The Linguistic Turn: Essays in Philosophical Method

For much of the 20th century, it was quite fashionable to believe that philosophical problems were all problems of language, and that if philosophers paid close enough attention to ordinary usage (or, alternately, devised an ideal language free of the muddles and inconsistencies of ordinary language), then philosophical problems would simply disappear. This was the linguistic turn. I have a number of anthologies on this movement, and Rorty's is far and away the best. Rorty has assembled some of the finest examples of ordinary language philosophy (such as Malcolm's "Moore and Ordinary Language") and ideal language philosophy (like Carnap's "Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology"). But most of the volume is taken up with critical evaluations and appraisals of these movements in philosophy. Rorty's selections are extremely judicious and show a real mastery of the field. Speaking of mastery, one of the most valuable essays in the volume is Rorty's own lengthy introductory essay. In this essay, Rorty brilliantly lays out the philosophical foundations of ordinary language philosophy and ideal language philosophy and the philosophical problems they encounter. It is difficult to convey what a phenomenal work this essay is. It displays the ability to master, synthesize, and distill literally decades of philosophy into a narrative essay which is itself a masterpiece of critical philosophy. This is Rorty at his finest.

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