Philosophy for Life is a bold call for the practice of philosophy in our everyday lives. Philosopher and writer Rupert Read explores a series of important and often provocative contemporary political and cultural issues from a philosophical perspective, arguing that philosophy is not a body of doctrine, but a practice, a vantage point from which life should be analysed and, more importantly, acted upon. -/- Philosophy for Life is a personal journey that explores four key areas of society today: Politics, (...) Religion, Art, and the Environment. Taking tangible examples from modern politics, from climate change to the war on terror, and culture, from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy to the poetry of T.S. Eliot, Read shows that philosophy is already an active part of today's world. This captivating and timely book offers a philosophical response to some of the key questions facing today's society and encourages us to use philosophy as a kind of therapy. Philosophy for Life shows that we can improve our perspective on the world and our place in it by doing philosophy everyday. (shrink)

SUMMARY Major theories of philosophical psychology and philosophy of mind are examined on the basis of the fundamental questions of ontology, metaphysics, epistemology, semantics and logic. The result is the choice between language of eliminative reductionism and dualism, neither of which answers properly the relation between mind and body. In the search for a non–dualistic and non–reductive language, Wittgenstein’s notion of language–games as the representative links between language and the world is considered together with Peirce’s semeiosis of cognition. The result (...) is a redefined notion of cognition as the goal–oriented ability to instantiate strategies from the rules of the language–games. Cognition is considered within the four-dimensional languagegames: rules/strategies, primitive/complete language-games, family-resemblances/forms of life, and non-temporal continuum as the language-games’ modality. Cognition is seen as a continuum process of non–individualized elements that unites perception, volition, emotion, will and thought against the commonly accepted understandings of cognition in exclusive terms of perception and thinking. The alternative to the mind/body problem is the continuity of cognition where rules and strategies, syntax and semantics, are considered inseparable within language–games. This continuity of cognition is explained in terms of virtual (univocal) identity, replacing the old philosophical paradigm of the mind/body problem. -/- SOMMARIO Le teorie maggiori della psicologia filosofica e filosofia della mente sono esaminate a partire dalle questioni fondamentali di ontologia, metafisica, epistemologia, semantica e logica. Il risultato è la scelta tra un linguaggio riduzionista eliminativo e un dualismo che però non confronta in modo adeguato la relazione tra mente e corpo. Nella ricerca per un linguaggio non-dualistico e non-riduttivo, viene considerata la nozione del gioco linguistico di Wittgenstein come un legame rappresentativo tra il linguaggio e il mondo insieme con la semiosi cognitiva di Peirce. Il risultato è la nozione ridefinita della cognizione come abilità goal-orientata di creare le strategie dalle regole dei giochi linguistici. La cognizione è considerata entro le quattro dimensioni dei giochi linguistici: regole/strategie, giochi linguistici primitivi/completi, somiglianze di famiglia/forme di vita, e la continuità atemporale come la modalità dei giochi linguistici. La cognizione diventa un processo continuo degli elementi non-individualizzati che tende ad unificare la percezione, volizione, emozione, la volontà e il pensiero contro un concetto generalmente accettato di vedere la cognizione nei termini esclusivamente di percezione e di pensiero. L’alternativa al problema della mente/corpo è la continuità della cognizione, dove le regole e le strategie, la sintassi e la semantica, sono considerate inseparabili nei giochi linguistici. Questa continuità della cognizione è spiegata nei termini dell’identità virtuale (univoca) sostituendo un paradigma filosofico previo del problema della mente/corpo. (shrink)

The positions of Frege, Russell and Wittgenstein on the priority of complexes over (propositional) functions are sketched, challenging those who take the "judgment centered" aspects of the Tractatus to be inherited from Frege not Russell. Frege's views on the priority of judgments are problematic, and unlike Wittgenstein's. Russell's views on these matters, and their development, are discussed in detail, and shown to be more sophisticated than usually supposed. Certain misreadings of Russell, including those regarding the relationship between propositional functions and (...) universals, are exposed. Wittgenstein's and Russell's views on logical grammar are shown to be very similar. Russell's type theory does not countenance types of genuine entities nor metaphysical truths that cannot be put into words, contrary to conventional wisdom. I relate this to the debate over "inexpressible truths" in the Tractatus. I lastly comment on the changes to Russell's views brought about by Wittgenstein's influence. (shrink)

This paper presents a list of meetings between Wittgenstein and Sraffa during the period 1929-1951. It was compiled using Sraffa’s notes from his pocket diaries and including supplement appointments noted by Wittgenstein. The information - like addresses or names of other speakers - added by Sraffa to some appointments have been here explained in the footnotes. As it is shown, it emerges by the list that the meetings between Wittgenstein and Sraffa can be divided in several different periods.

