Mary Hesse on Open Texture, Metaphor, and Family Resemblances

In this paper, I interpret Hesse’s accounts of scientific language and ordinary language as they develop across her career. My interpretation highlights how Hesse utilizes Friedrich Waismann’s open texture in the 1950s Max Black’s interaction view of metaphor in the 1960s and Ludwig Wittgenstein’s family resemblances in her later work. My historical narrative shows how Hesse draws upon these linguistic philosophers to emphasize continuities between scientific language and ordinary language, culminating in her claim that all language is metaphorical. These continuities lead Hesse to argue that the history and philosophy of science is directly relevant to the philosophy of language. In particular, Hesse argues that some philosophers of language presuppose a picture of scientific language as univocal and literal, even though this view has been challenged by her and others working in history and philosophy of science. To my knowledge, this point has not received much attention, especially in philosophy of language. My interpretation of the development of Hesse’s views on language aims to make the case that historians and philosophers of science and philosophers of language still have much to learn by returning to Hesse’s work.