I'd exclude Wittgenstein.

The key characteristic of Austin's approach is the seeking of wisdom within our everyday language. The ethos is here:

...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.

One is to do philosophy by examining, in sometimes exquisite detail, what is going on in our everyday conversations.

Wittgenstein, in contrast, disdained how language misleads us into philosophical knots that are to be undone by careful and more formal analysis.

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

Yes, I think that comes up in this section. This is what Derrida was working up.

“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.

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, all that might be summarized rapidly under the problematical rubric of "the arbitrary nature of the sign," which extends, aggravates, and radi­
calizes the difficulty. "Ritual" is not a possible occurrence [eventualite], but rath­er, as iterability, a structural characteristic of every mark.

2) that the value of risk or exposure to infeliCity, even though, as Austin recog­nizes, it can affect a priori the totality of conventional acts, is not interrogated as
an essential predicate or as a law. Austin does not ponder the consequences issuing from the fact that a possibility-a possible risk-is always possible, and is in some sense a necessary possibility. Nor whether--once such a necessary pos­sibility of infeliCity is recognized-infeliCity still constitutes an accident. What is a success when the possibility of infelicity continues to constitute its struc­ture?”

we are explicating and opening and expanding our ordinary criteria — Antony Nickles

So, making them less ordinary?

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

Well put. Felicity is the broader classification, truth is the characteristic of felicity that is found in statements.

Again, it's not that philosophy is "misusing" language, and OLP is arguing that it is using it correctly. — Antony Nickles

I think of Austin's example of referring to a stick in water as looking "bent" or "crooked."

f you read Philosophical Investigations, it is full of open-ended questions — Antony Nickles

You see, I don't think of those as rhetorical questions.

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?

I think you may be taking a view of OLP that's too metaphorical.

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

Again, Derrida is jumping to conclusions maybe for his own reasons (if context is closed than the only option is difference?). A context only needs to be fleshed out to clarify any distinctions which are necessary for you and I to have no more concerns. If a concept is used generally, than the need for criteria and any context are simple to resolve. To quote myself from Emotions Matter: "The sky is blue." "Do you mean: we should go surfing? It's not going to rain? or are you just remarking on the brilliant color?" All these concerns of course may not need a much larger, more-detailed drawing out of a context to resolve (either to the Other or myself), but the context is endless if the need for distinctions remain. Context is not a means of (all) communication, it is a means of investigating our criteria of our concepts. One question would be: what context gives us an idea of the criteria a philosopher is relying on when saying "Surely I must know what I feel!" (Witt)

...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

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).

Nietzsche renders the list too irregular — Banno

I concede, begrudgingly, just to stop talking about him (and let's not take up Socrates, etc. when we are still stuck on OLP being merely normal language use).

I will not budge, however, from the claim that Wittgenstein is fundamental to OLP.

...an ordinary langauge treatment of ethics; but too much Kant for him to be central or OLP — Banno

Not sure "him" is, but I will just throw out that Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations is ultimately an examination of ethics through (the epistemology of) OLP. And that Kant's "categories" are comparable to Witt's Concepts, just that each has it's own category, possibilities, conditions, etc.

Nietzsche is not an Ordinary Language Philosopher.

Including him would be anachronistic. Ordinary Language Philosophy was a reaction to the demise of the formal analysis of language found in the Early Wittgenstein, Russell, Frege, and so on, and took place in Oxford in the middle of last century.

Ordinary Language Philosophy is characterised by close analysis of key words in terms of their entomology and interrelationship. While Nietzsche may have done this occasionally, it was not central to his method.

Including Nietzsche detracts from the usefulness of the category, making it no more than a list of Antony's favourite philosophers.

(Posted before seeing Antony's reply above. Cheers.)

Sounds like a recipe for mediocrity. — Joshs

Do you want fame, or truth?

but it's not style that counts here; it's method — Banno

Cavell makes an argument that the "style" of the Investigations (confession, the Interlocutor, the obfuscation) is as much a part of the method. Not to drag Nietzsche into it, but I would argue that he too could not make his point (get you to see what he sees) without saying it in the way he does.

