Ordinary Language Philosophy Research Articles

“Ludwig Wittgenstein” – A BBC Radio Talk by Elizabeth Anscombe in May 1953

Presented here is the transcript of a BBC radio broadcast by Elizabeth Anscombe that was recorded in May 1953 – the month when Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations appeared in England for the first time. In her radio talk, Anscombe provides some biographical and philosophical background for reading the Philosophical Investigations. She addresses the importance of the Tractatus and of the literary qualities of Wittgenstein’s writing. Anscombe warns that it would be fruitless to adopt slogans from Wittgenstein without insight. She also calls it a misunderstanding to think that Wittgenstein had championed something like the Ordinary Language Philosophy as it was practised at the time of the recording.

Ordinary language use and the social construction of dyslexia

The dyslexia debate remains a contentious and difficult academic field. My positioning is that of a dyslexic, and a philosopher, and as such I do not question the existence of dyslexics only how we might understand that existence. In this paper I reject the value of dyslexia as a concept; instead I suggest we should recognise the existence of dyslexics as a socially constructed and Othered group. I suggest that the concept of Lexism (normative beliefs and practices of literacy) enables us to understand dyslexic ontology more clearly. I utilize ordinary language philosophy, a philosophical approach, to investigate the social construction of dyslexia. I propose a thought experiment of a fictitious disability (‘Dyscomputia’), as a comparable case, to highlight a misconception within the concept of dyslexia. ‘Dyscomputia’ is, of course, a nonsense, but it enables us to see the problematic beliefs behind the concept ‘dyslexia’ (or any equivalent term).

Metalinguistic proposals

ABSTRACT This paper sets out the felicity conditions for metalinguistic proposals, a type of directive illocutionary act. It discusses the relevance of metalinguistic proposals and other metalinguistic directives for understanding both small- and large-scale linguistic engineering projects, essentially contested concepts, metalinguistic provocations and the methodology of ordinary language philosophy. Metalinguistic proposals are compared with other types of linguistic interventions, including metalinguistic negotiation, conceptual engineering, lexical warfare and ameliorative projects.

H. L. A. Hart: vida y contexto filosófico

En este trabajo se ofrece un bosquejo biográfico de H. L. A. Hart así como una reconstrucción del contexto cultural y filosófico en el que forjó su pensamiento. En la primera parte se proporcionan los datos más relevantes de su biografía, entre los que destaca su participación en los servicios de inteligencia durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Posteriormente, el trabajo incursiona en el panorama filosófico británico de principios del siglo XX, durante la llamada revuelta anti-idealista, que es donde se ubican los orígenes de la moderna filosofía analítica. Es allí donde encontramos los antecedentes del método filosófico de Hart; concretamente, en la corriente de la filosofía del lenguaje ordinario encabezada por J. L. Austin. El autor concluye con una serie de testimonios del propio Hart donde se evidencia lo anterior y plantea algunos temas para futuras investigaciones.

The Child’s Claim to the Transmission of Language

Sandra Laugier describes Stanley Cavell’s contribution to philosophy as the bringing back of the human voice into central consideration: “For Cavell, the stakes of ordinary language philosophy (particularly Wittgenstein’s and Austin’s work) are to make it understood that language is spoken; pronounced by a human voice within a form of life.” How can I then express my own voice when all of my expressions are those of others? In other words, how is it that a child becomes part of her or his form of life? How does she or he claim her or his own voice? Presenting the transmission of language this way implies another way of seeing what language is, what learning language is, and finally what subjectivity in language is.

A Common-Sense Pragmatic Theory of Truth

Truth is a fundamental philosophical concept that, despite its common and everyday use, has resisted common-sense formulations. At this point, one may legitimately wonder if there even is a common-sense notion of truth or what it could look like. In response, I propose here a common-sense account of truth based on four “truisms” (to use J.L. Austin’s term) that set a baseline for how to go about building an account of truth. Drawing on both ordinary language philosophy and contemporary pragmatic approaches to truth, I defend a pragmatic, common-sense theory of truth. The result is a theory that focuses the use and function of truth while also emphasizing its “subject-independence.”

“Putting the Linguistic Method in its Place”

Early in his career and in critical engagement with ordinary language philosophy, John Mackie developed the roots of a methodology that would be fundamental to his thinking: Mackie argues that we need to clearly separate the conceptual analysis which determines the meaning of an ordinary term and the factual analysis which is concerned with the question what, if anything, our language corresponds to in the world. I discuss how Mackie came to develop this distinction and how central ideas of his philosophy are based on it. Using the examples of Mackie’s moral skepticism and his work on Locke’s theory of perception I show how his methodology opens the door to error theories but can also support more positive claims. Finally, I put Mackie’s methodology in a historical perspective and argue that in cases like the Gettier debate, we can use it to cast light on the vagueness of the underlying methodology in some philosophical debates.

