Stanley Cavell was an American philosopher, 1926-2018.
(in progress notes) - Main question: does what we ordinarily say/mean have a direct+deep control over what we can philosophically say/mean? - Goal: respond to objections to the methodology of ‘ordinary language philosophy’ (by Mates) - Distinguish 3 kinds of statements about ordinary language - 1. Statements which produce instances of what is said in a language - “We do say … but we don’t say …” - “We ask whether … but we don’t ask whether …” - 2. Like above, but with explications - “When we say …, we imply/suggest/say …” - “We don’t say … unless we mean …” - 3. Generalizations, tested by reference to the first two types - Working example: disagreement between Austin and Ryle - 1. Austin: “We say ‘The gift was made voluntarily’’’ (type 1) - 2. Ryle: “It makes sense… to ask whether a boy was responsible for breaking a window, but not whether he was responsible for finishing his homework in good time” (type 1) - 3. Ryle: “‘voluntary’/‘involuntary’ are applied as adjectives to actions which ought not be done” (type 3) - Praise of Ryle’s generalization: - Philosophical use of “voluntary” is distinct/disconnected from “volition” - People think confusedly as if everything is either appropriately described as voluntary or involuntary - Criticism of Ryle’s generalization: - Saying there must be something morally fishy about the action that is described as voluntary is not general enough. - However, the fact Ryle’s attempt to generalize has errors does not invalidate his methodology (that he can make type 1 and type 2 statements about ordinary language). - Philosophical problem that arises from type 2 statements - “We say A where B is the case … we misuse A when B is not the case” - is there a logical relation between A and B? - Logical statements hold between statements, not between a statement and the world. - Kris: perhaps the logical relation is between “speaker says A” IMPLIES (“World is B” IFF “Speaker is competent at the language”) - So call the meaning of A its semantics and the pratical conditions of its utterance its pragmatics - “Voluntary” does not mean “fishy” - Mates’ formula for computing pragmatic value of an expression: “He wouldn’t say that unless he …” - But surely there must be something logical, since something about B must follow from the utterance of A! - The speaker “MUST MEAN” something is fishy if they call it voluntarily (the must is more critical here than the ‘mean’) - Mates’ formula does not seem to give insight into the necessity here. -