Philosophy and Ordinary Language Oswald Hanfling has written a lucid, painstaking, thorough and comprehensive defence of a certain method in philosophy, a method used, consciously or not, by many philosophers, derided by some, and mainly associated in our century with the names of Austin and Wittgenstein. Sir Peter Strawson, Oxford University This is a timely book. Oswald Hanfling offers a clearly-written and wide-ranging defence of ‘ordinary language philosophy’. Michael Beaney, Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg This is an important and much needed book. Oswald Hanfling engages in a lively defence of ordinary language philosophy – the appeal to ‘what we say’ – while correcting some of the errors of its founders (Austin and Ryle) and rebutting both traditional and recent philosophical attacks on ordinary language. A courageous and salutary effort! Robert Arrington, Georgia State University Oswald Hanfling is Professor of Philosophy at the Open University. He is the author of several books including, Logical Positivism, The Quest for Meaning, and Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy. Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Philosophy 1 The Story of Analytic Philosophy Plot and heroes Edited by Anat Biletzki and Anat Matar 2 Donald Davidson Truth, meaning and knowledge Edited by Urszula M. Zeglén 3 Philosophy and Ordinary Language The bent and genius of our tongue Oswald Hanfling Philosophy and Ordinary Language The bent and genius of our tongue Oswald Hanfling London and New York First published 2000 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001. © 2000 Oswald Hanfling All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Hanfling, Oswald. Philosophy and ordinary language: the bent and genius of our tongue/Oswald Hanfling. p. cm. – (Routledge studies in twentieth century philosophy) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Ordinary-language philosophy. I. Title. II. Series. B828.36.H36 2000 149’.94–dc21 99-39028 CIP ISBN 0-415-21779-2 (Print Edition) ISBN 0-203-00351-9 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-17480-1 (Glassbook Format) Contents Acknowledgements ix List of abbreviations x Introduction 1 PART I The philosophy of ‘what we say’: its practice and justification 13 1 Socrates and the quest for definitions 15 2 Austin: ‘at least one philosophical method’ 26 3 Wittgenstein: bringing words ‘back to their everyday use’ 38 Wittgenstein and ordinary language 38 Wittgenstein and unordinary language 41 Ordinary language and the ‘bewitchment of our understanding’ 44 The ‘arbitrariness of grammar’ 49 4 ‘What we say’: who says? 53 What we say, what I would say, and what I would be prepared to say 53 Linguistic philosophy and empirical linguistics 56 ‘What we say’ and the diversity of usage 60 ‘Language-neutral’ and ‘language-specific’ 65 vi Contents 5 What is wrong with the paradigm case argument? 74 The paradigm case argument and the ostensive teaching argument 76 Free will and the paradigm case argument 78 Inductive reasoning and the paradigm case argument 85 What we say and what philosophers say 89 6 Knowledge and the uses of ‘knowledge’ 94 Some knowledge-situations 96 Knowledge and truth 99 Knowledge and belief 101 Knowledge and justification (i) 105 Knowledge and justification (ii) 108 7 The paradox of scepticism 111 The absolute certainty requirement 113 The requirement of ‘ruling out other possibilities’ 116 The consequential knowledge requirement 118 The onus of proof and the second-order knowledge requirement 123 Scepticism and ordinary language 124 PART II The philosophy of ‘what we say’: challenge and rejection 127 8 Drawing the curtain of words 129 ‘Disputes merely verbal’ 129 ‘Ideas bare and naked’ 133 Hume and the quest for meanings 138 Popper: facts, not words 141 Language and reality in ethics 143 Ethics and ontology 146 Contents vii 9 Language remade: ancient cities and orderly towns 150 A ‘logically perfect’ language 151 ‘Logic’s ruler’: Frege on the defects of language 153 Regimented notation as ‘a source of insight’ 159 Redefining our words: what we mean and what we ought to mean 163 Truth versus ‘convenience’: the theory of descriptions 169 The craving for answers 172 10 Grice: ‘true even if misleading’ 176 ‘The ordinary notion of perceiving’ 176 A note on method 181 Explaining the difference: (i) ‘cancellability’ 182 Explaining the difference: (ii) the ‘weaker/ stronger’ principle 185 Conversational implicature and truth-functional logic 188 Conversational implicature and the theory of descriptions 199 Conclusion 202 11 Quine and the unity of science 203 Philosophy and science 203 A shrouded science 208 ‘No statement is immune’ 212 12 Scientific realism: discovering what we really mean 222 Intension and extension 222 Intension and analytic truth 232 Rigid designators and ‘metaphysical necessity’ 234 Knowing what we mean 237 viii Contents Scientific realism and the meaning of ‘meaning’ 240 Philosophy and ‘intuition’ 241 13 ‘Folk psychology’ and the language of science 244 A need for replacement? 