Several scholars have argued that Wittgenstein held the view that the notion of number is presupposed by the notion of one-one correlation, and that therefore Hume's principle is not a sound basis for a definition of number. I offer a new interpretation of the relevant fragments on philosophy of mathematics from Wittgenstein's Nachlass, showing that if different uses of ‘presupposition’ are understood in terms of de re and de dicto knowledge, Wittgenstein's argument against the Frege-Russell definition of number turns out (...) to be valid on its own terms, even though it depends on two epistemological principles logicist philosophers of mathematics may find too ‘constructivist’. (shrink)

The Rediscovery of the mind By John Searle MIT Press, 1992. Pp. xv + 270. ISBN 0–262–19321–3 £19.95 hbk.The Ethics of Authenticity By Charles Taylor Harvard University Press, 1991. Pp. 152. ISBN 0–674–26863–6. $17.95Multiculturalism and ‘The Politics of Recognition’ By Charles Taylor Princeton University Press, 1992. p. 112. ISBN 0–691–0878–65. $14.95New books on feminismAbjection, Melancholia and Love: The Work of Julia Kristeva By John Fletcher and Andrew Benjamin Routledge, 1990. Pp. 224. ISBN 0–415–04155–4. £35 hbk.Feminist Literary Studies: An Introduction By (...) K. K. Ruthven Canto, 1991 (first published 1984). Pp. 152 ISBN 0–521–398525. £4.95 pbk.Socialism, Feminism and Philosophy: A Radical Philosophy Reader Edited by Sean Sayers and Peter Sayers Routledge, 1990. Pp. 256. ISBN 0–415–05627–6. £35 hbk.Luce Irigaray: Philosophy in the Feminine By Margaret Whitford Routledge, 1991. Pp. 304. ISBN 0–415–05968–2. £35 hbk.New books on wittgensteinWittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. Text and Context Edited by Robert C. Arrington and Hans‐Johann Glock Routledge, 1992. Pp. 256. ISBN 0415–07035‐X. £35.00 hbk.Wittgenstein on Words as Instruments. Lessons in Philosophical Psychology By J. M. F. Hunter Savage, Barnes and Noble Books, 1990. Pp. 192. ISBN 0–389–20920–1. $42.00Wittgenstein on Ethics and Religious Belief By Cyrill Barrett Blackwell, 1991. Pp. 304. ISBN 0–631–16815‐X. £45.00. (shrink)

The strong predominance of right-handedness appears to be a uniquely human characteristic, whereas the left-cerebral dominance for vocalization occurs in many species, including frogs, birds, and mammals. Right-handedness may have arisen because of an association between manual gestures and vocalization in the evolution of language. I argue that language evolved from manual gestures, gradually incorporating vocal elements. The transition may be traced through changes in the function of Broca's area. Its homologue in monkeys has nothing to do with vocal control, (...) but contains the so-called “mirror neurons,” the code for both the production of manual reaching movements and the perception of the same movements performed by others. This system is bilateral in monkeys, but predominantly left-hemispheric in humans, and in humans is involved with vocalization as well as manual actions. There is evidence that Broca's area is enlarged on the left side in Homo habilis, suggesting that a link between gesture and vocalization may go back at least two million years, although other evidence suggests that speech may not have become fully autonomous until Homo sapiens appeared some 170,000 years ago, or perhaps even later. The removal of manual gesture as a necessary component of language may explain the rapid advance of technology, allowing late migrations of Homo sapiens from Africa to replace all other hominids in other parts of the world, including the Neanderthals in Europe and Homo erectus in Asia. Nevertheless, the long association of vocalization with manual gesture left us a legacy of right-handedness. Key Words: cerebral dominance; gestures; handedness; hominids; language evolution; primates; speech; vocalization. (shrink)

