...our common stock of words embodies all the distinctions men have found worth drawing, and the connexions they have found worth marking, in the lifetimes of many generations: these surely are likely to be more numerous, more sound, since they have stood up to the long test of the survival of the fittest, and more subtle, it least in all ordinary and reasonably practical matters, than any that you or I are likely to think up in our arm-chairs of an afternoon-the most favoured alternative method.
Also, my understanding is that Derrida misconstrues Austin's peripheral reference to "force" in one particular category (perlocutionary) to apply it as Austin's entire goal, and overlooks that Austin more generally is still claiming truth value (adequation to the world), but calls it "felicity" (aptness) to the criteria of a concept--if an apology is done correctly, it is not true, but felicitous (apt), rather than infelicitous (botched, I think is Austin's way of putting it once). This is not a "force" more than a rationality. — Antony Nickles
we are explicating and opening and expanding our ordinary criteria — Antony Nickles
Also, my understanding is that Derrida misconstrues Austin's peripheral reference to "force" in one particular category (perlocutionary) to apply it as Austin's entire goal, and overlooks that Austin more generally is still claiming truth value (adequation to the world), but calls it "felicity" (aptness) to the criteria of a concept--if an apology is done correctly, it is not true, but felicitous (apt), rather than infelicitous (botched, I think is Austin's way of putting it once). This is not a "force" more than a rationality. — Antony Nickles
Again, it's not that philosophy is "misusing" language, and OLP is arguing that it is using it correctly. — Antony Nickles
f you read Philosophical Investigations, it is full of open-ended questions — Antony Nickles
And again, the claim of OLP is hyperbolic — Antony Nickles
I re-read Signature-Event-Context today, and my take on it is this. Derrida zeros in on the concept(s) of context, which is central to the argument of olp. He claims that Austin believes one can exhaustively determine a context of word uses such that no remainder is left over. — Joshs
...our common stock of words embodies all the distinctions men have found worth drawing, and the connexions they have found worth marking, in the lifetimes of many generations: these surely are likely to be more numerous, more sound, since they have stood up to the long test of the survival of the fittest, and more subtle, it least in all ordinary and reasonably practical matters, than any that you or I are likely to think up in our arm-chairs of an afternoon-the most favoured alternative method. — Banno
Nietzsche renders the list too irregular — Banno
...an ordinary langauge treatment of ethics; but too much Kant for him to be central or OLP — Banno
but it's not style that counts here; it's method — Banno
Sounds like a recipe for mediocrity. I wonder how much of that ‘common stock of words’ would remain if we removed the contributions of writers in innumerable fields of culture who thought them up in their armchairs(Plato, Freud, Shakespeare,etc). — Joshs
So you use complex analysis to discover ordinary usage? Kind of like using a microscope to view an elephant?Ordinary Language Philosophy is characterised by close analysis of key words in terms of their entomology and interrelationship. — Banno
without saying it in the way he does. — Antony Nickles
The key characteristic of Austin's approach is the seeking of wisdom within our everyday language. — Banno
Wittgenstein, in contrast, disdained how language misleads us into philosophical knots that are to be undone by careful and more formal analysis. — Banno
Do you want fame, or truth? — Banno
we are explicating and opening and expanding our ordinary criteria
— Antony Nickles
So, making them less ordinary? — Pantagruel
The key characteristic of Austin's approach is the seeking of wisdom within our everyday language. — Banno
If you read Philosophical Investigations, it is full of open-ended questions
— Antony Nickles
You see, I don't think of those as rhetorical questions. — Ciceronianus the White
And again, the claim of OLP is hyperbolic
— Antony Nickles
You mean it's exaggerated? Beyond reasonable? I think we're operating with different definitions. Also with "strident." I see nothing in OLP as being harsh, grating or unpleasantly forceful. The same with "extravagant." In what sense can OLP be described as lacking in restraint or absurd? — Ciceronianus the White
There must be both "poor" and "good" ordinary usages. You can't do such an analysis without some kind of normative dimension. — Pantagruel
Moore skips over scepticism? No, he confronts it directly. — Banno
While Austin looks to set out the relations between concepts already found in our everyday language, Wittgenstein looks to set out the deeper logic found when that same discourse goes astray. * * *
These are not contrary methods, but complimentary. And certainly they are distinct. — Banno
Quite a bit I would think, compared with those thought up in armchairs. Care to name some of the latter? — Ciceronianus the White
philosophers, and everyone else, makes use of the common stock of words all the time. Some err by construing and using them uncommonly, however. — Ciceronianus the White
“Austin's procedure is rather remarkable and typical of that philosophical tradition with which he would like to have so few ties. It consists in recognizing that the possibility of the negative (in this case, of infelicities) is in fact a structural possibility, that failure is an essential risk of the operations under consideration; then, in a move which is almost immediately simultaneous, in the name of a kind of ideal regulation, it excludes that risk as accidental, exterior, one which teaches us nothing about the linguistic phenomenon being considered. This is all the more curious-and, strictly speaking, untenable-in view of Austin's ironic denunciation of the 'fetishized' opposition: valuelfact."
-Derrida (my emphasis)
In addition to the questions posed by a notion as historically sedimented as "convention," it should be noted at this point:
1) that Austin, at this juncture, appears to consider solely the conventionality constituting the circumstance of the utterance [monce], its contextual surroundings, and not a certain conventionality intrinsic to what constitutes the speech act [locution] itself... — Joshs
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.