Revolution of the Ordinary: Literary Studies after Wittgenstein, Austin, and Cavell

by Toril Moi

This radically original book argues for the power of ordinary language philosophy—a tradition inaugurated by Ludwig Wittgenstein and J. L. Austin, and extended by Stanley Cavell—to transform literary studies. In engaging and lucid prose, Toril Moi demonstrates this philosophy’s unique ability to lay bare the connections between words and the world, dispel the notion of literature as a monolithic concept, and teach readers how to learn from a literary text.

Moi first introduces Wittgenstein’s vision of language and theory, which refuses to reduce language to a matter of naming or representation, considers theory’s desire for generality doomed to failure, and brings out the philosophical power of the particular case. Contrasting ordinary language philosophy with dominant strands of Saussurean and post-Saussurean thought, she highlights the former’s originality, critical power, and potential for creative use. Finally, she challenges the belief that good critics always read below the surface, proposing instead an innovative view of texts as expression and action, and of reading as an act of acknowledgment. Intervening in cutting-edge debates while bringing Wittgenstein, Austin, and Cavell to new readers, Revolution of the Ordinary will appeal beyond literary studies to anyone looking for a philosophically serious account of why words matter.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Language, Literature, History, Theory

304 pages, Paperback

First published May 22, 2017

About the author

Toril Moi is James B. Duke Professor of Literature and Romance Studies and Professor of English, Philosophy and Theatre Studies at Duke University. Moi is also the Director of the Center for Philosophy, Arts, and Literature at Duke. She attended University of Bergen. Previously she held positions as a lecturer in French at the University of Oxford and as Director of the Center for Feminist Research at the University of Bergen, Norway. She lived in Oxford, United Kingdom from 1979 to 1989. Currently she lives in North Carolina. She works on feminist theory and women's writing; on the intersections of literature, philosophy and aesthetics; on "finding ways of reading literature with philosophy and philosophy with literature without reducing the one to the other."

In 2002 she was awarded an honorary degree, doctor philos. honoris causa, at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.[1] In 1998 she won Duke's University Teacher of the Year Award and in 2008 she won the Dean's Award for Excellence in Mentoring of Graduate Students.

She is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

Reviews

[Barry Magid · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A remarkably clear explication of Wittgenstein's philosophy, by and for someone in "recovery" from deconstruction and critical theory. Moi defends ordinary language philosophy from Marcuse's critique in "One Dimensional Man" as well as from Derrida and de Man, who assume philosophy must get beneath the surface of language in order to challenge the status quo, thereby totally missing the radical implications of Wittgenstein's claim that Nothing is Hidden. Moi writes, "0rdinary language philosophy moves us beyond both linguistic skepticism (the sense that language never grasps the world) and various kinds of scientism and positivism (only objective "scientific" language provides true knowledge.)"

[Nat]

There is a gigantic divide (so big it's not even usually something anyone notices) between literary theorists who have been mostly influenced by Saussure and philosophers of language who are influenced by Austin or Wittgenstein (or Grice, who only gets cited once in this book). Moi draws attention to the divide and makes the case that big chunks of contemporary literary theory mischaracterize the nature of meaning (or in extreme cases are led into absurdity) because they don't pay enough attention to the ways language, human life, and the world are interconnected, ways that are the preoccupation of Wittgenstein, Austin, and Cavell. As a philosopher working broadly in the analytic tradition, I was astounded to read Moi's account of the kinds of theories that are being built in literary theory about the "materiality" of the signifier, or the idea that "nature is literate" (p.123) (although read in one way, that could sound pretty close to McDowell's view in Mind and World).

I'm interested in the clash of cultures between philosophy and the neighboring humanities disciplines. One footnote about criticism of Cavell's writing about film caught my attention as distilling some of that clash:

"Singling out Cavell's discussion of Now, Voyager, Modleski claims that Cavell fails to quote and discuss feminist writings on the film. It is true that Cavell doesn't cite any women in his analysis. But, as he points out, he doesn't cite any men either." (p. 251 n.3).

[Nathaniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

“To learn a language is to acquire a world. When the practices that give rise to the language die, the language will die, too. Bullfighting language will be doomed the day the bullfights become unacceptable to the Spanish, and the Mexicans, and the other Latin American countries that still practice bullfighting. What dies with a language, however, are not just words, but practices: the capacity to see, and to appreciate, certain distinctions, certain moments of beauty and courage. This is what it means to say that world and word are intertwined, or as Wittgenstein puts it: ‘To imagine a language means to imagine a form of life’ (§19).”