This paper aims to argue against the resolute reading, and offer a correct way of reading Wittgenstein'sTractatus. According to the resolute reading, nonsense can neither say nor show anything. The Tractatus does not advance any theory of meaning, nor does it adopt the notion of using signs in contravention of logical syntax. Its sentences, except a few constituting the frame, are all nonsensical. Its aim is merely to liberate nonsense utterers from nonsense. I argue that these points are either not (...) distinctive from standard interpretations or incorrect. Instead, the Tractarian elucidations help to shed light on the nature of language and logic, and introduce the correct method in philosophy. Philosophy deals with philosophical utterances and Tractarian elucidations by pointing out that they are nonsensical. By doing this, one is helped to see that what they appear to be saying is shown by significant propositions saying something else. (shrink)

According to the truthmaker theory that we favour, all contingent truths are made true by existing facts or states of affairs. But if that is so, then it appears that we must accept the existence of the negative facts that are required to make negative truths (such as 'There is no hippopotamus in the room.') true. We deny the existence of negative facts, show how negative truths are made true by positive facts, point out where the (reluctant) advocates of negative (...) facts (Russell, Armstrong, et al.) went wrong, and demonstrate the superiority of our solution to the alternatives. (shrink)

Wittgenstein probably did not believe in Christ's Resurrection (as an historical event), but he may well have believed that if he had achieved a higher level of devoutness he would believe it. His view seems to have been that devout Christians are right in holding onto this belief tenaciously even though, in fact, it's false. It's historical falsity, is compatible with its religious validity, so to speak. So far as I can see, he did not think that devout Christians should (...) believe that it doesn't really matter whether or not that alleged historical event occurred. (shrink)

In this article I explore some implications of the correspondence that went on between Ludwig Wittgenstein and the logician and mathematician Gottlob Frege. Part of this exchange was focused on the envisaged publication of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, and on the philosophical or literary character of that work. The problem discussed concerned the question of whether the Tractatus should be seen not as a scientific but as an artistic achievement. My first goal is to present what, given Frege’s writings, his phrase (...) “an artistic rather than a scientific achievement” could be understood to mean in terms of the Tractatus itself. Secondly, I seek to determine the extent to which traces of Frege’s understanding of such terms as “mock thoughts,” “fiction,” “elucidation,” “paintings” and “colouring” are to be found in the language of the Tractatus. This should then make it possible to show how Wittgenstein’s work, viewed from a Fregean perspective, can be seen as furnishing a logic and semantics not only for the languages of logic and natural science, but also for something that is “an artistic rather than a scientific achievement”, while also indicating that the content of the Tractatus as a whole could not have been captured independently of the unified form Wittgenstein himself gave it. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

I demonstrate that analogies, both explicit and implicit, between Wittgenstein’s discussion of rituals, aesthetics, and psychoanalysis (and, indeed, his own philosophical methodology) suggest that he entertained the idea that Freud’s psychoanalytic project, when understood correctly—that is, as a descriptive project rather than an explanatory-hypothetical one—provides a “surveyable representation” (übersichtliche Darstellung) of certain psychological facts (as opposed to psychological concepts). The consequences of this account are that it offers an explanation of Wittgenstein’s admiration for and self-perceived affinity to Freud, as well (...) as of his apparent “know-nothing approach” to empirical psychology. (shrink)

Ray Monk and Anthony Palmer, (eds) Bertrand Russell and the Origins of Analytical Philosophy, Thoemmes Press, Bristol, 1996; pp. xvi + 383; Hans-Johann Glock, (ed.) The Rise of Analytic Philosophy, Blackwell, 1997; pp. xiv + 95; Matthias Schirn, (ed.) Frege: Importance and Legacy, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 1996; pp. x + 466; Stuart G. Shanker, (ed.) Philosophy of Science, Logic and Mathematics in the Twentieth Century, Routledge History of Philosophy Volume IX, Routledge, 1996; pp. xxxviii + 461; John Blackmore, (ed.) (...) Ludwig Boltzmann: His Later Life and Philosophy, 1900-1906, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1995; pp. xvi + 266. (shrink)

