Ordinary language in memoriam

Taking as a point of departure a recently published collection of representative contributions from various philosophers who claim to ‘proceed from ordinary language’, this article examines ordinary language philosophy in the light of some of the claims made by these philosophers. The claims are criticized mainly for failing to account for the variability of the use of terms in respect both of depth of intention and special contexts. These factors are such as to render the claims in question false when interpreted as significant assertions about language, but trivial when they are interpreted as reasonable and true.