Wittgenstein constantly invokes teaching, training and learning in his later work. It is therefore interesting to consider what role these notions play for him there. I argue that their use is central to Wittgenstein’s attempt to refute cognitivist assumptions, and to show how normative practices can be understood without the threat of circularity, grounded not in a kind of seeing, but in doing, and the natural reactions of an organism. This can generate a worry that Wittgenstein’s position is quietist and (...) anti-critical: critique, as a challenge to the taken-for-granted grammar of our language game, is technically meaningless. I argue that Wittgenstein does not rule out critique. His own practice demonstrates that critique is possible, but takes place within a language game, and its status as critique is always subject to challenge in the agora of a discourse. (shrink)

A defining feature of retributive conceptions of karma is their regarding of suffering or misfortune as consequent upon sins committed in previous lives. Some critical non-believers in karma take offence at this view, considering it to involve unjustly blaming the victim. Defenders of the view demur, and argue that a belief in retributive karma in fact provides a motivation for benevolent action. This article elucidates the debate, showing that its depth is such that it is best characterized as a disagreement (...) in form of life (in Wittgenstein’s sense) rather than as a disagreement in opinions. Also briefly discussed is an example of a non-retributive form that belief in karma and reincarnation can take. (shrink)

Many contributors of the debate about knowledge by testimony concentrate on the problem of justification. In my paper I will stress a different point – the concept of testimony itself. As a starting point I will use the definitional proposal of Jennifer Lackey. She holds that the concept of testimony should be regarded as entailing two aspects – one corresponding to the speaker, the other one to the hearer. I will adopt the assumption that we need to deal with both (...) aspects. Nevertheless, I will show that her concept – which suggests regarding testimony as an act of communication conveying information – is too broad and, therefore, I will end up with a different twofold definition. (shrink)

At one place in his collection of essays The Crane Bag and Other Disputed Subjects, the novelist and mythographer Robert Graves makes the following claim that might sound rather shocking to the ears of an analytic philosopher:I find myself far more at home with mildly superstitious people – sailors and miners, for instance – than with stark rationalists. They have more humanity.

The word “picture” occurs pervasively in Wittgenstein's later philosophy. Not only does Wittgenstein often use literal pictures or the notion of mental pictures in his investigations, but he also frequently uses “picture” to speak about a way of conceiving of a matter (e.g. “A picture held us captive” at Philosophical Investigations§115). I argue that “picture” used in this conceptual sense is not a shorthand for an assumption or a set of propositions but is rather an expression of conceptual bedrock on (...) the model of an organising myth. This reading builds primarily on work by Gordon Baker and Stanley Cavell. (shrink)

In this article, a novel Wittgensteinian approach to philosophy of religion is presented which uses autobiographical exposition as a way of clarifying religious concepts. After analyzing what Wittgenstein is trying to accomplish in his philosophical approach, Wittgenstein’s type of grammatical inquiry into concept formation is applied to religion in this very straightforward manner. How a child learns to use religious concepts and how people check whether the child is using these concepts correctly, reminds us of the actual role these concepts (...) play in our discourses. In the third and fourth sections, the Wittgensteinian investigation of concept formation into religion conducted in this article is used to establish that the two common criticisms, namely that a Wittgensteinian approach fails to acknowledge that for believers God is real and that religious conflicts exist, are misplaced. It is shown that a Wittgensteinian approach in philosophy of religion merits renewed attention. (shrink)

A prominent trend in moral philosophy today is the interest in the rich textures of actual human practices and lives. This has prompted engagements with other disciplines, such as anthropology, history, literature, law and empirical science, which have produced various forms of contextual ethics. These engagements motivate reflections on why and how context is important ethically, and such metaethical reflection is what this article undertakes. Inspired by the work of the later Wittgenstein and the Danish theologian K.E. Løgstrup, I first (...) describe one of the ways in which context plays a central role with regard to ethical meaning and normativity. I then examine how ‘context’ is to be defined, and finally I discuss some of the questions which arise when giving context prominence in ethics – namely, how to delimit the scope of relevant context, the relevant traits of a particular context and what ‘the ethical’ is. (shrink)

