Avner Baz’s ordinary language challenge to the philosophical method of cases

Irikefe, Paul 2022. Avner Baz’s ordinary language challenge to the philosophical method of cases. Dialectica 76 , 4. 10.48106/dial.v76.i4.03

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Abstract

Avner Baz argues that the philosophical method of cases presupposes a problematic view of language and linguistic competence, namely what he calls "the atomistic-compositional view". Combining key elements of social pragmatism and contextualism, Baz presents a view of language and linguistic competence, which he takes to be more sensitive to the open-endedness of human language. On this view, there are conditions for the "normal" and "felicitous" use of human words, conditions that Baz thinks are lacking in the context of the philosophical method of cases, and which make the question that philosophers are prone to ask in that context and the answers they give to that question to be pointless. However, in this paper, I argue as follows. First, Baz's conditions for the "normal" and "felicitous" use of human words are in tension with the open-endedness of human language and the use of human words. Second, it is not even clear that those conditions are really missing in the context of the philosophical method of cases. And third, even if we grant that those conditions are missing in that context, this does not licence his damning conclusion on the philosophical method of cases since we are not forced to embrace the view of language and linguistic competence on which that damning conclusion is plausible. This last move is secured by advancing and defending a skill or virtue-based view of language and linguistic competence inspired by the later work of Donald Davidson.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	English, Communication and Philosophy
Publisher:	European Society for Analytic Philosophy
ISSN:	0012-2017
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	10 January 2023
Date of Acceptance:	29 December 2022
Last Modified:	26 Mar 2024 14:54
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/155602

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