Linguistic philosophy and the meaning of life

Kai Nielsen

pp. 3-29

in: William Horosz, Clements (eds), Religion and human purpose, Berlin, Springer, 1987

Abstract

Anglo-Saxon philosophy has in various degrees "gone linguistic". From the faithful attention to the niceties of plain English practiced by John Austin, to the use of descriptive linguistics initiated by Paul Ziff in his Semantic Analysis, to the deliberately more impressionistic concern with language typical of Isaiah Berlin and Stuart Hampshire, there is a pervasive emphasis by English-speaking philosophers on what can and cannot be said, on what is intelligible, and on what is nonsensical. When linguistic philosphy was first developing, many things were said to be nonsense which were not nonsense. However, this is something of the past, for linguistic philosophy has for a long time been less truculent and more diffident about what it makes sense to say, but only to become - some would say - unbelievably bland, dull and without a rationale that is of any general interest.¹

Cited authors

Hampshire Stuart

Austin John

Ziff Paul