Ordinary Language Philosophy

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Ordinary Language Philosophy, a school of thought which emerged in Oxford in the years following World War II. With its roots in the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ordinary Language Philosophy is concerned with the meanings of words as used in everyday speech. Its adherents believed that many philosophical problems were created by the misuse of words, and that if such ‘ordinary language’ were correctly analysed, such problems would disappear. Philosophers associated with the school include some of the most distinguished British thinkers of the twentieth century, such as Gilbert Ryle and JL Austin.

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Guests

• Stephen Mulhall 8 episodes
  Professor of Philosophy at New College, Oxford
• Ray Monk 2 episodes
  Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton
• Julia Tanney No other episodes
  Reader in Philosophy of Mind at the University of Kent

Reading list

• How to Do Things with Words
  J. L. Austin Google Books →
• Philosophical Papers
  J. L. Austin Google Books →
• Sense and Sensibilia
  J. L. Austin (Oxford University Press, 1979) Google Books →
• The Revolution in Philosophy
  A. J. Ayer and others (Macmillan, 1956) Google Books →
• When Words Are Called For: A Defense of Ordinary Language Philosophy
  Avner Baz (Harvard University Press, 2012) Google Books →
• Words and Things
  Ernest Gellner (Routledge, 2005) Google Books →
• Wittgenstein's Place in Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy
  Peter Hacker (Blackwell, 1996) Google Books →
• Why We Need Ordinary Language Philosophy
  Sandra Laugier (University of Chicago Press, 2013) Google Books →
• My Philosophical Development
  Bertrand Russell (Spokesman Books, 2007) Google Books →
• The Concept of Mind
  Gilbert Ryle (Routledge, 2009) Google Books →
• Critical Essays: Collected Papers, Volume 1 and 2
  Gilbert Ryle (Routledge, 2009) Google Books →
• Individuals
  P. F. Strawson (Routledge, 1964) Google Books →
• Philosophical Investigations
  Ludwig Wittgenstein Google Books →

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Programme ID: b03ggc19

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03ggc19

Auto-category: 149 (Other philosophical systems and doctrines)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello. In the years after the Second World War, a small group of British philosophers emerged who were obsessed with a language.