Morality exercises a deep and questionable influence on the way we live our lives. The influence is deep both because moral injunctions are embedded in our psyches long before we can reflect on their status and because even after we become reflective agents, the question of how we should live our lives among others is intimately bound up with the more general question of how we should live our lives: our stance toward morality and our conception of our lives as (...) having significance are of a piece. The influence is questionable because morality pretends to a level of objectivity that it may not possess. Moral injunctions are meant to be binding on us in some way that is independent of the desires or preferences we may happen to have. When one asserts that a certain action is morally worthy or shameful one is, prime facie, doing more than merely expressing approval or disapproval or trying to get others to act as instruments of one's own will. If moral assertions were shown, at bottom, to be merely such exhortations, then they would be shown to wear a disguise. Morality would be revealed as pretending to an objectivity it does not have, and such a revelation could not but have a profound impact on our lives. It is doubtful that such a revelation could be kept locked up inside our studies. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the similarity between Wittgenstein’s use of thought experiments and Relativity Theory. I begin with introducing Wittgenstein’s idea of “thought experiments” and a tentative classification of different kinds of thought experiments in Wittgenstein’s work. Then, after presenting a short recap of some remarks on the analogy between Wittgenstein’s point of view and Einstein’s, I suggest three analogies between the status of Wittgenstein’s mental experiments and Relativity theory: the topics of time dilation, the search for invariants, and (...) the role of measuring tools in Special Relativity. This last point will help to better define Wittgenstein’s idea of description as the core of his philosophical enterprise. (shrink)

O objetivo desta publicação é incentivar a produção filosófica de excelência por parte de pesquisadores notadamente influenciados pela filosofia de Wittgenstein e cujos temas possam suscitar um debate aprofundado. Além de desafiar o empreendimento filosófico contemporâneo, os temas aqui apresentados abordam questões que muitas vezes estão além daquelas consideradas por Wittgenstein em seu tempo. O leitor encontrará neste volume questões relacionadas ao ceticismo semântico e epistêmico, ao relativismo ético, às leituras literárias de Wittgenstein, ao problema das outras mentes e percepção (...) de aspectos, a intersubjetividade e o caráter contrassensual do Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, e, também, relacionadas ao Paradoxo de Moore. (shrink)

The chapter discusses Quentin Meillassoux's recent interpretation and critique of Heidegger's philosophical position, which he describes as "strong correlationism." It emphasizes the fact that Meillassoux situates Heidegger in the post-Kantian tradition of transcendental idealism that he defines in terms of a focus on the correlation between being and thinking. It is argued that Meillassoux's "speculative" attempt to overcome the Kantian philosophical framework in the name of absolute contingency should be understood as a further development and dialectical overcoming of its ultimate (...) contemporary form, the Heideggerian philosophy of finitude. (shrink)

Although Whitehead’s particular style of philosophizing--looking at traditional philosophical problems in light of recent scientific advances--was part of a trend that began with the scientific revolutions in the early 20th century and continues today, he was marginalized in 20th century philosophy because of his outspoken defense of what he was doing as “metaphysics.” Metaphysics, for Whitehead, is a cross-disciplinary hermeneutic responsible for coherently integrating the perspectives of the special sciences with one another and with everyday experience. The program of such (...) a meta-discipline is challenging to philosophical orthodoxy because it enlarges, rather than narrows, the range of empirical evidence that philosophy must acknowledge. This places Whitehead’s philosophy in a perennial tradition that seeks to resolve fundamental antinomies through synthesis and reconciliation rather than reduction or elimination. (shrink)

Transcendental idealism has been conceived of in philosophy as a position that aims to secure objectivity without traditional metaphysical underpinnings. This article contrasts two forms of transcendental idealism that have been identified: one in the work of Kant, the other in the later Wittgenstein. The distinction between these two positions is clarified by means of a distinction between transcendental constraints and transcendental features. It is argued that these conceptions provide the - fundamentally different - bases of the two positions under (...) discussion. With the core of the positions identified, it is then suggested that neither form of transcendental idealism - the Kantian or the Wittgensteinian - manages to combine the twin aims of safeguarding objectivity and maintaining metaphysical parsimony. The Kantian form appears to succeed on the first score at the cost of failing on the second, while the Wittgensteinian form succeeds on the second and fails on the first. (shrink)

