Between the 1940s and the 1960s, analytic philosophy shifted away from investigating the (supposed) underlying logical structure of language. While it was still primarily concerned with conceptual analysis, this was increasingly pursued through studying everyday linguistic practice. One consequence of this was a greater appreciation of how natural language works, and John Langshaw Austin (1911–1960) laid the groundwork for contemporary speech-act theory.
A second consequence was the attempt to dissolve philosophical problems as issues that arose from linguistic confusion. In connection with this, Gilbert Ryle (1900–1976) argued that grammatical similarities between the words “body” and “mind” lead us to suppose that minds must be some (unusual) kind of entity, but closer attention to our mental discourse reveals that these similarities actually function to make (dispositional) claims about physical activity.
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later work can also be considered a form of Ordinary Language Philosophy. In his posthumously published Philosophical Investigations (1953), he argued that language learning requires initiation into a broader “form of life,” in which linguistic rules presuppose regular social practice. For Wittgenstein, such investigations are intended to be “therapeutic.” Skepticism, for instance, is defeated not because some propositions cannot be doubted, but because these propositions constitute the very framework in which skeptical doubts can be raised.
