Wittgenstein,Aesthetics and Philosophy

Books reviewed: Peter B. Lewis (ed.), Wittgenstein, Aesthetics and Philosophy (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004). 255 pp., price £49.50.
Reviewed by Ole Martin Skilleås, University of Bergen, Norway
Department of Philosophy
University of Bergen
Sydnesplassen 7
NO‐5007 Bergen
Ole.skilleas@fil.uib.no     

The Sound of Bedrock: Lines of Grammar between Kant,Wittgenstein, and Cavell

In ‘Aesthetics Problems of Modern Philosophy’ Stanley Cavell proposes, first, that Kant's characterization of judgments of beauty may be read as a Wittgensteinian grammatical characterization, and, second, that the philosophical appeal to ‘what we say and mean’ partakes of the grammar of judgment of beauty. I argue first that the expression of the dawning of an aspect partakes of the grammar of judgments of beauty as characterized by Kant, and may also be seen—on a prevailing way of thinking about concepts and how they relate to their instances—to have the same kind of significance that judgments of beauty have according to Kant. And then I argue that there are good (Wittgensteinian) reasons for being suspicious of the prevailing conception of concepts, and therefore good reasons for being suspicious of the proposed understanding of the significance of aspect perception—an understanding that has attracted many readers of Wittgenstein's remarks on aspects. This leads me to suggest that it is actually the philosophical appeal to ordinary language that has the kind of significance that the Kantian picture attributes to judgments of beauty and to the seeing of aspects. In this way, I offer a way to vindicate Cavell's second proposal.     

Grammar and Grace: Reformulations of Aquinas and Wittgenstein

Book reviewed:
Grammar and Grace: Reformulations of Aquinas and Wittgenstein edited by Jeffrey Stout and Robert MacSwain (London: SCM Press, 2004) xiv + 286 pp. Reviewed by Scott D. Moringiello Department of Theology University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN 46556 USA     

Logic and Philosophy of Logic in Wittgenstein

This essay discusses Wittgenstein's conception of logic, early and late, and some of the types of logical system that he constructed. The essay shows that the common view according to which Wittgenstein had stopped engaging in logic as a philosophical discipline by the time of writing Philosophical Investigations is mistaken. It is argued that, on the contrary, logic continued to figure at the very heart of later Wittgenstein's philosophy; and that Wittgenstein's mature philosophy of logic contains many interesting thoughts that have gone widely unnoticed.     

The Literary Wittgenstein Philosophy and Literature: A Book of Essays

Books reviewed:
The Literary Wittgenstein edited by John Gibson and Wolfgang Huerner, Routledge, London, 2004 (pp. xi + 356). Philosophy and Literature: A Book of Essays , M. W. Rowe, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2004 (pp xii + 238). Reviewed by M. H. Weston, University of Essex University of Essex Wivenhoe Park Colchester CO4 3SQ     

Kant and Wittgenstein: Common Sense,Therapy, and the Critical Philosophy

Kant’s reputation for making absolutist claims about universal and necessary conditions for the possibility of experience are put here in the broader context of his goals for the Critical philosophy. It is shown that within that context, Kant’s claims can be seen as considerably more innocuous than they are traditionally regarded, underscoring his deep respect for “common sense” and sharing surprisingly similar goals with Wittgenstein in terms of what philosophy can, and at least as importantly cannot, provide.

Frank Ebersole on Wittgenstein and Pictures in Philosophy

How do we get into trouble in philosophy, and what do pictures have to do with it? This article addresses Frank Ebersole's thoughts on (Wittgenstein's remarks on) pictures in philosophy. It identifies the puzzlement generated for Ebersole by what Wittgenstein says and also considers some puzzling aspects of Ebersole's own renderings of pictures. It distinguishes between the philosophical picture and the pictorial form in which it may be crystalized and shows how philosophy's reliance on situationally disembedded grammatical stories (pictorial or not) leads us into trouble. Accordingly, responding to such trouble consists not in recovering the picture, in the sense of a single “object” or image we had before our mind's eye, but in—what is better described as Ebersole's strategy of—supplying a grammatical example (pictorial or otherwise) to go with our thinking, an example that makes what we think and say clear to ourselves.     

