Editing Ordinary language philosophy (section)

== Central ideas ==
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The later Wittgenstein held that the meanings of words reside in their ordinary uses and that this is why philosophers trip over words taken in [[abstraction]]. From this came the idea that philosophy had gotten into trouble by trying to use words outside of the context of their use in ordinary language. For example, "understanding" is what you mean when you say "I understand". "Knowledge" is what you mean when you say "I know". The point is that you ''already know'' what "understanding" or "knowledge" are, at least implicitly. Philosophers are ill-advised to construct new definitions of these terms, because this is necessarily a ''re''definition, and the argument may unravel into self-referential nonsense. Rather, philosophers must explore the definitions these terms already have, without forcing convenient redefinitions onto them.

The controversy really begins when ordinary language philosophers apply the same leveling tendency to questions such as ''What is Truth?'' or ''What is Consciousness?'' Philosophers in this school would insist that we cannot assume that (for example) truth 'is' a 'thing' (in the same sense that tables and chairs are 'things') that the word 'truth' represents. Instead, we must look at the differing ways in which the words 'truth' and 'conscious' actually function in ordinary language. We may well discover, after investigation, that there is no single entity to which the word 'truth' corresponds, something Wittgenstein attempts to get across via his concept of a 'family resemblance' (cf. ''[[Philosophical Investigations]]''). Therefore, ordinary language philosophers tend to be anti-[[essentialism|essentialist]].