Duncan Pritchard has recently ventured to carve out a novel position in the epistemology of religious belief called quasi-fideism. Its core is an application of ideas from Wittgensteinian hinge epistemology to religious belief. Among its many advertised benefits are that it can do justice to two seemingly conflicting ideas about religious belief, to wit: that it is, at least at some level, a matter of ungrounded faith, but also that it can be epistemically rationally grounded. In this paper, I argue (...) that quasi-fideism fails. Its central tenets either have unattractive consequences or are implausible. (shrink)

It is expected that children increasingly learn to identify errors throughout their schooling process and even before it. As a further step, however, some scholars have suggested how a culture of error should be implemented in the classroom for the student to be able not only to locate errors but also, and above all, to learn from them. Yet the various proposals aimed at generating a culture of error in the classroom keep regarding error as all those responses and reactions (...) that are not considered as true or correct in each specific case, thereby not realizing that many of these alleged errors are really anomalies with very different characteristics and consequences despite their seeming resemblance. In this paper, I rely on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s On Certainty to clarify the difference between errors and anomalies. Subsequently, I provide guidelines that may be adapted by each teacher to her students’ needs and development level in order to foster a culture of error that begins by distinguishing er... (shrink)

Of the theologians and philosophers now writing on biblical narrative, Hans Frei and Paul Ricoeur are probably the most prominent. It is significant that their views converge on important issues. Both are uncomfortable with hermeneutic theories that convert the text into an abstract philosophical system, an ideal typological structure, or a mere occasion for existential decision. Frei and Ricoeur seem knit together in a common enterprise; they appear to be building a single narrative theology. I argue that the appearance of (...) symmetry is an illusion. There is a fundamental conflict between the ‘pure narrativism’ of Frei and the ‘impure narrativism’ of Ricoeur. I give reasons for thinking that Ricoeur’s is the stronger position. (shrink)

The paper discusses the unique approach to the problem of evil employed by the Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion and ethics that is primarily represented by D. Z. Phillips. Unlike traditional solutions to the problem, Phillips’ solution consists in questioning its meaningfulness—he attacks the very ideas of God’s omnipotence, of His perfect goodness and of the need to ‘calculate’ God’s goodness against the evil within the world. A possible weakness of Phillips’ approach is his unreflected use of what he calls ‘our (...) religious language’, against which he measures the meaningfulness of theodical conceptions. He apparently underestimates both the heterogeneity of the ‘ours’ and how philosophical ideas pervade and inform the actual practice. On the other hand, Phillips rightly identifies the fact that some theodical conceptions, if understood as general doctrines, commit the sin of insensitivity and do not pay appropriate respect to human suffering. The reason is that they neglect the seriousness and importance of the difference between issuing the theodical accounts in the first person and in the third person. He may, however, thereby accuse theodicies of failing in a task that theodicists never intended to undertake. Possible problems are also involved in Phillips’ use of the Holocaust as the central discussion example. (shrink)

The goal I pursue is to redefine the study of religious epistemology on the basis of an ethnomethodological extension of Wittgenstein. This approach shows that the nature of religious belief and its relation to facts, proofs, and empirical reality are matters that are dealt with by ordinary members of society. The examination of this lay epistemology reveals that -- far from being a settled and established entity -- religious belief is a polymorphous phenomenon. Religious belief is a pragmatic resource whose (...) configuration is shaped to allow the accomplishment of interactional moves within specific contexts. I defend this thesis by analyzing accounts pertaining to a contemporary religious apparition claim. (shrink)