斯克拉顿的新保守主义政治哲学

斯克拉顿的政治哲学深受黑格尔法哲学的影响.斯克拉顿对权威、秩序、传统、财产、制度等保守主义核心理论预设的阐述和强调,继承了柏克以来保守主义的基本观点,抨击以理性主义为基础的自由主义政治哲学,把怀疑主义的传统保守主义带入现代.     

Confusion,Irrationality and the Ends of Philosophy: Horwich's Wittgenstein Inspired Metaphilosophy

This paper focuses on Horwich's metaphilosophical interpretation of Wittgenstein. Specifically, it focuses on Horwich's charge that all philosophy is irrational. First, I coordinate the various aspects of Horwich's metaphilosophical program to make sense of his charge of irrationality against philosophy. Second, I argue that this metaphilosophical program misfires in two distinct ways. However, third, I close by calling attention to what I posit to be a critical insight of Horwich's account.     

Explaining 'The Hardness of the Logical Must': Wittgenstein on Grammar, Arbitrariness and Logical Necessity

This paper explains (in Part A) Wittegnstein's understanding of the 'grammar' of our (or any) language, tracing its origins in the Tractatus's concept of logical syntax, and then examining the senses in which Wittegnstein, in his later work, viewed grammar as being 'arbitrary'. Then, armed with this understanding, it moves on (in Part B) to the task of examining how, within the framework of a Wittegnsteinian view of language, we should understand the inescapable 'compellingness' of logical necessity – what Wittegnstein calls the "hardness of the logical must". Whereas it is often thought that Wittegnstein's views on the nature of the 'grammar' of our concpets leads him towards a vitiatingly conventionalist or anti-realist understanding of necessity, in which its logical 'superhardness' becomes problematic, this paper will argue that there is actually no such tension in Wittegnstein's thought. In fact, it will be argued, an understanding of the ways in which our conceptual grammar is arbitrary casts a great deal of light on how it is that our concepts can nevertheless support a logically superhard, and normatively commanding, notion of necessity. In support of this view, I distinguish Wittegnstein's views on necessity from the 'classical' conventionalism of the Vienna Circle, and from the radical conventionalism of Michael Dummett, and defend Wittegnstein's view from a powerful recent attack from Quassim Cassam.     

维特根斯坦与奎因:兼容而不对立的两种哲学

维特根斯坦和奎因都鄙视形而上学的和认识论的思辨,并且都花大力气批评传统的哲学概念和理论。但是他们在此批评之后继续从事哲学的路径是不同的。维特根斯坦把哲学等同于对传统哲学思维的批判,并且仅此而已。奎因则通过把哲学问题重塑为科学问题来尽其所能地挽救以往的哲学,并且对他重塑之后的问题做出回答。与人们对维特根斯坦和奎因的通常看法相反,我认为他们从事的哲学研究是互补的、并不是不兼容的。他们只是在表面上看是对立的;而实际上赞同其一方并不意味着拒绝另一方。     

儒家政治哲学的特点及其范式建构——以亚里士多德《政治学》为参照

梁启超称,“中国学术以研究人类现世生活之理法为中心,以今语道之,即人生哲学及政治哲学所包含之诸问题也。”[1]陈寅恪进一步补充说,“华夏民族所受儒家学说之影响,最深最巨者,实在制度法律、公私生活之方面。”[2]那么,这个影响华夏民族最深最巨的儒家政治哲学最主要的特点是     

The Political Philosophy of Sissela Bok

ABSTRACT  Sissela Bok's two main works, on lying and secrets, have not received all the attention they deserve. This is possibly because the underlying structure from which she is working is not, at least according to the critics, made sufficiently explicit. I believe that this structure is found in Sissela Bok's commitment to the fundamental tenets of democracy. This not only provides a framework that is clearly discernible but also gives her books an urgency, and supplies the solid basis necessary for taking up the challenges she puts forward. This is particularly important now that new democracies in Eastern Europe are looking to established democracies in the West for guidelines.     

Wittgenstein on Aspect‐Recognition in Philosophy and Mathematics

Although Wittgenstein’s most extensive discussion of aspect‐recognition appears in Part II of the Philosophical Investigations, aspect‐recognition was of interest to Wittgenstein almost from the beginning of his engagement with philosophy at Cambridge in 1912. However, the nature of that interest changes upon his return to Cambridge in 1929, and that change in turn is connected with the inter‐related ideas that philosophical clarity rests on recognising aspects of our grammar and that mathematical proof leads us to recognise new aspects of mathematical expressions.