BRITISH WITTGENSTEIN SOCIETY Newsletter Issue No 26 Editorial
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David Suchoff Family Resemblances: Ludwig Wittgenstein As a Jewish Philosopher the Admonition to Silence with Which Wittgenstein
David Suchoff Family Resemblances: Ludwig Wittgenstein as a Jewish Philosopher The admonition to silence with which Wittgenstein ended the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922) also marks the starting point for the emer- gence of his Jewish philosophical voice. Karl Kraus provides an instructive contrast: as a writer well known to Wittgenstein, Kraus’s outspoken and aggressive ridicule of “jüdeln” or “mauscheln” –the actual or alleged pronunciation of German with a Jewish or Yiddish accent – defined a “self-fashioning” of Jewish identity – from German and Hebrew in this case – that modeled false alternatives in philosophic terms.1 Kraus pre- sented Wittgenstein with an either-or choice between German and Jewish identity, while engaging in a witty but also unwitting illumination of the interplay between apparently exclusive alternatives that were linguistically influenced by the other’s voice. As Kraus became a touchstone for Ger- man Jewish writers from Franz Kafka to Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, he also shed light on the situation that allowed Wittgenstein to develop his own non-essentialist notion of identity, as the term “family resemblance” emerged from his revaluation of the discourse around Judaism. This transition from The False Prison, as David Pears calls Wittgenstein’s move from the Tractatus to the Philosophical Investiga- tions, was also a transformation of the opposition between German and Jewish “identities,” and a recovery of the multiple differences from which such apparently stable entities continually draw in their interconnected forms of life.2 “I’ll teach you differences,” the line from King Lear that Wittgenstein mentioned to M. O’C. Drury as “not bad” as a “motto” for the Philo- sophical Investigations, in this way represents Wittgenstein’s assertion of a German Jewish philosophic position. -
CRITICAL NOTICE Why We Need Ordinary Language Philosophy
CRITICAL NOTICE Why We Need Ordinary Language Philosophy Sandra Laugier, Translated by Daniela Ginsberg, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2013, pp. 168, £ 24.50. ISBN-13: 978-0-226-47054-2 (cloth). Reviewed by Derek A. McDougall Originally published in French in the year 2000, the English version of Sandra Laugier’s short book of 10 Chapters plus an Introduction and Conclusion, has a 7 page Preface, 9 pages of Notes, a brief Bibliography and 121 pages of actual text. The reading of Wittgenstein and Austin that she provides is distinctly Cavellian in character. Indeed, Stanley Cavell in a dust-cover quote, remarks that her work is already influential in France and Italy, exciting as it does a new interest in ‘language conceived not only as a cognitive capacity but also as used, and meant, as part of our form of life’. Cavell goes on to say that this new translation is not merely welcome but indispensable, and has at least the capacity to alter prevailing views about the philosophy of language, so affecting what we have come to think of as the ‘analytic-continental divide’. Toril Moi of Duke Uni., in another dust-cover quote, states that Laugier’s reading of Wittgenstein-Austin-Cavell shows how their claim that ‘to speak about language is to speak about the world is an antimetaphysical revolution in philosophy that tranforms our understanding of epistemology and ethics.’ She concludes with the thought that anyone who wishes to understand what ‘ordinary language philosophy’ means today should read this book. This is a large claim to make, and anyone who is inclined to read Wittgenstein and Austin strictly in their own terms, and with their own avowed intentions - where discernible - steadily in view, is almost bound to conclude that it is simply not true. -
6 X 10.5 Long Title.P65
Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-83843-6 - Seeing Wittgenstein Anew Edited by William Day and Victor J. Krebs Excerpt More information Introduction Seeing Aspects in Wittgenstein William Day and Victor J. Krebs To see and describe aspects in Wittgenstein (aspects of insight, of perspicuity, of profundity, etc.) is what any discussion of his writings, and in particular of the enigmatic Philosophical Investigations, attempts to do. It would be a cute pun, but a sad excuse for a book, if this vol- ume of new essays offered simply the promise of “seeing” and describ- ing “aspects” in Wittgenstein’s discussion of aspect-seeing. Having invited and then discussed the essays in the present volume with our contributors over a handful of years, we find that they offer more than that simple promise. At a minimum, they bring out a range of connections between Parts I and II of the Investigations that should interest Wittgensteinian scholars whose central concerns would oth- erwise seem untouched by the discussions of aspect-seeing in the Investigations and elsewhere. More than occasionally these essays open up novel paths across familiar fields of thought to anyone for whom, for example, the objectivity of interpretation, the fixity of the past, the acquisition of language, or the nature of human consciousness remain live issues. But a recurring discovery in the chapters that fol- low is that there is something to be found in his remarks on aspect- seeing that is crucial to, yet all but overlooked in, the reception of the later Wittgenstein. And since the fate of the reception of the later Wittgenstein remains tied to one’s reading of the Investigations, however broadened by the publication of subsequent volumes of his later writings, it matters that these essays also have something to con- tribute to that perennial, and perhaps most pressing, question in 1 © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-83843-6 - Seeing Wittgenstein Anew Edited by William Day and Victor J. -
