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VALUE AND "ESSENTIALIST FALLACIES" T HE problem of value cannot be relegated to a pigeon hole marked " ethics " and dealt with when philosophical questions considered more fundamental are already settled. Failure to grasp the full bearing which the problem has on all analysis largely accounts for the high degree of antipathy to " essence " curiously shared by certain exponents of linguistic analysis and certain champions of atheist Existenzphilosophie. Books like Professor J. 0. Urmson's Philosophical Analysis and G. Bergmann's The Metaphysics of Logical Positivism, reflect our increasing awareness that earlier positions of the linguistic movement were as metaphysical as the traditional philosophies they attacked. The recent translation of Sartre's major work L'Etre et le Neant into English may serve indirectly to make it more clearly understood that contemporary linguistic analysis still rests on metaphysical foundations (as sympathetic critics have already been pointing out) . But much more important is the hint given by Sartre's dubious handling of "essence" and " value " that the metaphysical assumptions underlying what Bertrand Russell has labelled "The Cult of Common Usage" are self-stultifying and self-contradictory. L'Etre et le Neant should be prescribed reading for those linguistic philosophers who prescribe most earnestly the therapies of Ludwig Wittgenstein for dis-solving philosophical problems. Both the admirers of Wittgenstein and the devotees of Sartre have set themselves the task of exorcising superstitions about " essence." But whereas the latter would decry an " essentialist fallacy " as a tragic misunderstanding of the human situation, the former would regard it as a tiresome, but very natural misconception of the way words work. Sartre attacks thinkers like Diderot for suppressing the role of God but retaining the concept of a fixed, preconceived human nature; Wittgenstein teases those who share St. Augustine's belief that all words are 16~ VALUE .AND "ESSENTIALIST FALLACIES" 163 the labels of ostensible entities. To call for a verdict of " essentialist fallacy " the Sartrian has to make open assertions about the kind of world we live in; but many linguistic philosophers hold they are simply pointing to facts that must, on reflection, be admitted by sensible folk of any conviction. Let us take three examples of the linguistic approach. The slim volume Aesthetics and Language 1 claimed in all innocence on its baby-blue cover to offer "a fresh, unbiased scrutiny of the linguistic confusions of traditional aesthetics." The first contributor, Professor W. B. Gallie, launches an attack on Croce and Idealist thinkers. These, we learn, are typical victims of " the essentialist fallacy " in presupposing that a word like Art must stand for some one thing. The aesthetician's only valid functions, he concludes, must be of a piecemeal nature, like upholding the differences between the art forms and assessing the applicability of comparisons and analogies. Any budding metaphysicians who seek the essence of Art are thus summarily dismissed. Mr. T. D. Weldon in his book The Vocabulary of Politics claims that political theory, too, has been vitiated by " the primitive and generally unquestioned belief that words ... such as 'State,' 'Citizen,' 'Law' and ' Liberty ' have intrinsic or essential meanings which it is the aim of political philosophers to discover and explain." (p. 11) But actually " to know their meaning one need only know how to use them correctly, that is, in such a way as to be intelligible in ordinary and technical discourse." (p. 19) The assumption that all words are proper nouns produces " the illusion of real essences " and its uglier step-sister " the illusion of absolute standards." And compare the famous statement of the later Wittgenstein ('Philosophical Investigations' I's. 116) : " when philosophers use a word-' knowledge,' ' being,' ' object,' ' I,' ' proposition,' ' name '-and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must always ask oneself: is the word ever used in this way in the language game which is its original home?What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday usage." 1 Blackwell, 1958. 164 JOHN KING-FARLOW The plausibility of these three examples rests on two foundations , one legitimate and one which the "essentialist" is entitled to challenge. First, it takes a desperately dogged ostrich to deny that words like "art," "law" and "being...

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