scholarly journals The Discussion on the Principle of Universalizability in Moral Philosophy in the 1970s and 1980s: An Analysis

2018 ◽  
pp. 65-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. V. Loginov
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Categorical Imperative ◽  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Ordinary Language Philosophy ◽  
Language Philosophy ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Causal Criterion ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Better Than

In this paper, I analyzed the discussion on the principle of universalizability which took place in moral philosophy in 1970–1980s. In short, I see two main problems that attracted more attention than others. The first problem is an opposition of universalizability and generalization. M.G. Singer argued for generalization argument, and R.M. Hare defended universalizability thesis. Hare tried to refute Singer’s position, using methods of ordinary language philosophy, and claimed that in ethics generalization is useless and misleading. I have examined Singer’s defense and concluded that he was right and Hare was mistaken. Consequently, generalization argument is better in clarification of the relationship between universality and morality than Hare’s doctrine of universalizability, and hence the universality of moral principles is not incompatible with the existence of exclusions. The second problem is the substantiation of the application of categorical imperative in the theory of relevant act descriptions and accurate understanding of the difference between maxims and non-maxims. In Generalization in Ethics, Singer drew attention to this theme and philosophers have proposed some suggestions to solve this problem. I describe ideas of H.J. Paton, H. Potter, O. O’Neill and M. Timmons. Paton coined the teleological-law theory. According to Potter, the best criterion for the relevant act descriptions is causal one. O’N eill suggested the inconsistency-of-intention theory. Timmons defended the causal-law theory. My claim is that the teleological-law theory and the causal-law theory fail to solve the relevant act descriptions problem and the causal criterion and the inconsistency-of-intention theory have their limits. From this, I conclude that these approaches cannot be the basis for clarifying the connection between universality and morality, in contrast to Singer’s approach, which, therefore, is better than others to clarify the nature of universality in morality.

The semiotics of sensation: A. J. Greimas and the experience of meaning

Semiotica ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (214) ◽  
pp. 173-192
Author(s):  
Ronald Schleifer
Keyword(s):  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Language Theory ◽  
Ordinary Language Philosophy ◽  
Language Philosophy ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractIt has been the life-long ambition of A. J. Greimas to analyze the nature of meaning, and in his work he has consistently described meaning as a felt experience, what he calls the “feeling of understanding.” This essay examines the Greimassian investigation of meaning as experiential – which is to say sensational – as well as cognitive by analyzing, by means of Greimas’s “semiotic square,” P. M. S. Hacker’s recent exploration of the relationship between sensation and cognition undertaken in terms of the semantics of ordinary-language philosophy. That is, the essay subjects what it calls “the illusion of immediacy” in ordinary-language philosophy to the systematic analysis of the “semantic formalism” of the semiotic square in order to demonstrate that the seeming “given” of ordinary language theory – the “logico-grammatical terrain and . . . the conceptual landscape” that Hackers describes – can be profitably analyzed in terms of the interaction of semiotic constraints. It concludes by touching on the ways Greimassian semiotics is congruent with – and perhaps supported by – recent neurological understandings of sensate experience.

6. So what is analytic philosophy?

2017 ◽  
pp. 92-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Beaney
Keyword(s):  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Ordinary Language Philosophy ◽  
Modern Logic ◽  
Language Philosophy ◽  
New Techniques ◽  
Scientific Philosophy ◽  
Ideal Language ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
The Relationship

There are various similarities and differences between the respective approaches to analytic philosophy of Frege, Russell, Moore, Wittgenstein, and Stebbing. But is there anything in common that could be taken to characterize analytic philosophy as a whole? ‘So what is analytic philosophy?’ explains that analytic philosophy is ‘analytic’ in an extra special sense because it made use of modern logic together with all the new techniques that emerged in its wake and the greater understanding of the relationship between logic and language that this generated. It looks at later analytic philosophy—ordinary language philosophy, ideal language philosophy, and scientific philosophy—before considering what is wrong and good about analytic philosophy.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avner Baz
Keyword(s):  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Ordinary Language Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical Theory ◽  
Language Philosophy ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Method Of Cases

The conclusion underscores the difference between the method of cases as commonly practiced and ordinary language philosophy. The latter proceeds by inviting us to project ourselves imaginatively into situations of significant speech—situations in which the words would actually be used; the former invites us to “apply” our words to “cases” from a metaphysically detached position in which nothing but a philosophical theory hangs on what we say. But, as argued in this book, apart from being put to some particular use or another, in a context suitable for that use, our words mean, and say, nothing determinate. The Conclusion accordingly proposes that in deploying the method of cases, we are going, and getting, nowhere with our words. It ends with a few thoughts about how that sort of philosophical idleness may be avoided.

