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1am writing jam session

I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
- Terry Pratchett

I think this quote is useful in describing the difference between Analytical Philosophy and Oridinary Language Philosophy. Most of the Analytics try to look outside of human experience (into the realm of metaphysics) in order to explain human experience (this raises some questions about our ability to explain anything outside the realm of humanity).

But one of the main strategies for Ordinary Language Philosophers (Austin, Wittgenstein, Cavell) is turning our attention back to, borrowing a term from Cavell, the "everydayness" of life; looking for things that are already there, things that we have simply overlooked in our haste.

This is, of course, a reduction of many of the great Analytics, and of the Oridinary Language Philosophers, but I think Pratchett is on to something.

Comments

  1. Aaron12:22 PM

    First, I have to say that I'm not a fan of this new Blogger beta thing ... it totally screwed up the nice layout I had before....

    Anyway, I have to take issue with your characterization of analytic philosophers. The trend of analytic philosophy for the past century has been to a great extent linguistic; its tendency to look outside human experience is not metaphysical, but obsessively logical. Off the top of my head, I would say that the difference between analytic philosophy and ordinary language philosophy is analogous to the difference between langue and parole.

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