Tallis in Wonderland

Okey Doke

Raymond Tallis is illocutionary about the young Wittgenstein’s perlocutions.

“Okey doke” someone said the other day, getting up to go, thereby inadvertently triggering a long train of thoughts that I want to share with you. And not just thoughts, but memories. In fact, the memories may be a better place to begin. They reach back to the 1970s, when, for a few delirious months, I thought I was on the verge of understanding how language related to the world. This understanding was, of course, a misunderstanding, and, as you might expect, based on a simplification.

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