volume 19, no. 25 Wittgenstein used to say to me, “Go the bloody hard way”; and july 2019 he would write this in letters as well.1 I remember this more of- ten, perhaps, than any other single remark of his. He might have added something like …: “Otherwise you will never be able to do what you want to do. There is … something important in go- ing … against the tendency to seek comfort or stimulus in this Honesty, Humility, or that.” — Rush Rhees2 Wittgenstein writes: “you can’t think decently if you don’t want to hurt yourself …”3 This was … something he said in one way or another to any of his pupils who were close to him … Courage, & Strength: [P]hilosophy for Wittgenstein was a source of suffering… [a] nd… you could not be intimate with him without knowing that 4 Later Wittgenstein on the Difficulties of this was so. — Maurice O’Connor Drury If, at the end, no visible traces of your influence remain in my Philosophy and the Philosophical Virtues thought, which is extremely unlikely, so shall I at least always have to acknowledge that I learnt from you, how difficult phi- losophy must be, if it is to be more than a collection of materi- als for academic controversy and learned conversation. — G.H. von Wright to Wittgenstein (WC:414) One of the things which sets Wittgenstein apart from many other phi- Gabriel Citron losophers is that he does not just try to point out where and in what Princeton University 1. See, for example, WC:371. (A key to all the bibliographic abbreviations can be found at the end of the paper.) 2. Rush Rhees, ‘The Study of Philosophy’, in his Without Answers, London, Rout- ledge & Keegan Paul, 1969, p. 169. This quotation also opens the paper by James Conant which provided the early impetus for my thoughts on these matters (see his ‘On Going the Bloody Hard Way in Philosophy’, in The Possibilities of Sense, ed. John H. Whittaker, Houndmills, Palgrave, 2002, pp. © 2019 Gabriel Citron 85–129). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons 3. WC:370. Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License. 4. Maurice O’Connor Drury, The Selected Writings of Maurice O’Connor Drury on Wittgenstein, Philosophy, Religion and Psychiatry, ed. John Hayes, London, <www.philosophersimprint.org/019025/> Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 212–3 [Letter to Rush Rhees, Spring 1966]; I have silently corrected a typo. gabriel citron Honesty, Humility, Courage, & Strength ways we go wrong in our thinking, but — like Kant, Nietzsche, and It was likely with this insight in mind that Wittgenstein stressed to Heidegger — he also has a lot to say about why we go wrong in the Maurice Drury in 1930 that “the distinction between a philosopher ways we do. Wittgenstein’s diagnoses of the roots of our philosophical and a very clever man is a real one and of great importance” (F:III:195). missteps usually take a double form: first he identifies a “difficulty of At least one of the things which distinguishes a philosopher from philosophy” which tends to trip us up in our philosophizing, and then someone who is merely very clever is that the good philosopher — in he identifies a way of avoiding this difficulty, usually in the form of addition to various intellectual talents and skills — needs certain core certain qualities which would allow us to overcome the difficulty in virtues of character, which I will call the ‘philosophical virtues.’ It is question. these philosophical virtues — as well as the difficulties of the will that Broadly speaking, Wittgenstein distinguished between two kinds of make them necessary — which will be the subject of this paper. difficulty in philosophy: intellectual difficulties on the one hand, and In insisting upon the central importance of certain virtues of char- difficulties of the will on the other. And he thought that each of these acter in the practice of philosophy, Wittgenstein should be counted kinds of difficulty demands a different kind of quality to overcome it: a notable predecessor to contemporary virtue epistemologists of the the intellectual difficulties must be overcome by various intellectual ‘responsibilist’ variety.6 His approach, however, is both narrower and talents or skills, and the difficulties of the will must be overcome by broader than that of many virtue epistemologists. It is narrower be- various virtues of character. Of these two sets of philosophically helpful cause most of Wittgenstein’s remarks on this topic focus on those vir- qualities, Wittgenstein was clear as to which was the more important. tues relevant to ideal philosophical practice specifically, rather than to As he once said to Rush Rhees: ideal intellectual conduct across the board. On the other hand his en- gagement is also broader than that of most virtue epistemologists, be- [I]n philosophy character will often make up for a lesser cause in discussing the philosophical virtues he does not take himself degree of intellect and talent — whereas it doesn’t hold to be contributing merely to a particular sub-field of philosophy (viz. the other way: a more powerful intellect but want