John McDowell espouses a certain conception of the thinking subject: as an embodied, living, finite being, with a capacity for experience that can take in the world, and stand in relations of warrant to subjects' beliefs. McDowell presents this conception of the subject as requiring a related conception of the world: as not located outside the conceptual sphere. In this latter conception, idealism and common-sense realism are supposed to coincide. But I suggest that McDowell's conception of the subject scuppers this (...) intended coincidence. The upshot is a dilemma: McDowell can retain his conception of the subject, but lose the coincidence; or he can keep the coincidence, but abandon his conception of the subject. (shrink)

This paper is a critical examination of Wittgenstein's view of the limits of intelligibility. In it I criticize standard analytic readings of Wittgenstein as an advocate of transcendental or behaviourist theses in epistemology; and I propose an alternative interpretation of Wittgenstein's view as a social contextualism that transcends the false dichotomy between Kantianism and psychologism. I argue that this social contextualism is strikingly similar to the social account of epistemic practices developed by Pierre Bourdieu. Through a comparison between Wittgenstein's and (...) Bourdieu's view and an analysis of the notion of habitus , I try to show how social contextualism can account for the distinction between sense and nonsense without falling into transcendental constructivism or social behaviourism. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's discussion of rule-following can be considered as a part of his criticism of metaphysics: Naturalistic as well as non-naturalistic ontologies fail to present us an adequate explanation of the normative dimension of linguistic behavior. In this paper, we will reconstruct this criticism of metaphysics and show that thereby we gain an important philosophical insight: Wittgenstein's criticism implies that the normativity of language is not a phenomenon that stands in need for an explanation but rather – to the contrary – (...) has to be considered as a primitive, non-reducible condition that we have to presuppose in order to show how linguistic meaning is possible at all. In this sense, the notion of rule-following gives rise to a transcendental semantics. (shrink)

This chapter argues that several aspects of Bernard Williams’s style, methodology, and metaphilosophy can be read as evolving dialectically out of Wittgenstein’s own. After considering Wittgenstein as a stylistic influence on Williams, especially as regards ideals of clarity, precision, and depth, Williams’s methodological debt to Wittgenstein is examined, in particular his anthropological interest in thick concepts and their point. The chapter then turns to Williams’s explicit association, in the 1990s, with a certain form of Wittgensteinianism, which he called ‘Left Wittgensteinianism’. (...) It is shown how this is not a sudden conversion, but the direct product of Williams’s longstanding critical engagement with Wittgenstein’s methodology and metaphilosophy: Williams arrives at this position by envisaging a Wittgensteinianism that thinks in concrete sociohistorical terms, embraces genuine explanation, and relinquishes its insistence on the purity of philosophy. When properly understood, moreover, this critique turns out to be continuous with Williams’s advocacy of a conception of philosophy as a humanistic discipline. Finally, it is shown that Williams inherits from Wittgenstein a certain understanding of how philosophy can help us to live, in particular the therapeutic ambition to liberate us from distortions in our self-understanding by assembling reminders. (shrink)

Discussions of objectivity often start from considerations about disagreement. We might ask why this should be so. It makes it seem as though disagreement were surprising, but there is no reason why that should be so (the earliest thinkers in the Western tradition found conflict at least as obvious a feature of the world as concord). The interest in disagreement comes about, rather, because neither agreement nor disagreement is universal. It is not that disagreement needs explanation and agreement does not, (...) but that in different contexts disagreement requires different sorts of explanation, and so does agreement. (shrink)

Although the expression “form of life” and its plural “forms of life” occur only five times in Philosophical Investigations, and generally few times in his works, it is commonly agreed that this is one of the most relevant issues in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. Starting from the analysis of the contexts in which Wittgenstein makes use of this concept, the paper focuses on the different interpretations that have been given in secondary literature, and proposes a classification based on two axes of (...) debate: the monistic versus pluralistic interpretation, and the empirical versus transcendental interpretation. After placing some well-known readings in the resulting scheme, an attempt will be made to offer an evolutionary reading of Wittgenstein’s own ideas about forms of life. It will be argued that the empirical and plural view that seems characteristic of his writings in the Thirties, slowly appears to turn towards a monistic view, sometimes with transcendental tones, although within a pragmatic perspective. This turn remains nevertheless rooted in Wittgenstein’s general attitude towards philosophy intended as a conceptual inquiry with clarifying and therapeutic aims. (shrink)

