An OLФ Reading Program
Over the summer of 2020, some fellow graduate student friends and I began reading Stanley Cavell’s The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy (Oxford University Press, 1979). Cavell’s text is, of course, rather like his Wittgensteinian source material, notoriously difficult (at times) to read and understand. We were (I was, anyway) only able to get through Part One: “Wittgenstein and the Concept of Human Knowledge.” While I found Cavell fascinating and invigorating to read and work through, I realized over time that part of why Cavell might seem difficult is because the tradition he represents, so-called “ordinary language philosophy” (OLP), is itself poorly understood and not always sympathetically represented. A better understanding and sympathetic appreciation of the actual philosophical methodology of OLP, including its relationship to the rest of “analytic” philosophy, would doubtless help in working through Cavell. The following course of readings is intended as a crash course in ordinary language philosophy and philosophers (OLP or OLФ) by way of building up to reading Stanley Cavell’s The Claim of Reason (CR).
Unit 1: Crash Course in OLФ
The purpose of the readings in this unit is to introduce the reader to the basics of OLP. Fleming’s “Abstract” and lecture on the history of OLP are a succinct synthesis of (what he takes to be) the main insights of Wittgenstein, Austin, and Cavell. His “Afterward” is (quite literally) a demonstration that the insights of OLP can indeed be formally stated in a fashion somewhat more congenial to traditional philosophers who are interested in such things as definitions, propositions, theorems, axioms, etc.
Fleming, Richard, “An Abstract of Ordinary Language Philosophy,” in First Word Philosophy: Wittgenstein-Austin-Cavell: Writings on Ordinary Language Philosophy, (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 2004), pp. 38-52.
⸻., “A Lecture on the History of Ordinary Language Philosophy,” in First Word Philosophy: Wittgenstein-Austin-Cavell: Writings on Ordinary Language Philosophy, (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 2004), pp. 109-129.
⸻., “Afterword,” in First Word Philosophy: Wittgenstein-Austin-Cavell: Writings on Ordinary Language Philosophy, (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 2004), pp. 130-138.
(Alternative Unit 1)
While I think highly of Fleming’s First Word Philosophy, it is possible to construct a “crash course” in OLP using more primary sources: in this case, essays by Ryle and Austin. The following three recommendations are from the symposium Ordinary Language: Essays in Philosophical Method. Each of the pieces, however, was published prior to this symposium and can be found elsewhere.
Ryle, Gilbert. “Ordinary Language,” The Philosophical Review vol. 62, no. 2 (April, 1953), pp. 167-186. Reprinted in V. C. Chappell (Ed.) Ordinary Language: Essays in Philosophical Method (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1964), pp. 24-40. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2182792
Austin, J. L. “A Plea for Excuses,” in Philosophical Papers, J. O. Urmson and G. J. Warnock (Eds.), (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961), 123-152. Originally published in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 57(June, 1957):1-30. https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/57.1.1
Mates, Benson. “On the Verification of Statements About Ordinary Language,” Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, 4(1958):161-171. Reprinted in V. C. Chappell (Ed.) Ordinary Language: Essays in Philosophical Method (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1964), pp. 64-74. https://doi.org/10.1080/00201745808601278
Mates’ article is critical of OLP and gives expression to the view among more mainstream analytic philosophers that the goals of OLP became obsolete with the advance of scientific linguistics. His article is interesting however because Mates does raise the important issue of whether the OLP methods of Ryle and Austin yield contradictory results. Stanley Cavell’s “Must we mean what we say?” (see Unit 4 below) is a direct response to Mates’ article and is Cavell’s earliest defense of OLP.
Unit 2: Prolegomenous Reading on Wittgenstein
Wittgenstein is a notoriously difficult writer. He wrote in the preface to the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus that, “This book will perhaps only be understood by those who have themselves already thought the thoughts which are expressed in it—or similar thoughts.” In the preface to Philosophical Investigations he wrote, “It is not impossible that it should fall to the lot of this work, in its poverty and in the darkness of this time, to bring light into one brain or another a but, of course, it is not likely. I should not like my writing to spare other people the trouble of thinking. But if possible, to stimulate someone to thoughts of his own.” Clearly we will get no help from Wittgenstein himself in getting out of going the “bloody hard way” into his philosophy. Be we needn’t despair!
The purpose of the readings in this unit is to introduce the reader to some of the early secondary literature on the “later” Wittgenstein’s work, particularly Philosophical Investigations. The pieces by Albritton and Malcolm are useful because it is in dialogue with these pieces that Cavell articulates his own account of Wittgensteinian and Austinian “criteria.” Rhees’ essay is a gateway into the voluminous secondary literature on the so-called “Private Language Argument” (PLA). The PLA is usually understood as an anti-skeptical argument. However, as Cavell’s essay shows, the relationship between Wittgenstein, skepticism, and epistemology is more nuanced and more deeply rooted in the philosophical tradition than one might expect (at least for Wittgenstein). Cavell relates Wittgenstein’s (anti)skeptical project to Kant’s and was one of the earliest attempts to relate Wittgenstein to Kant, providing an interesting crossover for those in the post-Kantian traditions of continental European philosophy.
