From Metaphysics and Philosophical Theses to Grammar: Wittgenstein's Turn

The paper discusses the question ‘what does Wittgenstein mean by not having theses in philosophy?’ His conception of philosophy without theses, as this is articulated in his later work, is understood as a response to the problem of dogmatism in philosophy and a non‐metaphysical form of philosophy. I argue that although already the Tractatus aims at a philosophy devoid of theses, it involves a relapse back to such theses. Its conception of philosophical clarification involves a particular conception of the essence of propositions. This way the form of the activity of clarification is determined by a philosophical/metaphysical thesis. In his later philosophy Wittgenstein, however, manages to solve this problem. His solution, explained with the help of the metaphor of ‘turning our whole investigation around’, consists of a change in the comprehension of the status of philosophical statements. For instance rules (e.g. definitions) and examples are understood as what he calls ‘objects of comparison’. Such objects of comparison are something that cases of language use (to be investigated with the purpose of clarification) are to be compared with, but the philosopher is not to make the claim that such objects of comparison show what the cases of language use under examination must be. The modality (expressed by ‘must’) is a characteristic of the philosopher's mode of presentation. It should not be claimed to be a feature of his object of investigation (the uses of language to be clarified).     

Doing philosophy with words

This paper discusses the coverage of ordinary language philosophy in Scott Soames' Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century. After praising the book's virtues, I raise three points where I dissent from Soames' take on the history. First, I suggest that there is more to ordinary language philosophy than the rather implausible version of it that Soames sees to have been destroyed by Grice. Second, I argue that confusions between analyticity, necessity and priority are less important to the ordinary language period than Soames takes them to be. Finally, I claim that Soames' criticisms of Ryle turn in part on attributing reductionist positions to Ryle that Ryle did not hold. Contribution to Symposium on Scott Soames, Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, volume 2     

The Wonder and Spirit of Phenomenology and Theology: Rubenstein and Derrida on Heidegger's Formal Distinction of Philosophy from Theology

While Heidegger's earlier phenomenological writings inform much contemporary discourse in the continental philosophy of religion, his 1927 essay on ‘Phenomenology and Theology’ offers a largely uncontested distinction between philosophy and theology on the basis of their possibilities as sciences following ontological difference. This paper reconsiders Heidegger's distinction by invoking spirit and wonder, concepts Jacques Derrida and Mary‐Jane Rubenstein have more recently emphasized as central to thought that is open to that which ruptures metaphysical schemas. I contend Heidegger's use of ontological difference as a formal distinction between philosophy and theology distances us from the wonder, spirit, and truth (alētheia) that undoes the binaries behind which we take shelter. However, I temper this critique with the recognition that Heidegger, Derrida, and Rubenstein equally recognize an inescapable repetition of metaphysical thinking in the philosophy of religion.     

Facing being: the significance of Thomist ontological epistemology to realism in post-Kantian philosophy

The Kantian ‘Copernican Revolution’ contained in his Prologomena and The Critique of Pure Reason deemed metaphysical statements to be ‘transcendental illusions’, so directing metaphysics to its dearth. As a consequence, no longer could objects be known ‘in-themselves’ by the sensorily-reliant human. This perceived impossibility of metaphysical knowledge in the turn to the subject from Kant through Nietzsche's rejection of true knowledge has heavily inclined Continental Philosophy to an anti-metaphysical quandary. Analytic Philosophy is no different following the influence of Carnap, Wittgenstein and Rorty upon its own ‘linguistic turn’. An inevitable consequence of things not being knowable in themselves is the philosophical distance from ‘the world’, which Stephen Hawking has argued, makes the philosophical enterprise ‘dead’. In dialogue with this widespread decline in metaphysics, I will attempt to reclaim realist metaphysics through the employment of a Thomist paradigm. If philosophy is to be relevant to the knowledge economy, it is compelled to be in relation with what is. Thus, in my theoretical framework, being will be considered as central to all knowledge systems seeking to correspond to ‘hard’ science. The Thomist realist natural philosophy of ‘scientia’ – wherein truth is conformed with being – will be at the core of the argument. This paper challenges the ignoring of being because extant reality is composed of all that is, continuously faced and never evadable. Consequently, Thomism is recaptured as significant to post-Kantian philosophy as Aquinas articulated a means through which the thinking subject engages with being through sensation and cognition.     

Kripke's sole route to the necessary a posteriori

In ‘Kripke on epistemic and metaphysical possibility: two routes to the necessary a posteriori’, Scott Soames identifies two arguments for the existence of necessary a posteriori truths in Naming and Necessity (NN). He argues that Kripke's second argument relies on either of two principles, each of which leads to contradiction. He also claims that it has led to ‘two-dimensionalist’ approaches to the necessary a posteriori which are fundamentally at odds with the insights about meaning and modality expressed in NN. I argue that the alleged second argument is not in NN. I identify the mistakes that lead to Soames' misinterpretation.     

