ticated philosophical alternatives that might be raised against such statements,
none of their reasons are conclusive, and on the whole they are less certain
than the judgments of commonsense language. The substantive position de-
fended by Moore is banal; it makes a claim in philosophical attention space
only because it was crafted in opposition to other positions. It gives a ration-
ale for dismissing Idealism, now on its last legs, but also the ontologies of
Russell and Carnap’s mathematical set theory, Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, and
Husserlian phenomenology. Against the effort to create a logically perfect
language, Moore responds with ordinary language. Nevertheless, it turned out
that this was not the suicide of philosophy, for it had a continuity, if of a
negative sort, with preceding technical developments. Russell had shown the
deep problems in formal systems, and Moore’s argument against non-common-
sensical propositions raised to a principle Russell’s frequently expressed admis-
sion that logical arguments that appear certain are typically subject to further
revision.^31
Ordinary language turned out to contain a vein of problems to be explored
in its own right. The militancy of the Vienna Circle prodded these develop-
ments. Its debates over the nature of meaninglessness led to considerations of
the multiple dimensions of meaning. When Ayer, arriving home from Vienna,
declared in 1936 that all statements not filling the verifiability criterion have
the same standing as the expression “ouch!” his condemnation of the language
of ethics led to outrage and a search for ways to make such statements
meaningful.^32 The strongest impetus was given by Wittgenstein, who now
repudiated his earlier program for the logically perfect language and launched
the exploration of the inexpressible ways in which language does not “say”
but “shows.” It transpired that what was inexpressible at one point in the
self-consciousness of philosophers could indeed give rise to a new realm of
language; and although Wittgenstein played on resonances between his later
linguistic philosophy and his earlier concerns with religious mysticism, a more
straightforward brand of academic investigation in this realm was soon oper-
ating under the label of Austin’s speech acts and illocutionary forces.^33
Wittgenstein’s Tortured Path
It is tempting, in parallel to the case of Moore, to attribute these turns of events
to the unique force of Wittgenstein’s personality. The mystique and adulation
surrounding Wittgenstein, which had begun already at Vienna in the 1920s
and ballooned after his return to Cambridge in the 1930s, is more revealing
when viewed sociologically, as a case study of the interplay of creativity,
personality, and reputation. Creativity is driven by the struggle over the limited
slots of attention space, and Wittgenstein’s life was a movement between two734 •^ Intellectual Communities: Western Paths