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)

While Cavell is well known for his reinterpretation of the later Wittgenstein, he has never really engaged himself with post-Investigations writings like On Certainty. This collection may, however, seem to undermine the profoundly anti-dogmatic reading of Wittgenstein that Cavell has developed. In addition to apparently arguing against what Cavell calls ‘the truth of skepticism’ – a phrase contested by other Wittgensteinians – On Certainty may seem to justify the rejection of whoever dares to question one’s basic presuppositions. According to On (...) Certainty, or so it seems, the only right response to someone with different certainties is a reproach like ‘Fool!’ or ‘Heretic!’. This article aims to show that On Certainty need not be taken to prove Cavell wrong. It explains that Wittgenstein, in line with the first two parts of The Claim of Reason, does not reject scepticism out of hand but rather questions the sceptic’s self-understanding. Using arguments from Part Three of The Claim, the article moreover argues that a confrontation with divergence calls for self-examination rather than self-righteousness. Precisely because Wittgenstein acknowledges ‘the groundlessness of our believing’ or, in Cavellian terms, ‘the truth of skepticism’, he is not the authoritarian thinker that some have taken him to be. (shrink)

In Cavell (1994), the ability to follow and produce Austinian examples of ordinary language use is compared with the faculty of perfect pitch. Exploring this comparison, I clarify a number of central and interrelated aspects of Cavell's philosophy: (1) his way of understanding Wittgenstein's vision of language, and in particular his claim that this vision is "terrifying," (2) the import of Wittgenstein's vision for Cavell's conception of the method of ordinary language philosophy, (3) Cavell's dissatisfaction with Austin, and in particular (...) his claim that Austin is not clear about the nature and possible achievements of his own philosophical procedures, and (4) Cavell's notion that the temptation of skepticism is perennial and incurable. Cavell's reading of Wittgenstein is related to that of John McDowell. Like McDowell, Cavell takes Wittgenstein to be saying that the traditional attempt to justify our practices from an external standpoint is misguided, since such detachment involves losing sight of those conceptual and perceptual capacities in terms of which a practice is understood by its engaged participants. Unlike McDowell, however, Cavell consistently rejects the idea that philosophical clearsightedness can or should free us from that fear of groundlessness which motivates the traditional search for external justification. (shrink)

The purpose of this research is to show the relevance of the notion of 'skepticism' for the philosophy of art. From Modernism on, art is plagued by a lack of confidence in the traditional conventions and by an instability of the criteria governing the membership of an object to the category of 'art'. The notion of 'skepticism' is linked to the concept of 'expression': if art faces a form of skepticism, then the emphasis on the personal expression of artists and (...) audiences leads to a solution to the skeptical problem. The dissertation is divided into two parts: The first part, entitled 'Cavell, philosophy and skepticism', is a long Overture. With constant reference to the philosophies of Wittgenstein and Cavell, all the main themes of the dissertation are introduced: modernity and tradition, style and method, skepticism and ordinary, skepticism towards other minds (skepticism and expression). The second part, entitled 'Philosophy of Art and Modernism', isolates a line of thought from the writings of Tolstoy, Wittgenstein and Cavell. The three thinkers apply to art the concepts discussed in the previous part. Tolstoy, Wittgenstein and Cavell are linked by an awareness of a rupture in the relationship between contemporary art and tradition - a fracture that will be easy to recognize as skepticism in the art - and by the discovery of a similar solution. In particular, the notion of 'expression' will solve the skeptical problem. The first part is preparatory to the second because it contains all the themes and the concepts to be applied to art. The second part is analogue to the first: skepticism in the art, in fact, has a profound analogy with skepticism towards other minds. This analogy is made explicit in the conclusion, with a reference to attempts to define art. (shrink)