Wittgensteinian Exercises: Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations 3770567455, 9783770567454

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Wittgensteinian Exercises

Ästhetische Praxis Transdisziplinäre Perspektiven

Aesthetic Practice Transdisciplinary Perspectives Herausgegeben von/Edited by Lucilla Guidi, Andreas Hetzel, Thomas Lange, Fiona McGovern Wissenschaftlicher Beirat/Advisory Board Rolf Elberfeld, Monica Juneja, Susan Kozel, Bärbel Küster, Kirsten Maar, Annemarie Matzke, Mathias Obert, Eva Schürmann, Robert Schmidt, Ulf Wuggenig

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Lucilla Guidi (Ed.)

Wittgensteinian Exercises Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations

This volume is published within the Research Training Group “Aesthetic Practice” (University of Hildesheim Foundation)—funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG)—394082147/GRK2477. Cover Illustration: “Perspektive: Für W.”, Collage, © 2022 Jan Schönfelder—All rights reserved

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: http://dnb.d-nb.de All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. © 2023 by Brill Fink, Wollmarktstraße 115, 33098 Paderborn, Germany, an imprint of the Brill-Group (Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands; Brill USA Inc., Boston MA, USA; Brill Asia Pte Ltd, Singapore; Brill Deutschland GmbH, Paderborn, Germany; Brill Österreich GmbH, Vienna, Austria) Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau, V&R unipress and Wageningen Academic. www.fink.de Cover design: Evelyn Ziegler, Munich Production: Brill Deutschland GmbH, Paderborn ISSN 2749-7720 ISBN 978-3-7705-6745-4 (hardback) ISBN 978-3-8467-6745-0 (e-book)

To my father and his music

Table of Contents Wittgensteinian Exercises. An Invitation to the Readers . . . . . . . . . . . ix Lucilla Guidi

Section I Transformative Paths: Philosophical Exercises and Aesthetic Practices 1.

Are We Having Fun Yet? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Beth Savickey

2.

Projective Imagination. Therapy and Improvisation in Wittgenstein’s (and Cavell’s) Vision of Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Davide Sparti

3.

Frame and Framing as Transformative Practices: On the Parergonal Constitution of Artworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Eva Schürmann

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Wittgenstein—Philosophy as Aesthetic Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Katrin Wille

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Working on Oneself. Philosophical Exercises in Wittgenstein and Valéry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Andreas Hetzel

Section II Philosophical Exercises and Ethical Transformations 6.

The Dissolution of Philosophical Problems and the Transformation of Thinking  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Oskari Kuusela

7.

Transformative Thinking: Wittgenstein and Dewey on the Power of Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Jörg Volbers

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Between Captivity and Liberation: The Role of Pictures in Wittgenstein’s Philosophy  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Anna Boncompagni

9.

Wittgenstein and the Art of Conversing with Oneself: The Philosophical Investigations as a Book of Exercises  . . . . . . . . . 187 Lars Leeten

10. Resistances of the Will Must be Overcome: Wittgenstein on the Difficulty of Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Andrew Norris

section III Practicing Philosophy in a Wittgensteinian Spirit 11.

“Slab, I shouted, slab!” Gender Identities, Language, and Possibilities of Limitation and Liberation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 Anne-Marie Søndergaard Christensen

12. Að hugsa á íslensku og útlensku / Thinking in Icelandic and Foreign Tongues / Auf Isländisch und in Fremdsprachen denken . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 Logi Gunnarsson List of Contributors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299 Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

Wittgensteinian Exercises An Invitation to the Readers Lucilla Guidi “How much we are doing is changing the style of thinking and how much I am doing is changing the style of thinking and how much I am doing is persuading people to change their style of thinking.”1 This transformative dimension pervades Wittgenstein’s way of doing philosophy, which possesses a performative2 character and involves the participation of the readers. A Wittgensteinian account of philosophy does not therefore correspond to a theory. Rather, as Wittgenstein famously argues, philosophy embodies an “activity”3: “[i]t is much more […] a work on oneself. On one’s own conceptions. On how one sees things. (And what one expects of them.)”4 In this lifelong engagement with one’s own metaphysical expectations lies a transformative account of philosophy conceived of as a practice and an exercise. In the Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein also refers to these expectations as philosophical “requirements,”5 “bumps,”6 “illness,”7 “disorientations,”8 and “captivating pictures.”9 He invites the readers (and himself) to participate in an openended, therapeutic,10 and liberating ‘adventure’ across the paths of everyday 1 2

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief, ed. by Cyril Barrett, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007 (1966), p. 23. I employ the term with reference to Beth Savickey’s interpretation of Wittgenstein’s writings as “improvisatory exercises” for the readers so as to situate Wittgenstein’s philosophy within “performance philosophy,” putting it in continuity with aesthetic practices. For this performative account, see Beth Savickey, Wittgenstein’s Investigations: Awakening the Imagination, Switzerland: Springer, 2017. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. by Charles K. Ogden / Frank P. Ramsey, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1922 (1921), 4.112.s. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, trans. by Peter Winch, ed. by Georg H. von Wright / Heikki Nyman, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980 (1977), p. 24. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe et al., ed. by Peter M.S. Hacker / Joachim Schulte, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009 (1953), § 107. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 119. Cf. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 255. Cf. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations,  § 119: “A philosophical problem has the form: ‘I don’t know my way about.’” Cf. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 115. I refer here to the influential therapeutic reading of the Philosophical Investigations initiated by Stanley Cavell, The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and

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language-practices so as to make us (and himself) acknowledge immerwieder these inherited, philosophical preconceptions, i.e. the metaphysical illusion that what we really need is a fixed, ideal order of language that anchors our everyday practices from an external, theoretical point of view. Against “this preconception,” i.e. the dream of a pure language speaking from itself, Wittgenstein invites us “to turn the enquiry around […] on the pivot of our real need.”11 The difficulty of “turning around” the philosophical inquiry is not an “intellectual” one, but rather involves one’s own existential engagement with an open-ended self-transformative practice, since it means acknowledging one’s inherited “apparent needs”12 and unquestioned habits of thinking, so as to overcome one’s “resistance of the will” and thus “change […] attitude.”13 At the same time, this self-transformative practice means accepting that this metaphysical tendency cannot be eradicated once and for all, and that a “complete liberation”14—like a definitive orientation—is instead another philosophical requirement to become aware of.15 At issue is the task Tragedy, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. Cora Diamond summarizes Cavell’s pivotal impulse as follows: One of Cavell’s themes has been “how Wittgenstein’s writing on language brings to attention our responsibility for our words, for meaning what we say, and the connection of Wittgenstein’s methods, therefore, with understanding ourselves.” Cora Diamond, “On Wittgenstein,” in: Philosophical Investigations 24.2 (2001), pp. 108–115, here p. 114. On this therapeutic turn, see Davide Sparti, “Filosofia come cura. La svolta terapeutica nell’interpretazione di Wittgenstein,” in: Iride XIV.38 (2003), pp. 137–160. From this perspective, the goal of philosophy is not to give us “knowledge of empirical facts or of metaphysical super-facts, but knowledge of ourselves.” Silver Bronzo, “The Resolute Reading and Its Critics: An Introduction to the Literature,” in: Wittgenstein-Studien 3.1 (2012), pp. 45–80, here p. 49. 11 Cf. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 108. 12 I am here following Stanley Cavell’s reading of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investi­ gations § 108. See Stanley Cavell, “The Wittgensteinian Event,” in: Philosophy the Day after Tomorrow, Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, pp. 192–214. 13 See Section  86 of the Big Typescript: “Difficulty of Philosophy not the Intellectual Difficulty of the Sciences, b
 ut the Difficulty of a Change of Attitude. Resistance of the Will must be overcome.” Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Big Typescript: TS 213, German–English Scholars’ Edition, trans. and ed. by C. Grant Luckhardt / Maximilian A.E. Aue, Malden MA: Blackwell, 2005, p. 300e. 14 Cf. Cavell, “The Wittgensteinian Event,” p. 200. 15 Cf. Cora Diamond, “Criss-cross Philosophy,” in: Erich Ammereller / Eugen Fisher (eds.), Wittgenstein at Work: Method in the Philosophical Investigations, New York: Routledge, 2004, pp. 201–220. Cora Diamond quotes Simon Glendinning’s following ‘rewriting’ of the Investigations’ § 133: “We always say: ‘The real help here would be a map that would take us from A to B in a direct line—the one that misses out the mountains and forests.’— Instead, I will take you another way. I have no such map and we will stick to natural paths. But we should be able to take some breaks along the way.—And one of the things we will do, each time we get going along, is (in various ways) try to rid ourselves of the idea that

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of freeing oneself (again and again) from supposed certainties that function as presuppositions for established concepts,16 so as to find one’s own way and form one’s own voice. One might say that what is at stake is the lifelong transformative and explorative practice of self-formation—“without end.”17 It is not by chance that Pierre Hadot has emphasized that Wittgenstein’s philosophy rehearses a fundamental impulse from the ancient understanding of philosophy.18 As Hadot has underlined, philosophy was pursued, particularly in late Antiquity, as a practice, i.e. a self-transformative exercise (askesis) and a way of life. According to Hadot (and the late Foucault),19 philosophy was not conceived “as a theoretical construct, but as a method for training people to live and to look at the world in a new way,”20 a “spiritual exercise” which involves “[…] a transformation of our vision of the world and […] a metamorphosis of our personality.”21 Hadot frequently quotes Victor Goldschmitt’s formula according to which ancient philosophy intended to “form more than to inform.”22 Stanley

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20 21 22

what we really need is a map that takes us from A to B.” Simon Glendinning, “Philosophy as Nomadism,” in: Havi Carel / David Gamez (eds.), What Philosophy Is, London: Continuum, 2004, pp. 155–167, here p. 162. See on this point in this volume Andreas Hetzel, “Working on Oneself. Philosophical Exercises in Wittgenstein and Valéry,” in: Lucilla Guidi (ed.), Wittgensteinian Exercises. Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations, Paderborn: Brill/Fink, 2023, pp. 89–108, here p. 93. On the open-ended task of philosophy, see, for example, the following passage: “Disquiet in philosophy might be said to arise from looking at philosophy wrongly, seeing it wrong, namely as if it were divided into (infinite) longitudinal strips instead of into (finite) cross strips. This inversion in our conception produces the greatest difficulty. So we try as it were to grasp the unlimited strips and complain that it cannot be done piecemeal. To be sure it cannot, if by a piece one means an infinite longitudinal strip. But it may well be done, if one means a cross-strip.—But in that case we never get to the end of our work!— Of course not, for it has no end.” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Zettel, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe, ed. by G.E.M. Anscombe et al., Oxford: Blackwell, 1981 (1967), § 447. See Pierre Hadot, “Jeux de langage et philosophie,” in: Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 46.3 (1962), pp. 330–343, Pierre Hadot, “Réflexions sur les limites du langage à propos du ‘Tractatus logico-philosophicus’ de Wittgenstein,” in: Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, 64.4 (1959), pp. 469–484. See, for example, Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality. Volume 2: The Use of Pleasure, trans. by Robert Hurley, London: Penguin Books, 1992 (1984); Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality. Volume 3: The Care of the Self, trans. by Robert Hurley, London: Penguin Books, 1990 (1984). Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life. Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, trans. by Michael Chase, Oxford: Blackwell, 1995 (1981), p. 107. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, p. 82. See Pierre Hadot, What is Ancient Philosophy?, trans. by Michael Chase, ed. by Arnold I. Davidson, Belknap Press: Cambridge, MA, 2004 (1995), p. 6. Cf. Arnold  I. Davidson, “Introduction: Pierre Hadot and the Spiritual Phenomenon of Ancient Philosophy,” in: Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, pp. 1–45.