Koan Zen and Wittgenstein's Only Correct Method in Philosophy

Koan Zen is a philosophical practice that bears a strong family resemblance to Wittgenstein's approach to philosophy. In this paper I hope to show that this resemblance is especially evident when we compare the Zen method of koan with Wittgenstein's suggestion, towards the end of his Tractatus, about what would constitute the only correct method in philosophy. Both koan Zen and Wittgenstein's method set limits to the reach of philosophical discourse. Each rules metaphysical speculation out of bounds. Neither, however, represents a rejection of the metaphysical. Where Wittgenstein enjoins silence in the face of the unsayable, a silence that allows the metaphysical to show itself, koan Zen calls for concrete demonstrations of that which cannot be captured in rational discourse. I attempt to illustrate this through discussion of a number of koans that serve as reminders that the philosopher (and Zen master) should say nothing except what can be said.     

The End(s) of Philosophy: Rhetoric, Therapy and Wittgenstein's Pyrrhonism

In Culture and Value Wittgenstein remarks: ‘Thoughts that are at peace. That's what someone who philosophizes yearns for’. The desire for such conceptual tranquillity is a recurrent theme in Wittgenstein's work, and especially in his later ‘grammatical‐therapeutic’ philosophy. Some commentators (notably Rush Rhees and C. G. Luckhardt) have cautioned that emphasising this facet of Wittgenstein's work ‘trivialises’ philosophy – something which is at odds with Wittgenstein's own philosophical ‘seriousness’ (in particular his insistence that philosophy demands that one ‘Go the bloody hard way’). Drawing on a number of correlations between Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy and that of the Pyrrhonian Sceptics, in this paper I defend a strong ‘therapeutic’ reading of Wittgenstein, and show how this can be maintained without ‘trivialising’ philosophy.     

The Wretchedness of Belief

In Culture and Value Wittgenstein remarks that the truly “religious man” thinks himself to be, not merely “imperfect” or “ill,” but wholly “wretched.” While such sentiments are of obvious biographical interest, in this paper I show why they are also worthy of serious philosophical attention. Although the influence of Wittgenstein's thinking on the philosophy of religion is often judged negatively (as, for example, leading to quietist and/or fideist‐relativist conclusions) I argue that the distinctly ethical conception of religion (specifically Christianity) that Wittgenstein presents should lead us to a quite different assessment. In particular, his preoccupation with the categorical nature of religion suggests a conception of “genuine” religious belief which disrupts both the economics of eschatological‐salvationist hope, and the traditional ethical precept that “ought implies can.” In short, what Wittgenstein presents is a sketch of a religion without recompense.     

Freedom,Frailty, and Impurity

The central question in Heidegger's philosophy, early and late, is that concerning the meaning of being. Recently, some have suggested that Heidegger himself interprets being to mean presence (Anwesen, Anwesenheit, Praesenz), citing as evidence lectures dating from the 1920s to the 1960s. I argue, on the contrary, that Heidegger regards the equation between being and presence as the hallmark of metaphysical thinking, and that it only ever appears in his texts as a gloss on the philosophical tradition, not as an expression of his own ontological commitments. In his early work Heidegger seeks to confront and even correct the traditional interpretation of being by challenging its narrow preoccupation with presence and the present. By the 1930s, however, he abandons the idea that there is anything to‐be intrinsically right or wrong about with regard to the meaning of being and turns his attention instead to what he calls ‘appropriation’ (Ereignis) or the truth of being, that is, the essentially ahistorical condition for the possibility of all historically contingent interpretations of being, including the metaphysical interpretation of being as presence.     

Recent work on Wittgenstein, 1980–1990

While Wittgenstein wrote unconventionally and denied that he was advancing philosophical theses, most of his interpreters have attributed conventional philosophical theses to him. But the best recent interpretations have taken the form of his writing and his distinctive way of doing philosophy seriously. The 1980s have also seen the emergence of a body of work on Wittgenstein that makes extensive use of the unpublished Wittgenstein papers. This work on Wittgenstein's method and his way of writing are the main themes of this literature review.Section 1 surveys Wittgenstein's conception of philosophical method and its reception. Section 2 is a review of recent work on rule-following and the methodological issues it raises. Section 3 concerns research on the WittgensteinNachlass and its implications for the interpretation of his philosophy.     

Peter Winch and Political Authority

This article explores a neglected aspect of Peter Winch's work: his writings on political authority. It seeks to show that this neglect is undeserved. Three themes are interweaved in the discussion. First, the major developments in Winch's thinking between his first published article on political authority (in a symposium with Richard Peters) and his later writings on the subject are identified and assessed. Criticism is focused mainly on his tendency to be insufficiently attentive to the distinction between being in authority and being an authority, and the implications this has for the distinctiveness of political authority. Secondly, particular attention is given to some of the key strands in Winch's analysis. These include his distinction between the nature and the grounds of political authority, how the role of consent is to be understood in the light of this distinction, how an adequate understanding political authority does not undermine our ideas of autonomy, and what it might mean to reject the whole idea of political authority. Finally, the article concludes by briefly defending the value of Winch's approach to political philosophy. Earlier it is shown that Winch's analysis does not foreclose on a range of political responses to authority, and this point is generalised to argue for a philosophical approach (like Winch’s) that aims at understanding, rather than at advancing any particular set of moral or political principles.     

