The influence of William James on Ludwig Wittgenstein has been widely studied, as well as the criticism that the latter addresses to the former, but one aspect that has only rarely been focused on is the two philosophers’ use of the image of the flux, stream, or river. The analysis of some notes belonging to Wittgenstein’s Nachlass support the possibility of a comparison between James’ stream of thought, as outlined in the Principles of Psychology, and Wittgenstein’s river-bed of thoughts, presented (...) in On Certainty. After an introduction which offers a general frame for the following work, the first section of the paper examines all the Nachlass entries that directly mention James’ stream. Section 2 focuses on two remarks in which Wittgenstein explicitly criticizes James’ concept and implicitly anticipates his own way of dealing with this matter. These remarks, belonging to Manuscripts 165 and 129, both dating 1944, have not been published in any of Wittgenstein’s edited books, nor is it possible to find the same argument elsewhere. Wittgenstein’s critique concerns James’ lack of distinction between what is grammatical, or a priori, and what is empirical, or a posteriori, a distinction which the image of the stream should have suggested: a stream flows in a stream-bed and within banks. This is exactly the meaning that Wittgenstein’s own metaphor of the river-bed of thoughts is intended to convey. Section 3 analyses James’ concept of the stream and its corollaries, in order to clarify whether Wittgenstein’s critique is justified or not. James in effect draws a separation between a priori and a posteriori, but this separation is conceived from within the framework of empirical science. This analysis leads to the theme of the relations among science, philosophy and metaphysics, which is the subject of section 4. The conclusion is that Wittgenstein did appreciate James for his intuitions and for the power of his imagination: in a sense he even developed them; but he could not agree on the explicit formulation of his ideas. (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)