248 ‘Folk psychology’: a philosophers’ myth 250 Eliminativism and the first person 254 Explanation and justification 257 Throwing away the ladder 259 Index 262 Acknowledgements A number of people have helped me to work out my thoughts in various parts of the book. I am grateful in particular to Michael Beaney, Michael Clark, David Cockburn, Antony Flew, Laurence Goldstein, Severin Schroeder and Roger Woolhouse. To Peter Strawson I am especially grateful for comments on chapter 10. John Hyman supplied detailed and incisive comments on the penultimate draft of the book, which enabled me to make many improvements. Most of all I wish to thank Peter Hacker, who read and commented on drafts of every part of the book. His criticism and discussion over the years have greatly sharpened my understanding of the topics in question. Abbreviations Concepts CKP consequential knowledge principle OTA ostensive teaching argument PCA paradigm case argument Texts BB Blue and Brown Books (Wittgenstein, Blackwell 1964) CN Conceptual Notation and Related Articles (G. Frege, transl. T. W. Bynum, OUP 1972) CTP ‘The Causal Theory of Perception’ (H. P. Grice in G. J. Warnock, The Philosophy of Perception, OUP 1967) EN ‘Epistemology Naturalized’ (W. V. Quine in Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, Columbia 1969) FA The Foundations of Arithmetic (G. Frege, Blackwell 1980) ILT Introduction to Logical Theory (P. F. Strawson, Methuen 1952) LPV From a Logical Point of View (W. V. Quine, Harper 1961) MLR Mind, Language and Reality (H. Putnam, CUP 1975) MPD My Philosophical Development (B. Russell, Unwin 1959) NN Naming and Necessity (S. Kripke, Blackwell 1980) OC On Certainty (Wittgenstein, Blackwell 1969) PG Philosophical Grammar (Wittgenstein, Blackwell 1974) PHK Principles of Human Knowledge (G. Berkeley, Dent 1993) PI Philosophical Investigations (Wittgenstein, Blackwell 1958) PL Philosophy and Linguistics (C. Lyas (ed.), Macmillan 1971) PMC Philosophical and Mathematical Correspondence (G. Frege, Blackwell 1980) Abbreviations xi PP Philosophical Papers (J. L. Austin, Clarendon 1961) PW Posthumous Writings (G. Frege, Blackwell 1979) RFM Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics (Wittgenstein, Blackwell 1978) SS Sense and Sensibilia (J. L. Austin, OUP 1962) WO Word and Object (W. V. Quine, MIT Press 1960) WW Studies in the Way of Words (H. P. Grice, Harvard 1989) Z Zettel (Wittgenstein, Blackwell 1967) Introduction It is impossible, even in the most rigid philosophic reasonings, so far to alter the bent and genius of the tongue we speak, as never to give a handle for cavillers to pretend difficulties and inconsistencies. (Berkeley) One can’t abuse ordinary language without paying for it. (J.L. Austin) I Philosophers often support their conclusions by reference to the use of language, pointing out that in such and such a case we might use the word A but not the word B, that we would not describe someone as X unless Y, and so on. Yet they also arrive at conclusions that are contrary to this criterion, as when they claim that knowledge is impossible or free will an illusion. When this is so, can the appeal to the ordinary use of language be set aside as a mere ‘cavil’? How important is the ‘bent and genius of the tongue we speak’ in philosophy? Are the problems of philosophy largely about language, and to be settled by reference to the ordinary uses of words? ‘Ordinary language’ is an expression that is often viewed with suspicion by philosophers nowadays. One reason for this was expressed by Bertrand Russell in his intellectual autobiography, where he criticized those who are ‘persuaded that common speech is good enough, not only for daily life, but also for philosophy’. ‘I, on contrary’, he continued, 2 Introduction am persuaded that common speech is full of vagueness and inaccuracy . .. Everybody admits that physics and chemistry and medicine each require a language which is not that of everyday life. I fail to see why philosophy, alone, should be forbidden to make a similar approach towards precision and accuracy.1 Now it is true that the language of everyday life would not be adequate for the sciences mentioned by Russell, but is that because it is vague and inaccurate? What a person says in ordinary language is sometimes vague or inaccurate, but then the fault does not lie in the language: it lies in his or her use of it, and here too lies the remedy.