Reincarnation has not been entirely neglected in the philosophy of religion but it has not always been taken seriously or carefully discussed in relation to its role in believers’ lives. John Hick is exceptional insofar as he gave sustained attention to the belief, at least as it features in the philosophies of Vedānta and Buddhism. While acknowledging the value of Hick’s recognition of the variety of reincarnation beliefs, this article critically engages with certain aspects of his approach. It argues that (...) Hick’s search for a ‘criterion’ of reincarnation is misguided, and that his distinction between ‘factual’ and ‘mythic’ forms of the doctrine is over-simplifying. (shrink)

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)

Can a contemplative philosopher describe a particular religious practice as superstitious, or is he thereby overstepping his boundaries? I will discuss the way in which the Wittgensteinian philosopher of religion D. Z. Phillips uses ‘Superstition’ as a contemplative term. His use of the distinction between genuine religion and superstition is not a weakness as is often supposed, but a necessity. Without contemplating ‘Superstition’ and ‘genuine religion’ Phillips would not have been able to elucidate the meaning that religious beliefs have in (...) the lives of both the faithful and their critics. I will defend the aptness of Phillips’s use of this term and illustrate his approach using examples such as the concept of genuine friendship or gratitude, and then I apply this approach to the question whether, from a philosophical point of view, particular Christian practices such as the prosperity gospel are genuinely religious or should be called superstitious. (shrink)

Mary Midgley's pamphlet Intelligent Design Theory and Other Ideological Problems has been a widely read contribution to discussions of the place of creationism in schools. In this critique of her account, I outline Midgley's view of the relations between science and religion, her claims about what material can legitimately appear in science lessons, and her account of the nature of religion. I argue that she is mistaken in all three areas, and show that her most plausible reply to these criticisms (...) also fails. Finally, I offer some thoughts on the proper relations between science and religion in the classroom. (shrink)

This thesis considers the role of aesthetic meaning-making in elementary school science learning. Children’s aesthetic experiences are traced through their use of aesthetic judgements, spontaneous metaphors and art activities. The thesis is based on four empirical studies: the first two examining children’s language use, i.e. the role of aesthetic judgements and the significance of spontaneous metaphors while learning science and the latter two dealing with how art activities mediate what elementary school children learn in science and what a variety of (...) art activities with different purposes afford elementary school children to learn in science. The theoretical stance emanates from pragmatist theories and includes Dewey’s definition of an aesthetic experience, Wittgenstein’s later work on language-games, and socio-cultural perspectives. The analytic approach used is a practical epistemology analysis developed by Wickman and Östman. The empirical data consists of audio- and video recordings of elementary school children’s (aged 6–10 years) discussions in pairs or small groups during science lessons and photographs of children’s pictures, sculptures and poems from a total of 14 different elementary school classes. The main findings of the empirical studies show how aesthetic meaning-making is continuous with elementary school children’s scientific learning. The thesis shows how elementary school children’s aesthetic experiences are related to whole activities and are crucial for the direction that learning takes. Aesthetic experience is important in terms of how and what elementary school children learn aesthetically and normatively in science class, which has consequences for cognitive learning, the possibility of participating in science class and learning the genre of science. Moreover, it can be seen how children’s prior experiences are recurrently reconstructed and transformed through imaginative processes. (shrink)

Pupils' notes of some lectures on religious belief which Wittgenstein gave in 1938 have recently been published, and what I have to say is set against the background of these lectures. My title may suggest that there is a distinctive and precise account of religious belief which can be extracted from them and stated clearly for consideration. But I do not think that this is so. It is evident from these lectures that, in the subject of religious belief, Wittgenstein's prodigious (...) capacity for puzzlement, in which Moore recognised the marks of genius, found full scope. But, at many points, it is not clear to me, at any rate, just how he is resolving – or would resolve – the puzzlement. So I am most certainly not setting myself up to explain ‘what Wittgenstein really meant’. However, like everything which we have from him, these lectures are fascinating, suggestive, provocative. And, at some hazard, I am going to offer a few observations on one or two of the points which he was, or appears to have been, making. (shrink)

