Philosophy and Ordinary Language: The Bent and Genius of our Tongue / Edition 1

by Oswald Hanfling

Overview

What is philosophy about and what are its methods? Philosophy and Ordinary Language is a defence of the view that philosophy is largely about questions of language, which to a large extent means ordinary language. Some people argue that if philosophy is about ordinary language, then it is necessarily less deep and difficult than it is usually taken to be but Oswald Hanfling shows us that this isn't true.
Hanfling, a leading expert in the development of analytic philosophy, covers a wide range of topics, including scepticism and the definition of knowledge, free will, empiricism, folk psychology, ordinary versus artificial logic, and philosophy versus science. Drawing on philosophers such as Austin, Wittgenstein, and Quine, this book explores the nature of ordinary language in philosophy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415217798
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/16/1999
Series:	Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Philosophy
Pages:	278
Product dimensions:	5.44(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Oswald Hanfling is Visiting Research Professor of Philosophy at the Open University. He is the author of several books including Logical Positivism, The Quest for Meaning, Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy, and Wittgenstein and the Human Form of Life (Routledge 2002).

Table of Contents

Introduction o I. THE PHILOSOPHY OF "WHAT WE SAY": ITS PRACTICE AND JUSTIFICATION o 1. Socrates and the quest for definitions o 2. Austin: "At least one philosophical method" o 3. Wittgenstein: Bringing words back to their everyday use o 4. "What we say": Who says? o 5. What is wrong with the Paradigm Case Argument? o 6. Knowledge and the use of "knowledge" o 7. The paradox of Scepticism o II. THE PHILOSOPHY OF "WHAT WE SAY": CHALLENGE AND REJECTION o 8. Drawing the curtain of words o 9. Language remade: Ancient cities and orderly towns o 10. Grice: "True even if misleading" o 11. Quine and the unity of science o 12. Scientific realism: Discovering what we really mean o 13. "Folk psychology" and the language of science