[Matthew Sun · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a caveat: I don't know much about philosophy or literary theory. I've taken a couple theory classes, and I know enough to recognize big names. Even so, this book was possibly life-changing in an intellectual way. It felt like my brain was kind of on fire the whole time, like I was learning a new language.

The big takeaway here is the argument that there is no such thing as an empty signifier - no separation between language and the concepts or meanings that it ostensibly refers to. The implications of this simple, anti-deconstructionist belief are potentially enormous. Debates about whether or not language is entirely socially constructed, whether ordinary language can ever really be divorced from the stains of oppression and injustice that suffuse speech, etc. are missing the point. The important thing is that language does work, and it does work because we collectively operate on a background of shared assumptions and judgments, which makes our utterances possible. For the vast and exciting implications that follow from this idea, you'll have to read the book - I'm not as great at explaining Moi as she is at explaining herself.

Some choice quotes:

"Imagine a world in which radical theorists took a real interest in their own writing style, passionately discussed strategies for how best to develop the craft of theory writing, took for granted that theorists too need to work hard to master their chosen medium! Imagine if we all began to make serious efforts to write in strikingly fresh, powerful, invigorating ways, so as truly to make us see the world anew! Unfortunately, this is not what happens."

"Language does not change by philosophical decree, but with the needs and practices of human life. Of course, philosophy is one of those practices, but it has no privileged status as a kind of master-practice of language, any more than it has a special status as a kind of master-practice of mathematics.
For Wittgenstein, there is only ordinary language. The “opposite” of ordinary language, if we can call it that, does not escape the ordinary. On the contrary, it trades on ordinary use precisely by trying to “interfere” with it. Wittgenstein calls such attempts to lead us away from the ordinary “metaphysics.”"

"Even the most violent disagreements arise within a shared language. What is common sense to me may be pure madness to you. But if I don’t share your language, I will never even realize that your utterances are fundamentally unacceptable to me. The more adept I am at ferreting out your hidden ideological agenda, the better I demonstrate my grasp of the finest nuances of your specific way of speaking. The more astute my critique, the better it demonstrates that we share both the words and the world we are fighting over."

"For Cavell, the “moral of the example” of Archie and Edith, is that there is “no inevitable relation” between grammar and rhetoric. He continues: “This seems to me the moral of ordinary language philosophy as well, and of the practice of art. Put it this way: Grammar cannot, or ought not, of itself dictate what you mean, what it is up to you to say” (“Politics,” 45). For Cavell, the question of what we say and mean is always also ethical and political, a question of the responsibility we take for our words."

"For ordinary language philosophy, on the other hand, any language-game I might want to investigate is already over. An utterance is an action: like all other actions, it takes place in time. It has a beginning and an end. Like all actions, it can have unexpected repercussions and ramifications. It can land me in or get me out of trouble. But whatever I say, once I’ve said it, it’s done. No logical necessity compels me to continue, to say more. The continuation that makes up language rests on nothing but our willingness to go on, to go on talking together, go on acting together. Or in other words: it rests on use."

Thank you to Moi for making an effort to write as clearly and accessibly as possible. (As Moi points out, writing with clarity doesn't mean dumbing down content: clarity and difficulty are separate concepts.) I haven't felt this excited intellectually in a long time - there are so many concepts in this book that I could understand well enough to just start to make out a different way of seeing the world, without having the whole picture become crystal clear. Onwards with ordinary language philosophy!

[Searnold · Rating 5 out of 5]

True. I am an "incorrigible". That is that within the concept of "revolution" expounded by Toril Moi in "Revolution of the Ordinary Literary Studies after Wittgenstein, Austin, and Cavell " that if one seeks to meet, to connect, to exchange, engage with- that is to acknowledge and be by acknowledged by- the world, then one must reject the "improvements" required by those who practice "the hermeneutics of suspicion". Specifically, this "revolutionary" act of rejection entails, for example, the denial of service to the linguistic as well as the ordinary use of 'name calling' (consider: that if this should happen, then all things Left would go silent). Additionally one must refuse to acknowledge the rather hubristic claim made by those that embrace this brand of hermeneutics to preemptive authority. "Incorrigible", I am.