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

Quite a bit I would think, compared with those thought up in armchairs. Care to name some of the latter?

The simple fact is, though, that philosophers, and everyone else, makes use of the common stock of words all the time. Some err by construing and using them uncommonly, however.

Ordinary Language Philosophy is characterised by close analysis of key words in terms of their entomology and interrelationship. — Banno

So you use complex analysis to discover ordinary usage? Kind of like using a microscope to view an elephant?

without saying it in the way he does. — Antony Nickles

Right, it is genuine. There must be both "poor" and "good" ordinary usages. You can't do such an analysis without some kind of normative dimension.

An example. Take a look at my first post in the recent debate.

I am self-consciously setting out, in a too-brief and hence inadequate way, the relations between statements, belief, truth, and propositions. This approach is in opposition to the naive notion of 'defining one's terms'; see my thread on Definitions.

This approach derives from and uses the tools of ordinary language philosophy.

This is why I initially quoted Collingwood:

The business of language is to express or explain; if language cannot explain itself, nothing else can explain it.

You either use language in its most fundamentally expressive way, or you don't. OLP may be a good way of identifying what is not ordinary language, but the best way of discovering what is is through the use of...ordinary language. As I mentioned elsewhere, there is the typical, and there is the exemplary. And both are in a sense ordinary. But they are also different.

The key characteristic of Austin's approach is the seeking of wisdom within our everyday language. — Banno

I put Austin in the analytic tradition squarely against positivism/representationalism--showing the variety of ways in which statements can have rational value without being true/false. If this is wisdom, it is not "everyday" wisdom.

Wittgenstein, in contrast, disdained how language misleads us into philosophical knots that are to be undone by careful and more formal analysis. — Banno

Disdain is a strong word; I would say he unravels the picture which language allows, only to show the desire (for certainty, universality, etc.) which leads us to picture language that way (singularly). Now Witt takes skepticism (the cause of the desire) seriously, i.e., he does not try to 'solve" it, while Austin (and Moore) either skip over it as nonsense or insignificant.

That they have different conclusions, goals, whatever, does not make the method different. They are not creating theories, just showing us ourselves.

Do you want fame, or truth? — Banno

If you discover a writer whose worldview seems extraordinary to you , and who has not entered the public consciousness yet, your adoption of his terminology would put you in a small minority. But is his language ‘ordinary’? If he uses common terms but radically changers their sense , is it still
ordinary?

we are explicating and opening and expanding our ordinary criteria
— Antony Nickles

So, making them less ordinary? — Pantagruel

No, just brought out into the open, applied to various contexts (even new ones). Witt talks about how you know how to walk, but it's hard to explain. Criteria are not something people ordinarily get into, or see--the unconscious framework of our concepts.

The key characteristic of Austin's approach is the seeking of wisdom within our everyday language. — Banno

This is exactly what I am talking about.

Moore skips over scepticism? No, he confronts it directly.

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. Compare and contrast the shopkeeper in the first few pages of PI with three ways of spilling ink. The common ground is the common language. The former brings out the artificial logic that had been assumed to be behind an everyday tsk, displaying it for us to reject. The later explicates distinctions already found in our common interactions.

These are not contrary methods, but complimentary. And certainly they are distinct.

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

What I meant to say I guess was questions not answered (directly--"Imagine..." "Why do we wish to say..."; and open-ended claims (to the Grammar of something), for us to consider (rather than the statements people take them as).

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

By "hyperbolic" I meant that it is claiming to speak for all of us, that it is submitting itself to acceptance (assent Kant says) for what it sees. If you don't see the moral urgency of Wittgenstein, or even Austin, I might try to look for some quotes, but I'm not sure it is important enough--perhaps you may see it now that you know to look for it? And "extravagant" was only meant to refer to the absurdity of the imaginary scenarios/contexts which they sometimes employ to flesh out what philosophy means in what it says (robots, Corsican brothers, etc.)--as if they needed to match philosophy's absurdities (appearances, impressions, etc.).

No. On both accounts.

