Alice Ambrose is the student of Wittgenstein

  • Wittgenstein: For most words there's no single meaning attached to it

    Example

    "The sun sets at 17:00 today!"

    "No! The sun does not set, the earth spins!"

    Philosophical problems comes from trying to think through the terms instead of looking at their use

 

 

Linguistic Approaches to Philosophical Problems

Overarching Question: What are philosophers doing?

  • Answer 1: Philosophers are attempting to settle matters of fact

    This is the Orthodox / Traditional view of philosophy

    Ambrose's Rejections:

    1. Matters of fact can only be settled empirically, but philosophers are not doing empirical investigations

    2. Even though philosophers have the same evidence available to them, they rarely develop consensus

    3. Often, philosophers are not citing real counterexamples, but merely POSSIBLE counterexamples

      Based on this reason, Ambrose said that philosophy is not figuring out anything real about the world

      Example

      • Theory: "Utilitarianism is to increase the net good"
      • Refute: "Utility Monster" by Nozick, this creature is not real

  • Answer 2: Philosophers are engaging in linguistic analysis

    Or "attempting to analyze our concepts"

    • Philosophical debates exist as requests for clarification into words like "exist" and "identical"

      To clarify the rules for using these terms

    • It explains why philosophy does not involve empirical investigation

      If philosophical problems were about "the use of word", then they wouldn't need to be resolved by observing the real world

    However,

    • It doesn't explain why there is no consensus, and why possible counterexamples are needed

      Supposedly, our language already tells us what the answers to these questions are, so why so much disagreement?

      "The Paradox of Analysis" from G. E. Moore

    • Philosophers report not doing this

      Hume / Berkeley

  • Answer 3: Philosophers are revising / adding to our language

    Or "attempting to extend / revise our concepts", because our concepts don't settle everything

    • In doing philosophy, we are proposing the USE OF WORD in a new way

      This is Ambrose's preferred approach

      Unpacking meaning of words / Analysis is not preferred

    • The "rules of our language game" haven’t decided on the CONTENTIOUS matters

      Examples

      • Ship of Theseus
      • Whether numbers exist