H. P. Grice, "Oxonian Implicata"

Oxford philosophy Philosophical method Philosophy has been studied and taught at Oxford since the thirteenth century, and, from as early as the fourteenth century, Oxford has contributed eminent philosophers such as Duns Scotus and William of Ockham. Hobbes, Locke, and Bentham were students of Oxford. From the nineteenth century to the first part of the twentieth century, Oxford has contributed John Henry Newman, Joseph Butler, John Cook Wilson, H. A. Prichard, and R. G. Collingwood, among others. However, “Oxford philosophy” as a technical term refers to a distinct approach to analytical philosophy that flourished at Oxford after the Second World War. It places emphasis on clarifying perennial philosophical problems in terms of the analysis of ordinary language, and is in contrast to logical positivism and the Russellian strand of philosophy in Cambridge. This approach started with H. H. Price and Gilbert Ryle, although it is related to the work of G. E. Moore and Wittgenstein’s later work in Cambridge. It was further articulated in distinctive ways by J. L. Austin and P. F. Strawson. It made Oxford the dominant center of analytical philosophy from the 1940s to the 1960s, and is also called ordinary language philosophy. Other contemporary Oxford philosophers include H. L. A. Hart, A. J. Ayer, G. E. M. Anscombe, P. Foot, H. P. Grice, G. E. L. Owen, M. A. E. Dummett, B. A. O. Williams, D. F. Pears, R. M. Hare, Charles Taylor, and Ronald Dworkin. But these philosophers have different approaches, and some would vigorously reject being classed as Oxford philosophers in the above sense. Oxford is still a major center of philosophy today and is the birthplace of this dictionary. “During the last quarter of a century Oxford has occupied, or reoccupied, a position it last held, perhaps, six hundred years ago: that of a great centre of philosophy in the Western world.” Strawson, Logico-Linguistic Papers