AUSTIN AND EXTRAORDINARY LANGUAG

AUSTIN AND EXTRAORDINARY LANGUAGE GAMES

17th August 2010

J. L. Austin thinks, like Wittgenstein, that various philosophical problems can be seen to be pseudo-problems generated by a misuse of ordinary language. Wittgenstein, however, is an extremist compared to Austin, apparently claiming that all philosophical problems are thus generated. Austin more moderately only claims that some are (Quotation). He does not, however, appear to offer any criterion for identifying which problems are likely to be dissolved, and which are likely to be substantial, so we can suppose that he relies initially on intuition, and then on trial and error. He appears to intend to take problems one by one, and submit them to intense linguistic scrutiny, based on ordinary language (OL) use of words. A reader of his work might be forgiven for presuming that since he thinks that a traditional problem such as scepticism concerning the external world, leading to the introduction of sense data, interpreted in OL, is an incoherent linguistic muddle (Quotation), he presumably thinks that any problems which survive his penetrating gaze will be stated, clearly and without misuse, in that same OL. The fact that he does not, in fact, think this, exposes a serious problem concerning his overall method.
Because Austin's writing is clearer than Wittgenstein's, and his overall position more moderate, we can regard his position as a test of Wittgenstein's: If Austin's fails, then so does W.'s.
Consider the following four theses, which we claim are present in Austin:

Thesis 1: Words can have their meanings refined, and new words can be introduced, for extraordinary purposes. Physics, for example, is an extraordinary language of this kind. Extraordinary facts, even those imagined, will require linguistic revision. (Quotation)
Comment: This, accepted also by Wittgenstein, appears inescapably true.
Thesis 2: When the writings of a philosopher (such as Ayer), interpreted in ordinary language, do not make sense, they are entirely senseless, and to be rejected. (Quotation)
Comment: If philosophical use of language is extraordinary, like physics (Thesis 1), this thesis fails, and with it Austin's method.
Thesis 3: In ordinary language, and presumably in extraordinary languages, the meaning - which is to say, the uses - of a word cannot usually be summarised by a simple definition. In different contexts the same word can be multi-faceted, having many different shades of meaning. These shades of meaning are linked to the practices of the language users - which we could call their 'form of life' (The way they live; the things that they do; what they value; the problems they try to solve; the classifications that they employ) (Quotation)
Comment: This, extensively defended also by Wittgenstein, appears inescapably true.
Thesis 4: Philosophers may be claiming to work on extraordinary ideas, but since they do not provide simple definitions of the extraordinary ways that they are using ordinary words, their writings are to be rejected. (Quotation)
Comment: Given Thesis 3, this requirement is unreasonable.

Outline of Criticism: These theses are fairly obviously inconsistent. Austin appears to be so unsympathetic to Ayer's writings - perhaps so initially inclined to reject the traditional philosophical thoughts with which Ayer is engaging - that he is prepared to defy the logic of his own views on language to dispose of them. He has been tempted down the same indefensible path as W..
Detail of Criticism: Thesis 1 is fine. It is true that Austin makes it considerably more explicit than W., but there are one or two passages in the PI in which W. recognises, as surely anyone must, that physicists, for example, are using ordinary words in extraordinary ways, and introducing new words, as a result of their extraordinary area of interest. (Whether philosophers have the right to do this is another matter. For the purposes of this essay we assume that they do)
Ayer does not intend his writings to be interpreted in OL, but rather in the EL of traditional philosophy. He would have been well aware that if his sentences were interpreted in OL, they would not make sense. The entirely unphilosophical ordinary reader would be in the position of Dr. Johnson, failing, in the story, to understand Berkeley's ideas so totally that he thought the claims could be refuted by kicking a tree. [So Thesis 2 is irrelevant].
If we accept Thesis 3, in company with W., then Thesis 4 cannot consistently be maintained. If in OL words such as 'real', 'imagined', 'doubt', 'know', 'believe', and 'sense', have so many subtle variations in use/meaning, dependent on context, that they cannot be captured in a simple definition, then it is unfair to demand that in an EL words should be so captured.
What is then left of Austin's theses?