of char- epistemology), nor to a specific research program (viz. the analysis acter. “God give a man character: it will carry him over all of the concept of knowledge), but rather, to be investigating the pre- sorts of gaps and difficulties.” (WPCR:56–75) conditions of proper engagement in philosophy altogether. Moreover, 5. This relative weighting of character above intellect in the good practice of Wittgenstein’s investigations of the philosophical virtues are intended philosophy accounts for Wittgenstein’s consistent judgement of G.E. Moore to be practical: to guide himself and his students towards becoming as the preferable philosopher over Bertrand Russell (at least in Russell’s later years). Knut Tranøy, for example, recalled that on one occasion Wittgenstein better philosophers, and indeed better people. Thus, in discussing phi- “compared Russell and Moore, saying that although Moore only had a fraction losophy’s difficulties of the will and the virtues needed to overcome of Russell’s intellectual powers, Moore possessed something which Russell them Wittgenstein is addressing himself to all would-be philosophers had lost: sincerity. That is why, he added, one can still profitably discuss with Moore while it has not been possible for many years to do so with Russell” (F:IV:127). More pointedly, F.R. Leavis reported his impression that Wittgen- just how far a good character can genuinely take one in philosophy even in stein had once said to him: “Moore? – he shows you how far a man can go the absence of great talent. who has absolutely no intelligence whatsoever” (F:II:249). When this remark is understood in the context of Wittgenstein’s judgement of the greater im- 6. For an overview of contemporary virtue epistemology — including a sum- portance of character than intelligence in being a good philosopher, it turns mary of the differences between its responsibilist and reliabilist forms — see from a mocking disparagement of Moore’s philosophical achievements, into Heather Battaly, ‘Virtue Epistemology’, Philosophy Compass, 3:4 (2008), pp. a sincere and serious expression of admiration for Moore’s character and for 639–63. philosophers’ imprint – 2 – vol. 19, no. 25 (july 2019) gabriel citron Honesty, Humility, Courage, & Strength in the hope of making a genuine difference in their approach to, and his account of the virtues of character that are needed to overcome practice of, philosophy.7 those desires. Section 3 will address our distorting desires regarding Despite being obsessed with the philosophical virtues — and the philosophical form and the virtues needed to overcome them. Section degrees to which he and others did or did not embody them — Witt- 4 will then discuss Wittgenstein’s view of the place of the philosophi- genstein nowhere wrote about them in a systematic manner. Rather, in cal virtues in philosophical pedagogy. And finally, in Section 5, I will order to uncover his understanding of these virtues, we must engage consider how to take seriously the role played in our philosophizing in a speculative reconstruction of his position by gathering together by distorting desires and the philosophical virtues while avoiding the and organizing the many seemingly offhanded remarks which he left danger of having our philosophical disagreements devolve into the scattered throughout his notebooks, diaries, letters, and lectures, and exchange of merely ad hominem moral and psychological attacks. in reports of conversations he had with students and friends. When we do so, we find a small number of recurrent concepts and concerns, 1. Difficulties of the Will Regarding Philosophical Content and the emergence of a remarkably consistent and systematic position. The Big Typescript contains what could probably be considered the lo- The purpose of this paper is to set forth this position. cus classicus for Wittgenstein’s remarks on the difficulties of the will According to Wittgenstein, philosophy’s “difficulties of the will” de- regarding philosophical content: rive from the fact that many of us have strong desires which interfere [The] difficulty of philosophy [is] not the intellec- with our philosophizing and lead us astray. There are many ways that tual difficulty of the sciences, but the difficulty of these various desires could be categorized, but one helpful option is to a change of attitude. Resistance of the will must be divide them into two classes: desires regarding philosophical content, overcome: … [P]hilosophy … require[s] a resignation, and desires regarding philosophical form. The former class covers de- but one of feeling, not of intellect. And maybe that is sires to affirm particular philosophical positions or kinds of positions, what makes it so difficult for many… (…What makes a and the latter class covers desires to philosophize in particular styles subject difficult to understand… is the antithesis between or to undertake particular kinds of philosophical projects.8 Section 1 of understanding the subject and what most people want to what follows will sketch Wittgenstein’s understanding of our distort- see.