Kai Nielsen and Felicity McCutcheon have each in their own way taken issue with the received view that Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious language are to be construed as a form of “fideism”. They each provide sharply divergent views on Wittgenstein’s remarks on the meaning of religious language and, indeed, the importance of religion itself. These differences, however, serve to bring into relief both Wittgenstein’s recognition of the genuinely descriptive nature of ordinary religious discourse and his underlying political sensitivity. The paper (...) reflects on these differences in the the recent works of Nielsen and McCutcheon on Wittgenstein’s alleged fedeism.“…speak the old language… but speak it in a way that is appropriate to the modern world, without on that account necessarily being in accordance with its taste.” (Wittgenstein, 1980, 60e). (shrink)

While the causal contributions of so-called ‘automatic’ processes to behavior are now widely acknowledged, less attention has been given to their normative role in the guidance of action. We develop an account of the normativity of automaticity that responds to and builds upon Tamar Szabó Gendler's account of ‘alief’, an associative and arational mental state more primitive than belief. Alief represents a promising tool for integrating psychological research on automaticity with philosophical work on mind and action, but Gendler errs in (...) overstating the degree to which aliefs are norm-insensitive. (shrink)

Silence resides in the gaps between the known islands of explicit knowledge. Rather than expecting to build systems with complete information, we take a human-centred approach. Individual citizens need to be active, engage in dialogue and be aware of the importance of tacit knowledge. As societies, we recognise the incompleteness and inconsistency of our discourse.

In education issues to do with insider and outsider understanding arise in debates about religious education and about certain areas of research, and in argument about education for international understanding. Here I challenge the dichotomy between insider and outsider, arguing that a more collectivist view of human identity combined with elements of 'the self which we share with our fellows' means that we always stand in part as an insider and in part as an outsider in relation to others. I (...) argue further that 'understanding' needs always to be thought of in the plural, as a matter of 'understanding s ', since members of any community, and even any one individual, have different understandings at different times. Against what may seem the strong case in favour of the superiority or exclusivity of insider understanding, I note the force of claims in a variety of theoretical traditions (expressed notably in the Marxist tradition in the notion of 'false consciousness' and in psychoanalytic attention to the unconscious) concerning the limitations of the exclusively insider perspective and in contrast the particular authority of the outsider perspective. Finally, I acknowledge the discomfort with which people respond to outsiders' claims to understand them, especially where such understanding fails to support their own self-understanding, and identify ethical considerations, which might shape sensitive negotiation between insider and outsider perspectives. (shrink)

This paper examines Wittgenstein's conception of absolute safety in the light of two potential problems exposed by Winch. These are that, firstly: even if someone's life has been virtuous so far, the contingency of its remaining so until death vitiates the claim that the virtuous person cannot be harmed; and secondly: when voiced from a first-person standpoint, the claim to be absolutely safe due to one's virtuousness appears hubristic and self-undermining. I argue that Wittgenstein's mystical conception of safety, unlike some (...) others, requires no claim about one's own virtue and hence can be construed as avoiding these problems. (shrink)

An account of the relation between belief and practice is inseparable from a general theory of religion and religious discourse. Rejection of the one time popular, but now more or less defunct, nonrealist position of people such as D. Z. Phillips, Don Cupitt, and indeed Wittgenstein leaves contemporary theo rists in anthropology and the "history of religions" with basically the vastly different "literalist" and "symbolist" analyses of religion from which to choose. This article critically appraises John Skorupksi's influential defense of (...) intellectualism. I argue that his dismissal of symbolist approaches is more theoretically radical than he recog nizes. It rejects outright some of the very foundations and staples of contempo rary anthropology in, for example, Durkheim. His argument for the rejection of the symbolist approach is examined. Skorupski's defense of intellectualism is set in the context of a problematically naive understanding of the nature and function of religion. (shrink)

This article provides an introductory overview of the theories of Paul Virilio, particularly regarding how technologically-enhanced speed impacts human reality. It positions Virilio as part modernist, part postmodernist and discusses how his ethico-political views color his more aesthetic metaphysics, creating a tension in his final position on the merits of technological speed's blurring of the real and the imaginary. It concludes by contrasting Virilio's position with some comments on aesthetics by Ludwig Wittgenstein.

