Last Word or First Word

What degree of authority did Austin think pertained to ordinary usage? What "ultimate" wisdom did he think implicit in the idioms that it accepts and those it rejects? Austin’s representations on these scores were repeatedly very modest, but the critics of ordinary language philosophy seem determine to saddle Austin with the view that ordinary usage delimits the pale and the boundary of sense. Here is a passage from “A Plea for Excuses.” Judge for yourself whether Austin regards ordinary usage as the final arbiter, or “last word”, on what we can and cannot say.

Certainly ordinary language has no claim to be the last word, if there is such a thing. It embodies, indeed, something better than the metaphysics of the Stone Age, namely,…the inherited experience and acumen of many generations of men. But then, that acumen has been concentrated on the practical business of life. If a distinction works well for practical purposes in ordinary life ( no mean feat),…then there is sure to be something in it. Yet this is likely enough not to be best way of arranging things if our interest are more extensive or intellectual than the ordinary….
And it must be added that superstition and error and fantasy of all kinds do become incorporated in ordinary language, and even sometimes stand up to the test of survival… Certainly, then, ordinary language is not the last word: in principle it can everywhere be supplemented and improved upon and superseded. Only remember, it is the first word. [ Phil. Papers 3rd Ed., p. 185 ]

Please note that the door stands wide open to other ways of talking " if our interests are more extensive and intellectual than ordinary." And talking not just in other ways, but in better ways : ordinary language "can everywhere be supplemented and improved upon and superseded." Austin is not merely making a concession in principle. He goes on to cite some chapter and verse. Modern psychology, through its studies displacement and compulsive behaviours, is in the process of supplementing ordinary language's virtual silence on these ways of acting. ( p. 204 )

Philosophers who feel their enterprise menaced by Austin's programme do not understand it. Austin is not out to put philosophers out of business because they speak in "other ways." He asks only that they first pause to understand how ordinary language addresses the issues they wish to discuss, and then , if they wish to propose new usages, be prepared to show that they have in fact coherent improvements to offer. The idioms established in ordinary language have already proven themselves clear enough and useful enough to compete successfully in the struggle for survival against other idioms ( linguistic Darwinism ). Passing this test of survival bestows some authority on the idioms of ordinary speech. Austin does not claim more.