Wittgenstein on the Place of the Concept “Noticing an Aspect”

Seeing aspects is a dominant theme in Wittgenstein's 1940s writings on philosophy of psychology. Interpreters disagree about what Wittgenstein was trying to do in these discussions. I argue that interpreting Wittgenstein's observations about the interrelations between “noticing an aspect” and other psychological concepts as a systematic theory of aspect‐seeing diminishes key lessons of Wittgenstein's explorations: these interrelations are enormously complicated and “noticing an aspect” resists neat classification. Further, Wittgenstein invites us to engage in his “placing activity,” and by doing so we are building a skill that is valuable for enabling us to help ourselves when we encounter conceptual difficulties.     

PETER HARRISON,LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN,AND THE PROBLEM OF PRE‐MODERN RELIGION

Peter Harrison's Gifford Lectures demonstrate that the modern concepts of “religion” and “science” do not correspond to any fixed sphere of life in the pre‐modern world. Because these terms are incommensurate and ideological, they misconstrue the past. I examine the influence and affinities of Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy on Harrison's study in order to argue that Harrison's project approaches Wittgenstein's. Harrison's book is a therapeutic history, untying a knot in scholarly language. I encourage Harrison, however, to clarify how future scholars can progress in their study of phenomena once termed “scientific” or “religious” without succumbing to these same mistakes.     

On Reinstating “Part I” and “Part II” to Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations

The Editors’ Preface to the fourth edition of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations is disparaging of the earlier editorial efforts of G. E. M. Anscombe and Rush Rhees and in particular of their inclusion and titling of the material in “Part II”. I argue, on both historical and philosophical grounds, that the Editors have failed to refute the editorial decisions of Rhees and Anscombe – a failure born both of a neglect of the historical circumstances and Wittgenstein's own expressed hopes and intentions for his writings, and of a myopic understanding of his philosophy. Wittgenstein's legacy has not been well served by their interventions, which should be undone in future editions.     

“Rethinking” the Preface of the Tractatus

This paper is principally a re‐evaluation of the meaning of Denken in the puzzling third paragraph of the Preface to Wittgenstein's Tractatus. It shows that there is a uniform misreading of this paragraph throughout the literature and suggests a corrected reading and some of its implications. The paper asserts that the influential “New Wittgenstein” reading of the Preface as containing Wittgenstein's all important “framing” thoughts on the Tractatus, is correct. However it also argues that the anti‐metaphysical reading the New view draws by way of its frame thesis is incorrect since it is still premised on the incorrect reading of the Preface's third paragraph. With the correct reading of the third paragraph, the paper shows the anti‐metaphysical reading of the Tractatus lacks substantive support.     

Rush Rhees on Wittgenstein and “What Language Is”

Rush Rhees identified the question of “what language is” as central to Wittgenstein's philosophy, but believed he failed to follow up adequately the connections between the reality of discourse and our reality as persons. Integral to this is Rhees's elaboration of the distinction between such investigations into language and approaches to philosophy restricted to elucidating “the grammars of particular expressions.” The failure to fully acknowledge Rhees's contribution to the understanding of these issues has vitiated recent New Wittgensteinian discussion of both Wittgenstein and Rhees.     

Speaking for Oneself: Wittgenstein on Ethics

In the “Lecture on ethics”, Wittgenstein declares that ethical statements are essentially nonsense. He later told Friedrich Waismann that it is essential to “speak for oneself” on ethical matters. These comments might be taken to suggest that Wittgenstein shared an emotivist view of ethics—that one can only speak for oneself because there is no truth in ethics, only expressions of opinion (or emotions). I argue that this assimilation of Wittgenstein to emotivist thought is deeply misguided, and rests upon a serious misunderstanding of what is implied by the nonsensicality of ethical claims on Wittgenstein's view. I develop a reading of Wittgenstein's remarks in the “Lecture on ethics” on which ethical statements, despite their nonsensicality, reveal the perspective of the speaker. The purpose of ethical language is to elucidate a speaker's perspective. Such elucidations, and the perspectives they reveal, can be evaluated, criticized, and respected on principled grounds even if, as Wittgenstein insists, no ethical judgment can be (objectively) justified by any fact. I contrast Wittgenstein's comments on ethics with some comments made by Frank Ramsey (from the same period), which appear similar to Wittgenstein's remarks on value. Contra Ramsey's insistence that there is “nothing to discuss” about (or within) ethics, a proper understanding of Wittgenstein's views does not commit us to passing over ethics in silence.     

An Aesthetics of the Ordinary: Wittgenstein and John Cage

Comparisons of Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Cage typically focus on the “later Wittgenstein” of the Philosophical Investigations. However, in this article I focus on the deep intellectual sympathy between the “early Wittgenstein” of the Tractatus Logico‐Philosophicus—with its evocative and controversial invocation of silence at the end, the famous proposition 7: “Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent”—and Cage's equally evocative and controversial work on the same theme—his “silent piece,” 4′33″. This sympathy expresses itself not only in the common aim of the two works (a mystical appreciation for the ordinary, everyday world that surrounds us) but also in a shared methodology for bringing about this aim (tracing the limits of language from within in order to transcend those very limits). In this sense, I argue that Cage's work gives a concrete, performative reality to Wittgenstein's early conception of language as well as the mystical revelation that lies behind it.     

Revisiting Wittgenstein on Family Resemblance and Colour(s)

We argue that all general concepts are family resemblance concepts. These include concepts introduced by ostension, such as colour(s). Concepts of colour and of each of the specific colours are family resemblance concepts because similarities concerning an open‐ended range of colour or of appearance features crop up and disappear. After discussing the notion of “same colour” and Wittgenstein's use of the phrase “our colours”, we suggest family resemblance concepts in one tradition can often be extended to family resemblance concepts in another tradition, illustrated by Wittgenstein's use of the words Spiel and “game”.     