On the assumption that theistic religious commitment takes place in the face of evidential ambiguity, the question arises under what conditions it is permissible to make a doxastic venture beyond one’s evidence in favour of a religious proposition. In this paper I explore the implications for orthodox theistic commitment of adopting, in answer to that question, a modest, moral coherentist, fideism. This extended Jamesian fideism crucially requires positive ethical evaluation of both the motivation and content of religious doxastic ventures. I (...) suggest that, even though the existence of horrendous evil does not resolve evidential ambiguity in favour of atheism, there are reasonable value commitments that would preclude those who hold them from satisfying extended Jamesian fideist conditions for committing themselves to classical theism. I then begin a discussion of a possible revisionary theistic alternative (in the Christian tradition) which – one might hope – may meet those conditions. An earlier, shorter, version of this paper was delivered as a keynote address at the APA Pacific 2007 Mini-Conference on Models of God. (shrink)

In this thesis, I address the metaphysical question `What is humour?' and the ethical question `When is humour immoral?' Consulting a dictionary reveals a circle of definitions between `amusement', `funniness', and `humour'. So I split the metaphysical question `What is humour?' into three questions: `What is amusement?', `What is funniness?' and `What is humour?' By critically analysing then synthesising recent research in philosophy, psychology and linguistics, I give the following answers: x amuses y if and only if: y is in (...) a non-serious, non-threatened, non-goal-directed state. y simultaneously activates two incompatible interpretations of x via unsound logic. sufficiently increases the psychological arousal of y. x is funny if and only if x merits amusement. x is humour if and only if the function of x is to merit or elicit amusement. Similarly, I split the ethical question `When is humour immoral?' into three questions: `When is amusement immoral?', `How does immorality affect funniness?' and `When is humour immoral?' By using, and, I give the following answers: Amusement is immoral when the correct theory of normative ethics defines, or to be immoral. Immorality negatively affects funniness. Humour-types are not subject to moral evaluation. Humour-tokens are immoral when the correct theory of normative ethics defines them to be immoral. This thesis contributes to the knowledge of the subject in two ways. First, by critically analysing and synthesising recent inter-disciplinary research, provides a more precisely specified definition of amusement than that in the philosophical literature. Second, research on humour, across all disciplines, conflates the three closely related but distinct concepts of humour, amusement and funniness. By providing a linear sequence of definitions,, and avoid the conceptual confusions that commonly occur. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Despite all fundamental divergences, the similarities formed between some interpretations of the later-Wittgenstein’s philosophy of religion and the tradition of Islamic Mysticism, can yet be philosophically recognized. These basic analogies are as follows: 1) The inextricability of belief and practice and the priority of practice over knowledge 2) The characterization of the core religious beliefs as the primal ground of man’s perception and understanding, in contrast to the view that considers fundamental religious beliefs as theoretical conclusions derived from purely (...) rational courses of reflection 3) A new practice-laden narrative of religious realism. Given that, one can even shed a new Wittgensteinian light on even the most abstract and metaphysical elements of the mystical worldview. If fundamental religious beliefs are interpreted not as metaphysical doctrines but as a set of descriptions arising from a specific form of practical life, then the ability to see a sort of transcendent and sacred unity in the whole universe will be based on a way of purposive engagement and wayfaring in the natural and social world. (shrink)

Pilate asked an important and pertinent question of Jesus regarding truth. A simple answer to his question would be ‘a statement is true only if it says what is the case.’ What that means, however, is another matter. By exploring options, I hope to elucidate some common disagreements among believers and non-believers, as well as squabbles between different religious positions. While most attention will be given to examples within Christianity, similar sorts of disagreements also occur in other religions. It is (...) hoped that exploring such options will also help contribute to improved dialogue among the various contenders. (shrink)

