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.     

On Wittgenstein's Kantian solution of the problem of philosophy

In 1931 Wittgenstein wrote: ‘the limit of language manifests itself in the impossibility of describing the fact that corresponds to (is the translation of) a sentence without simply repeating the sentence’. Here, Wittgenstein claims, ‘we are involved?…?with the Kantian solution of the problem of philosophy’. This paper shows how this remark fits with Wittgenstein's early account of the substance of the world, his account of logic, and ultimately his view of philosophy. By contrast to the currently influential resolute reading of the Tractatus, the paper argues that the early Wittgenstein did not aim at destroying the idea of a limit of language, but that the notion lies at the very heart of Wittgenstein's early view. In doing so, the paper employs and defends the Kantian interpretation of Wittgenstein's early philosophy.     

Categorial Indeterminacy,Generality and Logical Form in Wittgenstein's Tractatus

Many commentators have attempted to say, more clearly than Wittgenstein did in his Tractatus logico‐philosophicus, what sort of things the ‘simple objects’ spoken of in that book are. A minority approach, but in my view the correct one, is to reject all such attempts as misplaced. The Tractarian notion of an object is categorially indeterminate: in contrast with both Frege's and Russell's practice, it is not the logician's task to give a specific categorial account of the internal structure of elementary propositions or atomic facts, nor, correlatively, to give an account of the forms of simple objects. The few commentators who have hitherto maintained this view have mainly devoted themselves to establishing that this was Wittgenstein's intention, and do not much address the question why Wittgenstein held that it is not the logician's business to say what the objects are. The present paper means to fill this lacuna by placing this view in the context of the Tractatus's treatment of logic generally, and in particular by connecting it with Wittgenstein's treatment of generality and with his reaction to Russell's approach to logical form.     

Wittgenstein on Understanding and Interpretation (Comments on the work of Thomas Morawetz)

Wittgenstein's distinction between understanding and interpretation is fundamental to the account of meaning in Philosophical Investigations. In his discussion of rule‐following, Wittgenstein explicitly rejects the idea that understanding or grasping a rule is a matter of interpretation. Wittgenstein explains meaning and rule‐following in terms of action, rejecting both realist and Cartesian accounts of the mental. I argue that in his effort to employ Wittgenstein's views on meaning and rule‐following, Professor Morawetz embraces the position Wittgenstein rejects. In the course of making his case for law as a “deliberative practice,” Professor Morawetz embraces interpretation as a fundamental element of human practices, thereby taking up precisely the view Wittgenstein rejects     

Hertz,Wittgenstein and Philosophical Method1

There have recently appeared claims that the influence Heinrich Hertz exerted over Wittgenstein's later work was far more abiding than previously recognised. I critically evaluate such claims by Gordon Baker and Allan Janik. I first show that Hertz was indeed concerned with the same feature, clarity, which often exercised Wittgenstein. But I then argue that Wittgenstein should not be seen as having adopted the conception of philosophical method, which Hertz deployed in The Principles of Mechanics. I show that Hertz ‘clarifies’ the concept of force only in the sense that he alters that concept, and that he is not using the sort of ‘contrastive’ methods characteristic of Wittgenstein's later works.     

Wittgenstein's Temple: Or How Cool Is Philosophy?

How should we understand Wittgenstein's comment in 1929 that his ‘ideal’ was ‘a certain coolness’? Does it have the implication for the practice of philosophy that is suggested by the late Dewi Phillips? Wittgenstein's use of the metaphor of a temple in relation to the passions is curiously reminiscent in its structure of Rilke's first sonnet to Orpheus. In Zettel a similar preoccupation seems to be manifested in the long and unexpected passage that Wittgenstein copies out from Plato, a passage which is juxtaposed to the famous remark that the philosopher is the citizen of no community of ideas.     

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.     

Toward a Perspicuous Presentation of “Perspicuous Presentation”1

Gordon Baker in his last decade published a series of papers (now collected in Baker 2004 ), which are revolutionary in their proposals for understanding of later Wittgenstein. Taking our lead from the first of those papers, on “perspicuous presentations,” we offer new criticisms of ‘elucidatory’ readers of later Wittgenstein, such as Peter Hacker: we argue that their readings fail to connect with the radically therapeutic intent of the ‘perspicuous presentation’ concept, as an achievement‐term, rather than a kind of ‘objective’ mapping of a ‘conceptual landscape.’ Baker's Wittgenstein, far from being a ‘language policeman’ of the kind that often fails to influence mainstream philosophy, offers an alternative to the latent scientism of Wittgenstein's influential ‘elucidatory’ readers.     

Wittgenstein and the Real Numbers

When it comes to Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics, even sympathetic admirers are cowed into submission by the many criticisms of influential authors in that field. They say something to the effect that Wittgenstein does not know enough about or have enough respect for mathematics, to take him as a serious philosopher of mathematics. They claim to catch Wittgenstein pooh-poohing the modern set-theoretic extensional conception of a real number. This article, however, will show that Wittgenstein's criticism is well grounded. A real number, as an ‘extension’, is a homeless fiction; ‘homeless’ in that it neither is supported by anything nor supports anything. The picture of a real number as an ‘extension’ is not supported by actual practice in calculus; calculus has nothing to do with ‘extensions’. The extensional, set-theoretic conception of a real number does not give a foundation for real analysis, either. The so-called complete theory of real numbers, which is essentially an extensional approach, does not define (in any sense of the word) the set of real numbers so as to justify their completeness, despite the common belief to the contrary. The only correct foundation of real analysis consists in its being ‘existential axiomatics’. And in real analysis, as existential axiomatics, a point on the real line need not be an ‘extension’.     