Cavell, Stanley, “The Availability of Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy,” in Must We Mean What We Say? (Cambridge University Press, 1976), 44-72.
Albritton, Rogers., “On Wittgenstein’s Use of the Term ‘Criterion,’” The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 56, No. 22, American Philosophical Association Eastern Division: Symposium Papers To be Presented at the Fifty-Sixth Annual Meeting, Columbia University, December 28-30, 1959 (Oct. 22, 1959), pp. 845-857 Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/2022315
Malcolm, Norman, “Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations,” The Philosophical Review, Vol. 63, No. 4 (Oct., 1954), pp. 530-559 (30 pages). Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2182289
Rhees, Rush, “Can There Be A Private Language?”
Unit 3: Prolegomenous Reading on Austin
Unit 3.1: J. L. Austin
Austin, J. L., “The Meaning of a Word,” in Philosophical Papers, (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 2004), pp. 76-116.
Austin, J. L., “Other Minds,” in Philosophical Papers, (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 2004), pp. 76-116.
Unit 3.2: Austin and Contemporary Analytic Epistemology
Benjamin McMyler, “Believing what the Man Says about his own Feelings,” in, Gustafsson and Richard Sørli (Eds.) The Philosophy of J. L. Austin, (Oxford University Press: 2011), pp. 114-145.
Benjamin McMyler, “The Epistemic Significance of Address,” Synthese 190:1059-1078. DOI 10.1007/s11229-011-9871-2
Unit 3.3: Austin and OLФ
Hanno Birken-Bertsch, “Austin’s Method,” in Brain Garvey (ed.), J. L. Austin on Language, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), pp. 89-107.
Roberta Locatelli, “Sense and Sensibilia and the Significance of Linguistic Phenomenology,” in Brain Garvey (ed.), J. L. Austin on Language, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), pp. 141-157.
Supplementary Reading on G. E. Moore
Depending on who you ask, G. E. Moore was not strictly an ordinary language philosopher. While, as Malcolm’s essay argues, it is certainly possible to construe certain of Moore’s methods as attentive to the implications of ordinary language, and while there arguably is a historical connection and family resemblance between the “common sense” philosophical tradition of Moore and OLP, it is probably safer to view Moore as part of the mainstream tradition of (proto)analytic philosophy. This selection of readings is “supplementary” rather than prolegomenous to a reading of CR since you can probably get through CR without being overly familiar with Moore. However, familiarity with the two Moore essays below helps create a context for Wittgenstein’s interaction with Moore in On Certainty (OC). Since OC is central to Wittgensteinians’ anti-skeptical strategies and contemporary “hinge epistemology” (in which CR features prominently) familiarity with Moore is indeed helpful.
G. E. Moore, “A Defence of Common Sense,” Reprinted in Thomas Baldwin (Ed.) G. E. Moore: Selected Writings, (New York: Routledge, 1993), 106-133.
G. E. Moore, “Proof of an External World,” Reprinted in Thomas Baldwin (Ed.) G. E. Moore: Selected Writings, (New York: Routledge, 1993), 147-170.
Norman Malcolm, “Moore and Ordinary Language” in V. C. Chappell (Ed.) Ordinary Language: Essays in Philosophical Method (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1964)
Unit 4: Prolegomenous Reading on Cavell
Stephen Mulhall, “Introduction” to The Cavell Reader. (Blackwell, 1996), pp. 1-21.
Cavell, Stanley, “Must We Mean What We Say?” in, Must We Mean What We Say? (Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 1-44.
⸻., “Knowing and Acknowledging,” in, Must We Mean What We Say? (Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 238-266.
⸻., Excerpts from, “The Avoidance of Love: A Reading of King Lear,” in, Must We Mean What We Say? (Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 267-353.
Because “The Avoidance of Love” is an exceptionally long essay, you may wish to focus on the three excerpts from “The Avoidance of Love” in Mulhall’s The Cavell Reader. Below you can find citations for the specific passages Mulhall’s excerpts.
Cavell, “Prologue: The Avoidance of Love (The Abdication Scene),” in Stephen Mulhall (Ed.), The Cavell Reader (Blackwell, 1996) pp. 22-30. OR “The Avoidance of Love” in, Must We Mean What We Say? (Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 285-293 beginning at the words “We now have elements with which to begin an analysis....” and ending at the words “and in the Fool’s love.”
Cavell, “The Avoidance of Love (External-World Skepticism),” in Stephen Mulhall (Ed.), The Cavell Reader. pp. 89-93. OR “The Avoidance of Love” in, Must We Mean What We Say? (Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 322-325 beginning at the words “Epistemology will demonstrate that we cannot know….” and ending at the words “For the point of forgoing knowledge is, of course, to know.”
Cavell, “The Avoidance of Love (Theater),” in Stephen Mulhall (Ed.), The Cavell Reader. pp. 143-155. OR “The Avoidance of Love” in, Must We Mean What We Say? (Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 326-340 beginning at the words “In each case the first task of the dramatist…” and ending at the words “Join hands here as we may, one of the hands is mine and the other is yours.”
Unit 5: The State of Philosophy & The Claim of Reason
Fleming, Richard, The State of Philosophy, 1998. [SoP]
Cavell, Stanley, The Claim of Reason. [CR]