Is a philosophical theory needed to ‘underwrite’ attitudes of toleration and respect in a multicultural and religiously diverse world? Many philosophers of religion have thought so, including Victoria Harrison. This article interrogates Harrison’s theory of internalist pluralism, which, though offering a welcome alternative to other theories, such as John Hick’s ‘pluralistic hypothesis’, nevertheless faces problems. Questioning the coherence of the theory’s account of how the existence of objects of worship can avoid being fully conceptual-scheme dependent, and raising doubts about its (...) pretensions to promote interreligious harmony, I also critically discuss the common philosophical tendency to work with under-described and insufficiently analysed examples. What philosophy ought to be able to offer in relation to religious diversity, I propose, is attentiveness to nuances and particularities, thereby aiding religious understanding without the need for a general theory. (shrink)

This article first surveys the established views on Wittgenstein's relation to analytic philosophy. Next it distinguishes among different ways of defining analytic philosophy—topical, doctrinal, methodological, stylistic, historical, and the idea that it is a family‐resemblance concept. It argues that while certain stylistic features are important, the historical and the family‐resemblance conceptions are the most auspicious, especially in combination. The answer to the title question is given in section 3. Contrary to currently popular “irrationalist” interpretations, Wittgenstein was an analytic philosopher in (...) all phases of his career, albeit an exceedingly exotic one whose style transcends the limits of academic philosophy in general. On the historical understanding he qualifies because he was influenced by and in turn influenced mainly analytic philosophers. On the family‐resemblance conception he qualifies both because he developed and employed logico‐linguistic analysis and because he initiated the linguistic turn and the distinction between philosophy and science that characterizes one important strand in analytic philosophy. (shrink)

I hope to clarify and explicate an account of how a creature comes to be brought into the space of reasons – that is, comes to take its place as a rational agent in social practices. My ultimate interest, however, is with a tension apparently generated by the emphasis on training coupled with this attack on cognitivism. If one’s coming to maturity depends on one being embedded in a practice, so that one comes to adopt, with ‘comfortable certainty’, the common (...) ground of that practice’s language games, then there seems to be no position from which to frame a critique of a practice. (shrink)

The essay defends praying with images against those who claim this type of prayer is objectionable. The hermeneutical defence consists of three arguments. First I observe that people relate to ordinary photos in ways that cannot be explained in terms of the image's sign-value alone. Second, I develop an account of praying with images as a form of symbolic practice. Finally, in order to bolster my account, I compare icons with a particular class of symbolic objects, viz. relics. The general (...) idea I put forward is that icons have to be understood as expressions of the reality they represent, and not simply as accurate or inaccurate visual representations of that reality. Icons are not created by human hands; instead, the hand of the painter is the instrumental cause of God's self-expression, via the painter, on the canvas. (shrink)

In this paper the concept of knowledge in seen as embodying dialogue and learning in a shared practice. Sharing a practice involved sharing representations of practice. This necessitates the sharing of experiential knowledge at various levels and in various forms. It is proposed that participatory design can therefore be seen as consisting in dialogue and learning for the development of future practices and representations. The discussion in this paper is situated within the domain of landscape architecture. A study is made (...) of their co-operative practices, which are evolved, in order to show the need for participatory embodied activity (whether expressed verbally or physically) in sharing practical knowledge (e.g. of aesthetic judgement). (shrink)