The History of Russell's Pythagorean Mysticism
Reviews 175 THE HISTORY OF RUSSELeS PYTHAGOREAN MYSTICISM STEFAN ANDERSSON Theology and Religious Studies I University of Lund 5-223 62, Lund, Sweden [email protected] Ray Monk. Russell: Mathematics: Dreams and Nightmares. (The Great Philos ophers.) London: Phoenix, 1997. Paperbound. Pp. vi, 58. £2.00. CDN$4·99· ay Monk's short book on Russell is number seven in a series of books R called The Great Philosophers. Since there is neither a publisher's fore word nor an author's preface, the only suggestion concerning the content is the subtitle Mathematics: Dreams and Nightmares. For those familiar with Monk's earlier work on Wittgenstein and Russell and his understanding of the relationship between them, it will corne as no surprise that Monk has chosen this theme for his little book. His essay has two parts: 'The Pythagorean Dream" and "The Mathema tician's Nightmare". In the first part Monk describes the content, origin, and development of the Pythagorean dream up to Russell's discovery of his para dox. The second part is devoted to showing how the dream turned into a nightmare, mainly due to Wittgenstein's influence. Monk traces the origin of the dream back to an experience that Russell had at the age of eleven, when his older brother Frank gave him lessons in geometry. Russell described the experience as being "as dazzling as first love" and went on to say that from that moment until he finished Principia Mathe matica, written with his former teacher Alfred North Whitehead, "mathemat ics was my chief interest, and my chief source of happiness." What made geometry so attractive to Russell was that it purported to provide him and everyone else with knowledge that was so certain that no reasonable man could question its truth. -
Anarchism and Analytic Philosophy
CHAPTER 12 Anarchism and Analytic Philosophy Paul McLaughlin The Problem In order to discuss the relationship between “anarchism” and “analytic phi losophy,” I open with a statement of what I take these concepts to mean— or, rather, what I take the associated phenomena to be. Put bluntly, I take both phenomena to be both real and ideal. Thus, anarchism as such can be un derstood as both political movement (henceforth “Anarchism”) and political theory (henceforth “anarchism”). Similarly, analytic philosophy as such can be understood as both intellectual tradition (henceforth “Analytic Philosophy,” or “AP” for short) and theoretical procedure (henceforth “analytic philosophy” or “ap” for short). Interesting questions can be asked about the relationship be tween Anarchism and anarchism.1 However, in this chapter I have nothing to say about Anarchism: doing so would contribute little (if anything) to our un derstanding of the relationship between anarchism as such and analytic phi losophy as such. As for the relationship between AP and ap, this will be taken up below, since it informs our understanding of the relationship between an archism and analytic philosophy as such. In this chapter, in other words, I discuss the relationship between anar chism (a specific political theory) and both AP (a specific intellectual tradi tion) and ap (a specific theoretical procedure). There is little to be said about the relationship between either AP or ap and Anarchism (a specific political movement) so this political movement is left out of the subsequent account. But what I hope to demonstrate with respect to the relationship between an archism and AP is that such a relationship exists, however limited, and that it may be of some interest from a strictly historical point of view. -
The Philosophical Development of Gilbert Ryle
THE PHILOSOPHICAL DEVELOPMENT OF GILBERT RYLE A Study of His Published and Unpublished Writings © Charlotte Vrijen 2007 Illustrations front cover: 1) Ryle’s annotations to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus 2) Notes (miscellaneous) from ‘the red box’, Linacre College Library Illustration back cover: Rodin’s Le Penseur RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT GRONINGEN The Philosophical Development of Gilbert Ryle A Study of His Published and Unpublished Writings Proefschrift ter verkrijging van het doctoraat in de Wijsbegeerte aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen op gezag van de Rector Magnificus, dr. F. Zwarts, in het openbaar te verdedigen op donderdag 14 juni 2007 om 16.15 uur door Charlotte Vrijen geboren op 11 maart 1978 te Rolde Promotor: Prof. Dr. L.W. Nauta Copromotor: Prof. Dr. M.R.M. ter Hark Beoordelingscommissie: Prof. Dr. D.H.K. Pätzold Prof. Dr. B.F. McGuinness Prof. Dr. J.M. Connelly ISBN: 978-90-367-3049-5 Preface I am indebted to many people for being able to finish this dissertation. First of all I would like to thank my supervisor and promotor Lodi Nauta for his comments on an enormous variety of drafts and for the many stimulating discussions we had throughout the project. He did not limit himself to deeply theoretical discussions but also saved me from grammatical and stylish sloppiness. (He would, for example, have suggested to leave out the ‘enormous’ and ‘many’ above, as well as by far most of the ‘very’’s and ‘greatly’’s in the sentences to come.) After I had already started my new job outside the academic world, Lodi regularly – but always in a pleasant way – reminded me of this other job that still had to be finished. -
