Wittgenstein’s use of the word ‘phenomenology’ to describe his own work in Philosophical Remarks and The Big Typescript has occasioned much puzzlement and confusion. This paper seeks to shed light on what Wittgenstein meant by the word through a close analysis of key passages in those two works. I argue against both the view of Nicholas Gier that Wittgenstein held ‘grammatical’ phenomenological remarks to be synthetic a priori and that expressed by Moritz Schlick that Wittgenstein held grammar to be tautological. (...) I also take issue with the claim by Merrill and Jaakko Hintikka that Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus ought to be regarded as a work of phenomenology. Wittgenstein’s adoption of a variant of Husserlian phenomenology, I argue, lasted no more than a few months, from February to October 1929, during which he conceived of phenomenology as something that sought to establish what one might call ‘analytic a posteriori’ truths through something like the Husserlian method of ‘bracketing’. By the end of 1929, I claim, he had abandoned that in favour of the view expressed in the slogan ‘phenomenology is grammar’, where ‘grammar’ is not confined to the tautological, but is rather intimately linked to Wittgenstein’s notion of ‘the understanding that consists in seeing connections’. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of phenomenology in the understanding of the cognitive processes of coupling/decoupling, defending the Wittgensteinian idea that phenomenology can play a crucial role as a description of immediate (social) experience. We argue that epistemic feelings can provide a phenomenological description of the development of a subject's everyday experience, tracking the transition from the processes of coupling/decoupling and recoupling with the world. In particular, the feeling of familiarity, whose key features can be considered the core of epistemic (...) feelings, signals a novelty in the flow of experience that makes sense and is worthy of remarking on or even articulating. By describing the primary features and sources of the feeling of familiarity, we highlight a conceptual tension related to its sources, which could be based on processing both fluency and discrepancy. We proposed a solution to the conceptual tension by introducing two levels of the feeling of familiarity: epistemic and experiential. (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.

N. R. Hanson has argued that abductive reasoning relates strongly on the conceptual aspect of problem solving. In different kinds of intellectual enterprizes involving creation of new knowledge, language has an essential role. This conceptual aspect is here approached from a perspective of theory of linguistic meaning. The approach from theory of meaning intends to provide theoretical presuppositions for meaningful expressions and, thus, thoughts. It is argued that these presuppositions characterize the content of abductive reasoning. Language is essential for expressing (...) and communicating knowledge, but it also plays role in how meaningful thoughts about the world are constructed. It is argued here that the propositional content of thoughts is related to language through logical and grammatical forms of language. If abductive reasoning is seen as reasoning bound by certain presuppositions , and the possible number of conclusions of reasoning is limited, these linguistic structures characterize the.rst criterion for possible meaningful hypothesis suggestions. The theory of meaning, especially provided by Jerrold Katz, has also another useful theoretical device for understanding abduction, in addition to the compositional sentence meaning described above. Especially in pragmatism the meanings of linguistic expressions are seen to be dependent of the context they are used. These contextual tokens of meanings provide contextual information of the possible uses and meanings of a linguistic expression. These two theoretical conceptions from the theory of meaning can provide more thorough understanding of the contents of abductive reasoning. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's discussion of rule-following is widely regarded to have identified what Kripke called "the most radical and original sceptical problem that philosophy has seen to date". But does it? This paper examines the problem in the light of Charles Peirce's distinctive "scientific hierarchy". Peirce identifies a phenomenological inquiry which is prior to both logic and metaphysics, whose role is to identify the most fundamental philosophical categories. His third category, particularly salient in this context, pertains to general predication. Rule-following scepticism, the (...) paper suggests, results from running together two questions: "How is it that I can project rules?", and, "What is it for a given usage of a rule to be right?". In Peircean terms the former question, concerning the irreducibility of general predication (to singular reference), must be answered in phenomenology, while the latter, concerning the difference between true and false predication, is answered in logic. A failure to appreciate this distinction, it is argued, has led philosophers to focus exclusively on Wittgenstein's famous public account of rule-following rightness, thus overlooking a private, phenomenological dimension to Wittgenstein's remarks on following a rule which gives the lie to Kripke's reading of him as a sceptic. (shrink)

The problem of explaining color perception has fascinated painters, philosophers and scientists throughout the history. In many cases, the ideas and discoveries about color perception in one of these categories influenced the others, thus resulting in one of the most remarkable cross-fertilization of human thought. At the end of the nineteenth century, two models stood out as the most convincing ones: Young-Helmholtz’s trichromacy on one side, and Hering’s opponency on the other side. The former was mainly supported by painters and (...) scientists, although with some noticeable exceptions as, e.g., Otto Runge, while the majority of philosophers supported the latter. These two apparently incompatible models were proven to be two complementary parts of the hugely complex chain of events which leads to human color perception. Recently, a rigorous mathematical theory able to incorporate both trichromacy and opponency has been developed thanks to the use of the language and tools of quantum information. In this paper, we discuss the placement of this model within the philosophical theories about color. (shrink)