Whose Dream Is It Anyway?

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 263-287
Author(s):  
Avner Baz
Keyword(s):  
Ordinary Language ◽  
External World ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Second Line ◽  
Ordinary Language Philosophy ◽  
First Line ◽  
Standard Type ◽  
Language Philosophy ◽  
Cartesian Skepticism

I start with two basic lines of response to Cartesian skepticism about the ‘external world’: in the first, which is characteristic of Analytic philosophers to this day, the focus is on the meaning of ‘know’—what it ‘refers’ to, its ‘semantics’ and its ‘pragmatics’; in the second, which characterizes Continental responses to Descartes, the focus is on the philosophizing or meditating subject, and its relation to its body and world. I argue that the first approach is hopeless: if the Cartesian worry that I could be dreaming right now so much as makes sense, the proposal that—under some theory of knowledge (or of ‘knowledge’)—my belief that I am sitting in front of the computer right now may still be (or truly count as) a piece of knowledge, would rightfully seem to the skeptic to be playing with words and missing the point. I then argue that the practice of Ordinary Language Philosophy, which has mostly been linked to the first line of response to Cartesian skepticism, may be seen as actually belonging with the second line of response; and I show how a form of what may be called “Existentialist Ordinary Language Philosophy” can be used to reveal the nonsensicality of the Cartesian skeptical worry. My argument takes its cue from Thompson Clarke’s insight—an insight that Clarke himself has not pursued far or accurately enough—that our concept of Dream is not a concept of the “standard type.”

INFLUENCE OF LINGUISTIC PHILOSOPHY ON ANALYTICAL JURISPRUDENCE THROUGH THE PERSPECTIVE OF H. L. A. HART

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (18) ◽  
pp. 315-330
Author(s):  
Luana Sion Li
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Theoretical Development ◽  
Ordinary Language Philosophy ◽  
Language Philosophy ◽  
Legal Philosopher ◽  
Linguistic Philosophy ◽  
The Way

This article discusses the influence of emerging linguistic philosophy theories in the 20th century on the development of analytical jurisprudence through an examination of the way those theories influenced the legal philosopher H. L. A. Hart. Although Hart is significantly influenced by linguistic philosophy, his legal theory could not have been developed solely with it. This is evidenced by Hart’s disownment of the essay Ascription of Responsibility and Rights, his attempt to employ ideas from ordinary language philosophy in the context of law. Hart’s theoretical development shows that he was above all not a linguistic, but a legal philosopher; and that analytical jurisprudence, albeit influenced by linguistic philosophy, depends on aspects beyond it.

Ordinary Language Philosophy

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avner Baz
Keyword(s):  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Philosophical Method ◽  
Ordinary Language Philosophy ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Language Philosophy ◽  
Method Of Cases

The article presents, clarifies, defends, and shows the contemporary relevance of ordinary language philosophy (OLP), as a general approach to the understanding and dissolution of at least very many traditional and contemporary philosophical difficulties. The first section broadly characterizes OLP, points out its anticipation in Immanuel Kant’s dissolution of metaphysical impasses in the ‘Transcendental Dialectic’ of the Critique of Pure Reason, and then shows its contemporary relevance by bringing its perspective to bear on the recent debates concerning the philosophical ‘method of cases’. The second section responds to a series of common objections to, and misunderstandings of, OLP.

scholarly journals On the Return to Metaphysics in Analytical Philosophy of Mind

2018 ◽  
pp. 130-142
Author(s):  
G. A. Zolotkov
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Logical Positivism ◽  
Ordinary Language Philosophy ◽  
Analytical Philosophy ◽  
Language Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mind

The article examines the change of theoretical framework in analytic philosophy of mind. It is well known fact that nowadays philosophical problems of mind are frequently seen as incredibly difficult. It is noteworthy that the first programs of analytical philosophy of mind (that is, logical positivism and philosophy of ordinary language) were skeptical about difficulty of that realm of problems. One of the most notable features of both those programs was the strong antimetaphysical stance, those programs considered philosophy of mind unproblematic in its nature. However, the consequent evolution of philosophy of mind shows evaporating of that stance and gradual recovery of the more sympathetic view toward the mind problematic. Thus, there were two main frameworks in analytical philosophy of mind: 1) the framework of logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy dominated in the 1930s and the 1940s; 2) the framework that dominated since the 1950s and was featured by the critique of the first framework. Thus, the history of analytical philosophy of mind moves between two highly opposite understandings of the mind problematic. The article aims to found the causes of that move in the ideas of C. Hempel and G. Ryle, who were the most notable philosophers of mind in the 1930s and the 1940s.

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