We will look critically at three essays by Cora Diamond concerning Peter Winch's views on the possibility of communication and criticism between language-games. We briefly present our understanding of Winch's approach to philosophy. Then, we argue that Diamond misidentifies Winch's views, taking them to imply language-game relativism or linguistic idealism. When she does raise valid criticisms against language-game relativism, her critical points mainly coincide with things that Winch has already stressed in his own work. That leaves us with the question (...) what their real disagreement amounts to. Finally, we suggest that at the bottom of Diamond's objections lies her failure to appreciate Winch's insights about the place of logic in human intercourse. (shrink)

Peter Winch, in his political philosophy, wanted to rethink the concepts of political authority, legitimacy and political culture, with a starting point in Wittgensteinian ideas. This essay brings together Winch's thoughts on political authority. Developing insights from Wittgenstein's work on certainty, Winch emphasised the unstated background behind any normative stand concerning authority. Ideas of legitimacy and civil society are formed within historically specific political cultures. In the 1990s, Winch was increasingly inclined to emphasise disagreement, which was related to his developing (...) views on understanding, logic and reasoning. This development is traced, in part, on the basis of unpublished lecture notes. (shrink)

Despite the extensive commentary on the work of Peter Winch, there has been inadequate recognition of how his Idea of a Social Science discerned the implications of Wittgenstein’s philosophy for confronting issues regarding the nature and interpretation of social phenomena. Winch’s subsequent confrontation with anthropology can be further illuminated by examining one of the most contentious contemporary debates in this field. This case illustrates the paradoxes involved in meta-practices such as philosophy and social science seeking to make descriptive and normative (...) claims about conceptually preconstituted forms of life, and it indicates the limitations of philosophical realism as a social scientific meta-theory. (shrink)