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Cavell refers to Wittgenstein’s philosophy as an “education of grownups. […] And for grownups this is not natural growth, but change.”23 Wittgenstein— in one of his numerous analogies—reflexively describes teaching philosophy “as giving to the pupil foods not because they are to his taste but in order to change his taste.”24 This transformative dimension is not only the content of this analogy, but analogies embody—among other tools—Wittgenstein’s transformative philosophical practices and exercises for the readers. Through the invention of analogies and examples, Wittgenstein invites us to participate in language-practices (i.e. language-games) and to “see […] connections,”25 so as to re-frame that which already lies “in plain view,”26 thereby transforming our way of seeing it. Philosophy does not discover new things: “it leaves everything as it is.”27 Instead, it triggers a change of attitude.28 From this perspective, the present volume explores and expands a Wittgensteinian account of philosophy as an ongoing practice and exercise so as to investigate both its aesthetic and ethical dimensions and to uncover their transformative potential for and within ordinary practices.29 The aesthetic and ethical dimensions 23 24 25 26 27 28

Cavell, The Claim of Reason, p. 125. Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, p. 25. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 122. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 89. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 124. It is worth noting that Wittgenstein’s method of “Übersichtliche Darstellung” is closely related to the theme of “aspect seeing,” which is systematically investigated in section xi of part II of the Investigations, also known as Philosophy of Psychology. A Fragment. This “modified concept of sensing” (Philosophy of Psychology. A Fragment, § 231) points to a practical “attitude,” i.e. “Einstellung”: “this is one meaning of calling it a case of ‘seeing.’” (Philosophy of Psychology. A Fragment, § 193). On the complex relationship between Wittgenstein’s method(s) and the theme of ‘aspect-seeing,’ see a.o. Stephen Mulhall, On Being in the World. Wittgenstein and Heidegger on Seeing Aspects, Routledge: New York, 1990; Avner Baz, Wittgenstein on Aspect Perception, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. On this topic, see in this volume Anna Boncompagni, “Between Captivity and Liberation: The Role of Pictures in Wittgenstein’s Philosophy,” in: Lucilla Guidi (ed.), Wittgensteinian Exercises. Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations, Paderborn: Brill/Fink, pp. 165–186. 29 This book overlaps with a number of studies on the transformative potential of Wittgenstein’s philosophy conceived of as practice, as well as with a number of contributions on the “practice turn” in philosophy by way of Wittgenstein (see, in particular, Fabian Goppelsröder / Jörg Volbers / Gunter Gebauer (eds.), Philosophie als “Arbeit an Einem selbst”, Paderborn: Fink, 2009; Theodore R. Schatzki et al. (eds.), The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, London: Routledge, 2001, and Thomas Bedorf / Selin Gerlek (eds.), Philosophien der Praxis, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019.) Furthermore, the present book takes advantage of (and in some cases critically discusses) the therapeutic reading of Wittgenstein’s philosophy developed by Stanley Cavell, Cora Diamond, James Conant, and others (see as representative examples the contributions included in Alice Crary /

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of philosophy, both conceived as transformative exercises, are the two intertwined threads explored in this volume. This book’s first thread examines the aesthetic dimension of Wittgenstein’s Investigations, and more generally that of the writings of his middle and late periods. These philosophical writings are full of descriptions, questions, jokes, dialogues, parables, and situations for the reader to participate in. They invite the reader to do something. This performative dimension is explicitly present in the use of the imperative, which characterizes Wittgenstein’s writings through and through. Such invitations take the form of explicit instructions such as “imagine,”30 “compare,”31 “look,”32 “describe the aroma of coffee,”33 and “move your arm to and fro.”34 They entail a collaborative and improvisatory dimension, since the readers are invited to perform and expand these philosophical exercises. Indeed, Wittgenstein explicitly calls them “exercises,”35 and invites the readers to enact them. Furthermore, these philosophical exercises possess a critical and therapeutic character since, on the one hand, they demystify and ‘destroy’ a metaphysical account of meaning as well as a number of Western, modern, Cartesian preconceptions which we have inherited and which inform our daily life, as well as our academic habits, i.e. the ways in which philosophy is taught, written, and performed in the universities. On the other hand, with these exercises Wittgenstein invites us (and himself) to engage in the

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Rupert Read (eds.), The New Wittgenstein, London: Routledge, 2000), so as to draw a number of connections between this therapeutic reading and a ‘performative’ one, which is concerned with the relation between Wittgenstein’s ‘performance philosophy’ and aesthetic practices. See, for example, Beth Savickey, “Wittgenstein’s Performance Philosophy,” in: Stefan Majetschak / Anja Weiberg (eds.), Aesthetics Today: Contemporary Approaches to the Aesthetics of Nature and of Arts. Proceedings of the 39th International Wittgenstein Symposium in Kirchberg, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2017, pp. 419–434. This volume further examines and expands the theme of aspect-seeing and the readers’ involvement in Wittgenstein’s philosophical practices, underlined in different ways in the contributions published in William Day / Victor J. Krebs (eds.), Seeing Wittgenstein Anew, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. For an example, see Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 4. These are only a few occurrences in the Philosophical Investigations,  §§ 66, 72, 78, 135. On this topic, see in this volume the chapter by Lars Leeten, “Wittgenstein and the Art of Conversing with Oneself: The Philosophical Investigations as a Book of Exercises,” in: Lucilla Guidi (ed.), Wittgensteinian Exercises. Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations, Paderborn: Brill/Fink, pp. 187–206. For example, Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §§ 66, 367. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 610. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 624. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 182.

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never-ending transformative task of acknowledging our “temptation”36 to transcend the ordinary, as Cavell calls it. This refers to the temptation to ground our ordinary life- and language-practices in well-founded principles so as to avoid their open and contingent dimension, and thus our responsibility as speakers. From this perspective, philosophy’s aesthetic dimension—i.e. how philosophy is written, its rhetorical form and style, and more radically how philosophy is performed—cannot be separated from the philosophical contents, i.e. the philosophical matter at stake.37 Herein emerges the intimate relation between philosophical and aesthetic practices: in both cases the ‘matter’ of research and its ‘method,’ i.e. its enactment, are constitutively entangled.38 From this point of view, the very practice of philosophy can be further conceived of as an aesthetic practice,39 since practicing philosophy means performing exercises in situations so as to draw conceptual differences, demystify naturalized embodied preconceptions, and explore one’s own relation to one’s self, others, and the situation at hand. This volume’s second thread investigates the transformative potential of philosophical exercises from an ethical perspective. Herein, ethics is not conceived of as a field of knowledge which determines a set of norms or defines ethical criteria from an external epistemic point of view. Neither is a teleological or deontological account of ethics under consideration here. Rather, at issue is a Wittgensteinian account of ethics conceived of as ethos in its etymological sense, and this means as a lifelong exercise which concerns the way in

36 Stanley Cavell, “The Availability of Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy,” in: Must We Mean What We Say? A Book of Essays, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969, pp. 41–67, here p. 65 f. 37 As Andreas Hetzel expresses this point with reference to a “rhetorical philosophizing,” in which he also classifies Wittgenstein’s philosophy: “In order to be convincing, a text requires more than logical-argumentative validity: it must effect and change something in its readers […]. At the same time, if it fulfills its philosophical claims and does not simply persuade or even manipulate, it must identify and elaborate the discursive practices implicit within itself and which the subject must perform in order to be able to speak the truth in her own name.” Gerald Posselt, Andreas Hetzel, “Rhetorisches Philosophieren,” in: Andreas Hetzel / Gerald Posselt (eds.), Handbuch Rhetorik und Philosophie, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017, pp. 1–20, here p. 12 (my translation). 38 This constitutive entanglement is both thematized and practiced at the University of Hildesheim in the Research Training Group “Aesthetic Practice,” as well as in study programs. See Rolf Elberfeld / Stefan Krankenhagen (eds.), Ästhetische Praxis als Gegenstand und Methode kulturwissenschaftlicher Forschung, Paderborn: Fink, 2017. 39 On this account of philosophy as aesthetic practice, see Katrin Wille, “Proust— Philosophie als ästhetische Praxis,” in: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 70.2 (2022), pp. 327–348.