:up:

There must be both "poor" and "good" ordinary usages. You can't do such an analysis without some kind of normative dimension. — Pantagruel

Again, not about the "use" of language--especially whether it is used "well" or "poorly". The idea of "normative" is not the goal at all; OLP does not want to normalize language or what people are saying, or what problems philosophy should have. Now, this might be confusing because our criteria do have a sense of structure; or concepts a sense of exclusion/inclusion, and the idea of felicity does evoke the idea of the normative. But normative is a way of describing philosophy or language or rationality's constraint on our norms--but "we" do not have that power. To say the Grammar of an apology is normative for apologizing is not a function of the description of the criteria, it is the act (or failure) to apologize; i.e., there is no space for philosophy or language (ordinary or otherwise) to be "normative". Our concepts are our lives, which are our norms (among other criteria).

Moore skips over scepticism? No, he confronts it directly. — Banno

Yes, of course (poorly said). What I meant is that Moore ends up believing that he has solved skepticism, or shown it to be absurd, or incapable of being "thought" (my Moore is ancient). But only to contrast this with Wittgenstein and Cavell, who leave skepticism as an open threat, that there is a truth to it as Cavell says (our separateness, and responsibility for that). Austin will worry about identifying a Goldfinch, and show how it can be fake (thus what "real" is)--but he does not explicitly delve deeper into why we are tempted to worry whether the world is real, or whether you are (or I).

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

I'll grant you that they work in different ways, on different material, for different goals, but I would say Wittgenstein (pushing against metaphysics and positivism) does not have a dissimilar "method" to Austin (pushing against the descriptive fallacy)--drawing out the ordinary criteria and grammar of a concept to show their variety in the face of a monopolizing singular theory of meaning (they have that much in common; I would say that's enough). Yes, Witt does go farther, though I would say it is still a contrast of ordinary criteria against philosophical ones, only that he asks why we want to do that (get ourselves into that pickle/picture).

Of course maybe it is less important to argue about who is practicing OLP, than to agree that OLP is relevant (to modern philosophy) and a sound (rigorous) methodology, and how it works (and what it is not--which still seems to be an issue in many of these other threads).

Quite a bit I would think, compared with those thought up in armchairs. Care to name some of the latter? — Ciceronianus the White

As you know , like all languages, English is constantly evolving. One way to see this is by monitoring what new words make their way into dictionaries every year, which marks their entity into the realm of the ordinary, or at least conventional usage. You can google the list for this year.
How many of those words were ‘armchair’ words originally, used by a very small group of people for ‘uncommon’ purposes? Did they ‘ err’ by not using the common store?

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

Good lord, how does one convey an innovation in thought WITHOUT either using the common stock uncommonly or inventing neologisms?

It only makes sense that an inquiry into the nature of ordinary language usage should be an application of the principles of ordinary language. In any dialogue, there is always a "meaning differential" whose resolution is "conversational." The inquiry into meaning is conducted casually and the ongoing conversation is itself the mutual consensus as to ordinary usage.

Edit. Hence Nietzsche as an exemplary ordinary language philosopher. His tone is always highly critical or exhortative, like an animated and passionate conversation. It is rhetoric, powerful rhetoric. The longer he engages your mind, the more you are drawn into the consensus he creates.

It's not something I would fight over; I'll just reserve "ordinary language philosophy" for those who were at Oxford in the twenty yers from 1945, and place an emphasis on analysis of common word use.

“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

My understanding is that Derrida confuses Austin as excluding the frailty of our concepts, but Austin was only setting it aside in the essay Derrida read because he had written a whole other essay about "Excuses" (to show how some speech acts fail)--so infelicity is not exterior or accidental. The Austin/Derrida/Searle interplay seems to fly by each other. As discussed above, Austin's whole point is to show that there is no "intrinsic" "constitution" of (every) speech act. To desire this is to fall prey to the same generality which created metaphysics, but to take it in a different direction.

Also, to call our criteria of concepts "conventions" is to give the false impression that they are the outcome of our agreement or that we somehow control them; we are not discussing "conventional" (nor "ordinary") language, but the anti-thesis of metaphysical criteria for our concepts to shed light on philosophical issues.