Showing papers in "Philosophical Investigations in 2003"
TL;DR: Wittgenstein is a pragmatist in the sense that it is not that a proposition is true if it is useful, but that use gives the proposition its sense.
Abstract: So I am trying to say something that sounds like pragmatism. (OC 422) In his struggle to uncover the nature of our basic beliefs, Wittgenstein depicts them variously in On Certainty: he thinks of them in propositional terms, in pictorial terms and in terms of acting. As propositions, they would be of a peculiar sort – a hybrid between a logical and an empirical proposition (OC 136, 309). These are the so-called 'hinge propositions' of On Certainty (OC 341). Wittgenstein also thinks of these beliefs as forming a picture, a World-picture – or Weltbild (OC 167). This is a step in the right (nonpropositional) direction, but not the ultimate step. Wittgenstein's ultimate and crucial depiction of our basic beliefs is in terms of a know-how, an attitude, a way of acting (OC 204). Here, he treads on pragmatist ground. But can Wittgenstein be labelled a pragmatist, having himself rejected the affiliation because of its utility implication? But you aren't a pragmatist? No. For I am not saying that a proposition is true if it is useful. (RPP I, 266) Wittgenstein resists affiliation with pragmatism because he does not want his use of use to be confused with the utility use of use. For him, it is not that a proposition is true if it is useful, but that use gives the proposition its sense. In fact, Wittgenstein's use has no internal connection to truth at all; it is meaning, not truth, that is internally linked to use. As to foundational beliefs, truth does not even apply to them (OC 205), but nor does Wittgenstein want to end up saying that a proposition is certain if it is useful. To see our foundational beliefs – our objective certainty, as he refers to it (OC 194) – on grounds of utility and success, would be to miss their logical nature. In a recent lecture, Robert Brandom drew a distinction between a broad and a narrow conception of pragmatism 1. Broadly conceived, pragmatism is simply a movement centred on the primacy of the practical; only in its narrow conception does it focus on the relation of belief to utility and success 2. This dichotomy allows me to affiliate Wittgenstein to that family of philosophers who have stressed the primacy of acting, without unduly attaching him to strains in pragmatism from which he is estranged. The later Wittgenstein is a pragmatist in the broad …
51 citations
TL;DR: The Critical Notice of the The New Wittgenstein, an anthology edited by Alice Crary and Rupert Read as mentioned in this paper, was devoted to those contributions primarily concerned with the Tractatus.
Abstract: H. O. Mounce published in this journal two years ago now a Critical Notice of the The New Wittgenstein, an anthology (edited by Alice Crary and Rupert Read) which is evenly divided between work on Wittgenstein’s early and later writings. The bulk of Mounce’s article was devoted to those contributions primarily concerned with the Tractatus. There is a straightforward sense in which this selective focus is natural. The pertinent contributions – most conspicuously those by Cora Diamond and James Conant – describe a strikingly unorthodox interpretation of Wittgenstein’s early book on which it is depicted as having an anti-metaphysical aim. Mounce takes an interest in this interpretation because he believes that, in characterizing the Tractatus in anti-metaphysical terms, it misrepresents the central Tractarian doctrine of ‘saying and showing’ – a doctrine which he understands in terms of the idea that “metaphysical truths, though they cannot be stated, may nevertheless be shown” (186). Mounce argues that Diamond and Conant et al. fail to treat this doctrine as “one that Wittgenstein himself advances,” and he claims that they therefore make Wittgenstein’s thought “less original than one might otherwise suppose” (186) by implying that it is “indistinguishable from positivism” in the sense of “not even attempt[ing] to provide positive knowledge [and] confin[ing] itself to removing the confu-
18 citations
TL;DR: In this article, it is argued that the problem of normativity and objectivity of meaning is different from the rule-following paradox, though we are led into the paradox by certain ways of trying to solve it.