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which one is related to oneself, to others, and to the world.40 This etymological and “ordinary”41 account of ethics is centered on the mattering quality of our ordinary ways of being: “(Fine shades of behavior.—Why are they important? They have important consequences.)”42 This ethical and transformative dimension of philosophical exercises is explored on the one hand with reference to Wittgenstein and William James as a way of perceiving and ‘seeing as’: it is a matter of sharpening one’s own sensibility and attention so as to acknowledge and change the metaphysical, inherited “pictures” which hold us captive. On the other hand, this ethical dimension is envisaged according to Wittgenstein and John Dewey’s practical account of reflection as a critical engagement with ourselves and with the world. This ethical and transformative dimension is further uncovered by drawing a number of parallels between Wittgenstein’s philosophy and the ancient understanding of philosophy conceived of as an exercise and way of life. Hence, by means of the exploration of similarities and differences between Wittgenstein’s modern, anti-Cartesian philosophical exercises and Hadot’s ancient spiritual exercises, as well as between Wittgenstein’s and Augustine’s confessions, an account of ethics as a never-ending critical conversation and existential confrontation with oneself, i.e. as an ongoing transformative ethos, is brought to light. Finally, this book addresses a difficult question: how can we articulate the practice of philosophy in a Wittgensteinian spirit? That is, what issues, methods, literary forms, and performative practices can shape further philosophical exercises? Where and how can we practice philosophy with (and beyond) Wittgenstein? This volume is structured in three sections. The first section—Transfor­ mative Paths: Philosophical Exercises and Aesthetic Practices—explores this book’s first thread; that is, the aesthetic dimension of Wittgenstein’s philosophy and its relation to particular aesthetic practices. The second section— Philosophical Exercises and Ethical Transformations—focuses on the second thread, i.e. the connection between Wittgenstein’s philosophical exercises and their transformative potential from an ethical point of view. The third section—Practicing Philosophy in a Wittgensteinian Spirit—sketches out two 40 On this etymological account of ethics as ethos, that is as an attitude, see also Michel Foucault, “Politics and Ethics: An Interview”, in: The Foucault Reader, trans. by Catherine Porter, ed. by Paul Rabinow, New York: Pantheon, 1984, pp. 373–380; and Michel Foucault, “What is Enlightenment?,” in: The Foucault Reader, trans. by Catherine Porter, ed. by Paul Rabinow, Pantheon: New York, 1984, pp. 32–50. 41 Veena Das, Texture of the Ordinary: Doing Anthropology after Wittgenstein, New York: Fordham University Press, 2020. 42 Wittgenstein, Philosophy of Psychology. A Fragment, § 192.

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exercises which expand Wittgenstein’s philosophical practice and its transformative potential both thematically and methodically: the first exercise addresses the relation between gender identities and language-practices, while the second carries out an experiment in thinking (and writing) in three languages—Icelandic, German, and English—so as to explore the mattering quality of philosophizing in a plurality of languages. 1.

Transformative Paths: Philosophical Exercises and Aesthetic Practices

The volume’s first section—Transformative Paths: Philosophical Exercises and Aesthetic Practices—focuses on two intertwined aspects. On the one hand, it investigates the aesthetic form of Wittgenstein’s philosophical texts so as to explore the use of comparison and instructions as a number of exercises to be enacted by the reader in order to uncover their collaborative, performative, improvisational, and therapeutic dimensions, thereby sketching out the transformative effects of exercising philosophy. On the other, in this section Wittgenstein’s philosophy is brought into dialogue with a number of aesthetic practices, such as improvisation in the performative arts, the processes of framing an artwork, and the practice of writing in Valéry’s Cahiers. In this section, philosophical exercises are conceived of, and put in relation with, aesthetic practice(s) so as to disclose their transformative potential. Beth Savickey’s opening chapter in particular deliberately does not take the form of an ‘academic paper,’ since it rather describes approaching Wittgenstein’s Investigations in a seminar with her students by performing and expanding one specific exercise that is found throughout Wittgenstein’s writings: that of replacing a mental process with a process of looking at an object, or by painting, drawing, or modeling. A red apple reflected in a mirror, a collage of printed slips of paper placed over a color photo, and computer code are just some of the aesthetic-philosophical exercises performed by the students. In this way, the students not only anticipated “Wittgenstein’s own techniques […] so as to include the creation or use of various kinds of pictures (both moving and still), as well as music and drama,”43 but the philosophical investigation gained clarity and relevance. Above all, “the students were having fun!” and fun proved capable of bringing out both aesthetic and ethical transformative effects: “aesthetically, […] the daily engagement with all forms of art expanded.” “Ethically, 43

Beth Savickey, “Are We Having Fun Yet?,” in: Lucilla Guidi (ed.), Wittgensteinian Exercises. Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations, Paderborn: Brill/Fink, pp. 3–17, here p. 5.

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[…] philosophy became collaborative and improvisational,” […] while “genuine self-expression replaced certain all-too-familiar habits of academic posturing.”44 Savickey further draws attention to the demystifying function of replacing ‘mental processes’ by looking at something (or drawing or modeling). Last but not least, she invites readers to perform a playful exercise based on the ancient liar paradox which results, according to traditional readings, in a self-contradiction, possessing the form: “This sentence is false.” By including in her text a number of name-tags, Savickey invites the readers to look at the tags and playfully explore different ways of using them so as to expand and perform a Wittgensteinian exercise together. I would like to join Savickey in inviting the readers to try this exercise and to have fun! Davide Sparti further investigates the transformative dimension of Witt­ genstein’s philosophy in this section’s second chapter. He emphasizes that in and through the Investigations—conceived of, following Savicky, as improvisational exercises for the reader—Wittgenstein invites us (and himself) to engage in the never-ending therapeutic task of changing our image of language, i.e. the ‘regimented view’ of language as a well-founded and fixed system of rules which works independently of us. On the one hand, Sparti draws attention to the never-ending therapeutic task of acknowledging our skeptical desire to secure our everyday language in a well-founded system of rules so as to reassure ourselves and avoid its open, contingent—and thus “groundless” and “terrifying”—dimension, as Cavell puts it.45 On the other hand, Sparti stresses, by way of Cavell and against this ‘regimented view,’ that using words means “projecting,” i.e. “throwing” them, into new contexts, and therefore that languageusages are not fixed but are rather “improvisatory, open, and vulnerable to unforeseeable turns,”46 since they are both sustained and changed by our personal and mutual responses as speakers. From this perspective, Sparti further explores similarities and dissimilarities between the improvisatory dimension of ordinary language-practices and the aesthetic practice of improvisation in the performative arts. While “contingency,” “situatedness,” and “secondary creativity,” i.e. the ability to “project” inherited usages or conventions into a new context so as to bring out un-fore-see-able (Lat. im-pro-video) turns, point to common improvisatory threads between the two, there is nonetheless a difference between innovation as “a byproduct of interactional contingencies” in 44 45 46

Savickey, “Are We Having Fun Yet?,” p. 15. Davide Sparti, “Projective Imagination. Therapy and Improvisation in Wittgenstein’s (and Cavell’s) Vision of Language,” in: Lucilla Guidi (ed.), Wittgensteinian Exercises. Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations, Paderborn: Brill/Fink, pp. 19–44, here p. 21. Sparti, “Projective Imagination,” p. 20.

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everyday language and “creatively-induced innovation” in performative arts, since jazz musicians or tango dancers are specifically marked by the ability to “allow the unexpected to take place.”47 A further aesthetic practice and its transformative potential is explored from a Wittgensteinian perspective in this section’s third chapter. Here, Eva Schürmann investigates the emergence of artworks by focusing on their framing conditions, which she addresses with the term ‘parergonality.’ She highlights that the ‘parergonal’ constitution of artworks consists in a specific modality of presentation. Thus, Schürmann considers artworks as various forms of “showing-as” in analogy with Wittgenstein’s “seeing-as.” From this point of view she explores one particular artistic work—Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s project Wrapped Reichstag—which took place in 1995. This artistic event was preceded by 24 years of preparations, discussions, and actions, as well as a parliamentary vote on the 25th of February, 1994. She describes the discursive practices which preceded the event as well as the activity of ‘wrapping’ as performative practices of “de-framing, in which all the common connotations of the building were virtually bracketed out”; the Reichstag “was de-contextualized […] and in this way re-framed in a new and uncommon way, [...] only thereby making it an artwork.”48 From this perspective Schürmann draws a parallel between Wittgenstein’s transformative philosophizing, which aims to ‘change our way of seeing,’ and the aesthetic practice of ‘showing-as’ conceived of as transformative de- and re-framing practices. In both cases, “the point is not to look somewhere else, but rather to look at the same thing differently, such that this thing can disclose another aspect of itself.”49 While Schürmann focuses on aesthetic practices of de- and re-framing from a Wittgensteinian perspective, Katrin Wille, in this section’s fourth chapter, sketches out and enacts—by co-performing a number of exercises entailed in the Investigations—an account of philosophy as aesthetic practice. The latter involves that which Wille describes as “exercising-knowledge,” i.e. an embodied epistemic mode which explores trained social practices by adopting the perspective of enaction. By drawing attention to the pervasive dimension of exercising in Wittgenstein’s texts of the middle and later periods, she underlines that philosophy itself turns into an aesthetic practice, since it designs situations and exercises in order to “remember, reimagine, or reenact trained 47 Sparti, “Projective Imagination,” p. 41. 48 Eva Schürmann, “Frame and Framing as Transformative Practices: On the Parergonal Constitution of Artworks,” in: Lucilla Guidi (ed.), Wittgensteinian Exercises. Aesthetic and Ethical Transformation, Paderborn: Brill/Fink, pp. 45–62, here p. 55. 49 Schürmann, “Frame and Framing as Transformative Practices,” p. 59.

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practices,”50 and in this way draws conceptual distinctions. Wille describes in particular a number of exercises which provide experiences of nonsense so as to possess “a correcting function with respect to any misconceptions that arise [...] in abstract thinking.”51 Moreover, by further co-performing Wittgenstein’s instructions, Wille shows that a further number of exercises allow the readers to become attentive to “micro-actions”52 and the qualitative difference between activities. Designing (and performing) further exercises in exemplary situations is the task that Wille ascribes to an account of philosophy as aesthetic practice, with and beyond Wittgenstein. In this section’s last chapter, Andreas Hetzel investigates from another perspective the intertwining between the aesthetic form, i.e. the style of philosophy conceived of as a practice and exercise, and its content so as to draw a number of parallels between Wittgenstein and Valéry’s self-transformative writing practices, as well as their conceptions of language. Hetzel emphasizes that both Wittgenstein and Valéry’s writing-processes question and progressively transform themselves as the author-subjects of their texts. Rather than working in a “systematizing manner, both prefer the open and small form, the form of the aphorism and the fragment” so as to leave “their readers to establish links between these fragments,” and thus invite them “to participate in parallel transformations.”53 While Valéry’s self-writing process—as he puts it in the Cahiers—are “Experiment, Sketches, Studies, Outlines, First Draft, Exercises, and Tentative Steps,”54 Wittgenstein kept notebooks which were not intended to be published but were rather embodied confessional self-writing processes, which he continued until his death. Moreover, Hetzel highlights a number of points of overlap between Wittgenstein and Valéry’s visions of language: for both a therapeutic and self-transformative practice of philosophy embody— among other shared aspects—a critique of metaphysical language as well as a conception of meaning as use. Hence, the critical task of philosophy, which for Wittgenstein lies in bringing our words back from their metaphysical to their ordinary use,55 is for Valéry the critical task of warning against “the deceptive

50 Katrin Wille, “Wittgenstein—Philosophy as Aesthetic Practice,” in: Lucilla Guidi (ed.), Wittgensteinian Exercises. Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations, Paderborn: Brill/Fink, pp. 63–88, here p. 65. 51 Ibid. 52 Wille, “Wittgenstein—Philosophy as Aesthetic Practice,” p. 85. 53 Hetzel, “Working on Oneself,” p. 96. 54 Paul Valéry, Cahiers/Notebooks, vol. I, trans. by Paul Gifford / Siân Miles / Robert Pickering / Brian Stimpson, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2000, p. 42. 55 Cf. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 116.

