THE CULT OF ‘COMMON USAGE’*

THE most influential school of philosophy in Britain at the present day maintains a certain linguistic doctrine to which I am unable to subscribe. I do not wish to misrepresent this school, but I suppose any opponent of any doctrine is thought to misrepresent it by those who hold it. The doctrine, as I understand it, consists in maintaining that the language of daily life, with words used in their ordinary meanings, suffices for philosophy, which has no need of technical terms or of changes m the signification of common terms. I find myself totally unable to accept this view. I object to it because : (1) It is insincere ; (2) It is capable of excusing ignorance of mathematics, physics, and neurology in those who have had only a classical education ; (3) It is advanced by some in a tone of unctuous rectitude, as if opposition to it were a sin against democracy ; (4) It makes philosophy trivial; (5) It makes almost inevitable the perpetuation among philosophers of the muddle-headedness they have taken over from common sense. (1) Insincerity. I will illustrate this by a fable. The professor of Mental Philosophy, when called by his bedmaker one morning, developed a dangerous frenzy, and had to be taken away by the police in an ambulance. I heard a colleague, a believer in ' common usage', asking the poor philosopher's doctor about the occurrence. The doctor replied that the professor had had an attack of temporary psychotic instability, which had subsided after an hour. The believer in ' common usage ', so far from objecting to the doctor's language,