---
bibtex: @article{10.2307/2182792,
ISSN = {00318108, 15581470},
URL = {http://www.jstor.org/stable/2182792},
author = {Gilbert Ryle},
journal = {The Philosophical Review},
number = {2},
pages = {167-186},
publisher = {[Duke University Press, Philosophical Review]},
title = {Ordinary Language},
volume = {62},
year = {1953}
}
---
Some of the partisans assert that all philosophical questions are questions about the use of ordinary language, or that all philosophical questions are solved or are about to be solved by considering ordinary linguistic usage. p167
The edges of 'ordinary' are blurred, but usually we are in no doubt whether a diction does or does not belong to ordinary parlance. p168
Ordinary can mean common but also standard or stock. We can talk about common & standard, common & non-standard, uncommon but standard, or uncommon and non-standard use of words.
We are not contradicting ourselves if we say that he was examining the ordinary use of an unordinary expression. p170
Doubtless, finally, some of the cardinal problems of philosophy are set by the existence of logical tangles not in this as opposed to that branch of specialist theory, but in the thought and the dis- course of everyone, specialists and non-specialists alike. p170
Hume's question was not about the word 'cause'; it was about the use of 'cause'. p171
Putting the stress on the word 'use' helps to bring out the important fact that the enquiry is an enquiry not into the other features or properties of the word or coin or pair of boots, but only into what is done with it, or with anything else with which we do the same thing. pp171-172