Abstract: 1. The past few years have seen a revival of interest in Kripke’s controversial reading of Wittgenstein’s remarks about rule-following. Thus, on the one hand, George Wilson has tried to defend Kripke’s claim that Wittgenstein can be understood as providing a sceptical solution to a sceptical problem about meaning – a solution which, though sceptical, can nonetheless, according to Wilson, yield a kind of semantic realism. On the other hand, John McDowell and other ‘new Wittgensteinians’ have attempted to show that Wittgenstein intended to dissolve, rather than solve, all philosophical problems about meaning and so intended to leave no room for any philosophical account of meaning whatsoever. It seems to me, however, that Wilson’s sceptical solution is more scepticism than solution and that McDowell’s quietism also leaves untouched a problem that really needs to be addressed. Moreover, I believe that Wittgenstein himself recognized this need. The problem I have in mind concerns the normativity and objectivity of meaning; it is different from the rule-following paradox, though we are led into the paradox by certain ways of trying to solve it. Contra McDowell, I shall argue that dissolving the paradox leaves the problem, and hence the need for constructive philosophy, still standing. But I shall also argue, contra Wilson, that it is only by
15 citations
TL;DR: It is also commonly assumed that the Tractatus propounds various doctrines concerning language and representation, doctrines which are repudiated in the later work, and often criticized explicitly as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: It is customary to divide Wittgenstein’s work into two broad phases, the first culminating in the Tractatus, and the second comprising the writings that began upon his return to philosophy in 1929 and culminating in the Investigations. It is also commonly assumed that the Tractatus propounds various doctrines concerning language and representation, doctrines which are repudiated in the later work, and often criticized explicitly. One problem with this view of the Tractatus is Wittgenstein’s claim in 6.54 that its propositions are “nonsensical,” a claim which on its face is at odds with the idea that they present substantive philosophical theories. The usual way of handling this problem is to assume that the claim is not to be taken literally, that the sentences of the Tractatus are not nonsense in the sense of mere gibberish, but are intended somehow to engender in the attentive reader a grasp of certain important aspects of the relationship between language and the world. Beginning with her seminal paper “Throwing Away the Ladder,” Cora Diamond has proposed reading the Tractatus in a way that takes literally 6.54’s claim of the book’s nonsensicality, and rejects the idea that its sentences represent a kind of elevated nonsense intended to
7 citations
TL;DR: The concept of "slice" turns out to be at best philosophically inconsequential, the authors argues, and the very idea of spatialising time, and of rendering the resulting "slices" of potentially infinitely small measure, turns out on closer acquaintance not to amount to anything consequential that has yet been made sense of.
Abstract: The concept of ‘time–slice’ turns out to be at best philosophically inconsequential, I argue. Influential philosophies of time as apparently diverse as those of Dummett, Lewis and Bergson, thus must come to grief. The very idea of ‘time–slice’ upon which they rest – the very idea of spatialising time, and of rendering the resulting ‘slices’ of potentially infinitely small measure – turns out on closer acquaintance not to amount to anything consequential that has yet been made sense of. Time is, rather, a ubiquitous lived ‘tool’ for the organisation and co–ordination of human activities, a tool so completely involved in those activities that Anti–Realism about it is as unstateable as Realism about it is unnecessary.
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TL;DR: Why do we value friendship? No explanation that appeals to values external to friendship will be a satisfactory answer to this question as mentioned in this paper. But it is worth noting that no explanation can explain why friendship is important.
Abstract: Why do we value friendship? No explanation that appeals to values external to friendship will be a satisfactory answer to this question.
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TL;DR: The main lines of reasoning in the Wittgenstein notes entitled "Cause and Effect: Intuitive Awareness" as discussed by the authors are presented in the form of a series of dialogues between the author and a few other philosophical voices.
Abstract: This paper presents the main lines of reasoning in the Wittgenstein notes entitled ‘Cause and Effect: Intuitive Awareness,’ in the form of a series of dialogues between Wittgenstein, Russell, and a few other philosophical voices. Two of the dialogues relate to what, in Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, Wittgenstein called ‘the similarity of my treatment with relativity theory.’
4 citations
TL;DR: The appropriate application of Wittgenstein's thought to problems in the philosophy of religion has long been debated as discussed by the authors, and a body of emerging scholarship argues that the philosophers of religion who pioneered this application are guilty of having misunderstood and distorted the thought.
Abstract: The appropriate application of Wittgenstein's thought to problems in the philosophy of religion has long been debated. A body of emerging scholarship argues that the philosophers of religion who pioneered this application are guilty of having misunderstood and distorted Wittgenstein's thought. This paper seeks to counter these charges by arguing that they generally depend on either construals of Wittgenstein's thought that are themselves implausible or misreadings of the philosophers against whom they are levied. Special attention is given to accusations of fideism, quietism, expressivism, and positivism, as well as to the work of Phillips, Winch, and Rhees.