‘English, motherfucker, do you speak it?’ Pulp Fiction and the Future of Film-Philosophy

In recent years, film scholars have been increasingly preoccupied with questions as to how films can ‘be’ or ‘do’ or ‘be used for’ philosophy. From the ‘be used for’ position, films are seen as mere examples or jumping-off points to philosophy ‘proper’; from the ‘be’ position, films are seen as philosophy, as simply another form of philosophical argumentation; and from the ‘do’ position, films are seen as examples or illustrations of preexisting philosophical positions/protocols. In this essay, I will operate primarily from the ‘do’ position and explore how Quentin Tarantino ‘does’ ordinary language philosophy. Renowned for his innovative and influential dialogue, I intend to shine a light on a neglected aspect of Tarantino’s writing style and examine, with reference to the work of ordinary language philosophers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, J.L. Austin, and Stanley Cavell, the argumentative protocols discernible in Pulp Fiction (1994). More specifically, I will analyze the famous ‘foot massage argument’, utilizing such concepts as ‘projective imagination’ and ‘explaining the syntactics’ versus ‘demonstrating the semantics’, in the hopes of indicating the fecundity of the continued study of Tarantino’s justly famous dialogue. I also intend to broaden my investigation to consider, in light of responses to this material during the IFVCR Network conference and in light of current discussions within film studies, the disciplinary implications vis-a-vis film-philosophy of conducting such ordinary language investigations of dialogue and communication in film.

Editorial: Dialogue and Communication in Film

This editorial for a special themed issue of JOMEC Journal gives an overview of the issue contents and introduces the articles, written by Kyle Barrowman, Paul Bowman, Paolo Braga, Evelina Kazakeviciute, Naz Onen and David Sorfa. The issue presents new research and developments relating to the relatively underrepresented areas of dialogue and communication in film. Half of the texts discussed here are language-centred readings of films focused on dialogue; the other half pay particular attention to the representation of different levels of communication, such as speech and writing or intra-communication on screen. It also touches upon broader topics, such as film as a means of communication between the director and the audience. The authors approach their objects of analysis from a variety of perspectives – from ordinary language philosophy to deconstruction. The findings of their studies have both theoretical and practical value: among other discoveries, the authors came up with new critical tools for the analysis of dialogue and communication in film and valuable ideas on how film dialogue can contribute to the movie dramaturgically. Therefore, the research published in this issue might be relevant and of use to dialogue and communication scholars, screenwriters, and filmmakers.

Experimental ordinary language philosophy: a cross-linguistic study of defeasible default inferences

This paper provides new tools for philosophical argument analysis and fresh empirical foundations for ‘critical’ ordinary language philosophy. Language comprehension routinely involves stereotypical inferences with contextual defeaters. J.L. Austin’s Sense and Sensibilia first mooted the idea that contextually inappropriate stereotypical inferences from verbal case-descriptions drive some philosophical paradoxes; these engender philosophical problems that can be resolved by exposing the underlying fallacies. We build on psycholinguistic research on salience effects to explain when and why even perfectly competent speakers cannot help making stereotypical inferences which are contextually inappropriate. We analyse a classical paradox about perception (‘argument from illusion’), suggest it relies on contextually inappropriate stereotypical inferences from appearance-verbs, and show that the conditions we identified as leading to contextually inappropriate stereotypical inferences are met in formulations of the paradox. Three experiments use a forced-choice plausibility-ranking task to document the predicted inappropriate inferences, in English, German, and Japanese. The cross-linguistic study allows us to assess the wider relevance of the proposed analysis. Our findings open up new perspectives for ‘evidential’ experimental philosophy.

Revolutions of the Ordinary: Victorian Studies and the Turn to Ordinary Language

“To engage seriously with ordinary language philosophy,” Toril Moi tells us in the introduction to Revolution of the Ordinary: Literary Studies after Wittgenstein, Austin, and Cavell, “is a little like undergoing psychoanalysis. Wittgenstein assumes that we don't begin doing philosophy just for the sake of it, but because something is making us feel confused, as if we had lost our way.” As Moi begins her project of explaining to an audience of literary critics the insights of ordinary-language philosophy, represented primarily by the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, J. L. Austin, and Stanley Cavell, and making a case for the value of their ideas for the practice we usually call close reading, this psychoanalytic metaphor makes a sudden turn to diagnosis, or to the initiation of a kind of therapeutic address that can feel coercive even in its charisma. You must recognize your sickness, Moi insists, before you can be receptive to the treatment. “Who wants to undergo philosophical therapy,” she goes on to ask, “if they feel that everything in their intellectual life is just fine as it is? Paradoxically, then, the best readers of the reputedly ‘conservative’ Wittgenstein might be those who genuinely feel the need for a change” (12). What kind of therapeutic project does Moi want to pursue in this book, which begins by distinguishing the best readers (the readiest patients) from those who think, conservatively, that everything is “just fine as it is”?