Thesis 1*: Words can have their meanings refined, and new words can be introduced, for extraordinary purposes. Physics, for example, is an EL of this kind. Philosophy can be another. (*Quotation)
Thesis 2*: If the writings of a philosopher (such as Ayer) do not make sense when his sentences are interpreted in OL, then we should initially presume that they are to be interpreted in an EL. Doubtless some of the writings of some philosophers are indeed senseless simpliciter, but impatient appeal to their senselessness when interpreted in OL is no way to demonstrate this.
Thesis 3*: The philosopher cannot be expected to provide simple definitions of the words he is using in is EL. Instead the words' uses will become clearer from context, once the reader, as thinker and doer, is immersed in the extraordinary form of life.

AUSTIN QUOTATIONS

In Sense and Sensibilia (OUP 1964) Austin criticises the general view, as expressed by Ayer and Price, that “we never see or otherwise perceive (or ‘sense’), or anyhow we never directly perceive or sense, material objects (or material things), but only sense-data (or our own ideas, impressions, sensa, sense-perceptions, percepts, etc).
p.3 “My general opinion about this doctrine is that it is a typically scholastic view, attributable, first, to an obsession with a few particular words, the uses of which are over-simplified, not really understood or carefully studied or correctly described; and, second’ to an obsession with a few (and nearly always the same) half-studied ‘facts’.... The fact is, as I shall try to make clear, that our ordinary words are much subtler in their uses, and mark many more distinctions, than philosophers have realised.”
Austin is neither an Empiricist (idealist) nor a realist. “This doctrine would be no less scholastic and erroneous than its antithesis...”
p.4 “It is a matter of unpicking, one by one, a mass of seductive (mainly verbal) fallacies, of exposing a wide variety of concealed motives – an operation which leaves us, in a sense, just where we began. In a sense – but actually we may hope to learn something positive in the way of a technique for dissolving philosophical worries (some kinds of philosophical worry, not the whole of philosophy...”

p.10...”it is also implied, even taken for granted, that there is room for doubt and suspicion, whether the plain man feels any...But in fact the plain man would regard doubt in such a case, not as far-fetched or over refined or somehow impractical, but as plain nonsense; he would say, quite correctly: “Well, if that’s not seeing a real chair then I don’t know what is.”
1. Comment: In OL, this is indeed “quite correct”. But the philosopher is not intending these words to be working in the ordinary way.
p.12 “The cases in which a plain man might say...”In particular, he would not say...” p.13 “Sometimes the plain man would prefer to say...”
p.15 “Now of course what brings us up short here is the word ‘directly’ – a great favourite among philosophers, but actually one of the less conspicuous snakes in the linguistic grass. We have here, in fact, a typical use of a word, which already has a very special use, being gradually stretched, without caution or definition, or limit, until it becomes, first perhaps obscurely metaphorical, but ultimately meaningless. One can’t abuse ordinary language without paying for it. (Footnote: Especially if one abused it without recognising what one is doing. ...)”
p.19 “Thus it is quite plain that the philosophers’ use of ‘directly perceive’, whatever it may be, is not the ordinary, or any familiar, use; for in that use it is not only false by simply absurd to say that such objects as pens and cigarettes are never perceived directly. But we are given no explanation or definition of this new use – on the contrary, it is glibly trotted out as if we were all quite familiar with it already.”
p.33 “In the course of setting out the cases on which the argument is based, Ayer makes pretty free use of the expressions ‘look’, ‘appear’, and ‘seem’ – apparently, in the manner of most other philosophers, attaching no great importance to the question which expression is used where, and indeed implying by the speed of his philosophical flight that they could be used interchangeably, that there is nothing much to choose between them. But this is not so; the expressions in question actually have quite different uses, and it often makes a great difference which one you use.”
1. Comment: Given the way that language works, and supposing that the philosophers are playing some extraordinary language game, we cannot reasonably expect them to provide an explicit definition or explanation of the EL terms, because they refer to ideas that are current in the OFoL. Instead philosophers will sometimes use a scattergun of OL words, in the hope that a principle of charity will lead the reader who is not yet familiar with the new idea to seek meaning in the EL sentences and, by contextual constraint, get the intended idea (a form of implicit definition). In this situation, differences between the uses of the words in OL are not important. Indeed, even direct contradiction can be suggestive (“Have you paid that bill yet?” “Well, I have and I haven’t”)
2. Comment: Indeed, Austin is well aware that context is essential to communication, and hence to meaning. p.41: “...it is not enough simply to examine the words themselves; just what is meant and what can be inferred (if anything) can be decided only by examining the full circumstances in which the words are used.” If he is keen to apply this insight to ordinary language, how much more should he be prepared to apply it to EL, where the problem of communication is likely to be even more acute?