Although Wittgenstein’s most extensive discussion of aspect‐recognition appears in Part II of the Philosophical Investigations, aspect‐recognition was of interest to Wittgenstein almost from the beginning of his engagement with philosophy at Cambridge in 1912. However, the nature of that interest changes upon his return to Cambridge in 1929, and that change in turn is connected with the inter‐related ideas that philosophical clarity rests on recognising aspects of our grammar and that mathematical proof leads us to recognise new aspects of mathematical (...) expressions. (shrink)

In this article I am going to argue for the possibility of a transcendental source of logic based on a phenomenologically motivated approach. My aim will be essentially carried out in two succeeding steps of reduction: the first one will be the indication of existence of an inherent temporal factor conditioning formal predicative discourse and the second one, based on a supplementary reduction of objective temporality, will be a recourse to a time-constituting origin which has to be assumed as a (...) non-temporal, transcendental subjectivity and for that reason as possibly the ultimate transcendental root of pure logic. In the development of the argumentation and taking into account W.V. Quine’s views in his well-known Word and Object, a special emphasis will be given to the fundamentally temporal character of universal and existential predicative forms, to their status in logical theories in general, and to their underlying role in generating an inherently non-finitistic character reflected, for instance, in the undecidability of certain infinity statements in formal mathematical theories. This is shown also to concern metatheorems of such vital importance as Gödel’s incompleteness theorems in mathematical foundations. Moreover in the course of the discussion the quest for the ultimate limits of predication will lead to the notions of separation and intentional correlation between an ‘observing’ subject and the object of ‘observation’ as well as to the notion of syntactical individuals taken as the irreducible non-analytic nuclei-forms within analytical discourse. (shrink)

Wittgenstein est mort en 1951 et on attend toujours une édition de ses œuvres complètes. Ce n'est qu'en 1994 que sont parus, accompagnés d'un volume d'introduction à l'ensemble du projet d'édition de la main du directeur de publication, Michael Nedo, les deux premiers d'une série de quinze volumes, les Wiener Ausgabe, qui reproduiront l'intégralité des écrits de Wittgenstein, de son retour à Cambridge en janvier 1929 à la première version du Big Typescript en 1933, avec index et concordances. D'après le (...) catalogue établi par Georg Henrik von Wright, il s'agit des articles suivants: MS 105 à 114 et 153 à 155, TS 208 à 218. Ces deux premiers volumes reproduisent les manuscrits écrits entre janvier ou février 1929 et l'été 1930, soit les MS 105, 106, 107 et 108. Ils constituent l'aboutissement d'une véritable saga entourant l'œuvre posthume de Wittgenstein, dont il vaut la peine de rapporter ici quelques-uns des faits marquants. (shrink)

In this paper, elementary but hitherto overlooked connections are established between Wittgenstein's remarks on mathematics, written during his transitional period, and free-variable finitism. After giving a brief description of theTractatus Logico-Philosophicus on quantifiers and generality, I present in the first section Wittgenstein's rejection of quantification theory and his account of general arithmetical propositions, to use modern jargon, as claims (as opposed to statements). As in Skolem's primitive recursive arithmetic and Goodstein's equational calculus, Wittgenstein represented generality by the use of free (...) variables. This has the effect that negation of unbounded universal and existential propositions cannot be expressed. This is claimed in the second section to be the basis for Wittgenstein's criticism of the universal validity of the law of excluded middle. In the last section, there is a brief discussion of Wittgenstein's remarks on real numbers. These show a preference, in line with finitism, for a recursive version of the continuum. (shrink)

In this paper I will discuss some interesting philosophical questions bound to color science, in its variant founded by Berlin and Kay’s linguistic and anthropological research. I will first refer to various criticisms, expressed by dissenting scientists. Further criticisms implied by a rather philosophical perspective will follow; a particular attention is paid to the question of synchronicity vs . diachronicity. The controversy about Berlin and Kay’s conception is paralleled by the development of Wittgenstein’s views on color that I will sketch (...) in short. Wittgenstein’s philosophy offers tools for illuminating the problem from yet another point of view. In the final part of the paper, I will try to point to the limits of the conception of basic color categories, but also to assess its relevance and possible philosophical contribution in terms of language games variety; especially with respect to the Color Incompatibility The orem and its implications. (shrink)