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tricks of human language”56 which arise when the “transitional character [of language]—for language is purely transition—as a path of communication” is stopped, i.e. when “the philosopher” [...] “believes in words in themselves” and “pause[s] over them in isolation.”57 This critical, self-transformative, and therapeutic account of philosophy will be explored more closely in the next section so as to consider different ways in which this task can be understood and accomplished, as well as its ethical dimension. 2.

Philosophical Exercises and Ethical Transformations

This volume’s second section—Philosophical Exercises and Ethical Trans­ formations—considers Wittgenstein’s philosophical exercises and their transformative dimension from an ethical point of view. First, this section investigates Wittgenstein’s transformative account of thinking and the use of pictures in both their captivating and liberating functions, as well as Wittgenstein and Dewey’s ‘turn to practice’ and the ethical dimension embodied in the practice of reflection. Second, it draws a number of parallels between Wittgenstein’s philosophy and the ancient understanding of philosophy as an exercise and way of life. Hence, one aspect of this section focuses on the overlap and differences between Hadot’s ancient exercise of self-dialogues and Wittgenstein’s ‘modern’ and ‘critical’ philosophical self-dialogues. Lastly, Wittgenstein’s philosophy is here investigated in light of Augustine’s confessions and is conceived as an existential struggle for autonomy and peace. Herein the practice of philosophy is understood as an ongoing transformative ethos. In the second section’s first contribution, Oskari Kuusela focuses on Wittgenstein’s dissolution of philosophical problems so as to stress, against Rupert Read’s therapeutic reading, that the process of dissolution “involves as an essential component the transformation of the way of thinking,” to wit: “the introduction of an alternative view in the context of which the old problem no longer arises.”58 This transformation of thinking is explored according to the parallel that Wittgenstein draws between his account of philosophy and Copernicus’ astronomy. At issue in both cases is not—as Wittgenstein puts 56

Paul Valéry, Cahiers/Notebooks, vol. IV, trans. by Norma Rinsler / Brian Stimpson / Rima Joseph / Paul Ryan, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2010, p. 39 (translation modified). 57 Valéry, Cahiers, vol. IV, p. 87. 58 Oskari Kuusela, “The Dissolution of Philosophical Problems and the Transformation of Thinking,” in: Lucilla Guidi (ed.), Wittgensteinian Exercises. Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations, Paderborn: Brill/Fink, pp. 111–136, here p. 112.

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it—“the discovery of a new true theory but of a fruitful aspect.”59 Hence, “what Copernicus did by replacing the Ptolemaic geocentric picture of our solar system with the heliocentric picture is a re-ordering of what we know […], a matter of re-organizing […] what astronomers had been observing over a long period,”60 not in such a way that the old problems are answered, but so that they no longer arise. In a parallel way, Kuusela emphasizes that Wittgenstein’s language-games embody “objects of comparison”61 which produce “an order for a particular purpose.”62 This means: through new analogies they reorder and re-organize what we already know, and in this way introduce a new, clearer, and better view in which the old problems, rather than being answered, dissolve: it transforms our way of thinking. Kuusela further underscores that this transformation is not just an intellectual enterprise, since it has to deal with one’s own “resistance of the will,”63 as Wittgenstein puts it in the Big Typescript—an ethical resistance and difficulty which Andrew Norris will analyze from a different perspective in this section, with reference to Wittgenstein and Augustine, as a practical struggle for autonomy. Hence, Kuusela stresses that changing one’s way of thinking involves the development of Socratic virtues and therefore entails a pervasive ethical dimension. Here, “ethics in the sense of the development and practice of virtues such as courage emerges, not as a branch of philosophy, but as a dimension of philosophical work that pervades it through and through.”64 The intertwining of the practice of thinking and its ethical dimension is further explored in this section’s second chapter, which addresses this question through a comparison between Wittgenstein and Dewey’s ‘turn to practice.’ Here, Jorg Volbers emphasizes that both Wittgenstein and Dewey’s critique of an intellectualistic account of the mind is not just a rejection of a false theoretical conception. Rather, the ethical dimension, i.e. the consequences of this conception, is at stake, since an “intellectualistic self-understanding deprives the self, and specifically the moral self, of the means to make productive use of its power of reflection.”65 In this way, the intrinsic ethical 59 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein’s Nachlass: The Bergen Electronic Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, references by manuscript/typescript number according to the von Wright catalogue, TS 211, 518. 60 Kuusela, “Dissolution of Philosophical Problems and Transformation,” p. 127. 61 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 130. 62 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 132. 63 Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 300e. 64 Kuusela, “Dissolution of Philosophical Problems and Transformation,” p. 133–134. 65 Jörg Volbers, “Transformative Thinking: Wittgenstein and Dewey on the Power of Reflection,” in: Lucilla Guidi (ed.), Wittgensteinian Exercises. Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations, Paderborn: Brill/Fink, pp. 137–164, here p. 140.

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dimension of thinking emerges, and a critique of an intellectualist account of reflection “must itself be accompanied by a practical reconfiguration of our engagement with the world,” i.e. a “transformation of […] ourselves as reflective beings.”66 Beyond these important points of overlap, Volbers draws attention to one pivotal difference: While Wittgenstein focuses on the individual self so as to conceive practical reflection as an ethos, in its literary sense, which concerns the attitude of the philosophizing subject, for Dewey the transformative activity of thinking embodies an ongoing interactive process which is conceived of as an essentially experimental procedure. Volbers emphasizes that Dewey’s practical reflection as “inquiry” is not focused on the relation of the self with itself. Rather, the self is one part of a broader interactive context, such that the activity of thinking is reconstructed in terms of its capacity to contribute to the control of further experience and possesses a collective impact. This section’s third chapter explores philosophy’s transformative potential in its ethical dimension by examining Wittgenstein’s use of pictures in both their captivating and liberating function. Here, Anna Boncompagni first of all examines Wittgenstein’s self-critique of the Tractatus’ picture of language, according to which the proposition is as a picture of a fact—the very same that Wittgenstein famously considers “a picture [which] held us captive”67 in the Investigations. In order to liberate the readers (and himself) from this captivating picture, and “show the fly its way out of the bottle,”68 Boncompagni stresses that Wittgenstein resorts to further pictures, which—by means of providing parallel cases—“re-arrange” what lies unnoticed in plain view, so as to transform our way of seeing. By resorting to Wittgenstein’s theme of aspect-seeing, Boncompagni emphasizes that Wittgenstein’s use of simile and analogies embodies a way of “educat[ing] the gaze towards a certain sensibility to aspects.”69 She further highlights by means of a parallel reading of Wittgenstein and William James’ pragmatist account of perception that the exercise of seeing-aspects is in part a matter of paying attention, and therefore embodies a voluntary activity: “Besides stimulating a fuller awareness of the inevitably aspectual nature of perception (in a broad sense), similes and metaphors can be set against other, non-voluntary, largely inherited and implicit pictures that keep us captive insofar as we remain unaware of them or neglect

66 67 68 69

Volbers, “Transformative Thinking,” p. 141. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 115. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 309. Boncompagni, “Between Captivity and Liberation,” p. 177.

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their partiality.”70 The transformative practice of philosophy and its ethical dimension therefore lie in exhorting oneself and others to train the capacity to “change, enlarge, and shift our attention”71 so as to realize our captivity’s delusional character, i.e. the fact that pictures hold us captive if we allow them to do so, since the fly-bottle, as well as the room which “imprisons someone if the door opens only inwards and one thinks one must push and not pull,”72 were actually open all along. This changing our way of seeing is further analyzed in this section’s fourth chapter, which offers a reading of the Investigations in light of Pierre Hadot’s “spiritual exercises.”73 From this perspective, Lars Leeten explores the style of the Investigations so as to highlight that these writings display the interior dialogue of the self with herself, and resembles some pivotal aspects of the ancient exercise of self-dialogue. In contrast to Hadot’s ancient spiritual exercises, Leeten emphasizes that Wittgenstein’s Investigations embody a conversation with oneself which does not aim at achieving ideals of virtue or wisdom, or at gaining a view from above, but which rather possesses a critical function. Leeten emphasizes that Wittgenstein’s modern philosophical exercises are engaged in criticizing the premises of Cartesian thought, which are embodied in the habits we collectively inherit. They are “directed at the deepseated habits of the mind entrenched in the language we share, and designed to critically revise these habits.”74 This critical task is therefore restricted to a number of exercises, which the readers of the Investigations are invited to perform. In these exercises, the readers are confronted with unsolvable tasks, as well as with hilarious instructions, so as to experience the “limits of one’s imagination”75 (Vorstellung), and critically re-orient an isolated, disembodied, and self-transparent ‘Cartesian mind,’ thereby engaging in the ongoing transformative exploration of one’s way of being in the world, i.e. one’s relation to oneself. In the last contribution to this section, Andrew Norris further explores Wittgenstein’s philosophy as a transformative ethos and existential way of being by reading it in light of Augustine’s conversion, so as to sketch out Wittgenstein’s philosophical practice as an ongoing struggle with oneself and with the perversity of one’s will—a practice which aims at peace; put otherwise, 70 Boncompagni, “Between Captivity and Liberation,” p. 181. 71 Ibid. 72 Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe, ed. by Georg H. von Wright et al., Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978 (1956), IV, § 37. 73 See, for example, Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, pp. 81–125. 74 Leeten, “Wittgenstein and the Art of Conversing with Oneself,” p. 200–201. 75 Leeten, “Wittgenstein and the Art of Conversing with Oneself,” p. 203.

