ABSTRACT
Back in the fifties and sixties, it seemed obvious to many analytical philosophers that a new method and style of philosophizing had been found, one that was in the process of revolutionizing philosophy. Through careful analysis of actual linguistic usage, philosophy would once and for all escape the muddles of traditional metaphysical theorizing. Facing a delegation of continental philosophers at Royaumont, P. F. Strawson declared that “the actual use of linguistic expressions remains [the philosopher’s] sole and essential contact with the reality which he wishes to understand.”2 And a couple of decades earlier, at Cambridge, Wittgenstein had proclaimed that the problems of philosophy would be solved “by looking into the workings of our language.”3 Philosophical inquiry was no longer to be occupied with phenomena or appearances (Erscheinungen); philosophical investigations were to be “grammatical investigations” that would remind us of “the kind of statement we make about phenomena.”4 Thus, as Wittgenstein stated, “[w]e are not analyzing a phenomenon (e.g. thought) but a concept (e.g. that of thinking), and therefore the use of a word.”5