In the above paragraph "what you see is what you get", "nothing is hidden"; that is to say that it offers a "clear view", a "surveyable representation" of what one understands the rough ground, the terrain features particular to Moi's message- and Yes, her intent- to be. And if as Moi after Cavell points out that reading is a two-way form of acknowledgement, then here one's comments serve not as a "critique" but rather as a Thank You note. Thank you, Toril Moi, for writing a book that one could not put down. Thank for citing works that found their way onto one's To Read list. Thank you for the clarity of your presentation that confirmed my understanding of Wittgenstein and Cavell. Thank you making the deliberately obscure works of certain positions of "theory" (sort of) palatable. Thank you for the disruption to (or should one say, the subversion of) the will to suspicion, to corrosive skepticism. And most of all, thank you for your courageous call, indeed in these "dark times" it is revolutionary, to trust our lives in language and in the ordinary.

[Robert Earle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some years ago I led a graduate seminar in what I called North American literature at the University of New Mexico. A faculty member asked me why I was assigning books. That was perhaps the lowest point in my concerns about the direction of literary studies.

Moi’s clear and thorough effort to demolish things like bookless literature, deconstructionist theory, literary theory in general, and many other follies draws on Wittgenstein’s focus on the page and words in front of you. The more perceptive you are about what you see, the more you will grasp and perhaps appreciate. Moi endorses this approach, pointing out that ideologically-driven reading, with its intent to find the Marxist, etc., elements the author probably was not aware of, imposes itself on a text as the text’s significance and thereby devalues it. That leads one into disregarding the author and, as I discovered in Albuquerque, the text itself. Why read when the author had no control of what she wrote? What is the point of text that is a lie, never representing what it really means?

A good bit of this book rests on Moi’s absolutely lucid dismissal of generations of largely French-inspired literary scholars. She does not dismiss summarily. She dismisses in detail. Bang, you’re dead. I found this very refreshing. There’s no rancor in her argument. It’s very cool, quite rational. The foundation lies in Wittgenstein’s often difficult utterings. Moi makes them less difficult, aided by Stanley Cavell’s philosophical work.

[Lane Wilkinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Toril Moi (Duke) would have it, critical theory never truly escaped Saussure. Each new development from post-Structuralism to new materialism stands in direct relation—affirmation or rejection—to a post-Saussurean logic of representation. The meaning of a concept determines its use and the job of the critical theorist is to construct theories of language. Yet, this “craving for generality” has lead scholars to dismiss particular cases in favor of bounded, complete universals. Drawing on the ordinary language philosophy of Wittgenstein, and Cavell (Austin to a lesser degree), Moi offers a compelling argument that the Saussurean project is backwards: we cannot develop a theory of language because language is indeterminate; instead, use determines meaning. Moi’s perspicuous prose guides the reader through the basics of ordinary language philosophy and demonstrates how a Wittgensteinian attention to specific examples of ordinary use offers a radical and liberating approach to how we approach texts. Moi advocates moving beyond the cynicism of the ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ as she traces a fresh approach to reading the world. A bold reassessment of literary studies after theory and a project one can hope will revolutionize inquiry into rhetoric.

[David Willey · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're interested in literary criticism, you should read this book.
If you're interested in Wittgenstein's vision of language, you should read this book.
If you want to change how you read, you should read this book.

Moi draws on the Felski/post-critique moment to give a convincing, exciting account of how to apply the insights of ordinary language philosophy to literary criticism. She does a lot heavy lifting by not only providing coherent summaries of Wittgenstein and Cavell (a daunting task) but also by setting this 'ordinary language' approach in conversation with the post-Saussurean tradition. This is a book that I will be rereading.

[Clara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Den här boken är den enskilt mest viktiga för min syn på litteraturvetenskap; den har på samma gång fått mig att inse att mina tankar och mitt synsätt hör hemma i ett sammanhang, tillfört oändligt många nya insikter, och satt ord på de problem inom litteraturvetenskapen jag frustrerats över men inte själv lyckats artikulera. Vissa delar av den har jag burit med mig sedan jag först läste den för något år sedan, som ett slags påminnelse om att mina tankar bottnar någonstans.

[Mynt Marsellus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ordinary Language Philosophy is a great way to think about the world and Moi does a great job bringing its relevance out.

[Roy Kenagy]

RK KINDLE

[Faith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Obviously an amazing book and not just saying that because Toril Moi is my professor & I want her to give me an A.

[Elaine]

Read for ENG7103: Ordinary Language, Ordinary Criticism.

[clickingsound · Rating 5 out of 5]

Precise, elegant, moving and yet unsentimental.