A.J. Ayer and J.L. Austin: from “Ethical Judgements” to “Performative”

The article considers the thesis about A. Ayer’s radical empiricism as one of the possible conceptual sources for the development of the theory of J. Austin’s speech acts. In contemporary research literature more attention is devoted to the inquiry of the discussion between A. Ayer and J. Austin on the matter of “sense-data”. At the same time it can be stated that few attention is devoted to the historical and philosophical reconstruction of their mutual influence. The importance of this kind of reconstruction is caused by the fact that contention between A. Ayer and J. Austin in Oxford during 1930s and 1940s can be viewed as preliminary work of reception of the idea of L. Wittgenstein’s “language-games”. By comparing A. Ayer’s “empirical / ethical” and J. Austin’s “conservative / performative” oppositions one could show that A. Ayer’s earlier views on ethics expressed in his work “Language, Truth and Logic “cannot be unconditionally attributed to the logical positivism. Ayer’s following statements were considered: 1) ethical judgements state as judgments of arousal of feelings and stimulation to action; 2) ethical judgements state as expression of ethical feelings; 3) ethical judgements add nothing in terms of factual meaning; 4) feelings are not a necessary condition for their expression. In conclusion one can say that in a certain sense Ayer’s approach to the ethical judgment is open to understanding that the meaning of a word is its use in the language. The results of its ethical analysis can be viewed as an important impulse to the development of ordinary language philosophy. Therefore, it is possible to consider logical positivism as including the inevitable premises for creation the ordinary language philosophy.

From Private to Public

The most impressive thing about Andrew Norris’ book is its unflinching and unequivocal ease in bringing us to what I have elsewhere called the Cavellian precipice” through ordinary language philosophy and “external world” skepticism exclusively. That is, this book has a remarkable and fluid grasp of Cavell’s contribution to formal philosophical thought, which literary sorts like myself often eschew explaining precisely because the path to explaining skepticism, for us, feels far more pregnant and urgent when discussing objects of pleasure, namely film and literature.

Cavell on Feminism and the Ethics of Care

This paper sets out to present a connection I have sought to establish since the publication of my first writings on the concept of care between the ethics of care and my own philosophical background and foundation—ordinary language philosophy as represented by Wittgenstein, Austin, and Cavell—and thus to find in ordinary language philosophy (OLP), often considered to be disconnected from gender issues (except through speech act theory), resources for a reformulation of what for me is at stake in feminism: the inclusion and empowerment of women’s voices and expressiveness and attention to their experiences.

On the Return to Metaphysics in Analytical Philosophy of Mind

The article examines the change of theoretical framework in analytic philosophy of mind. It is well known fact that nowadays philosophical problems of mind are frequently seen as incredibly difficult. It is noteworthy that the first programs of analytical philosophy of mind (that is, logical positivism and philosophy of ordinary language) were skeptical about difficulty of that realm of problems. One of the most notable features of both those programs was the strong antimetaphysical stance, those programs considered philosophy of mind unproblematic in its nature. However, the consequent evolution of philosophy of mind shows evaporating of that stance and gradual recovery of the more sympathetic view toward the mind problematic. Thus, there were two main frameworks in analytical philosophy of mind: 1) the framework of logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy dominated in the 1930s and the 1940s; 2) the framework that dominated since the 1950s and was featured by the critique of the first framework. Thus, the history of analytical philosophy of mind moves between two highly opposite understandings of the mind problematic. The article aims to found the causes of that move in the ideas of C. Hempel and G. Ryle, who were the most notable philosophers of mind in the 1930s and the 1940s.

The Discussion on the Principle of Universalizability in Moral Philosophy in the 1970s and 1980s: An Analysis

