Category: Ordinary Language Philosophy
-
The Cartesian Dream Argument and an Austinian Contrast Argument
In this Substack entry I defend the Frenchman against the Englishman. Continentals 1 – Insular Islanders 0. A number of contrast arguments are examined.
-
Peter Hitchens on an Evening Without Richard Dawkins
Excerpt (emphasis added) The most moving – and most enjoyable – contribution of the evening came from the marvellous Dr Stephen Priest, simultaneously diffident and extremely powerful. I won’t try to summarise it because I’m sure I’d fail. I hope it will eventually make it on to the web. It reminded me of why I had…
-
Ernest Gellner on Ordinary Language Philosophy: Moore as Wittgensteinian Man
The following quotations from Ernest Gellner's Words and Things are borrowed from Kieran Setiya's site. Academic environments are generally characterised by the presence of people who claim to understand more than in fact they do. Linguistic Philosophy has produced a great revolution, generating people who claim not to understand what in fact they do. Some achieve…
-
What Is the Appeal of Ordinary Language Philosophy?
One source of its appeal is that it reinstates much of what was ruled out as cognitively meaningless by logical positivism but without rehabilitating the commitments of old-time metaphysics. Permit me to explain. (My ruminations are in part inspired by Ernest Gellner, to give credit where credit is due.) Crudely put, as befits a crude…
-
Wittgenstein on Time and Flux
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Remarks, ed. Rush Rhees, trs. Hargreaves and White, Chicago 1975, p. 83: 52. It's strange that in ordinary life we are not troubled by the feeling that the phenomenon is slipping away from us, the constant flux of appearance, but only when we philosophize. This indicates that what is in question here…
-
What is Wrong and What is Right with Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Religion
One source of the appeal of ordinary language philosophy (OLP) is that it reinstates much of what was ruled out as cognitively meaningless by logical positivism (LP) but without rehabilitating the commitments of old-time metaphysics. In particular, OLP allows the reinstating of religious language. This post explains, with blogic brevity, how this works and what…
-
The Cartesian Dream Argument and an Austinian Contrast Argument
J. L. Austin, in a footnote to p. 49 of Sense and Sensibilia (Oxford, 1962), writes of ". . . the absurdity of Descartes' toying with the notion that the whole of our experience might be a dream." In the main text, there is a sort of argument for this alleged absurdity. The argument may…
-
Wittgenstein, On Certainty #348: ‘I am Here’
Ludwig Wittgenstein writes: . . . the words 'I am here' have a meaning only in certain contexts, and not when I say them to someone who is sitting in front of me and sees me clearly, — and not because they are superfluous, but because their meaning is not determined by the situation, yet…
-
How Ordinary Language Philosophy Rests on Logical Positivism
A while back I came across Ernest Gellner's Words and Things (unrevised ed., 1963). It is jam-packed with insights. Here is an example: Linguistic Philosophy [O. L. philosophy] absolutely requires and presupposes [Logical] Positivism, for without it as a tacit premiss, there is nothing to exclude any metaphysical interpretation of the usages that are to…