[PW] Re: Talk about talk

[Simon Cauchi]

On 30/11/2006, at 10:25 AM, Fred Shapiro wrote:

> I don't see anything in that article about Ryle using the phrase.

No, but there are other places where Ryle is quoted as using it. For 
example, Tim Congdon in the TLS for April 08, 2005, begins his review 
of two books about philosophy by writing this:

[Quote begins]
"Talk about talk" was how the well-known Oxford philosopher Gilbert 
Ryle defined a dominant strand in European philosophy in the inter-war 
period. He was commenting on the search for a rigorous basis to verify 
statements and, in particular, on the logical positivism of the Vienna 
Circle. Logical positivism was championed in Britain by A. J. Ayer, 
notably in his 1936 classic, Language, Truth and Logic.
	Stated most baldly, it claimed that propositions took only two forms, 
analytic and synthetic. . . .
[Quote ends]

Simon Cauchi
<simon.cauchi at xtra.co.nz>