Editing Ordinary language philosophy (section)

== History ==
{{Wittgenstein|Movements}}
Early [[analytic philosophy]] had a less positive view of ordinary language. [[Bertrand Russell]] tended to dismiss language as being of little philosophical significance, and ordinary language as just too confused to help solve metaphysical and epistemological problems. [[Gottlob Frege]], the [[Vienna Circle]] (especially [[Rudolf Carnap]]), the young Wittgenstein, and [[W. V. O. Quine]] all attempted to improve upon it, in particular using the resources of modern [[logic]]. In his ''[[Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus]]'' Wittgenstein more or less agreed with Russell that language ought to be reformulated so as to be unambiguous, so as to accurately represent the world, so that we can better deal with philosophical questions.

By contrast, Wittgenstein later described his task as bringing "words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use".<ref name=Wittgenstein/> The sea change brought on by his unpublished work in the 1930s centered largely on the idea that there is nothing ''wrong'' with ordinary language as it stands, and that many traditional philosophical problems are only illusions brought on by misunderstandings about language and related subjects. The former idea led to rejecting the approaches of earlier analytic philosophy—arguably, of any earlier philosophy—and the latter led to replacing them with careful attention to language in its normal use, in order to "dissolve" the appearance of philosophical problems, rather than attempt to solve them. At its inception, ordinary language philosophy (also called [[linguistic philosophy]]) was taken as either an extension of or as an alternative to analytic philosophy.

Ordinary language analysis largely flourished and developed at [[Oxford University]] in the 1940s, under Austin and Ryle, and was quite widespread for a time before declining rapidly in popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Despite this decline, Stanley Cavell and John Searle (both students of Austin) published seminal texts which draw significantly from the ordinary language tradition in 1969.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t3_WhfknvF0C|title = Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language|isbn = 9780521096263|last1 = Searle|first1 = John R.|last2 = Searle|first2 = John Rogers|date = 2 January 1969| publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cavells-must-we-mean-what-we-say-at-50/92E0C03C4FC70DCACE5999D128279AAF|isbn=9781316515259|title=Cavell's Must We Mean What We Say? At 50|series=Cambridge Philosophical Anniversaries|year=2022|publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/9781009099714 |s2cid=247288246 |editor-last1=Chase |editor-last2=Floyd |editor-last3=Laugier |editor-first1=Greg |editor-first2=Juliet |editor-first3=Sandra }}</ref> Cavell more explicitly adopted the banner of ordinary language philosophy and inspired a generation of philosophers and literary theorists to reexamine the merits of this philosophical approach, all the while distancing himself from the limitations of traditional analytic philosophy. This caused a relatively recent resurgence of interest in this methodology, with some updates particularly due to the literature and teachings of Cavell, has also become a mainstay of what might be called [[postanalytic philosophy]]. Seeking to avoid the increasingly metaphysical and abstruse language found in mainstream [[analytic philosophy]], [[posthumanism]], and [[post-structuralism]], a number of feminist philosophers have adopted the methods of ordinary language philosophy.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://newliteraryhistory.org/articles/46-2-intro.pdf |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20150906165053/https://newliteraryhistory.org/articles/46-2-intro.pdf |archive-date=6 September 2015 |title=Introduction |journal=New Literary History |volume=46 |issue=2 |date=Spring 2015 |pages=v-xiii |first1= Nancy |last1=Bauer |first2=Sarah |last2=Beckwith |first3=Alice |last3=Crary |first4=Sandra |last4=Laugier |first5=Toril |last5=Moi |first6=Linda |last6=Zerilli |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |doi=10.1353/nlh.2015.0012}}</ref> Many of these philosophers were students or colleagues of Cavell.

There are some affinities between contemporary ordinary language philosophy and philosophical [[pragmatism]] (or [[neopragmatism]]). Interestingly, the pragmatist philosopher [[F. C. S. Schiller]] might be seen as a forerunner to ordinary language philosophy, especially in his noted publication ''Riddles of the Sphinx''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Schiller |first=F.C.S. |date=1891 |title=Riddles of the Sphinx: a study in the philosophy of evolution |oclc=850714 |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/72321}}</ref>

[[Seneca the Younger]] described the activities of other philosophers in ways that reflect some of the same concerns as ordinary language philosophers.<ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=https://www.stoics.com/seneca_epistles_book_1.html#%E2%80%98XLV1 |first=Lucius Annaeus |last=Seneca |title=Moral Epistles |translator-first=Richard M. |translator-last=Gummere|publisher=Harvard University Press |volume=I |chapter=XLV+ On Sophistical Argumentation}}</ref>

<blockquote> For these men, too, have left to us, not positive discoveries, but problems whose solution is still to be sought.  They might perhaps have discovered the essentials, had they not sought the superfluous also.  They lost much time in quibbling about words and in sophistical argumentation; all that sort of thing exercises the wit to no purpose.  We tie knots and bind up words in double meanings, and then try to untie them. Have we leisure enough for this?  Do we already know how to live, or die?  We should rather proceed with our whole souls towards the point where it is our duty to take heed lest things, as well as words, deceive us.  Why, pray, do you discriminate between similar words, when nobody is ever deceived by them except during the discussion?  It is things that lead us astray: it is between things that you must discriminate.</blockquote>