Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy 4 (6) (2016)
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This paper discusses the first incarnation of what came to be known as the “Frege-Geach” point. The point was made by Peter Geach in his 1960 essay “Ascriptivism”, and developed in “Assertion”, a 1965 piece. Geach’s articles launch a wholesale attack on theories of non-descriptive performances advanced by “some Oxford philosophers” whom he accuses of ignoring “the distinction between calling a thing ‘P’ and predicating ‘P’ of a thing”. One view that Geach specifically targets is H. L. A. Hart’s claim that sentences of the form “X φ-ed” are not primarily descriptive but ascriptive of responsibility for actions. Hart explicitly accepted Geach’s criticism, and disowned his essay. I argue that he was wrong to do so. Perhaps the essay was worth retracting, but not because of Geach’s objections. I begin by restating and refining Geach’s arguments, in order to bring out the flaw he claimed to have detected in the “pattern of philosophising” that he took Hart’s essay to exemplify. I go on to argue that Geach’s original point poses no obstacle either to non-descriptivism in general, or to Hart’s sui generis non-descriptivist claim in particular.
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DOI | 10.15173/jhap.v4i6.2961 |
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References found in this work BETA
Spreading the Word: Groundings in the Philosophy of Language.Simon Blackburn - 1984 - Clarendon Press.
Other Minds.J. Wisdom, J. L. Austen, J. L. Austin & A. J. Ayer - 1946 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 20:122-197.
Punishment and Responsibility: Essays in the Philosophy of Law.H. L. A. Hart - 1968 - Oxford University Press.
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Citations of this work BETA
Scaffolded practical knowledge: a problem for intellectualism.Nikolaj Nottelmann & Kári Thorsson - 2021 - Philosophical Studies 178 (2):577-595.
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