Bertrand Russell claimed that the 'new philosophy' which was practised in Oxford by H. P. Grice
"seems to concern itself, not with the world and our relation to it,
but
only with the different ways in which
silly people can say silly things.
If this
is all that philosophy has to offer, I cannot think that it is a worthy subject
of study. The only reason that I can imagine for the restriction of philosophy
to such triviality is the desire to separate it sharply from empirical science.
I do not think such a separation can be usefully made."
Russell, "My Philosophical Development" (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1959), p. 230.
-- but then this begs the question (only it is improper to beg): 'how silly can Russell get?'
References:
Grice, "Definite descriptions in Russell and in the vernacular".
Posts
Interesting of course that Carnap, who saw himself as progressing Russell's conception of scientific philosophy, had no problem in distinguishing philosophy from empirical science.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that what Russell intended to put into that conception was not exactly what Carnap took out of it.
Furthermore, Carnap's gripe with Grice would more likely to have been that the study of ordinary language belongs to science rather than philosophy, so the one merit it would not have for him would be to distinguish itself from empirical science.
ReplyDelete(I hope to be back on the Grice/Carnap connection soon)
ReplyDeleteThanks. I'll address your points in a separate post.
ReplyDelete