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8 DON’T ASK, LOOK!
2. A Simple Model of Linguistic Analysis in Philosophy
Ordinary Language Philosophy, it seems, has largely fallen out of favour, and with it the belief
in the primary importance of analyses of ordinary language. Perhaps rightly so. Yet philosophers
not only from analytic but also from other backgrounds still consider the ways in which
terms of philosophical interest are used in ordinary, non-technical language. In the analytic
tradition this practice is, of course, still quite common.
I suspect that some of my readers would be more interested in the justification for doing Ordinary
Language Philosophy than in the use of corpora for its purposes. Lest there be disappointment
later, let me make clear that I am not concerned with this question here. I will give
reasons for using corpora, but not for doing Ordinary Language Philosophy. Let me also
stress that I do not want to advocate Computerised Ordinary Language Philosophy as the one
method to be employed in philosophy. That would be rather silly. But let us assume for the
sake of this exposition that we are committed to the analysis of ordinary language for philosophical
purposes.
What I would like to do first is to present a model of the practice of such analyses. The model
gives a very simplified account of reality, but it will allow me to point out what benefits the
use of corpora has.
I believe that analyses of ordinary language in philosophy proceed more or less as follows.
Steps in the practice of ordinary language analyses
Formation of research interest and hypotheses
1 Decision which expressions are pertinent
2 Formation of hypotheses related to pertinent expressions
3 Coming up with an example for the
use of a pertinent expression
4 Analysis of the example
5 Iterations and variations
i.e., testing and refining of
hypotheses related to pertinent
expressions
6 Drawing conclusions
Let me shortly comment on the six steps.
The process of analysis is preceded by the formation of a research interest and the (perhaps
tacit) formation of hypotheses related to the issue to be addressed. I am going to disregard
this phase in the following considerations (which is why it is not numbered).
1: Usually the task of linguistic analysis in philosophy is described as the attempt to analyse or
to explicate a concept. I am not concerned here with the question of what a concept is. However,
it is hardly bold to claim that a concept usually can be expressed in various ways in a
given language. Therefore, it is not always obvious which linguistic phenomena are pertinent
for the analytical process. Thus, if we take seriously the idea of approaching some philosophical
problem through an analysis of ordinary language, we first need to clarify which expressions
are to be considered at all.
2: We form (perhaps tacit) hypotheses about the use of the pertinent expressions.
3–5: We then test and refine these hypotheses. We come up with contexts in which some
expression is to be examined, that is, with some utterance (spoken or written) in which the