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he sketches this practice as a struggle for autonomy. Norris takes as his starting point that which Wittgenstein considers to be in Philosophical Investigations § 133 “the real discovery” in philosophy, which brings the philosopher Ruhe and enables her to stop philosophizing when she wants, so as to examine “the resistance of the will which needs be overcome”—which Wittgenstein emphasized in the Big Typescript—as a lack of autonomy, i.e. “a fundamental difficulty as a perversity of the will whereby we turn away from ourselves and what we most desire.”76 On the one hand, Norris stresses that this struggle involves a notion of conversion as a change in how one lives, since the real discovery does not concern a substantive truth but a way of being with oneself: “the real discovery is the one in which we learn the proper disposition towards philosophy and the lives that evoke it: an autonomous and competent one free from compulsion.”77 On the other he emphasizes, in contrast to Socratic intellectualism and the related notion of conversion, that Wittgenstein’s, like “Augustine’s problem is not that he lacks knowledge of an essential virtue, as does Socrates, but that something within him keeps him from acting on the basis of the knowledge he possesses […]. The issue is an existential one, not a cognitive one.”78 From this perspective, Norris highlights that what Wittgenstein’s philosophy tries to grasp is peace, and this involves the difficult effort to remember ourselves to ourselves, an effort which is never completed once and for all. 3.

Practicing Philosophy in a Wittgensteinian Spirit

This volume’s last section sketches out two exercises which practice philosophy in a Wittgensteinian spirit so as to expand it both thematically and methodically. On the one hand, the role of language in addressing gender issues is explored from a Wittgensteinian perspective; on the other, a performative experiment in philosophical thinking and (self-)writing in three different languages—Icelandic, German, and English—is brought into play so as to uncover the relevance of philosophizing in a plurality of languages both for the matter of philosophy and those persons who philosophize. In this section’s first contribution, Anne-Marie Søndergaard Christensen challenges the idea that language is ‘per se’ limiting or liberating in discussing 76 77 78

Andrew Norris, “Resistances of the Will Must be Overcome: Wittgenstein on the Difficulty of Philosophy,” in: Lucilla Guidi (ed.), Wittgensteinian Exercises. Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations, Paderborn: Brill/Fink, pp. 207–231, here p. 207. Norris, “Resistances of the Will Must be Overcome,” p. 216. Norris, “Resistances of the Will Must be Overcome,” p. 222.

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gender issues and identities. Rather, she highlights that the point at stake is how we can develop a language, and this means, from a Wittgensteinian perspective, a texture of practices and ways of living in which “everyone can do and say what they need to do and say,” i.e. “a language that offers everyone a place to live.”79 With reference to Maggie Nelson’s novel The Argonauts (2015), Christensen draws attention to the protagonist’s relationship with her partner, who is living through a change of gender identity, as well as to the story of the protagonist’s own identity changes through pregnancy, birth, and motherhood. She emphasizes that the novel is about transformations. Nonetheless, these transformative processes do not have changing sex or having a child as ‘goals’; rather, “the changes are primarily seen as part of the characters’ ongoing struggles to create lives that they can actually inhabit,” i.e. this transformation is “about being in a kind of infinite creation, where we all actually are.”80 By resorting to a resolute reading of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, Christensen further highlights that the metaphysical problem of the limits of language turns out to be the practical challenge of questioning what we want to say and what limits us. For example, women’s initial problem of “voicing the character of their experiences” of sexual harassment was not due to “any general limitation of language, but rather to our initial insufficient development of it. […] If we experience our means of expression as limiting, only language can rescue us.”81 This cannot be accomplished through the introduction of an isolated ‘word,’ however, since the term ‘sexual harassment’ “only came to be useful because it was introduced together with the development of practices of describing and identifying sexual harassment and later with the introduction of social and legal sanctions.”82 From this perspective, Christensen stresses that we can contribute to this practical challenge by developing forms of description of gender identities beyond (biological) gender classifications, since nuanced descriptions help us to uncover “the complex and unfinished processes of exploring and coming to live with a gender identity.”83 Developing new forms of description means developing new ways of living—as Christensen emphasizes, following Cora Diamond. From this point of view, the question about the limiting or liberating role of language in gender issues turns into the question 79

Anne-Marie Søndergaard Christensen, “‘Slab, I shouted, slab!’ Gender Identities, Language, and Possibilities of Limitation and Liberation,” in: Lucilla Guidi (ed.), Wittgensteinian Exercises. Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations, Paderborn: Brill/Fink, pp. 235–253, here p. 249. 80 Christensen, “‘Slab, I shouted, slab!,’” p. 237. 81 Christensen, “‘Slab, I shouted, slab!,’” p. 248. 82 Ibid. 83 Christensen, “‘Slab, I shouted, slab!,’” p. 251.

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concerning the political processes needed in order to develop language in such a way that we can all say and do what we need to say and do, political processes which can be “promoted […] if we engage in the conversation about how we want to be able to talk about gender.”84 Logi Gunnarsson, in the last contribution to this book, confronts himself— and the readers—with a performative experiment in thinking (writing and reading) in three languages—Icelandic, German, and English—so as to put into play the importance of philosophizing in a plurality of languages. Gunnarsson emphasizes that language “shapes people’s thinking about things.” From this perspective, “if the philosophical community were to stop thinking in languages other than English, this would be comparable to the disappearance in the arts of all forms of expression other than, say, painting.”85 Hence, philosophy’s subject matter is shaped by the ways in which we think about it, and different languages prove to be different ways to think about things, and therefore to illuminate and uncover them. Moreover, in this performative experiment readers are invited to engage with the plurality of languages themselves so as to experience (by reading the Icelandic, German and English texts) the ways in which languages shape how they think about the matter in question. Gunnarsson further expands this performative experiment in the form of a philosophical practice of self-writing. His goal is not to translate the ‘content’ of the Icelandic text, the first he wrote, into German and English. Rather, his point is to rephrase the text in order to say in other languages what he wanted to say in Icelandic: “in expressing my thoughts in another language than Icelandic, something about them that was hidden to me and others unfolds itself.”86 In this experiment, the philosophizing subject hands control over to language: “The question at stake is how to say in other languages what I wanted to say in Icelandic. Here, I let language think for me. I do something—rephrase my texts in other languages—without knowing what will come out of it. […] This is something that nobody else can do for me.”87 The plurality of language, i.e. the disclosure of different aspects of the reality, and oneself, i.e. what one wants to say, are put into play in this performative experiment, which expands the practice of philosophy in a Wittgensteinian spirit.

84 Christensen, “‘Slab, I shouted, slab!,’” p. 252. 85 Logi Gunnarsson, “Að hugsa á íslensku og útlensku / Thinking in Icelandic and Foreign Tongues / Auf Isländisch und in Fremdsprachen denken,” in: Lucilla Guidi (ed.), Wittgensteinian Exercises. Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations, Paderborn: Brill/Fink, pp. 255–298, here p. 280. 86 Gunnarsson, “Thinking in Icelandic and Foreign Tongues,” p. 291. 87 Gunnarsson, “Thinking in Icelandic and Foreign Tongues,” p. 292–293.

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I would like to conclude these preliminary remarks with a question that Beth Savickey poses in this volume’s opening chapter: How can we practice philosophy in a Wittgensteinian spirit, without mimicking him? I hope that this volume’s contributions will encourage further philosophical exercises and inspire experimentation with various aesthetic (both literary and performative) forms of philosophical practices, while awakening one’s sensibility and attention to the ways in which one relates to oneself and responds to others in everyday life. References Baz, Avner, Wittgenstein on Aspect Perception, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Bedorf, Thomas / Gerlek, Selin (eds.), Philosophien der Praxis, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019. Bronzo, Silver, “The Resolute Reading and Its Critics: An Introduction to the Literature,” in: Wittgenstein-Studien 3.1 (2012), pp. 45–80. Cavell, Stanley, “The Wittgensteinian Event,” in: Philosophy the Day after Tomorrow, Cambridge MA: The Belknap Press, 1969, pp. 192–214. Cavell, Stanley, “The Availability of Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy,” in: Must We Mean What We Say? A Book of Essays, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969. Cavell, Stanley, The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. Crary, Alice / Read, Rupert (eds.), The New Wittgenstein, London: Routledge, 2000. Das, Veena, Texture of the Ordinary: Doing Anthropology after Wittgenstein, New York: Fordham University Press, 2020. Day, William / Krebs, Victor J. (eds.), Seeing Wittgenstein Anew, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Diamond, Cora, “On Wittgenstein,” in: Philosophical Investigations 24.2 (2001), pp. 108–115. Diamond, Cora, “Criss-cross Philosophy,” in: Erich Ammereller / Eugen Fisher (eds.), Wittgenstein at Work: Method in the Philosophical Investigations, New York: Routledge, 2004, pp. 201–220. Elberfeld, Rolf / Krankenhagen, Stefan (eds.), Ästhetische Praxis als Gegenstand und Methode kulturwissenschaftlicher Forschung, Paderborn: Fink, 2017. Foucault, Michel, “Politics and Ethics: An Interview,” in: The Foucault Reader, trans. by Catherine Porter, ed. by Paul Rabinow, New York: Pantheon, 1984, pp. 373–380. Foucault, Michel, “What is Enlightenment?,” in: The Foucault Reader, trans. by Catherine Porter, ed. by Paul Rabinow, Pantheon: New York, 1984, pp. 32–50.

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Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality. Volume  2: The Use of Pleasure, trans. by Robert Hurley, London: Penguin Books, 1992 (1984). Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality. Volume 3: The Care of the Self, trans. by Robert Hurley, London: Penguin Books, 1990 (1984). Glendinning, Simon, “Philosophy as Nomadism,” in: Havi Carel / David Gamez (eds.), What Philosophy Is, London: Continuum, 2004, pp. 155–167. Goppelsröder, Fabian / Volbers, Jörg / Gebauer, Gunter (eds.), Philosophie als “Arbeit an Einem selbst,” Fink/Brill, Paderborn, 2009. Hadot, Pierre, “Réflexions sur les limites du langage à propos du ‘Tractatus logicophilosophicus’ de Wittgenstein,” Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, 64.4 (1959), pp. 469–484. Hadot, Pierre, “Jeux de langage et philosophie,” in: Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 46.3 (1962), pp. 330–343. Hadot, Pierre, Philosophy as a Way of Life. Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, trans. by Michael Chase, ed. by Arnold I. Davidson, Oxford: Blackwell, 1995 (1981). Hadot, Pierre, What is Ancient Philosophy?, trans. by Michael Chase, Belknap Press: Cambridge, MA, 2004 (1995). Mulhall, Stephen, On Being in the World. Wittgenstein and Heidegger on Seeing Aspects, Routledge: New York, 1990. Savickey, Beth, “Wittgenstein’s Performance Philosophy,” in: Stefan Majetschak / Anja Weiberg (eds.), Aesthetics Today: Contemporary Approaches to the Aesthetics of Nature and of Arts. Proceedings of the 39th International Wittgenstein Symposium in Kirchberg, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2017, pp. 419–434. Savickey, Beth, Wittgenstein’s Investigations: Awakening the Imagination, Switzerland: Springer, 2017. Schatzki, Theodore R. et al. (eds.), The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, London: Routledge, 2001. Posselt, Gerald, Hetzel, Andreas, “Rhetorisches Philosophieren,” in: Andreas Hetzel / Gerald Posselt (eds.), Handbuch Rhetorik und Philosophie, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017, pp. 1–20. Sparti, Davide, “Filosofia come cura. La svolta terapeutica nell’interpretazione di Wittgenstein,” in: Iride XIV.38 (2003), pp. 137–160. Valéry, Paul, Cahiers/Notebooks, vol. I, trans. by Paul Gifford / Siân Miles / Robert Pickering / Brian Stimpson, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2000. Valéry, Paul, Cahiers/Notebooks, vol. IV, trans. by Norma Rinsler / Brian Stimpson / Rima Joseph / Paul Ryan, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2010. Wille, Katrin, “Proust—Philosophie als ästhetische Praxis,” in: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 70.2 (2022), pp. 327–348. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. by Charles K. Ogden / Frank P. Ramsey, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1922 (1921).

