Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

A philosophical inquiry and method originating in the twentieth century and continuing today. It proceeds from an examination of our use of ordinary language, examining what we say when, and why we can say what we do and what we mean by it. It investigates our shared, representative, and exemplary ways of talking and acting – the rule-governed order of our common existence. Ordinary language philosophy does not defend ordinary or common beliefs. Instead, it reflects on and examines the conditions of possibility of our talk and action and the intimacy of word and world found in our ways of meaningfully speaking and acting. It reminds us of the agreement and concordance of language use that exists before expressions are true or false, certain or doubtful, knowable or unknowable. It pursues a logical, rigorous appraisal of our vocabulary by asking about the conditions that make possible and the implications that follow from the things we say and do. It describes the grammar and the agreements and differences and interruptions of our uses of language. The locution “ordinary language,” while properly descriptive, has proved to be somewhat misleading, since it has suggested to many that answers to fundamental philosophical questions are to be treated as being routinely obtainable and easily known; whereas, in fact, the answers to our philosophical concerns are for the ordinary language ... log in or subscribe to read full text