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Full Idea
If all of philosophy is the analysis of meaning, and meaning is fundamentally transparent to competent speakers, there is little room for philosophically significant explanations and theories, since they will be necessary or a priori, or both.
Gist of Idea
If philosophy is analysis of meaning, available to all competent speakers, what's left for philosophers?
Source
Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.186)
Book Ref
Soames,Scott: 'Philosophical Essays 2:Significance of Language' [Princeton 2009], p.186
A Reaction
He cites the later Wittgenstein as having fallen into this trap. I suppose any area of life can have its specialists, but I take Shakespeare to be a greater master of English than any philosopher I have ever read.
| 13966 | Analytic philosophy loved the necessary a priori analytic, linguistic modality, and rigour [Soames] |
| 13968 | Kripkean possible worlds are abstract maximal states in which the real world could have been [Soames] |
| 13969 | Kripkean essential properties and relations are necessary, in all genuinely possible worlds [Soames] |
| 13972 | Two-dimensionalism reinstates descriptivism, and reconnects necessity and apriority to analyticity [Soames] |
| 13973 | A key achievement of Kripke is showing that important modalities are not linguistic in source [Soames] |
| 13974 | If philosophy is analysis of meaning, available to all competent speakers, what's left for philosophers? [Soames] |