In this paper, I analyzed the discussion on the principle of universalizability which took place in moral philosophy in 1970–1980s. In short, I see two main problems that attracted more attention than others. The first problem is an opposition of universalizability and generalization. M.G. Singer argued for generalization argument, and R.M. Hare defended universalizability thesis. Hare tried to refute Singer’s position, using methods of ordinary language philosophy, and claimed that in ethics generalization is useless and misleading. I have examined Singer’s defense and concluded that he was right and Hare was mistaken. Consequently, generalization argument is better in clarification of the relationship between universality and morality than Hare’s doctrine of universalizability, and hence the universality of moral principles is not incompatible with the existence of exclusions. The second problem is the substantiation of the application of categorical imperative in the theory of relevant act descriptions and accurate understanding of the difference between maxims and non-maxims. In Generalization in Ethics, Singer drew attention to this theme and philosophers have proposed some suggestions to solve this problem. I describe ideas of H.J. Paton, H. Potter, O. O’Neill and M. Timmons. Paton coined the teleological-law theory. According to Potter, the best criterion for the relevant act descriptions is causal one. O’N eill suggested the inconsistency-of-intention theory. Timmons defended the causal-law theory. My claim is that the teleological-law theory and the causal-law theory fail to solve the relevant act descriptions problem and the causal criterion and the inconsistency-of-intention theory have their limits. From this, I conclude that these approaches cannot be the basis for clarifying the connection between universality and morality, in contrast to Singer’s approach, which, therefore, is better than others to clarify the nature of universality in morality.

Stanley Cavell’s Argument of the Ordinary

My overall aim is to show that there is a serious and compelling argument in Stanley Cavell’s work for why any philosophical theorizing that fails to recognize what Cavell refers to as “our common world of background” as a condition for the sense of anything we say or do, and to acknowledge its own dependence on that background and the vulnerability implied by that dependence, runs the risk of rendering itself, thereby, ultimately unintelligible. I begin with a characterization of Cavell’s unique way of inheriting Austin and Wittgenstein – I call it “ordinary language philosophy existentialism” – as it relates to what Cavell calls “skepticism”. I then turn to Cavell’s response to Kripke in “The Argument of the Ordinary”, which is different from all other responses to Kripke’s Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language in that Cavell’s response, while theoretically powerful, is at the same time also existentialist, in the sense that Cavell finds a way of acknowledging in his writing the fundamental fact that his writing (thinking) constitutes an instance of what he is writing (thinking) about. This unique achievement of Cavell’s response to Kripke is not additional to his argument, but essential to it: it enables him not merely to say, but to show that, and how, Kripke’s account falsifies what it purports to elucidate, and thereby to show that the theoretical question of linguistic sense is not truly separable, not even theoretically, from the broadly ethical question of how we relate to others, and how we conduct ourselves in relation to them from one moment to the next.

SPEECH ACTS AND RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE: AN ATTEMPT TO EVALUATE THE UTTERANCES IN THE HOLY WRITINGS IN TERMS OF JOHN LANGSHAW AUSTIN’S SPEECH ACTS THEORY

It is recently seen that religious language is discussed with regard to various theories related to language. In this study, religious language will be evaluated in terms of speech acts theory which is one of the most important theories associated with ordinary language. Accordingly, some questions will be the main concern of this article. Can the matters stated in the speech acts theory be applied to the religious language? If applicable, in what way can it be applied? Should we impose any restriction while applying this theory to the ordinary language? Firstly, it is necessary to discuss speech acts theory of Austin who is one of the most significant agents of the ordinary language philosophy in order to answer these questions. Afterwards, the expressions in The Holy Quran [1] accepted by Muslims as a holy writing will be analysed in the sense of Austin’s theory: It will also be investigated whether the approaches mentioned in Austin’s theory take part in these writings or not. [1] Citations of the translation of Quran were retrieved from Meulana Muhammad Ali. Article visualizations:

Echoes of Emerson: Rethinking Realism in Twain, James, Wharton, and Cather

Echoes of Emerson: Rethinking Realism in Twain, James, Wharton, and Cather

A lacuna explicativa: a desconstrução pragmática de um mito

Este artigo apresenta a proposta de abordar o problema da lacuna explicativa na filosofia da mente. De modo alternativo às abordagens tradicionais, analiso o significado da lacuna explicativa segundo o pragmatismo de James em consonância com a perspectiva da filosofia da linguagem comum de Ryle, Austin e Wittgenstein. Como estratégia de desenvolvimento da proposta do artigo, procuro mostrar que a lacuna explicativa resulta de uma má compreensão dos usos dos termos psicológicos. O resultado é uma obsessiva insistência em entificar o significado de ‘mente’ e a crença de que alguns termos psicológicos significam um tipo de entidade existindo além dos nossos usos dos termos psicológicos. Tal crença assume a forma de uma compreensão da visão fundacionalista do mental. O que procuro mostrar finalmente, e também em consonância com as recentes perspectivas enativistas, é que o significado dos termos psicológicos nada tem a ver com a existência de entidades (não-físicas ou físicas). A crença em tais entidades, como condição de significação dos termos psicológicos, revela um mito filosófico derivado da aceitação da lacuna explicativa. A proposta do artigo é a desmitificação filosófica da lacuna explicativa.