How to do Philosophy How to do Philosophy A Wittgensteinian Reading of Wittgenstein By Graham McFee How to do Philosophy: A Wittgensteinian Reading of Wittgenstein By Graham McFee This book first published 2015 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2015 by Graham McFee All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-7459-0 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-7459-5 CONTENTS Preface ........................................................................................................ ix Acknowledgements ................................................................................... xv Bibliographic Conventions for Wittgenstein’s Texts ............................... xvii Chapter One Wittgenstein’s Life and Legacy §1. Introduction ....................................................................................... 1 §2. Wittgenstein’s life .............................................................................. 2 §3. Wittgenstein’s fate in contemporary philosophy ............................... 5 §4. Structure of this book ........................................................................ 9 §5. Why attend to the texts? .................................................................. 16 §6. Availability of Wittgenstein’s texts ................................................. 20 Chapter Two Through Gordon Baker’s Spectacles: Minding Alternative Mind-Styles §1. Introduction ..................................................................................... 23 §2. Wittgenstein’s project: and three ‘errors’ identified? ....................... 28 §3. Baker’s context ................................................................................ 41 §4. Confronting the past of philosophy ................................................. 43 §5. The therapeutic conception ............................................................. 48 §6. Slow cure? ....................................................................................... 55 §7. An example of philosophy’s bewitchment … Freedom of the Will—Wittgenstein’s standpoint ............................ 57 §8. Some residual issues ........................................................................ 64 §9. Perspicuous representation .............................................................. 65 §10. Moving forward............................................................................... 71 vi Contents Chapter Three Making Sense of the Work; Finding a Way among the Texts §1. Introduction ..................................................................................... 76 §2. ‘Phases’ in the later philosophy? ..................................................... 79 §3. Being a Wittgenstein detective ........................................................ 81 §4. Thinking about ‘projected works’ ................................................... 88 §5. Some useful categories .................................................................... 95 §6. PI (Part One) ................................................................................... 99 §7. Below the line? .............................................................................. 101 §8. PI (Part Two) = PPF ...................................................................... 102 §9. Two cases for ‘special status’: BB & RFM ................................... 105 §10. Problematic works 1: PG (and BT) ................................................ 111 §11. Problematic works 2: Z, RPP II ......................................................113 §12. Self fulfilling prophesies (OC, ROC, LWPP II) and Conclusion ...116 Chapter Four The Last Writings, and the ‘Third Wittgenstein’ §1. Introduction ................................................................................... 120 §2. History of the material ................................................................... 121 §3. Some comments on the editing ..................................................... 125 §4. Some mysteries of Ms 169 ............................................................ 129 §5. Enter the ‘third Wittgenstein’ ........................................................ 132 §6. Considering the ‘third Wittgenstein’ ............................................. 134 §7. The problem of the texts ................................................................ 140 §8. Does OC have a distinctive topic?................................................. 146 §9. Is there a methodological break? ................................................... 148 §10. The upshot ..................................................................................... 155 Appendix: Behaving Resolutely? §1. Introduction ................................................................................... 157 §2. Some ideas from TLP .................................................................... 159 §3. Biographical information and the Resolute reading of TLP? ........ 164 §4. “My propositions”?: the Resolute reading..................................... 171 How to do Philosophy: A Wittgensteinian Reading of Wittgenstein vii Chapter Five Defending a Therapeutic Conception of Philosophy §1. Introduction ................................................................................... 175 §2. Elaborating some differences ........................................................ 177 §3. Taking issue ................................................................................... 182 §4. Wittgenstein and psychoanalysis ................................................... 190 §5. A model for philosophical therapy? .............................................. 193 §6. Contrasting pictures and confronting ‘mere’ possibilities ............. 198 §7. The impact of Baker’s Wittgenstein; or, How substantial are houses of cards? ....................................................................... 210 §8. Doing justice? ................................................................................ 213 §9. Where next? .................................................................................. 214 Chapter Six Privacy, Language and Understanding §1. Introduction ................................................................................... 217 §2. Locating the Private Language considerations .............................. 219 §3. Four strategies ............................................................................... 224 §4. Why is PLA taken as a reductio? ................................................... 231 §5. Peering into the text ....................................................................... 235 §6. The irrelevance of communication ................................................ 237 §7. A place for private ostensive definition? ....................................... 240 §8. Describing (and referring to) sensations ........................................ 242 §9. The limits of perplexity ................................................................. 247 §10. Some sources for Wittgenstein ...................................................... 252 §11. Making sense of the project ........................................................... 257 §12. And now for something completely different? .............................. 259 §13. Conclusion ..................................................................................... 268 Chapter Seven Envoi: Fending for Ourselves? §1. Introduction ................................................................................... 271 §2. Appreciating the performing arts................................................... 272 §3. Art and aspect-perception .............................................................. 281 §4. The problem of empathy in literature ............................................ 286 §5. What might be learned from inter-personal empathy? .................. 290 §6. Empathy and text-processing: some empirical considerations ...... 299 viii Contents §7. Empathy: what about Literature? .................................................. 303 §8. Empathy: the upshot ...................................................................... 309 §9. Conclusion ..................................................................................... 310 Appendix: Free Will—The Next Step? §1. Autobiographical preamble ............................................................311 §2. Setting the scene ............................................................................ 312 §3. What is determinism? .................................................................... 313 §4. An issue for philosophy? ............................................................... 317 §5. Causality and exceptionlessness .................................................... 320 §6. Entertaining interferers .................................................................. 322 §7. Causality and agency ..................................................................... 325 §8. Humanistic explanation ................................................................. 328 §9. Frege’s insight here ....................................................................... 331