This paper substitutes a structural hermeneutics for the sequential approach to the Tractatus and its manuscript, which leaves the manuscript completely unexplained. All the pieces come together only if we recognise that Wittgenstein's book is a hierarchical object that was composed following a top-down strategy. Therefore, we realise that the “summary on scattered sheets” represents the perspicuous version of the manuscript, the correlations with the Notebooks become obvious and the “supplements” can be reconstructed. A correct dating of the composition allows (...) us to understand how it was possible, without digital technologies except from an ingenious application of the decimal system, to achieve this formal masterpiece. (shrink)

An examination of the genre of philosophical autobiography sheds light on the role of personal judgment alongside objective rationality in philosophy. Building on Monk's conception of philosophical biography, philosophical autobiography can be seen as any autobiography that reveals some interplay between life and thought. It is argued that almost all autobiographies by philosophers are philosophical because the recounting of one's own life is almost invariably a form of extended speech act of self-revelation. When a philosopher is the autobiographer, this self-revelation (...) illuminates the interplay between thought, life, and personality. Understanding how this works allows us to address three problems of biography raised by Honderich: how to give an account of something as large and complex as a human life; how a life-story is also a judgment; and how we can justify identifying one part of a causal circumstance as 'the cause'. There is also a new ethical problem raised about the autobiographer's right to make public details of a shared private life. (shrink)

There is a tension with regard to regulative norms of inquiry. One’s commitments must survive critical scrutiny, and if they do not survive, they should be revised. Alternately, for views to be adequately articulated and defended, their proponents must maintain a strong commitment to the views in question. A solution is proposed with the notion of holding one’s own as the virtue of being reason-responsive with the prospects of improving the view in question.

Syntax has to do with rules that constrain how words can combine to make acceptable sentences. Semantics (Frege and Russell) concerns the meaning of words and sentences, and pragmatics (Austin and Grice) has to do with the context bound use of meaning. We can hence distinguish between three competing principles of translation: S—translation preserves the syntax of an original text (ST) in the translation (TT); M—translation preserves the meaning of an ST in a TT; and P—translation preserves the pragmatics of (...) an ST in a TT. A prominent form of P is functionalism defended by linguists and translation theorists (J.R. Firth, Eugene Nida, Susan Bassnett and many others) and historically was defended by philosophers (Russell, Ogden and Richard) but abandoned by philosophers and criticized by Wittgenstein. If we adopt M, then a TT will always say exactly what the ST says, and hence all subsequent TTs, even alternative ones produced via M, will be consistent with each other. But if we adopt P, in contrast, we have no reason to believe that the TTs will say what the ST does, and moreover they can contradict each other. If such contradictory translations are produced on the basis of the totality of empirical evidence, it results in what Quine called the indeterminacy of translation. Yet, P is not easy to reject. In many cases, translation in accordance with M where the meaning to be preserved is linguistic results in TTs that are failures. In contrast to a language focused approach to semantics, I close by following a lead in the translation theory literature of identifying text-types (genres) as a tool for identifying translatable content in an ST. To individuate text-types I identify them with disciplines, as elucidated by the 2nd century Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra. This allows for the definition of textual meaning as the discipline relative pragmatics of an ST and further for translation to proceed by way of M, while taking the intuitions that motivate P seriously. Translations that preserve textual meaning will not only have the same meaning as each other but will be pragmatically felicitous. (shrink)

In this essay I argue the extent to which meaning and judgment in aesthetics figures in Wittgenstein’s later conception of language, particularly in his conception of how philosophy might go about explaining the ordinary functioning of language. Following a review of some biographical and textual matters concerning Wittgenstein’s life with music, I outline the connection among (1) Wittgenstein’s discussions of philosophical clarity or perspicuity, (2) our attempts to give clarity to our aesthetic experiences by wording them, and (3) the clarifying (...) experience of the dawning of an aspect, which Wittgenstein pictures as the perception of an internal relation. By examining Wittgenstein’s use of “internal relation” from the Tractatus to his later writings, I come to challenge the still prevalent understanding of Wittgenstein’s appeals to grammar as an appeal to something given (e.g., to a set of grammatical rules). Instead, as I argue, Wittgensteinian appeals to grammatical criteria should be understood as modeled by the form of justification found in our conversations about art. (shrink)

The book explains why and how Wittgenstein adapted the Tractatus in phenomenological and grammatical terms to meet challenges of his 'middle period.' It also shows why and how he invents a new method and develops an anthropological perspective, which gradually frame his philosophy and give birth to the Philosophical Investigations.