IS THERE ANYTHING IT IS LIKE to BE a BAT? Philosophie Der Von P.M.S
e-Journal IS THERE ANYTHING IT IS LIKE TO BE A BAT? Philosophie der von P.M.S. Hacker (Oxford) Psychologie 1. Consciousness and qualia The concept of consciousness has been the source of much philosophical, cognitive scientific and neuroscientific discussion for the past two decades. Many scientists, as well as philosophers, argue that at the moment we are almost completely in the dark about the nature of consciousness. Stuart Sutherland, in a much quoted remark, wrote that 'Consciousness is a fascinating but elusive phenomenon; it is impossible to specify what it is, what it does, or why it evolved.'1 Cognitive scientists, such as Phillip Johnson-Laird, aver that 'no one knows what consciousness is, or whether it serves any purpose'.2 Leading neuroscientists have gone so far as to suggest that 'Perhaps the greatest unresolved problem ... in all of biology, resides in the analysis of consciousness.'3 And David Chalmers proclaims that our ignorance may be 'the largest outstanding obstacle [to] a scientific understanding of the universe'.4 There are, no doubt, many problems concerning consciousness. Some are empirical problems amenable to scientific investigation. Others are conceptual problems, which can be tackled only by means of conceptual analysis. Distinguishing the two kinds of problem is important, for when a conceptual problem is confused or conflated with an empirical one, it is bound to appear singularly intractable — as indeed it is, for it is intractable to empirical methods of investigation. Equally, when an empirical problem is investigated without adequate conceptual clarity, misconceived questions are bound to be asked, and misguided research is likely to ensue. -
Else M. Barth What Has Happened to the Science of Logic, to Logic As An
Else M. Barth properties in the individual).' To say that Maritain's book, Petite logique, was influential is an understatement. By 1933 it had been reprinted ten times. At his death in 1973 it was made c1ear that his Introduction influence on the very highest echelons of the Catholic church had been direct and monumental, the then Pope c1aiming him as his own philosophical inspiration. However, some time after completing (with A.N. Whitehead) the Principia mathematica, Russell, the most widely influential of the logical revisionists in the first part of the century, had abandoned What has happened to the science of fundamental logica I research and had left logic, to logic as an academie discipline the scene to a younger man, the Austrian and pursuit? Though the diagnoses do not Ludwig Wittgenstein. It is known that this coincide, many agree that something has was preceded by Wittgenstein's gone seriously wrong. Some blame the philosophy of logical truth as 'tautologi technique and goal of formalization, or of eal'. algebraization and 'model theory'. Some And the logic-politics combination blame the take-over by mathematicians as disappeared - for a long time. Post hoc, such. Others blame the period of logica I ergo propter hoc? I believe the explanation positivism, or a background in Protestant is more involved. A full explanation also or Jewish religion. Quite a few regard it as has to cover other eminent politically a purely psychological question, blaming oriented logicians. For example, why did those who are drawn to logic as a profes the impact of the brilliant logical analyses sion as lacking in ordinary linguistic of German idealism by the author of proficiency, or in social and com Progress and Regress in Ph ilosophy , the municative skills, and hence in cultural German philosopher-mathematician consciousness. -
The Method of the Tractatus
The Method of the Tractatus Nikolay Milkov, Bielefeld 1. Radical Philosophers Despite this marked difference between the two parties, A few years ago, a group of American philosophers, Cora they have something in common. Both assume that at the Diamond and James Conant among them, suggested a bottom of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus lies Frege’s conception resolute, or radical reading of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. of saying/showing. In this, they follow Peter Geach (see These two authors claim that the Tractatus has a body, Geach 1976). My point of dissent is that, in fact, Wittgen- and a frame. Wittgenstein minded the frame seriously, stein’s Tractatus is rather a study of a completely different whereas all the remaining propositions of the Tractatus, kind from both Frege’s Grundgesetzte and from Russell– which belong to its body, are written tongue in cheek. To Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica. Its genre is not logic the frame of the work belong the Preface, §§3.32–3.326, but logical–philosophical meditations, or philosophical 4–4.003, 4.111–4.112 and 6.53–6.54. In it Wittgenstein reflections on the logical writings of Frege and Russell. gave meta-theoretical instructions how to treat the rest of This explains, among other things, why typical logicians, the book. The main idea of the frame is expressed in § such like C.I. Lewis, the Polish logicians, Whitehead, 6.54 which reads: “My propositions serve as elucidations in Quine and Hao Wang, didn’t held much of Wittgenstein’s the following way: anyone who understands me eventually logical–philosophical inquiries. -
