[PW] Re: "Talk about talk"

[Graeme Rymill]

Ryle certainly did use the phrase "talk about talk". 

Ryle wrote an article in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy (issue:
28, 1950) entitled Logic and Professor Anderson.

On pages 130 -131 Ryle states:

 "But Wittgenstein, as I construe him, and the Vienna Circle saw in this
dichotomy the general clue that they required to the difference between
science and philosophy. Science produces true (and sometimes false)
statements about the world; philosophy examines the rules and reasons
that make some statement (like those of good scientists) true-or-false,
and others (like metaphysicians' statements nonsensical. Science is
concerned with what makes (significant) statements true or else false;
philosophy is concerned with what makes them significant or nonsensical.
Sp science talks about the world, while philosophy talks about talk
about the world."

On page 131 Ryle goes on to say:

"To meet this point, Russell in his forward to the English translation
of the Tractatus, pointed out that we, including Wittgenstein, obviously
do succeed in saying a lot of the things which, according to
Wittgenstein, were unsayable. He suggested that we should distinguish
orders ["orders" is italicized] of talk. First-order talk is about the
world; second order talk is about talk about the world and so on. No
Type-rule is broken by a sentence which comments upon a sentence of a
lower order than itself. So philosophical talk could be a significant
second-order (or higher) talk.

On this showing not all talk about talk would be philosophy.
Grammarians, etymologists, teachers or rhetoric etc. talk about uses of
language, but they are not doing philosophy. Doing philosophy consists
in discussing what can and cannot be significantly ["significantly" is
italicized] said, and not what can or cannot be elegantly or
idiomatically said"


Graeme Rymill
University of Western Australia Library