Cet article vise à examiner la critique wittgensteinienne d’Héraclite et des idées de ce dernier selon lesquelles « tout coule » et « on ne peut entrer deux fois dans la même rivière ». Dans la première section, j’examinerai les sources et les interprétations traditionnelles de ces idées. Dans la seconde section, je discuterai le lien établi par David G. Stern entre les remarques de Wittgenstein sur l’image de la rivière et l’étude qu’il a faite de Platon à partir de (...) 1931. Dans la troisième section, je m’attacherai aux notes sur Héraclite antérieures à 1931 et je les relierai à la question d’un langage phénoménologique. Puis, dans les sections quatre et cinq, je critiquerai le portrait que dresse Hintikka de Wittgenstein en phénoménologue et je fournirai une analyse approfondie de la phénoménologie de Wittgenstein. Enfin, dans la sixième section, je tenterai de faire une synthèse de l’ensemble et de porter un nouveau regard sur la dernière philosophie de Wittgenstein.The aim of this paper is to focus on Wittgenstein’s criticism of Heraclitus and his ideas that « everything flows » and that « one cannot step into the same river twice ». In the first section, I review the sources and the traditional interpretations of these ideas. In the second section, I discuss David G. Stern’s association of Wittgenstein’s remarks on river imagery with his study of Plato after 1931. In the third section, I scrutinize the pre-1931 notes on Heraclitus and link them to the question of a phenomenological language. Then, in sections four and five, I criticize Hintikka’s portrait of Wittgenstein as a phenomenologist and provide an in-depth analysis of Wittgenstein’s phenomenology. Finally, in section six, I attempt to draw everything back together and take a fresh look at Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. (shrink)

Cet article opère une comparaison des théories de la proposition — entendue dans sa double dimension sémantique et gnoséologique — du Wittgenstein des Philosophische Bemerkungen et du Russell de The Analysis of Mind . Après avoir rappelé le statut sémantique nouveau que ces théories accordent au temps en intégrant le fait qu’un délai sépare, pour un grand nombre de nos énoncés, leur occurrence et leur vérification , il établit que la notion d’attente est chargée, chez Wittgenstein comme chez Russell , (...) de combler cet écart temporel. Mais — c’est le deuxième point — une notion différente est mobilisée par chacun de ces deux auteurs, et dans un projet théorique à chaque fois différent : alors que Wittgenstein vise à étendre la notion tractatuséenne de relation interne aux relations sémantiques temporelles et à défendre un intentionnalisme logique, Russell cherche au contraire à soutenir une conception externaliste de ces relations de façon à faire droit aux cas où elles sont non-intentionnelles. Pour cela, Wittgenstein adopte un concept appelé ici « intentionnel » de l’attente, alors que Russell s’appuie sur un concept dit « non-intentionnel ». Une conséquence majeure de cette différence — c’est le troisième point — est que la célèbre critique par Wittgenstein de l’analyse russellienne de l’attente se révèle être largement erronée dans la mesure où elle se donne pour cible un concept qui n’est pas celui de Russell. Le quatrième point défendu par l’article est qu’une fois rétabli le concept de Russell, l’externalisme que celui-ci défend est doté d’arguments susceptibles de contrer efficacement la position internaliste et intentionnaliste de Wittgenstein.This paper carries out a comparison between the theories of the proposition — in its semantical and epistemic significance — elaborated respectively by Wittgenstein in Philosophische Bemerkungen and by Russell in The Analysis of Mind . Having recalled that time is endowed with a new semantical status by both theories through acknowledging there is a lapse between many of our utterances and their verification , it brings out that the notion of Erwartung by Wittgenstein and the notion of expectation by Russell are meant to bridge this temporal gap. But — this is the second point — those two notions have two different meanings and they belong to a different theoretical framework by each of those authors : while Wittgenstein’s goal is to extend the Tractarian notion of internal relations to temporal semantic relations in order to support a logical version of intentionalism, Russell aims at favoring an externalist view of those relations and to put forward cases in which they are non-intentional. For these respective purposes, the Erwartung notion elaborated by Wittgenstein is a “intentional” notion, whereas the notion of expectation that Russell adopts is a “non-intentional” notion. One chief consequence of this difference — this is the third point — is that Wittgenstein’s famous criticism of Russell’s analysis of expectation falls short because it targets a notion that is not Russell’s own notion. The fourth point of the paper is that acknowledging Russell’s notion provides externalism with some strong arguments to counter Wittgenstein’s internalist and intentionalist position. (shrink)

In this article, I show and discuss the relevance of Wittgenstein's arguments as to the spatial structure of sight to recent issues in the philosophy of mind. The first, bearing upon the dimensionality of the manifolds at play in depiction, plays a critical role in Clark's attempt to provide an independent account ofqualiaand of their differentiative properties. The second, pertaining to the properly spatial structure formed by the data of sight, is explicitly appealed to in the debate on the realistic (...) character of any genuinely spatial scheme. I argue that if Wittgenstein rightly assumes that the simultaneous presence of sensible places in vision is a key condition for objectivity, he fails nevertheless to warrant the allegedly realistic character of the scheme employed in his own search for a phenomenological description of the visual field. (shrink)

The idea that the function of language is its use is commonly ascribed to the Later Wittgenstein. In this paper, I argue that there is textual evidence already coming from the early manuscripts proving that Wittgenstein's philosophical development is culminating in the idea of function as use around 1929–30. I interpret a passage from Ms‐107 in order to show that Wittgenstein's practical turn has sources in different stages of his philosophical development, each of which is dominated by different ideas: the (...) idea of a picture theory; the idea of a phenomenological language and the idea of function as use. (shrink)