''The New Wittgenstein'' (2000) is a book containing a family of interpretations of the work of philosopher
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is con ...
. In particular, those associated with this interpretation, such as
Cora Diamond
Cora Diamond (born 1937) is an American philosopher who works on Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gottlob Frege, moral philosophy, animal ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of language, and philosophy and literature. Diamond is the Kenan Professor o ...
,
Alice Crary
Alice Crary (; born 1967) is an American philosopher who currently holds the positions of University Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Faculty, The New School for Social Research in New York City and Visiting Fellow at Regent's Park Colle ...
, and
James F. Conant, understand Wittgenstein to have avoided putting forth a "positive"
metaphysical
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
program, and understand him to be advocating philosophy as a form of "therapy." Under this interpretation, Wittgenstein's program is dominated by the idea that philosophical problems are symptoms of illusions or "bewitchments by language," and that attempts at a "narrow" solution to philosophical problems, that do not take into account larger questions of how the questioner conducts her life, interacts with other people, and uses language generally, are doomed to failure.
Overview
According to the introduction to the anthology ''The New Wittgenstein'' ():
Wittgenstein's primary aim in philosophy is – to use a word he himself employs in characterizing his later philosophical procedures – a ''therapeutic'' one. These papers have in common an understanding of Wittgenstein as aspiring, not to advance metaphysical theories, but rather to help us work ourselves out of confusions we become entangled in when philosophizing.
While many philosophers have suggested variants of such ideas in readings of the work of
later Wittgenstein, namely the author of ''
Philosophical Investigations
''Philosophical Investigations'' (german: Philosophische Untersuchungen) is a work by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, published posthumously in 1953.
''Philosophical Investigations'' is divided into two parts, consisting of what Wittgens ...
'', a notable aspect of the New Wittgenstein interpretation is a view that the work of
early Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrians, Austrian-British people, British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy o ...
, exemplified by the ''
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
The ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'' (widely abbreviated and cited as TLP) is a book-length philosophical work by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein which deals with the relationship between language and reality and aims to define th ...
'', and the ''Investigations'', are actually more deeply connected, and in less opposition, to each other than usually understood. This view is in direct conflict with the long-standing, if somewhat old-fashioned, interpretation of the ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'' advocated by the
logical positivists
Logical positivism, later called logical empiricism, and both of which together are also known as neopositivism, is a movement in Western philosophy whose central thesis was the verification principle (also known as the verifiability criterion of ...
associated with the
Vienna Circle
The Vienna Circle (german: Wiener Kreis) of Logical Empiricism was a group of elite philosophers and scientists drawn from the natural and social sciences, logic and mathematics who met regularly from 1924 to 1936 at the University of Vienna, ch ...
.
The
therapeutic approach
The therapeutic approach to philosophy sees philosophical problems as misconceptions that are to be therapeutically dissolved. The approach stems from Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Some noted philosophers who can be said to take a therapeutic approach a ...
of the New Wittgenstein scholars is not without critics:
Hans-Johann Glock Hans-Johann Glock (born 12 February 1960, Freudenstadt) is a German philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of Zurich.
Biography
Glock studied philosophy, German studies, and mathematics at University of Tübingen, University ...
argues that the "plain nonsense" reading of the ''Tractatus'' "is at odds with the external evidence, writings and conversations in which Wittgenstein states that the ''Tractatus'' is committed to the idea of ineffable insight".
There is no unitary "New Wittgenstein" interpretation, and proponents differ deeply amongst themselves. Philosophers often associated with the interpretation include a number of influential philosophers, mostly associated with (although sometimes antagonistic to) the traditions of
analytic philosophy, including
Stanley Cavell
Stanley Louis Cavell (; September 1, 1926 – June 19, 2018) was an American philosopher. He was the Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University. He worked in the fields of ethics, aesthetics, an ...
,
James F. Conant,
John McDowell
John Henry McDowell, FBA (born 7 March 1942) is a South African philosopher, formerly a fellow of University College, Oxford, and now university professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Although he has written on metaphysics, epistemology, ...
, Matthew B. Ostrow, Thomas Ricketts,
Warren Goldfarb
Warren David Goldfarb (born 1949) is Walter Beverly Pearson Professor of Modern Mathematics and Mathematical Logic at Harvard University. He specializes in the history of analytic philosophy and in logic, most notably the classical decision probl ...
,
Hilary Putnam,
Stephen Mulhall,
Alice Crary
Alice Crary (; born 1967) is an American philosopher who currently holds the positions of University Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Faculty, The New School for Social Research in New York City and Visiting Fellow at Regent's Park Colle ...
, and
Cora Diamond
Cora Diamond (born 1937) is an American philosopher who works on Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gottlob Frege, moral philosophy, animal ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of language, and philosophy and literature. Diamond is the Kenan Professor o ...
. Explicit critics of the "New Wittgenstein" interpretation include
P. M. S. Hacker, Ian Proops and Genia Schönbaumsfeld.
References
Further reading
* ''The New Wittgenstein'', eds. Alice Crary and Rupert Read. Routledge, 2000 ().
*
P. M. S. HackerWittgenstein, Carnap and the New American Wittgensteinians ''Philosophical Quarterly'' 53 (2003), pp. 1–23.
* Ian Proops
The New Wittgenstein: A Critique ''European Journal of Philosophy'' 9:3 (December 2001), 375–404.
* ''A Confusion of the Spheres: Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein on Philosophy and Religion'', Genia Schönbaumsfeld. Oxford University Press, 2007 ().
* ''Post-Analytic Tractatus'', ed. Barry Stocker. Ashgate Press, 2004 ().
{{DEFAULTSORT:New Wittgenstein
2000 non-fiction books
Books about philosophers