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Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe, ed. by Georg H. von Wright et al., Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978 (1956). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Culture and Value, trans. by Peter. Winch, ed. by Georg H. von Wright / Heikki Nyman, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980 (1977). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Zettel, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe, ed. by G.E.M. Anscombe et al., Oxford: Blackwell, 1981 (1967). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Wittgenstein’s Nachlass: The Bergen Electronic Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, The Big Typescript: TS 213, trans. and ed. by C. Grant Luckhardt / Maximilian A. E. Aue, Malden MA: Blackwell, 2005. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief, ed. by Cyril Barrett, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007 (1966). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe et al., ed. by Peter M.S. Hacker / Joachim Schulte, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009 (1953).

Section I Transformative Paths: Philosophical Exercises and Aesthetic Practices

Are We Having Fun Yet? Beth Savickey Abstract One of the exercises that is found throughout Wittgenstein’s lectures and writings is that of replacing a mental process by a process of looking at an object, or by painting, drawing, or modeling. Although often overlooked, this exercise is creative, humorous, and playful. In a word, it’s fun. And fun itself proves to be a reliable touchstone for determining whether or not we are engaged with Wittgenstein’s philosophy in the manner and spirit in which it is written. This has important aesthetic and ethical implications. Not only does this exercise enable us to approach Wittgenstein’s texts, engage directly with them, and move beyond them in new and innovative ways, it also affirms the continuity between his exercises and ancient philosophical practices.

Introduction There are many different ways to approach the topic of Wittgenstein’s exercises, and they vary in scope and scale. From a broad understanding of philosophy as a way of life, to a narrower recognition of specific exercises within his works, each approach yields different philosophical practices and insights. This paper focuses on one specific exercise that is found throughout his lectures and writings: that of replacing a mental process by a process of looking at an object, or by painting, drawing, or modeling.1 Wittgenstein introduces this exercise early in his Cambridge lectures, and continues to use it extensively throughout his later philosophy. It effectively enables us to approach his texts, engage directly with them, and move beyond them in new and innovative ways. Although often overlooked, this exercise is creative, humorous, and playful. In a word, it’s fun. And fun itself proves to be a reliable touchstone for determining whether or not we are engaged with Wittgenstein’s philosophy in the spirit and manner in which it is written. This has important aesthetic and ethical implications.

1 Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books: Preliminary Studies for the “Philosophical Investigations,” ed. by Rush Rees, Oxford: Blackwell, 1969 (1958), pp. 4–5.

© Brill Fink, 2023 | doi:10.30965/9783846767450_002

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Approaching Wittgenstein’s Texts

Wittgenstein begins with exercises in both his lectures and writings. My appreciation of this philosophical approach grows deeper with each passing year. He does philosophy, and invites us to do it with him, with little or no explanation or justification. We can make of it what we will. In academia, this comes as a surprise. Several years ago, I had the opportunity to teach a course on Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. The difficulty of introducing this text involves not only its unconventional form and content, but its relationship to the philosophical tradition, and its relevance to contemporary interests and concerns. These difficulties are further complicated by the bad academic habits that many good undergraduate students acquire during their formal education. In the past, I have tried to introduce the text in a variety of different ways. I have framed it broadly within early twentieth century philosophy or, more narrowly, against the analytic tradition or Logical Positivism. I have started with the Wittgenstein Archives or individual texts ranging from the Tractatus to Culture and Value. On other occasions, I have started with the Investigations itself, beginning with its motto, preface, or opening remark(s). But none of these approaches have been particularly satisfactory or successful. So, in 2017, I decided to introduce the Investigations through a series of exercises inspired by those found within the text itself. These exercises were not drawn directly from the text, but were offered as a means of approaching it for the first time. There were 12 students registered for the course, and we were scheduled to meet twice a week for an hour-and-a-quarter in the late afternoon. Based on previous student disorientation and dissatisfaction with the text, I anticipated that these exercises would be challenging for them, and that not all students would choose to participate on all occasions. I initially allocated a short period of time at the beginning of each class for student presentations. For the first exercise, inspired by Wittgenstein’s suggestion that we replace every mental process by a process of looking at an object, or by painting, drawing, or modeling, I asked students to draw, paint, collage, or perform their first impressions of the Investigations. The request was vague and open-ended. I made it, in part, because students often rush through the opening of the text in an attempt to understand it, without acknowledging or expressing their own important and often profound philosophical insights, confusions, questions, and concerns. Eleven of the original twelve students returned after that first class and, briefly, here is what they presented:

Are We Having Fun Yet?

1. 2. 3. 4.

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a red apple reflected in a mirror Heisenberg and Schrodinger’s formulas written on the blackboard small bicycle parts and board game figurines the repetition of ‘I am thinking’ in Ojibwa, while performing a variety of different tasks 5. an original Russian poem with its English translation 6. the declaration: ‘I am not going to use copulas today’ 7. a painting of the brain with a ladder of letters superimposed upon it 8. a Fred Flintstone cartoon with a character yelling ‘Rock’ 9. a collage of printed slips of paper over a color photo 10. a surrealist painting 11. computer code Within each presentation lay the seeds of the entire Investigations. Not only did the creativity, variety, and depth of philosophical engagement surpass my wildest expectations, but the enthusiasm and commitment of the students was striking. By the time they arrived at this second class, they were already absorbed in the text (whether having read a single remark or several pages). As the term progressed, classes often went beyond the allocated time. Although I had initially worried that student presentations might not fill the time set aside for them, the exercises themselves often filled most or all of a class. I had not expected all students to participate on all occasions but they did. I also quickly learned that, left to their own initiative and creativity, the students would present and investigate all of the questions, themes, topics, passages, or arguments I had prepared in my notes on any given day. As you can well imagine, this was both humbling and exhilarating. Unlike previous years, these students were having fun and Wittgenstein’s philosophical investigations were alive for them. They did not need additional encouragement or explanations in order to go on. It was also noteworthy that they used many of Wittgenstein’s own techniques, and anticipated many of his own exercises, without having first encountered them in the text. These would expand over the course of the term to include the creation or use of various kinds of pictures (both moving and still), as well as music and drama. During the course, other exercises that involved replacing a mental process by a process of looking at an object or by drawing, painting, or modeling included, for example, i) choosing a specific picture or image to investigate particular ideas or passages within the Investigations, such as Magritte’s The Treachery of Images, The Two Mysteries, or The Air and the Song, or ii) altering a copy of a well-known work of art, such as Rodin’s The Thinker, in order to demonstrate how Wittgenstein challenges various concepts of thinking. The

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final assignments in this course ranged from original paintings, videos, and projected transparencies, to music, poetry, and the graphic novel. Although I gave students the option of writing a conventional research paper, not one student chose to engage philosophically through standard, argumentative prose. I will return to this class and the transformative nature of these exercises in the concluding section. However, I would like to highlight several things that I learned from this first exercise: 1. Just do it. The best thing to do with Wittgenstein’s exercises is simply to try them and adapt them. Through repeated experimentation and experience, I have come to trust and more deeply appreciate his exercises, and the philosophical clarity and insights they offer. 2. Start small. The specificity of these exercises, as well as the truth of Wittgenstein’s suggestion, allow small exercises to grow into something rich, deep, and multi-dimensional. Wittgenstein asks: “How can one learn the truth by thinking?” And answers: “As one learns to see a face better if one draws it.”2 Starting small also alters the pace of investigation. Each exercise starts slowly and gains momentum as it becomes more complex and collaborative. 3. Begin anywhere. Begin with any student (or group of students) on any given day, and begin where they are. Also, begin again and again; starting anew each day. These exercises are dynamic and ongoing, and their movement is often circular rather than linear. 4. Work with whatever is at hand (whether words, pictures, or objects). Work with what is given, but do something unexpected or extraordinary. In other words, be creative and have fun. These insights are not unique to Wittgenstein’s exercises, but I think they speak to the integrity of his philosophy.3 2.

Engaging Directly with Wittgenstein’s Texts

This particular exercise occurs frequently in Wittgenstein’s texts, although it remains largely unacknowledged. Perhaps it goes unnoticed because it is always before our eyes. Early in The Blue and Brown Books, Wittgenstein writes: 2 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Zettel, trans. by G.E.M.  Anscombe, ed. by G.E.M.  Anscombe / Georg H. von Wright, Oxford: Blackwell, 1981 (1967), § 255. 3 We can recognize similar insights in the works of John Cage, René Magritte, Marcel Duchamp, Auguste Rodin, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Gertrude Stein. Similar practices are recognizable in early twentieth century art movements such as Cubism, Dadaism, and Surrealism.

