The Elusiveness of the Ordinary by Rosen Stanley

Author:Rosen, Stanley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2002-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6 Austin and Ordinary Language

What is ordinary about ordinary language? I intend this as a question that is primarily but not exclusively inspired by the various doctrines or procedures of what used to be called “ordinary language philosophy.” In raising this question, I shall take my bearings by some of the philosophical writings of John Austin. My intention is not at all to present a detailed study of Austin’s philosophy, but to use passages from his texts as authoritative illustrations of the following problem. Despite the very frequent reference in Austin and many other thinkers to “ordinary language” or what we “ordinarily” say, there is virtually no effort to state in a detailed or even general way what is meant by the expression “ordinary language” and how it can be distinguished from the extraordinary variety. On the contrary, ordinary language is presumed to be directly intelligible and accessible, not only to the plain man, an important figure in Austin’s often sophisticated exposition, but to the philosopher as well.

At first glance this seems quite reasonable, and I myself would agree that ordinary language provides us with “the first word” (Austin’s expression) in our efforts to make sense out of philosophical discourse. Furthermore, who could know what “we say” if not we ourselves, where “we” refers to the normal speaker of a particular natural language, say, English? It seems quite reasonable not to give a systematic account or formal definition of ordinary language in general; such procedures are appropriate in the case of formal or technical languages, but the main feature of ordinary language is that it is the comprehensive matrix for the production of all technical idioms. Austin’s criticism of spurious philosophical generalization would seem to apply to the present case. Ordinary language is not a formal entity but a living process. We can identify what it says in the particular case by consulting our own speech as well as that of our friends and neighbors, and we supplement this knowledge by recourse to grammars and dictionaries. Finally, we make use of elementary logic, which is fundamental to any natural language and which is at least partly embodied in common sense; an example would be the widespread agreement by ordinary speakers that one must not contradict oneself, or that a counterexample invalidates a universal claim.

Someone may object that an appeal to logic already takes us outside the perimeter of ordinary language, or that Austin goes beyond the plain speaker not only in the refinement of his grammatical and semantical distinctions but in his introduction of technical terms and the precision of his analysis. To this we reply that Austin does not equate philosophy with the simple replacement of extraordinary by ordinary usage. He points out that “ordinary language breaks down in extraordinary cases. (In such cases, the cause of the breakdown is semantical).” It is thus not enough to be content with the facts of ordinary usage. “There may be extraordinary facts, even about our everyday experience, which plain men and plain language overlook” (68-69).

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