ABSTRACT

That philosophy is chiefly a linguistic activity has come to be generally recognized in this century. Whether or not the realities it deals with are taken to transcend language, the facts that its arguments are always conducted in some language, and that the structure and history of that language will have an effect on those arguments, seem inescapable. The consequences of this view for the philosopher’s conception of his own activity have commanded less attention. He may think of himself as a thinker, but his thought will be barren (apart from any private benefits it may confer) if he is not also a talker or a writer. For the most part this goes without saying: talking and writing are natural activities and no great fuss need be made about them. The question is worth raising, however, as to the relation between thought and its verbal expression-whether the latter is, utilitarian considerations apart, merely a transcription of the former, or whether the former can be said to have an antecedent and independent status at all. Socrates was a talker; does it make sense to speak of Socratic thought, apart from what we suppose actually to have been said by Socrates together with what follows from it? Is what a philosopher writes (e.g., the Tractatus) to be regarded in a different light from what his listeners remember him to have said (e.g., most of Wittgenstein published later than the Investigations)?