ABSTRACT

One of the main jobs of philosophical rhetoric is to orientate the audience/reader in philosophical space through a process of exclusion. Language, Truth and Logic does this by reducing the field of possible philosophical discourse. Language, Truth and Logic is an act of establishment which relies on the securing of perlocutionary effects. These are in part dependent upon the audience and its "interpretation" ("misinterpretation") of the text. Therefore, though the argument of the text is explicitly on the side of straightforward linguistic communication and rules out the meaningfulness of rhetoric in authors' descriptions of the world as observed, the work itself employs a strong philosophical rhetoric. Indirect communication involves the attempt to bring about changes in the audience. In the case of philosophical rhetoric these changes will relate to the appreciation of a truth; not one, however, that can be directly expressed in propositions. This indirection is part of philosophical writing in general.