Linguistic Phenomenology

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines the statement of philosophical method included in Austin’s paper ‘A Plea for Excuses’. It argues that the research question ‘what we should say when’ is meant to be descriptive as opposed to normative, but language itself has its own normativity which constrains what can be meant by uttering certain words in a certain speech situation. It also argues that the ‘we’ who are agents and objects of Austin’s Ordinary Language Philosophy constitute a plural subject not in virtue of their social and cultural conditions, but of their sharing a linguistic system and using it ordinarily. It discusses the charges of conservatism and philosophical irrelevance that have been levelled at Austin’s method, to which Austin replied in advance in part at least, explaining that while ordinary language is not the Last Word, it is the First Word nevertheless. It expounds and discusses various reactions to Austin’s remark that his method could be called ‘linguistic phenomenology’ and puts forward a new interpretation of it, according to which Austin is referring to Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology and proposes a linguistic-phenomenological reduction or epochē analogous to Husserl’s phenomenological epochē. It claims that while Husserl uses the epochē to focus on consciousness, setting aside the natural standpoint, Austin uses the linguistic epochē to focus on ordinary linguistic usage, setting aside the relation between language and states of affairs (including psychological ones). Finally, it compares Austin’s statement of method with the practices and results that anticipated or followed it in his writings.