Toolmaking requires motor skills that in turn require handedness, so that there is no competition between the two sides of the brain. Thus, handedness is not necessarily linked to vocalization but to the origin of causal beliefs required for making complex tools. Language may have evolved from these processes.

Between 1937 and 1951 Wittgenstein had numerous philosophical conversations with his student and close friend, Rush Rhees. This article is composed of Rhees’s notes of twenty such conversations — namely, all those which have not yet been published — as well as some supplements from Rhees’s correspondence and miscellaneous notes. The principal value of the notes collected here is that they fill some interesting and important gaps in Wittgenstein ’s corpus. Thus, firstly, the notes touch on a wide range of (...) subjects, a number of which are only briefly addressed by Wittgenstein elsewhere, if at all. The subjects discussed include: explanation, ethics, anarchism, contradiction, psychoanalysis, colour, religion, concepts, classification, seeing-as, evolution, the relation between science and philosophy, and free will, amongst others. Secondly, the notes contain references to, and brief remarks about, philosophers of whom Wittgenstein otherwise says very little, if anything — such as Brentano, Heidegger, Aquinas, and Marx, amongst others. And thirdly, the notes provide us with valuable examples of Wittgenstein ’s use of some key ‘Wittgensteinian’ terms of art which are surprisingly rare in his written works, such as ‘surface-’ and ‘depth-grammar’, and ‘centres of variation’. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is twofold: to establish that Kierkegaard's so‐called theory of the leap strongly anticipates a line of argument that is central to Wittgenstein's so‐called rule‐following considerations; and to begin to show how Kierkegaard's work has fruitful contributions of its own to make to on‐going discussions about rules and rule‐following. The paper focuses throughout on the question of how, if at all, human rule‐following can be distinguished from behaviour that is merely mechanical or instinctual. I identify a (...) central line of argument in Wittgenstein that problematizes this question by establishing the basis our ability to follow rules in our spontaneous responses. I argue that Kierkegaard not only strongly anticipates this line of argument but also offers a distinctive story about what, at bottom, makes the difference between human rule‐following and behaviour that is merely mechanical or instinctual. In a word, on Kierkegaard's story, what makes the difference is: anxiety. (shrink)

Monk’s ‘The Temptations of Phenomenology’ examines what the term ‘Phänomenologie’ meant for Wittgenstein. Contesting various other scholars, Monk claims that Wittgenstein’s relation to ‘Phänomenologie’ began and ended during 1929. Monk only partially touches on the question of Wittgenstein’s relation to the phenomenological movement during this time. Though Monk does not mention this, 1929 was also the year in which Ryle and Carnap turned their critical attention toward Heidegger. Wittgenstein also expressed his sympathy for Heidegger in 1929. Furthermore, though in 1929 (...) Wittgenstein agrees with the early Husserl on relating logic and science to phenomenology, it is not clear that they mean the same thing by either logic or phenomenology, or that they agree on what the relation between the two should be. (shrink)

Resumen: Tanto Perry Anderson como Alex Callinicos y Terry Eagleton han desarrollado un trabajo cultural y filosófico sobresaliente. Sin embargo, los tres han malinterpretado la obra de Ludwig Wittgenstein. La concepción de la filosofía de Wittgenstein no está en tensión con la filosofía marxista en el modo en el que ellos lo sugirieron y Wittgenstein no cometió los errores que le atribuyeron Anderson, Callinicos e Eagleton. Los marxistas se beneficiarían si consideraran más seriamente la obra de Wittgenstein porque ello los (...) ayudaría a comprender más claramente la naturaleza de los problemas epistemológicos y metafísicos como así también los ayudaría a fortalecer y complementar sus propias concepciones de las confusiones filosóficas. En este trabajo examinaré los errores de sus interpretaciones de Wittgenstein y espero también poder proporcionar alguna indicación de las razones por las cuales Wittgenstein es considerado por muchos como el filósofo más importante del siglo XX. (shrink)

This paper contains a historical introduction and an edition of a hitherto unpublished manuscript of Wittgenstein's that was found among G. H. von Wright's materials kept in Helsinki. The document concentrates on British anti-Nazi propaganda and was written in 1945. Wittgenstein's criticism of this kind of propaganda, such as that promoted by Robert Vansittart, is also present in other sources of this period belonging to both the _Nachlass _and the correspondence.