My thesis is original in placing together Wittgenstein's ideas of how language works, and arguments for the philosophical significance of the embodied and relational figure of the mother. I both use and resist a Wittgensteinian therapy to overcome the problem of the forgetting of the mother in philosophy. I begin with the problem of essentialism, important to Wittgenstein and to feminist philosophy. My reading of Wittgenstein finds an ignored lacuna between language and experience. I add in to the debate the (...) type specimen approach from botany. Adopting this approach enables me to avoid a classification which requires a true inner essence to mothering, and provides a way for me to denote the significant place of the language games of mothering in language games about women. I argue for a different symbol of the mother. I agree with Wittgenstein's account of language, but add to it. I show the importance of Wittgenstein's insight that although meaning is not fixed independently of use, use does not fix meaning in that I create new meanings for the figure of the mother. I argue, through an exploration of Wittgenstein's concept of `übersichtlichen Darstellung ; that Wittgenstein can help us to see the phenomena of our life differently, in a way that makes space for understanding female difference. His concept of a form of life provides such openings. As the Wittgensteinian agent seems distinctly un-female, I bring in the philosophy of Kierkegaard in my argument for a different relational self as mother. I argue for a Kierkegaardian flexible maternal self with mobile edges. I insert the language games of the mother into Kierkegaard's writing on women. My aim is a more adequate representation of a reality. I use the work of John Wisdom to make a bridge between Wittgenstein and the narrative form, which I use throughout. Wisdom's strategy is to engage in unconventional reflection in looking for new ways of telling philosophical stories, and in finding new patterns of meaning in the familiar. I claim that the narrative form enables me to express the shifting essence of the mother and the diversity of mothers; and to acknowledge the silences which are part of the mother's story. My aim in this thesis is creative. I use Wittgenstein to create a new kind of relation to philosophy. I do not offer a correct reading of Wittgenstein or Kierkegaard. Instead, aided by the insights provided by feminist philosophy, I write in the language games of the mother to their ideas. Thus, I bring into existence through utterance a different, feminist philosophical symbol of the mother. (shrink)

This paper discusses the viability of claims of mathematical beauty, asking whether mathematical beauty, if indeed there is such a thing, should be conceived of as a sub-variety of the more commonplace kinds of beauty: natural, artistic and human beauty; or, rather, as a substantive variety in its own right. If the latter, then, per the argument, it does not show itself in perceptual awareness – because perceptual presence is what characterises the commonplace kinds of beauty, and mathematical beauty is (...) not among these. I conclude that the reference to mathematical beauty merely expresses the awe in the mathematician about the intricate complexities and simplicity of certain proofs, theorems or mathematical “objects.”. (shrink)

Is it possible to show that a moral claim is mistaken without taking a moral stand with regard to it? A striking number of contemporary metaethicists suppose that it is. In this paper, I argue against a prominent line of support for this supposition. My goal is to cast suspicion on a general tendency to think that the epistemic standing of moral claims is something that can be assessed from outside the practices of making and critically evaluating moral judgements. I (...) do this by focusing on a widely accepted criterion of competence with regard to the use of moral concepts, the moral supervenience criterion (MSC). This criterion holds that someone who judges two acts or events to be morally different without thinking that he has to identify some non-particular non-moral difference between them simply doesn't understand what it is to make a moral judgement. I focus on a paradigmatic example of the sort of mistake in moral judgement that is supposed to support the MSC and argue that it provides no support whatsoever. I then offer my own alternative explanation of this sort of mistake in moral judgement. I conclude with a discussion of why advocates of the MSC are inclined to suppose that it is possible to assess the epistemic standing of a moral claim without oneself taking a moral stand with regard to it. (shrink)

Wittgenstein in his later years thought about experiences of meaning and aspect change. Do such experiences matter? Or would a meaning- or aspect-blind person not lose much? Moreover, is this a matter of aesthetics or epistemology? To get a better perspective on these matters, I will introduce distinctions between certain subjective and objective aspects, namely feelings of our inner psychological states versus fine-tuned objective experiences of the outer world. It seems to me that in his discussion of meaning-blindness, Wittgenstein unhappily (...) floats between these two extremes, the subjective and the objective. I will also introduce some notions from Kant's aesthetics, to get a better understanding of the interplay between feeling and meaning. This will shed some new light on Wittgenstein's enquiry into meaning- and aspect-blindness. (shrink)