However: It remains also probable that philosophers are also sometimes playing with words, taking language on holiday, doing exactly what Austin warns against. The problem is to devise a system which will identify which case is which. Using OL as the touchstone is not justifiable.

Comment: What Ayer is doing, rather misleadingly called an ‘argument’, is trying to communicate to the reader an idea – the result of an effort of the imagination, to be arrived at by reflecting on some examples from ordinary life. What he calls an ‘argument’ is not, therefore, a procedure with premises at the start and a conclusion at the end – in which the conclusion could be considered as implicit in the premises. It is more creative and pedagogical than that.

p. 39-40 "There is, of course, no general answer to the question how 'looks' or 'looks like' is related to 'is'; it depends on the full circumstances of particular cases. Clearly, if I say that petrol looks like water, I am simply commenting on the way water looks; I am under no temptation to think, nor do I imply, that perhaps petrol is water. Similarly with 'A recorder sounds like a flute'. But 'This looks like water' ('That sounds like a flute') may be a different matter; if I don't already know what 'this' is, then I may be taking the fact that it looks like water as a ground for thinking that it is water. But also I may not be. In saying, 'That sounds like a flute' all I am saying is that the sound is of a certain character; this may or may not be, and may or may not be intended as taken as, evidence of what the instrument is, what is making the sound. How it is intended and taken will depend on further facts about the occasion of utterance; the words themselves imply nothing either way."
p.11 “...talk of deception only makes sense against a background of general non-deception (You can’t fool all of the people all of the time) It must be possible to recognise a case of deception by checking the odd case against more normal ones.

PHILOSOPHICAL PAPERS (Third Edition; Clarendon Paperbacks 1961)

p.67: "An actual language has few, if any, explicit conventions, no sharp limits to the spheres of operation of rules..."
p.67-8: (Concerning the meaning of 'real cat', in the imagined situation where his cat, and then others, began to talk) "With sound instinct, the plain man turns in such cases to Watson and says 'Well now, what would you say?' 'How would you describe it? The difficulty is just that: there is no short description which is not misleading: the only thing to do, and that can easily be done, is to set out the description of the facts at length. Ordinary language breaks down in extraordinary cases. ... Now no doubt an ideal language would not break down, whatever happened. In doing physics, for example, where our language is tightened up in order precisely to describe complicated and unusual cases concisely, we prepare linguistically for the worst. In ordinary language we do not: words fail us. If we talk as though an ordinary must be like an ideal language, we shall misrepresent the facts."
p.69: "I should like to say, in concluding this section, that in the course of stressing that we must pay attention to the facts of actual language, what we can and cannot say, and precisely why, another and converse point takes shape. Although it will not do to force actual language to accord with some preconceived model: it equally will not do, having discovered the facts about 'ordinary usage' to rest content with that, as though there is nothing more to be discussed and discovered. There may be plenty that might happen and does happen which would need new and better language to describe it in. Very often philosophers are only engaged on this task, when they seem to be perversely using words in a way which makes no sense according to 'ordinary usage'. There may be extraordinary facts, even about our everyday experience which plain men and plain language overlook."