It is only two years since Immanuel Kant published his monumental Critique of Pure Reason.As part of entering into the spirit of this ‘untimely review’, I shall pretend that only the first edition of the Critique exists. This has a bearing on some claims that I shall make about differences between the content of the Prolegomena and that of the Critique. Despite its formidable difficulty, that book has already generated intense interest in the philosophical community. Those who are still struggling (...) to come to terms with its dense and subtle argumentation, or who may not even have started to read it yet but who know from the furore that it has created that it needs to be high on their ‘to read’ list, might easily despair at the prospect of having now to contend with another volume on the same broad range of subjects by the same author. This prospect is not, however, as daunting as it seems. In fact, it should afford some solace, at least if we are to believe claims that Kant makes on beh. (shrink)

What is the true worth of Wittgenstein's contribution to philosophy? Answers to this question are strongly divided. However, most assessments rest on certain popular misreadings of his purpose. This book challenges both "theoretical" and "therapeutic" interpretations. In their place, it seeks to establish that, from beginning to end, Wittgenstein regarded clarification as the true end of philosophy. It argues that, properly understood, his approach exemplifies rather than betrays critical philosophy and provides a viable alternative to other contemporary offerings.

The paper develops an account of semantic notions which occupies a middle ground between antirealism and traditional forms of realism, using some ideas from the work of John McDowell. The position is based on a contrast between two points of view from which we might attempt to characterize our linguistic practices from the cosmic exile s point of view and from the midst of language as a going concern. The contrast is drawn in terms of whether our characterization of our (...) linguistic practices is taken to result from engagement in the very same practices that we are trying to characterize. The position takes realism to be correct when understood as an account from the internal perspective, but incorrect when taken as an account from the external perspective. However, the intelligibility of the question as to what our practices would look like from the cosmic exile s point of view is presented as problematic. (shrink)

Christina Lafont has argued that the early Heidegger's reflections on truth and understanding are incompatible with ‘the supposition of a single objective world’. This paper presents her argument, reviews some responses that the existing Heidegger literature suggests, and offers what I argue is a superior response. Building on a deeper exploration of just what the above ‘supposition’ demands, I argue that a crucial assumption that Lafont and Haugeland both accept must be rejected, namely, that different ‘understandings of Being’ can be (...) viewed as offering ‘rival perspectives’ on a common subject-matter. I develop this case by drawing on an alternative account of what a Heideggerian ‘understanding of Being’ might be like. (shrink)

The article presents Dewey’s own understanding of rationality by reconstructing his criticism of idealism. For Dewey, idealism is an important and valuable expression of the modern idea that both knowledge and values are historical products of human self-determination. Thus, it rightly defends the power of thought against the uncritical claims of mere religious and social authority. Yet idealism, Dewey claims, still misconceives that human power by ultimately treating it as a merely intellectual power, thus following the philosophical tradition. For Dewey, (...) however, human thought and reasoning have to be understood in a much broader way. Dewey decenters thought by arguing that it is a natural, dependent and essentially temporal process, in which the intellectual elements only play a subordinate role. Thought, he claims, does not only have a history; furthermore, thinking only matters to human beings precisely because it is open to reflective change. Dewey’s position, thus, can be seen as an attempt to preserve the existential importance of philosophical self-reflection by binding thought to history and change in a radical way. (shrink)

The present paper argues that there is an affinity between Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" and Wittgenstein's philosophy. It is maintained, in particular, that Kuhn's notion of paradigm draws on such Wittgensteinian concepts as language games, family resemblance, rules, forms of life. It is also claimed that Kuhn's incommensurability thesis is a sequel of the theory of meaning supplied by Wittgenstein's later philosophy. As such its assessment is not fallacious, since it is not an empirical hypothesis and it does (...) not have the relativistic implications Kuhn's critics repeatedly indicated. Although concepts are indeed relative to a language game or paradigm, interparadigmatic intelligibility is preserved through the standard techniques of translation or praxis. The impossibility of radical translation which is captured by the claim of incommensurability lies with that which cannot be said but only shown. (shrink)

One consequence of the later Wittgenstein's influential critique of epistemological foundationalism has been to convince many contemporary philosophers that the ideal of universal and necessary cognitive grounds for moral or political norms is illusory. Recent neo-Wittgensteinian accounts of practical reason attempt to formulate a conception of a post-foundational politics in which a political ethos can be legitimate, rational or just even if its informing practices and cognitive standards lack foundational justification. Against these appropriations of Wittgenstein, I argue that his account (...) challenges foundationalism only by generating epistemological relativism at both the first-order level of belief systems and at the second-order level of the comparative evaluation of first-order belief systems and their non-comparable forms of justification. The result is a polytheism of forms of reason which imperils the methodological ideal of a non-relativistic practice of moral-political criticism. (shrink)