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“It seems that there are certain definite mental processes bound up with the working of language, processes through which alone language can function. I mean the processes of understanding and meaning.”4 These processes appear to take place in the mind, although we do not fully understand its nature. In other words, we imagine how these mental processes must work, and often think of objects or images coming before the mind’s eye. Wittgenstein suggests that it is precisely the occult nature of these processes that is needed for our philosophical purposes. Consequently, he proposes: There is one way of avoiding at least partly the occult appearance of the processes of thinking, and it is, to replace in these processes any working of the imagination by acts of looking at real objects. Thus it may seem essential that, at least in certain cases, when I hear the word “red” with understanding, a red image should be before my mind’s eye. But why should I not substitute seeing a red bit of paper for imagining a red patch? The visual image will only be the more vivid.5

He notes that as soon as we think of replacing a mental image by a painted one, it ceases to impart any life to a sentence. Thus, he advises that “we could perfectly well, for our purposes, replace every process of imagining by a process of looking at an object, or by painting, drawing, or modeling; and every process of speaking to oneself by speaking aloud or by writing.”6 With this particular exercise, Wittgenstein redirects our philosophical attention as well as our conceptual investigations. He demystifies language-use and mental processes by looking at real objects, or by painting, drawing, or modeling. And in so doing, he renders these investigations both playful and fun. For example, thought becomes a hat on one’s head or a slip of paper in one’s pocket, and pains become beetles in boxes.7 Wittgenstein uses this exercise at pivotal points throughout the Investigations. Within the text, this involves i) engaging directly with pictures or drawings, or ii) imagining or enacting such scenes. Thus, doing this exercise differs significantly from approaching philosophical pictures metaphorically or abstractly.

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Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books, p. 3. Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books, p. 4. Ibid. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, trans. by Peter Winch, ed. by George H. von Wright / Heikki Nyman, Oxford: Blackwell, 1980 (1977), 2e; Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Big Typescript: TS 213, trans. by C. Grant Luckhardt / Maximilian A.E. Aue, Oxford: Blackwell, 2013, p. 20e; and Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M.  Anscombe, ed. by Rush Rees / G.E.M. Anscombe, Oxford: Blackwell, 2001 (1953), § 293.

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We find the first occurrence of this exercise in §  1 of the Investigations. Responding to a particular picture of the essence of human language, Wittgenstein asks us to imagine that he sends someone shopping with a slip of paper marked “five red apples.” Looking at marks on a slip of paper replaces imagined mental processes such as meaning or naming. In other words, this scene demonstrates how we operate with words. According to Wittgenstein, there is no question of “meaning” here, only how words are used.8 Next, in response to the idea that names really signify simples (as articulated in the Theaetetus as well as earlier works by Wittgenstein and Russell), Wittgenstein introduces a game in which language serves to represent combinations of colored squares on a surface. We see a colored chessboard-like complex on the page.9 A difficult and abstract picture of language-use is rendered simple, visible, and easily accessible. After an extended investigation, Wittgenstein pauses to reflect upon his philosophical practices (from §§ 89–133). When his investigations resume, he addresses the concept of understanding. He asks: “What really comes before our mind when we understand a word?—Isn’t it something like a picture. Can’t it be a picture?”10 And consistent with the exercise under consideration, he writes: “Isn’t it obvious here that it is absolutely inessential that this picture be in his imagination, rather than in front of him as a drawing or model; or again, as something that he himself constructs as a model?”11 At § 243, Wittgenstein begins again and turns his investigations inside-out. Although commonly referred to as the private language argument, the remarks that follow do not, in fact, present an argument but an exercise in which we are asked to imagine that Wittgenstein keeps a diary about the recurrence of a certain sensation, which he associates with the sign “S.”12 Once again, he replaces a mental process (that of feeling a particular sensation) with the process of looking at an object (the sign “S” in his diary).13 In Part II of the Investigations, 8

9 10 11 12 13

For further discussion see Beth Savickey, Wittgenstein’s Art of Investigation, New York: Routledge, 1999, pp. 152–180; Beth Savickey, Wittgenstein’s Investigations: Awakening the Imagination, Switzerland: Springer, 2017, pp.  41–59 and Beth Savickey, “Wittgenstein’s Slapstick,” in: Performance Philosophy 2 (2016), pp. 72–82. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 48. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 139. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations,  § 141. For further discussion see Savickey, Wittgenstein’s Art of Investigation, pp. 199–210; and Savickey, Wittgenstein’s Investigations: Awakening the Imagination, pp. 61–74. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 258. For related investigations see Beth Savickey, “Wittgenstein’s Performance Philosophy,” in: Stefan Majetschak / Anja Weiberg (eds.), Aesthetics Today: Contemporary Approaches to the Aesthetics of Nature and the Arts. Proceedings of the 39th International Ludwig Wittgenstein Symposium, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2017, pp.  419–434, and Beth

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Wittgenstein’s exercises include drawings of cubes, triangles, duck-rabbit figures, picture-faces, various shapes, and a double-cross to investigate the mental processes of meaning, thinking, knowing, imagining, believing, seeing, and feeling.14 Part II of the Investigations is, in fact, not only a collection of such exercises but an exploration of what it is that we do not see when we miss this aspect of Part I. 3.

Moving beyond Wittgenstein’s Texts

The final exercise I would like to present takes us beyond Wittgenstein’s texts. It involves The Liar paradox, and provides an example of the continuity between Wittgenstein’s exercises and ancient philosophical practices. It is inspired, once again, by the suggestion that we replace every mental process by a process of looking at an object, or by painting, drawing, or modeling. In ancient philosophy, a paradox is a means of demonstrating conceptual confusion or a lack of clarity. It is performative, rather than theoretical or explanatory. Allow me to introduce this exercise with a brief abstract: The Liar paradox dates back millennia. It is often attributed to Epimenides of Crete, who is reputed to have said “All Cretans are liars.” References can be found in works from Aristotle and Cicero to medieval scholasticism and contemporary mathematical logic. In its simplest form, the paradox can be stated as follows: “This sentence is false.” According to traditional readings, this selfreferential sentence results in a contradiction; if the statement is false, it is true, and if it is true, it is false. Numerous solutions have been proposed, but the paradox remains open to lively debates in which the nature of truth, logic, language, philosophy, mathematics, and science are questioned and challenged. Although an elegantly simple and entertaining puzzle, the complexity and implications of these ongoing debates are significant and profound. One contemporary philosopher goes so far as to suggest that the paradox shows the world to be essentially incomplete in some sense and that there can be no omniscient being.15 Moving from theory and argumentation to art—with a nod to the brevity and performative nature of paradox in ancient philosophy—the following exercise demonstrates that The Liar paradox can be resolved with one word. And that word is “Bob.”

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Savickey, “Playing Language Games,” in: Shyam Wuppulari / Newton da Costa (eds.), Wittgensteinian (adj.), Switzerland: Springer, 2020, pp. 50–67. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, II, xi. Patrick Grim, The Incomplete Universe, Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1991.

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A name tag called Bob:

The Liar paradox can be developed into a longer and more complex exercise involving the following variations:16

Ceci n’est pas une pipe.

16

Please note that a real name tag is framed. It only becomes a picture or representation when reproduced for this publication.

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A title worthy of Rodin.

Thank you Barbara Kruger.

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The everyday transfigured.

Dear Dr. Hofstadter, the child was right.

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Are We Having Fun Yet?

This is not Beth’s Theorem.

Mistaken identity: My friend Bob’s name tag.

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The dream of language speaking itself.

Q.E.D. or “Bob’s your uncle.”

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In the words of Wittgenstein, “Don’t think, but look!”17 4.

Reflections

To return to the 2017 class, I would like to conclude by noting a few of the aesthetic and ethical transformations that took place as students replaced mental processes by processes of looking at an object, or by painting, drawing, or modeling. Aesthetically, students discovered artistic talents and interests they did not know they had or shared. They were inspired and encouraged by each other. Their daily appreciation of, and engagement with, all forms of art expanded. Suddenly, everything in and outside the classroom became potential material for philosophical investigation and creativity. The philosophical investigations themselves gained clarity, depth, and relevance. Ethically, all of the students participated in and contributed to each class. Their interactions with one another were genuine and meaningful. Philosophy itself became not only interactive but collaborative, creative, and improvisational. (This differs significantly from confessional or therapeutic practices.) Authentic philosophical investigation and genuine self-expression replaced certain all-too-familiar habits of academic posturing. It is important to note that the aesthetic and ethical transformations I witnessed were not the product or result of Wittgenstein’s exercises. Rather, they were inherent in doing the exercises themselves. In other words, they were present from the start. The student who dropped the course did so before taking part in any of the exercises. This, too, was an appropriate and important aesthetic and ethical decision. Students learned that philosophical investigations can be creative and fun, and that the absence of theory or argumentation need not be feared. They experienced firsthand the aesthetic and ethical detail, complexity, and transformative nature of these exercises. These students were also multi-lingual, and there was a rich, celebratory, and quite natural linguistic playfulness on display throughout the course. Language was simultaneously the tool and subject of investigation. Wittgenstein’s philosophical exercises are also engaging and accessible beyond the classroom. I have had the opportunity to do philosophy with others in a maximum-security prison, a neighbourhood bookstore, an assistedliving facility, and a church, and Wittgenstein’s practices remain effective and 17

Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 66.

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engaging. In fact, they allow us to investigate shared conceptual questions and concerns without formal academic training. In this way, they are similar to ancient philosophical practices as well. This exercise not only enables us to approach and engage directly with Wittgenstein’s texts, but to go beyond them in new and innovative ways. Brett Bourbon writes that “the justification of the form of the Investigations comes down to a single question: “How do we take up Wittgenstein’s example—in thinking and in confusion—without mimicking him?”18 One answer is to do these exercises. Not only do such exercises stimulate us to thoughts of our own, as Wittgenstein hoped, but they ensure that we do not become mimics or pale echoes. In philosophy, this too has important aesthetic and ethical implications.19 References Bourbon, Brett, “Wittgenstein’s Preface,” in: Philosophy and Literature 29 (2005), pp. 428–443. Grim, Patrick, The Incomplete Universe, Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1991. Hofstadter, Douglas, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, New York: Vintage, 1989. Savickey, Beth, Wittgenstein’s Art of Investigation, New York: Routledge, 1999. Savickey, Beth, “Wittgenstein’s Slapstick,” in: Performance Philosophy 2 (2016), pp. 72–82. Savickey, Beth, Wittgenstein’s Investigations: Awakening the Imagination, Switzerland: Springer, 2017. Savickey, Beth, “Wittgenstein’s Performance Philosophy,” in: Stefan Majetschak / Anja Weiberg (eds.), Aesthetics Today: Contemporary Approaches to the Aesthetics of Nature and the Arts, Proceedings of the 39th International Ludwig Wittgenstein Symposium, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2017, pp. 419–434. Savickey, Beth, “Playing Language Games,” in: Shyam Wuppulari / Newton da Costa (eds.), Wittgensteinian (adj.), Switzerland: Springer, 2020, pp. 50–67.