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (TLP) turns hundred years of its publication in the year 2021. The book has received several interpretations during this period of hundred years. However, in the last three decades, the interpretations of TLP have taken a very tenacious position with regard to the debates among scholars concerning whether there is any metaphysical significance in the text. The debates primarily offshoot in the rise of anti-metaphysical or often known as resolute reading that challenges the standard or metaphysical reading. The (...) present paper, however, goes beyond this debate between the resolute and standard reading of TLP. The paper aims at addressing various types of metaphysical reading(s) that has not been perhaps the centre of discussion because the resolute reading takes on only standard reading. Thus, the present paper attempts to show the variety of metaphysical interpretations of the text in some of the recent literatures. (shrink)

This article uses participant objectivation in sociology and philosophy as two knowledge fields to provide a reflexive comparison of their synced field effect in historical circumstances. Drawing on the philosopher and historian of science Gaston Bachelard, I theorize fielded knowledge as a social relation that combines the prior presence of folk knowledge with a socioanalytic exchange between field and folk that includes positions of either defense, replacement or critique. A comparison of post-Wittgenstein Anglophone philosophy and post-sixties American sociology describes their (...) mutual confrontation with folk psychology as an “epistemological obstacle” that generates a remarkable concern with action as a position-taking on the folk relation. A reflexive objectivation of folk knowledge is therefore necessary for a revised understanding of action that correlates with the distinction of sociology’s knowledge capital and how it fares as an explanatory resource in competitive circumstances. The article concludes by leveraging the synced field effect even further to make a recommendation that sociologists can increase the distinction of their knowledge capital by producing discourse that can recognize, legitimate and officialize experiences that otherwise remain obscure, nameless or impossible within the bounded universe of folk psychology. (shrink)

Drawing on experience teaching secondary philosophy students, I investigate meaningful engagement with Wittgenstein in a Grade 12 epistemology unit. The premise is that without some introduction to landmark philosophers of the early twentieth century, students are left out of many contemporary philosophical conversations: linguistic idealism or relativism, and nominalism versus realism. Wanting to share with students Foucault, Rorty, and Hacking, I need expedient avenues of approach. Using Wittgenstein's methods I offer practical, ‘shallow grounds’ for an eclectic syllabus conveying post-foundational epistemology, (...) justifying Wittgenstein's inclusion in a textbook written for diverse teenagers. Acknowledging teens’ marginality, I draw on Hekman and Scheman's appropriation of Wittgenstein to advance feminist critiques of enthralling traps in [masculinist] language: exploring nature/nurture boundaries (ferals, cyborgs, and ‘gender performativity’) toward combating discrimination in schools. Heeding Cavell, I.. (shrink)

Over a decade after publication of Thinking Again: Education After Postmodernism (1998) contention still emerges among Foucaultians over whether discursively made‐up things really exist, and whether removal of the constituent subject leaves room for agency within techniques of caring for the self. That these questions are kept alive shows that some readers have not rethought Foucault, finding what possibly comes after postmodernism. Using Wittgenstein to ‘reciprocally illuminate’ Foucault (after Tully and Marshall), I open teacher inspection and reforms to problematization, as (...) relations to bedrock rules governing games of truth. ‘How, upon entering classrooms, do inspectors know “teaching” is taking place and not crazy and fuzzy things in its name?’ Taking up Hirst's vexing question, I move beyond liberal‐analytic concept‐mapping and neo‐liberal individualism to more fully assay the political ground for judging teaching practices through genealogy. Epistemological, political and ethical concerns intersect as we approach the problem through Foucault's three axes of an historical‐ontology of the present: knowledge(s), power relations, and arts of the self. Drawing on recent Governmentality Studies in Education (Peters., 2009), we aver the impasses of postmodern relativism while finding limited ranges of agency along each axis, as teachers practice freedoms by critiquing and renegotiating rules. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