Brown

In Remarks on Colour Wittgenstein discusses a number of puzzling propositions about brown, e.g. that it cannot be pure and that there cannot be a brown light. He does not actually answer the questions he asks, and the status of his projected ‘logic of colour concepts’ remains unclear. I offer a real definition of brown from which the puzzle propositions follow logically. It is based on two experiments from Helmholtz. Brown is shown to be logically complex in the sense that the concept of brown can be ‘unpacked’ or resolved into simpler concepts. If my solutions to Wittgenstein's puzzles are the right ones, then science does bear upon the ‘logic of colour concepts’, and the contrast between logic and science which Wittgenstein sets up is a false one. At best it will appear as the contrast between the demands of logic and the demands of a particular kind of scientific theory and a particular mode of scientific theorizing. The solutions to the puzzles about brown are distinguished from psychological explanations, and the paper ends by suggesting what it was in his own doctrine that prevented Wittgenstein from answering the questions he had set himself.     

Don't look but think: Imaginary scenarios in Wittgenstein's later philosophy

David Bloor has claimed that Wittgenstein is best read as offering the beginnings of a sociological theory of knowledge, despite Wittgenstein's reluctance to view his work this way. This leads him to dismiss Wittgenstein's many self‐characterizations as mere ‘prejudice’. In doing so, however, Bloor misses the import of Wittgenstein's work as a ‘grammatical investigation’. The problems inherent in Bloor's interpretative approach can be discerned in his attitude toward Wittgenstein's use of imaginary scenarios: he demands that they be replaced by real natural history and real ethnography. This demand is misplaced. The very self‐characterizations Bloor dismisses show how imaginary scenarios have a place in his philosophical project simply by being imagined. Three examples are examined and presented in such a way as to make Bloor's demand for replacement increasingly more difficult to comprehend: while in the first case, the demand seems simply beside the point, in the second and third cases, it becomes difficult to say just what would count as replacements. Wittgenstein's imaginary scenarios are thus best read not as suggestions for further empirical research, but as devices to aid in recovering the naturalness and familiarity of our concepts, which is precisely what one would expect from them as part of a grammatical investigation.     

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.     

A Religious Point of View

The purpose of this paper is to show connections between Wittgenstein's approach to philosophy and the writings on religion of two authors whom we know Wittgenstein read and admired: William James and Leo Tolstoy. Wittgenstein stresses certain attitudes toward philosophical ‘problems’ which resemble the attitudes that James and Tolstoy connect with religious faith. There are also similarities of phrases and expressions. It is not possible to say that these writers influenced the way Wittgenstein regarded philosophy, but it suggests that he recognized the similarities between their approaches and his despite the differences in subject. Consequently it helps to clarify why he would speak of his approach to problems as being from ‘a religious point of view’ even though its orientation is not specifically religious.     

WORLDS OR WORDS APART? WITTGENSTEIN ON UNDERSTANDING RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE

In this paper I develop an account of Wittgenstein's conception of what it is to understand religious language. I show that Wittgenstein's view undermines the idea that as regards religious faith only two options are possible – either adherence to a set of metaphysical beliefs (with certain ways of acting following from these beliefs) or passionate commitment to a ‘doctrineless’ form of life. I offer a defence of Wittgenstein's conception against Kai Nielsen's charges that Wittgenstein removes the ‘content’ from religious belief and renders the religious form of life ‘incommensurable’ with other domains of discourse, thus immunizing it against rational criticism.     

Wittgenstein and criteria

An essay to develop some of Wittgenstein's remarks about the notion of ‘criteria’ and to give the concept clarity even at the expense of some features Wittgenstein claimed for it. This effort was made because of the important role ‘criteria’ plays in Wittgenstein's discussions of feelings and mental states, and it is hoped that a defense of ‘criteria’ will make those discussions more coherent. An attempt is made to relate this notion of ‘criteria’ to the definition and expression of mental states, following some of Wittgenstein's suggestions, and to rebut skepticism about other minds.     

Truth in the Investigations

According to a widespread interpretation, in the Investigations Wittgenstein adopted a deflationary or redundancy theory of truth. On this view, Wittgenstein’s pronouncements about truth should be understood in the light of his invocation of the equivalences ‘p’ is true = p and ‘p’ is false = not p. This paper shows that this interpretation does not do justice to Wittgenstein’s thoughts. I will be claiming that, in fact, in his second book Wittgenstein is returning to the pre-Tractarian notion of bipolarity, and that his new development of this notion in the Investigations excludes the redundancy-deflationary reading. Wittgenstein’s thoughts about truth are instead compatible with another interpretative option: Wittgenstein remains faithful to his methodological pronouncements, and he merely presents us with (grammatical) platitudes about the notions of “true” and “false”.

     

Wittgenstein's picture‐theory of Language 1

I argue that the current view (as held by, eg., Warnock, Anscombe and Stenius) of Wittgenstein's theory of language in the Tractates is mistaken. This view maintains that Wittgenstein's theory is one of ‘isomorphism'; that, roughly, a sentence has meaning in virtue of its being a facsimile of a fact or possible fact. But a detailed study of significant passages in the Tractattis shows that Wittgenstein held no such view. His use of important terms, such as Salz, Bild, Sachverhalt, Tatsache, etc., has been crucially misunderstood. There is no isomorphism. The theory is not about sentences at all, but about talking sense.