AGAINST LINGUISTIC EXCLUSIVISM Søren Overgaard 1. Introduction

CHAPTER FOUR

AGAINST LINGUISTIC EXCLUSIVISM

Søren Overgaard

1. Introduction

The aim of this chapter, broadly stated, is to clear away one major obsta- cle to constructive engagement between two traditions separated by the analytic-continental divide: what I will call linguistic philosophy (com- prising Oxford ordinary language philosophy as well as the philosophy of the later Wittgenstein and his followers) and phenomenology.1 The prominent Wittgensteinian Peter Hacker will be the main focus of my discussion. The chapter is motivated by the idea that there is something paradoxical about the fact that linguistic philosophers have shown little interest in any rapprochement with phenomenology. It is certainly not that they lacked opportunities. The notorious 1958 Royaumont Collo- quium, for example, which counted Ryle, Strawson, Urmson, and Austin among the speakers, and which was attended by phenomenologists such as H.L. Van Breda2 and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, was an abject failure. Ryle, who had previously published on both Husserl and Heidegger, and whom the other Oxonians no doubt regarded as something of an expert on phenomenology, took the opportunity to deliver a paper aptly entitled “Phenomenology versus ‘The Concept of Mind’.” In this highly polemical paper, Ryle caricatured Husserl and was tactless enough to accuse him of claims to philosophical “Führership” (Ryle 2009, 189). As Hans-Johann Glock has remarked, “Ryle seemed interested less in establishing whether there was a wide gulf between analytic and ‘Continental’ philosophy than in ensuring that there would be” (Glock 2008, 63). Nor did any of the other

1 Many prominent philosophers have made similar efforts to get the analytic and Con- tinental traditions talking to each other—including Cavell, Dummett, Føllesdal, Hintikka, and Putnam. Note, however, that my focus is not on the analytic-Continental divide as such, but on the possible obstacles to a rapprochement between phenomenology and (Oxonian/Wittgensteinian) linguistic philosophy. 2 A Husserlian phenomenologist and founder of the Husserl Archives in Leuven, Belgium. 72 søren overgaard

Oxonian participants at Royaumont attempt to establish any sort of rapprochement with their phenomenological listeners. The reason this is surprising is that phenomenologists and linguistic philosophers have so much in common. Both sides think of philosophy as a largely descriptive enterprise; they distinguish sharply between philosophy and empirical science; they think of philosophy as concerned to articulate something “ordinary”—whether this is the way we ordinarily speak or the way we ordinarily experience the world around us; and, fol- lowing on from this, both parties think of philosophy not as an enterprise that gives us new knowledge of the world, but as a “second-order” disci- pline that reflects on, and makes explicit, something with which we are already implicitly familiar. Here I just state these claims, leaving a proper defence of them for future publications. I also propose to put to one side any in-depth historical study of either phenomenology or linguistic philosophy.3 What I aim to do instead is to critically examine the reasons that may be behind at least some linguistic philosophers’ reservations vis-à-vis phenomenology. I suggest that a chief reason is an assumption that I will call “linguistic exclusivism” (LE).4 Roughly, this is the idea that the only proper way for philosophy to proceed is by examining the use of linguistic expres- sions. Focusing, as mentioned, on the work of Peter Hacker—the main contemporary advocate of (Wittgensteinian) linguistic philosophy—I try to establish two claims: First, that there are good internal reasons for linguistic philosophers to abandon LE; and second, that the considerations that appear to support LE do not actually do so. The structure of the chapter is as follows. In the next section, I intro- duce LE. In section 3, I offer a brief reconstruction of the metaphilosophi- cal background for the assumption, focussing on Hacker’s writings. Then, in the fourth and fifth sections, I criticise LE. First, I argue that the considerations that seem to lead Hacker (and possibly other linguistic philosophers) to adopt LE are misguided. Then I show that accepting LE leads to a philosophy incapable of achieving even the modest aims Hacker sets for it.

3 I have explored such matters in previous publications. See Overgaard 2010a, 2010b, 2011. 4 No doubt sociological and political reasons also factored in. I will not discuss these, however.