The paper examines Johann Georg Hamann’s influence on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s late philosophy. Wittgenstein’s letters, diaries and Drury’s memoirs show that Wittgenstein read Hamann’s writings in the early 1930s and 1950s. Wittgenstein’s diary notes and the Cambridge lectures show that Wittgenstein’s discussion of Hamann’s views in 1931 corresponds to adopting a Hamannian view of symbols and rule-following. The view of language as an intertwining of signs, objects and meanings in use forms a common core in the philosophies of Hamann and Wittgenstein. (...) The harmony of language and reality takes place in communicative use, so non-communicative private languages and pre-linguistic ideal forms of representation are not possible. Language is a free response to reality, and it involves belief-systems and trust. (shrink)

This paper reconsiders the notion that Nagarjuna and Wittgenstein’s Tractatus may only be seen as comparable under a shared ineffability thesis, that is, the idea that reality is impossible to describe in sensible discourse. Historically, Nagarjuna and the early Wittgenstein have both been widely construed as offering either metaphysical theories or attempts to refute all such theories. Instead, by employing an interpretive framework based on a ‘resolute’ reading of the Tractatus, I suggest we see their philosophical affinity in terms of (...) a shared conception of philosophical method without proposing theses. In doing so, this offers us a new way to understand Nagarjuna’s characteristic claims both to have ‘no views’ and refusal to accept that things exist ‘inherently’ or with ‘essence’. Therefore, instead of either a view about the nature of a mind-independent ‘ultimate reality’ or a thesis concerning the rejection of such a domain, I propose that we understand Nagarjuna’s primary aim as ‘therapeutic’, that is, concerned with the dissolution of philosophical problems. However, this ‘therapy’ should neither be confined to the psychotherapeutic metaphor nor should it be taken to imply a private enlightenment only available to philosophers. Instead, for Nagarjuna and Wittgenstein, philosophical problems are cast as a source of disquiet for all of us; what their work offers is a soteriology, a means towards our salvation. (shrink)

Wittgenstein is not primarily concerned with anything mysterious going on inside people's heads, but with us simply going on with each other; that is, with us being able to inter-relate our everyday, bodily activities in unproblematic ways in with those of others, in practice. Learning to communicate with clear and unequivocal meanings; to send messages; to fully understand each other; to be able to reach out, so to speak, from within language-game entwined forms of life, and to talk in theoretical (...) terms of the contacts one has made., as an individual, with what is out there; and so on — all these abilities are, or can be, later developments. Wittgenstein's investigations into our pre-individual, pre-theoretical, embodied, compulsive activities are utterly revolutionary. They open up a vast new realm for empirical study to do with the detailed and subtle nature of the bodily activities in the background to everything that we do. The relational character of such pre-theoretical, Ur-linguistic, spontaneous bodily activities—and the way in which they display us as seeing connections from within a synopsis of trivialities — is explored through the paradigm of currently fashionable 3–13 random dot autostereograms. (shrink)

As human beings, we share many historically developed, language-game interwoven, public forms of life. Due to the joint, dialogically responsive nature of all social life within such forms, we cannot as individuals just act as we please; our forms of life exert a normative influence on what we can say and do. They act as a backdrop against which all our claims to knowledge are judged as acceptable or not. As a result, it is not easy to articulate their inadequacies (...) in a clear and forceful manner. However, within most of our forms of life, we have a first-person right to express how our individual circumstances seem to us. And by the use of special forms of poetic, gestural talk—talk that can originate new language-games—we can offer to make our own ‘inner lives’ public. In this paper, I want to claim that this is just what Wittgenstein is attempting to do in his later philosophy: by use of the self-same methods that anyone might use to express aspects of their own world picture, he is offering us his attempts to make the background ‘landscape’ of our lives more visible to us. These methods are explored below. (shrink)

This article considers how Ernest Gellner used sociology and anthropology to attack ordinary language philosophy in Words and Things. It argues that this attack can be seen as a part of the movement to make philosophy more empirical or “naturalized,” something that has not been generally noted. It also discusses what general lessons to draw from Words and Things regarding how empirical knowledge should be used in philosophy. Among other things, the article argues that one important lesson is that empirical (...) philosophers should make more use of “soft” social sciences, such as sociology and anthropology, and not focus exclusively on “harder” disciplines, such as physics and experimental psychology. Another upshot of the discussion is that philosophers should draw on empirical knowledge not only when they solve problems but also when they formulate them. (shrink)