Avner Baz (Tufts University): "Who Knows? - In Defense of Ordinary
Language Philosophy"
Ämnet filosofi, Åbo Akademi 29.9-3.10.2008
Lähempiä tietoja löytyy tutkijakoulun kurssisivulta
http://www.uta.fi/laitokset/historia/filosofia/tutkijakoulu/kurssit.php
ja kurssin laajahko ohjelma sivulta
http://www.uta.fi/laitokset/historia/filosofia/tutkijakoulu/Baz_Handout.pdf
Monday, September 29, 9-12: Introduction, An Initial Characterization
of the Basic Conflict, Strawson on Truth, Austin's 'Other Minds'.
Background reading: Peter Strawson (1949), 'Truth' Analysis, 9: 83-97;
John Austin, 'Other Minds', in Philosophical Papers, Oxford University
Press, 1979.
Tuesday, September 30, 13-16: The Prevalent Arguments against OLP.
Background reading: John Searle, Speech Acts, Cambridge University
Press, 1999, pp. 131-156; Peter Geach (1965), 'Assertion',
Philosophical Review, 74: 449-465; Scott Soames, Philosophical
Analysis in the Twentieth Century, Princeton University Press, 2003,
pp. 115-134.
Wednesday, October 1, 13-16: Must Philosophers Rely on Intuitions?
Background reading: Weinberg et al. (2001), 'Normativity and Epistemic
Intuitions', Philosophical Topics, 29: 429-459; Timothy Williamson
(2004), 'Philosophical "Intuitions" and Skepticism about Judgment',
Dialectica, 58: 109-153.
Thursday, October 2, 13-16: Contextualism, Anti-Contextualism, and
OLP. Background reading: Charles Travis, The Uses of Sense, Oxford
University Press, 1989, pp. 129-187; Keith DeRose (1992),
'Contextualism and Knowledge Attribution', Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, 52: 913-929.
Friday, October 3, 9-11: OLP, Skepticism, Kant.
Background reading: David Lewis (1996), 'Elusive Knowledge',
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 74: 549-567.
Introduction
1. "[Analytic philosophy is characterized by] a commitment to the
ideals of clarity, rigor, and argumentation" (Soames 2003a: xiii).
2. "[Analytic philosophy is characterized by] a method that stresses
clarity and rigorous argument" (Byrne and Hall, 2004).
3. Those who find arid the "technical minuteness of much philosophy in
the analytic tradition" are manifesting "impatience with the long haul
of technical reflection [that] is a form of shallowness, often thinly
disguised by histrionic advocacy of depth" (Williamson 2007: 45).
4. Ordinary Language Philosophy as defended in the book: A particular
form of critique of the tradition of western philosophy "one that seeks
to alleviate conceptual entanglements and unclarities by means of
consideration of the ordinary and normal uses of the words in
question, and of the conditions that make these uses possible and
against which they acquire their specific significance or point. OLP,
as I understand it, is essentially responsive: its 'reminders' are
assembled for 'a particular purpose' " in attempt to alleviate this or
that particular philosophical difficulty or unclarity (Wittgenstein
1963: remark 127). OLP's reminders are assembled not
"opportunistically", as Soames alleges (2003: 216), but deliberately.
5. My aim: To defend, not this or that philosopher or text, but OLP as
a general approach at what I take to be its best, and to show that,
persistent rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, it still
constitutes a well-motivated and viable alternative to the
philosophical work that is currently carried out within the mainstream
of analytic philosophy.