Chuang Tzu,Butterfly and Wittgenstein: An Exploration of the Relationship Between Psychological Factors and Philosophical Thinking in the Life of Ludwig Wittgenstein

This is a preliminary attempt at exploring the relationship between psychology and philosophical thinking. It first looks at Chuang Tzu’s analogy of the butterfly representing the spirit of spontaneity that is central in Taoist philosophy. Second, it explores the psychology of self-consciousness that inhibits spontaneity, and lastly, it looks at the impact of psychopathology in the life of Ludwig Wittgenstein and his philosophical thinking by focusing on his struggle with mental illness and two philosophical transitions: the movement toward mysticism as an attempt to quiet his obsession and his later writings on ordinary language philosophy as a way out of the pain of self-consciousness. This article puts forth the argument that Wittgenstein’s development of ordinary language philosophy is closely connected with his personal struggle with mental illness. It is a philosophical attempt at coping with his existential psychological struggle, the quest for the butterfly.     

分析哲学的兴趣:在哲学与生活之间--从批判理论和生活世界的视角对罗素和维特根斯坦的一个批评解读

分析哲学是有其人文和社会的兴趣与关怀的。本文试图从批判理论的视角．运用哲学与生活世界相关联的解释学方法,分别解读了分析哲学创始人之一的罗素的逻辑分析哲学与他作为一个哲学家的社会批判兴趣之间的关系,以及前期维特根斯坦的逻辑语言分析哲学和后期的日常语言分析哲学与维特根斯坦所属的生活世界的关系。指出分析哲学由于没有建立在对现代性的科学一形而上学思维方式和生活方式的足够反思基础上,所以它对形而上学的批判兴趣最终仍然导致了一种非批判的形而上学。     

PHILOSOPHY AND SALVATION: THE APOPHATIC IN THE THOUGHT OF ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

The mystical apotheosis of Schopenhauer's thought is intimately connected to his immanent definition of philosophy. An analysis of the philosophical progression to salvation via aesthetic contemplation, compassion, and asceticism, illuminates Schopenhauer's advocacy of Eckhartian‐style mysticism. Schopenhauer's mysticism, like Eckhart’s, relies on the structures of negation facilitated by a particular metaphysics. Both therein transcend the tradition of theological discourse which holds it possible to construct propositions that express the essence of the divine. That has led to both being associated with atheism. However, in tracing the mechanism by which Schopenhauer's philosophy reaches its mystical apotheosis, it becomes apparent that it would be mistaken to charge him (and Eckhart) with atheism on the basis of an alleged inability to distinguish between an “atheistic non‐existence of God” and a “hyper‐thingness of God”. Rather than attack Schopenhauer in this manner, and hence also Eckhart, it is more appropriate to target their underlying metaphysical preconceptions, which in the case of Schopenhauer, is to take issue with his Critical conception of philosophy.     

Logic as a Universal Medium or Logic as a Calculus? Husserl and the Presuppositions of “the Ultimate Presupposition of Twentieth Century Philosophy”

This paper discusses Jean van Heijenoort's (1967) and Jaakko and Merrill B. Hintikka's (1986, 1997) distinction between logic as a universal language and logic as a calculus, and its applicability to Edmund Husserl's phenomenology. Although it is argued that Husserl's phenomenology shares characteristics with both sides, his view of logic is closer to the model‐theoretical, logic‐as‐calculus view. However, Husserl's philosophy as transcendental philosophy is closer to the universalist view. This paper suggests that Husserl's position shows that holding a model‐theoretical view of logic does not necessarily imply a calculus view about the relations between language and the world. The situation calls for reflection about the distinction: It will be suggested that the applicability of the van Heijenoort and the Hintikkas distinction either has to be restricted to a particular philosopher's views about logic, in which case no implications about his or her more general philosophical views should be inferred from it; or the distinction turns into a question of whether our human predicament is inescapable or whether it is possible, presumably by means of model theory, to obtain neutral answers to philosophical questions. Thus the distinction ultimately turns into a question about the correct method for doing philosophy.     

Mechanism and materialism in early modern German philosophy

ABSTRACT

The paper focuses on the gradual separation between materialism and mechanism in early modern German philosophy. In Germany the distinction between the two concepts, originally introduced by Leibniz, was definitively stated by Wolff who was the first to provide a definition of the new philosophical term Materialismus, and of the related philosophical sect. In the first part I describe the initial identification of mechanism and materialism in German philosophy between the last decades of the seventeenth century and 1720. Mechanism is here mostly conceived within a monistic metaphysics of body, which refers mainly to Hobbes and to some (unfaithful) interpretations of Spinoza’s pantheism. This tight connection between a mechanical explanation of nature and the Deus sive natura issue leads to a negative judgement on mechanism and its materialistic implications, both charged with a form of more or less explicit atheism. In the second part I describe the gradual emancipation in Germany of mechanism from materialism according to the distinction between a ‘good’ and a ‘bad’ materialism. In the third and final part, I sketch the first appearances of the entry ‘materialism’ in the philosophical encyclopaedias of early modern Germany, pointing out the by-then clear distinction between this metaphysical issue and the mechanical claim.     

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.