austin.