In this paper, a Wittgensteinian account of the human sciences is constructed around the notions of the surface of human life and of surface phenomena as expressions. I begin by explaining Wittgenstein's idea that the goal of interpretive social science is to make actions and practices seem natural. I then explicate his notions of the surface of life and of surface phenomena as expressions by reviewing his analysis of mental state language. Finally, I critically examine three ideas: (a) that the (...) goal of interpretive inquiry is realized through a descriptive, context-constructing method that enables investigators to grasp the instincts, mental states, and experiences (Geist) expressed in surface phenomena; (b) that uncovering rules plays a minor role in this enterprise; and (c) that surface phenomena not only can be made natural but also have causes and are subject to causal explanation. (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)

This paper discusses the meta-ethical implications of Wittgenstein’s later moral philosophy. According to Lovibond and Brandhorst, Wittgenstein provided a novel conception of moral facts, properties and objects by adopting deflationism. Lovibond argues that Wittgenstein’s seamless conception of language together with his non-foundational epistemology and non-transcendent understanding of rationality involves a change of perspective towards a plausible and non-mystificatory moral realism. Meanwhile, Brandhorst argues that Wittgenstein’s provides a deflationist conception of moral truths from which we obtain a deflationist conception of moral (...) facts. This paper argues, on the contrary, that the attribution of deflationism does not do justice to Wittgenstein’s later work. It is concluded, therefore, that the appeal to deflationism does not afford or substantiate the exegetical claims made by Lovibond and Brandhorst. (shrink)

Are we really sure to correctly know what do we feel in front ofan artwork and to correctly verbalize it? How do we know what weappreciate and why we appreciate it? This paper deals with the problem ofintrospective opacity in aesthetics (that is, the unreliability of self-knowledge) in the light of traditional philosophical issues, but also of recentpsychological insights, according to which there are many instances ofmisleading intuition about one’s own mental processes, affective states orpreferences. Usually, it is assumed that (...) aesthetic statements are intuitivelyclear and self-evident. However, a long tradition in psychological researchhas called the idea of introspective transparency and the infallibility of self-knowledge into question (Wilson 2002). This topic has only recently beenrecognized as an interesting problem in aesthetics (Melchionne 2011, Irvin2014). In this paper I will discuss the main shortcomings in introspective self-knowledge, mostly referring to psychological findings. As a consequence, thedevelopment of a folk psychological account of aesthetic experience could beneeded, investigating how people develop intuitive and naïve theories abouttheir aesthetic reactions, taste, and feelings, distinct from a more objectiveand empirically grounded account of how judgment and preferences areactually formed in ourselves, even on a neurobiological level. However, itwill also be argued that bypassing the individual judgment and his expressedchoices in favor of allegedly more objective levels of description would notbe an innocent step to take. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to explore Swedish junior high school students meaning-making of participating in exergaming in school based on their aesthetic judgments during game play. A transactional approach, drawing on the work of John Dewey, was used in the study and the data consisted of video- and audio recordings of ongoing video gaming. A practical epistemology analysis was used in order to explore the students’ meaning-making in depth. When analyzing the data, the importance of performing well in (...) relation to the challenges the game offers; developing techniques suitable for the game; and interacting socially with one’s peers emerged as main themes in the students’ meaning-making and learning. It was clear that the students’ taste for gaming played a crucial role in how they proceeded in the activity and that meaningful gaming included an intrinsic combination of pleasure and displeasure. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the incessant call to theory that is evident in fallacy inquiry. I relate the motivations for this call to a desire to attain for fallacy inquiry certain attributes of the theoretical process in scientific inquiry. I argue that these same attributes, when pursued in the context of philosophical inquiry in general and fallacy inquiry in particular, lead to the assumption of a metaphysical standpoint. This standpoint, I contend, is generative of unintelligibility in philosophical discussions of (...) rationality. I claim that this same unintelligibility can be shown to characterise fallacy inquiry, an example of the study of argumentative rationality. The context for my claim is an examination of the theoretical pronouncements of two prominent fallacy theorists, John Woods and Douglas Walton, in relation to the argument from ignorance fallacy. My conclusion takes the form of guidelines for the post-theoretical pursuit of fallacy inquiry. (shrink)