Editing Ordinary language philosophy (section)

== Criticism ==

One of the most ardent critics of ordinary language philosophy was a student at Oxford (and later a philosopher himself), [[Ernest Gellner]], who said:<ref name=Gellner/>

{{blockquote|"[A]t that time the orthodoxy best described as linguistic philosophy, inspired by Wittgenstein, was crystallizing and seemed to me totally and utterly misguided. Wittgenstein's basic idea was that there is no general solution to issues other than the custom of the community. Communities are ultimate. He didn't put it this way, but that was what it amounted to. And this doesn't make sense in a world in which communities are not stable and are not clearly isolated from each other. Nevertheless, Wittgenstein managed to sell this idea, and it was enthusiastically adopted as an unquestionable revelation. It is very hard nowadays for people to understand what the atmosphere was like then. This was ''the'' Revelation. It wasn't doubted. But it was quite obvious to me it was wrong. It was obvious to me the moment I came across it, although initially, if your entire environment, and all the bright people in it, hold something to be true, you assume ''you'' must be wrong, not understanding it properly, and they must be right. And so I explored it further and finally came to the conclusion that I did understand it right, and it ''was'' rubbish, which indeed it is."|Ernest Gellner|Interview with John Davis, 1991}}
Gellner criticized ordinary language philosophy in his book ''Words and Things'' published in 1959.