Wittgenstein on Happiness: Harmony,Disharmony and Antitheodicy

This paper investigates Wittgenstein's remarks on happiness and harmony in the context of Wittgensteinian antitheodicy. Philosophers of religion inspired by Wittgenstein's philosophy often criticize theodicies seeking to justify apparently meaningless evil and suffering within God's overall harmonious plan. The paper analyses Wittgenstein's early views on happiness as harmony with the world, examining whether they are incompatible with an antitheodicist approach abandoning the very project of theodicy by acknowledging a certain kind of disharmony. However, antitheodicy may also, at the transcendental meta‐level, be considered a “harmonious” way of “seeing the world aright,” which raises a reflexive problem for any Wittgenstein‐inspired antitheodicy.     

A “RESOLUTE” LATER WITTGENSTEIN?

Abstract: “Resolute readings” initially started life as a radical new approach to Wittgenstein's early philosophy, but are now starting to take root as a way of interpreting the later writings as well—a trend exemplified by Stephen Mulhall's Wittgenstein's Private Language (2007) as well as by Phil Hutchinson's “What's the Point of Elucidation?” (2007) and Rom Harré's “Grammatical Therapy and the Third Wittgenstein” (2008). The present article shows that there are neither good philosophical nor compelling exegetical grounds for accepting a resolute reading of the later Wittgenstein's work. It is possible to make sense of Wittgenstein's philosophical method without either ascribing to him an incoherent conception of “substantial nonsense” or espousing the resolute readers' preferred option of nonsense austerity. If the interpretation here is correct, it allows us to recognize Wittgenstein's radical break with the philosophical tradition without having to characterize his achievements in purely therapeutic fashion.     

Wittgenstein and the Criticism of Religion A Case Study

This article discusses the relevance of Wittgenstein's remarks on the doctrine of predestination for an understanding of his approach to religious matters. On the one hand, Wittgenstein held that this doctrine involves distorted concepts and is ethically and religiously nonsensical. On the other, he stated that others may find it “good and godly.” He seems to suggest that personal experience shapes the genuine meaning of the doctrine of predestination. The points that emerge cast light on tensions prevailing between Wittgenstein's conception of meaning as essentially a social and inter-subjective matter and his individualist perspective in the matter of religion. These issues lie at the heart of the dispute over Wittgenstein's views on the possibility of a philosophical criticism of religion.     

The Influence of Einstein on Wittgenstein's Philosophy

On the basis of historical and textual evidence, this paper claims that (i) after his Tractatus, Wittgenstein was actually influenced by Einstein's theory of relativity and, (ii) the similarity of Einstein's relativity theory helps to illuminate some aspects of Wittgenstein's work. These claims find support in remarkable quotations where Wittgenstein speaks approvingly of Einstein's relativity theory and in the way these quotations are embedded in Wittgenstein's texts. The profound connection between Wittgenstein and relativity theory concerns not only Wittgenstein's “verificationist” phase (more closely connected with Schlick's work), but also Wittgenstein's later philosophy centred on the theme of rule‐following.     

A Response to “Participation: A Religious Worldview” by James M. Gustafson

This response offers an interpretation of James Gustafson's “Participation: A Religious Worldview,” which thinks with Gustafson on the theme of “participation,” while highlighting points where my own thoughts diverge from his. The essay begins by drawing the reader's attention to Gustafson's style, arguing that the simple elegance of his writing constitutes part of his larger claim about the need to remove ourselves from the center of our thought. Next, the essay analyzes Gustafson's use of “participation” by putting it in context and connecting it with his broader methodology. Finally, I draw the reader's attention to important loci in the text in order to show how Gustafson's essay helps address various extant misinterpretations of his thought but also to point to ways in which my “thinking with” Gustafson leads me to think otherwise than he does.     

The danger of words: a Wittgensteinian lesson for developmentalists

Borrowing from Wittgenstein's and Drury's ideas, this article shows that, by overlooking Wittgenstein's message about the danger of words and the importance of the grammar and clarification of concepts, some developmentalists sometimes fall prey to the fallacy of the alchemists, the fallacy of Molière's doctor, the fallacy of the “missing hippopotamus”, the fallacy of Van Helmont, and the fallacy of “Pickwickian senses”. As a result of these fallacies, the field of development (and psychology) is paved with ungrounded concepts, circular explanations, untenable reifications, misleading and nonsensical conclusions, and a mix-up of language-games. We suggest that to remedy such state of affairs psychologists should not ignore or overlook Wittgenstein's message about the danger of words to bewitch our thought, and should take his conceptual or grammatical investigations, not suspiciously, but as a preliminary and indispensable step to set the stage for appropriate factual and functional investigations, and for intelligible, coherent, and meaningful theoretical presumptions.     

Wittgenstein and Ebersole

Frank B. Ebersole died recently. Here I remind philosophers of the thinking of this reclusive philosopher who brought out the value of Wittgenstein's dictum that philosophers should “bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.” I illustrate Ebersole's singular thinking by focusing on his philosophical investigation of Wittgenstein's family resemblance metaphor.     

“PURE” VERSUS “PRACTICAL” EPISTEMIC JUSTIFICATION

Abstract: In this article I distinguish a type of justification that is “epistemic” in pertaining to the grounds of one's belief, and “practical” in its connection to what act(s) one may undertake, based on that belief. Such justification, on the proposed account, depends mainly on the proportioning of “inner epistemic virtue” to the “outer risks” implied by one's act. The resulting conception strikes a balance between the unduly moralistic conception of William Clifford and contemporary naturalist virtue theories.