Russell-Autobiography.Pdf
Autobiography ‘Witty, invigorating, marvellously candid and generous in spirit’ Times Literary Supplement Bertrand Russell Autobiography First published in 1975 by George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London First published in the Routledge Classics in 2010 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor and Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2009 The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation Ltd Introduction © 1998 Michael Foot All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-86499-9 Master e-book ISBN ISBN10: 0–415–47373–X ISBN10: 0–203–86499–9 (ebk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–47373–6 ISBN13: 978–0–203–86499–9 (ebk) To Edith Through the long years I sought peace, I found ecstasy, I found anguish, I found madness, I found loneliness, I found the solitary pain that gnaws the heart, But peace I did not find. -
AGAINST LINGUISTIC EXCLUSIVISM Søren Overgaard 1. Introduction
CHAPTER FOUR AGAINST LINGUISTIC EXCLUSIVISM Søren Overgaard 1. Introduction The aim of this chapter, broadly stated, is to clear away one major obsta- cle to constructive engagement between two traditions separated by the analytic-continental divide: what I will call linguistic philosophy (com- prising Oxford ordinary language philosophy as well as the philosophy of the later Wittgenstein and his followers) and phenomenology.1 The prominent Wittgensteinian Peter Hacker will be the main focus of my discussion. The chapter is motivated by the idea that there is something paradoxical about the fact that linguistic philosophers have shown little interest in any rapprochement with phenomenology. It is certainly not that they lacked opportunities. The notorious 1958 Royaumont Collo- quium, for example, which counted Ryle, Strawson, Urmson, and Austin among the speakers, and which was attended by phenomenologists such as H.L. Van Breda2 and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, was an abject failure. Ryle, who had previously published on both Husserl and Heidegger, and whom the other Oxonians no doubt regarded as something of an expert on phenomenology, took the opportunity to deliver a paper aptly entitled “Phenomenology versus ‘The Concept of Mind’.” In this highly polemical paper, Ryle caricatured Husserl and was tactless enough to accuse him of claims to philosophical “Führership” (Ryle 2009, 189). As Hans-Johann Glock has remarked, “Ryle seemed interested less in establishing whether there was a wide gulf between analytic and ‘Continental’ philosophy than in ensuring that there would be” (Glock 2008, 63). Nor did any of the other 1 Many prominent philosophers have made similar efforts to get the analytic and Con- tinental traditions talking to each other—including Cavell, Dummett, Føllesdal, Hintikka, and Putnam. -
Saul Kripke Pdf, Epub, Ebook
SAUL KRIPKE PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Alan Berger | 382 pages | 17 Aug 2011 | CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS | 9780521674980 | English | Cambridge, United Kingdom Saul Kripke PDF Book A: There are cases where it is better to divide. You must log in to post a comment. Retrieved Jump to: navigation , search. The Middle East The topic of our conversation changes somewhat. A former student wrote a novel where the main character seems to be modeled after Kripke. Kripke's main propositions in Naming and Necessity concerning proper names are that the meaning of a name simply is the object it refers to and that a name's referent is determined by a causal link between some sort of "baptism" and the utterance of the name. In contemporary discussion very few people, if any, distinguish between the concepts of statements being a priori and their being necessary. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. But Kripke has also been criticized. Main article: Naming and Necessity. Marcus, however, has refused to publish the verbatim transcript of the lecture. Although Kripke himself drew no conclusion on this point, his discussion was widely interpreted as a serious challenge to attempts to explain meaning in purely naturalistic terms. Kripke is an observant Jew. Kripke's response to this difficulty was to eliminate terms. Finally, Kripke gave an argument against identity materialism in the philosophy of mind, the view that every mental fact is identical with some physical fact See talk. So, the link between the property of being a murderer and the person referred to is contingent.