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Brett Bourbon, “Wittgenstein’s Preface,” in: Philosophy and Literature 29 (2005), pp. 428– 443, here p. 428. My thanks to Jane Forsey for comments on earlier versions of this paper, and for her assistance in preparing the original presentation on which it is based. And sincerest thanks to the following students for their philosophical creativity and participation in the 2017 Wittgenstein course: Janell Berezowski, Sifeddine Biri, Adam Done, Calvin Ediger, Robert Gendron, Barry Leib, Jennifer Mead, Mirza Tello Cruz, Cecili Ulrich, Mackenzie Wood, and Alissa Yangirov.

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Wittgenstein, Ludwig, The Blue and Brown Books: Preliminary Studies for the “Philosophical Investigations,” ed. by Rush Rees, Oxford: Blackwell, 1969 (1958). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Zettel, trans. by G.E.M.  Anscombe, ed. by G.E.M.  Anscombe et al., Oxford: Blackwell, 1981 (1967). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Culture and Value, trans. by Peter Winch, ed. by Georg H. von Wright / Heikki Nyman, Oxford: Blackwell, 1980 (1977). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe, ed. by Rush Rees / G.E.M. Anscombe, Oxford: Blackwell, 2001 (1953). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, The Big Typescript: TS 213, trans. by C.  Grant  Luckhardt / Maximilian A.E. Aue, Oxford: Blackwell, 2013.

Projective Imagination

Therapy and Improvisation in Wittgenstein’s (and Cavell’s) Vision of Language Davide Sparti Abstract A language everywhere bounded and governed by a set of syntactic and semantic rules, always intolerant towards unusual or unexpected usages, would not be a language at all (Wittgenstein would rather call it a philosophical requirement). The aim of my chapter is to show how Wittgenstein, by way of Cavell, exposes and invites us to overcome this picture of language. By concentrating on the ability to put words to new uses (“word projection”), Cavell offers a challenging account of how we operate with words, conceiving language in more improvisatory terms as always open and vulnerable to unforeseeable turns. As occurrences of linguistic usages that do not reproduce established practices, and that nevertheless do not appear to be aberrations but rather instances of achieved communication, projections put the picture of language as a pre-structured system of rules into question. Language is no longer conceived as a selffunctioning semantic system but as a field of communicative possibilities expressed by individuals, a field in which the personal aspect, that is, the fact that where there is language, we speakers are involved, finds its place and indeed emphasis. This insight about ordinary language, though, is only the first half of the story. Ordinary language corresponds both to the place where philosophical statements must be relocated and the seat of our disappointment and thus, at least potentially, of our skepticism (Cavell calls skepticism the repudiation of the ordinary). The skeptic (in us) desires more from ordinary language, something that language as practice, play, improvisation, and projection seems incapable of securing. We are thus left with a (never ending) therapeutic engagement that has a deep ethical significance.

Introduction “You must bear in mind that the language-game is so to say something unpredictable.”1

My chapter deals with the following issue: how is language conceived? What pictures of language are available? To what extent have these pictures taken control over our way of thinking? The basic points will be as follows: Wittgenstein allows us to recognize that the meaning of words is not fixed by 1 Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty, trans. by Denis Paul / G.E.M.  Anscombe, ed. by G.E.M. Anscombe / Georg von Wright, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969, § 559.

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pre-established grammatical rules. This regimented view supports a misleading (yet attractive) reading of the relationship between language and rules (first claim). “The meaning of a word is its use in the language.”2 We cannot decide the meaning of a word by focusing only on the role it plays in the context of a proposition, but rather by observing its contextual (social, historical) uses. Language use is projection of concepts into new contexts, the outcome of which cannot be known a priori. A fact that points not only to the fragility but also to the potential for innovation of language use (second claim, the claim that mobility and creativity are part of ordinary language). Hence our life with words deserves to be conceived as an “adventure”3 marked by an improvisational dimension. Despite this improvisational aspect, there are not only affinities but also differences between improvisation in everyday language and in the performative arts4 (third claim). 1.

A Therapeutic Reading

Where does Wittgenstein’s originality lie? Not so much in his philosophical arguments, but—performatively—in the effects he intends to elicit from the reader: “I ought to be no more than a mirror, in which my reader can see his own thinking with all its deformities so that, helped in this way, he can put it right.”5 Rather than extending acquired knowledge, Wittgenstein aims at producing something like an insight, the emergence of a new awareness (one that enables us to modify our way of seeing things). There is a connection between Wittgenstein’s method and self-knowledge, a form of understanding that refers less to the epistemic access to our internal states and more to the clarity about our relationship to ourselves and to others. As Stanley Cavell puts it, Wittgenstein’s teaching is therapeutic because “it wishes to prevent

2 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1958 (1953), § 43. 3 Cf. Cora Diamond, The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind, Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1991, pp. 312–313. 4 In the last part of this chapter I will make some references to specialized domains (music making, jazz, and dance, argentine tango) in which improvisation determines the very form of the practice itself. 5 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, trans. by Peter Winch, ed. by Georg H. von Wright / Heikki Nyman, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980 (1977), p. 18.

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understanding which is unaccompanied by inner change.”6 The aim, Cavell goes on, is “not to provide an increase of learning but a transformation of existence.”7 The very form of the Philosophical Investigations displays Wittgenstein’s attempt to mobilize a double dialogical register: the one between Wittgenstein and his readers, and the reflexive one between Wittgenstein and himself, or his alter egos (as well as, symmetrically, between the reader and himself). Cavell distinguishes two “voices” present in the Investigations.8 The voice of temptation is the first one (to speak). It is entrusted by Wittgenstein to his (imagined) interlocutor, the philosopher, or the one who embodies the theoretical temptations that lie at the heart of the Investigations: the skeptic, the behaviorist, the metaphysician… . Stylistically revealing is Wittgenstein’s frequent use of quotation marks. The second voice is the voice of correctness (the term is still Cavell’s), which speaks in and for ordinary language, in an attempt to unmask what appear to be requirements, but actually turn out to be false necessities. The interlocutor, however, is no strawman. S/he corresponds to a part of ourselves (an alter ego, rather than an alter alter), an expression of our chronic desire to transcend the ordinary, to emancipate ourselves from the situatedness of language.9 Indeed, the ordinary corresponds both to the place where philosophical statements must be relocated (the home they find their way back to) and to the seat of our disappointment and thus, at least potentially, of our skepticism (Cavell calls skepticism the repudiation of the ordinary, a discontent with the ultimate, terrifying groundlessness of our own conventions and criteria for knowledge and speech). Wittgenstein invites us to diagnose the impulse to speak from a location in which we cannot find ourselves, an elevated, ideal place outside and above language (from which we presume to be able to contemplate language as a whole). It is true that we dispose of no stilts (one can only talk from the place where one actually is; at sea level, so to 6 Stanley Cavell, Must We Mean What We Say? A Book of Essays, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969, p. 72. 7 Stanley Cavell, Philosophy the Day After Tomorrow, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2006, pp. 121–122. The practice of philosophy, for Wittgenstein, does not coincide with the passage from ignorance to knowledge, but rather with the passage from being lost (disoriented, confused) to finding oneself (“a philosophical problem has the form: ‘I don’t know my way about,’” Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 123). 8 Cavell, Must We Mean What We Say?, pp. 41–67. 9 The theoretical temptations to which the interlocutor gives voice are not mere illusions; those temptations define us, revealing a part of our desires and fantasies, thus of who we are (see Ludwig Wittgenstein, Zettel, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe, ed. by G.E.M. Anscombe et al., Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967, § 382).

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speak), but since philosophy is at the service of both the call of the ordinary and the pull away from it, it is always in a state of oscillation and instability. Let me insist on this point. Wittgenstein’s primary goal is therapeutic because he intends to help us see clearly certain issues which we are drawn to and in which we become entangled. He wants us to recognize the figures we get caught up in or trapped by10 and the compulsion to pose questions in a certain way. Therapies (Wittgenstein uses the plural)11 address specific philosophical questions, they do not make the temptation to pose them in certain ways (which is not a disease but a human disposition) disappear. Philosophy, moreover, does not only contain arguments. It also contains images, and what Wittgenstein claims to do is to modify our ways of seeing things. He exhorts us to replace images with other images.12 We cannot fight an image with an argument; we must offer other representations.13 Ones that allow us to review things, to reconsider them with renewed understanding. This cure is not just a getting rid of problems. Over and above that, something is achieved; there is a better grasp, a deeper or clearer understanding, a further way of making sense of things, as well as its effect upon me: it calms me after having been so profoundly anxious, I breathe out. It is worth underlining the processual nature of this clarification, which allows us to change our point of view, to reorganize the way we see things, to realize what we are actually thinking or talking about, to discover something we didn’t (fully) know, to reconsider the limits of our thought. The therapy is not a one stroke cure. We undergo a transformative experience, go through the difficult task of coming up with an alternative way of thinking about things, a way that makes them (more) understandable. We make our way forward. Wittgenstein is thus no simple dissolutionist; he wants us to see that the framing of a situation is crucial and that there are additional ways of framing things14 (which presuppose will and imagination): look at things otherwise, be struck by the prodigious diversity of our language games. Who is the therapy for? Who is Wittgenstein addressing? He is, for one, addressing a person who thinks in a certain manner (and needs not to). The 10 11 12 13 14

Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations §§ 115, 108. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations § 133. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations § 144. Think of the notion of perspicuous representation (Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations,  § 122): something that had always been in view (but overlooked), when framed and arranged in a particular way, is reconsidered, and strikes us as significant. A point that emphasizes the delusional nature of our captivity: we are imprisoned only as we allow ourselves to be. This reorientation of our way of looking is also ethical because it requires the courage to question oneself; it is frightening to let go of own’s old habits of thought and dive into something new and messy in order to think it anew.

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very way in which the Investigations are written seems to presuppose that the philosopher/reader is affected by certain tendencies and temptations: s/he suffers a “vague mental uneasiness,”15 a “mental cramp,”16 is in a “muddle felt as a problem,”17 is often “tempted” by,18 “seduced” by19 or “obsessed” with;20 is under “delusions”21 and “grammatical illusions.”22 There is (the acknowledgement of) a dissatisfaction with the situation that calls for a transformation. The philosopher (the reader) is in a state of confusion (lost): “A philosopher is someone who has to cure many intellectual diseases in himself before he can arrive at the notions of common sense.”23 The idea that obsessions and compulsions—and not only theories—are essential ingredients of philosophy presupposes a redefinition of the boundaries between philosophy and psychoanalysis. It is not implausible to argue that Wittgenstein’s philosophical mission consists in indicating to what extent we are victims of certain dispositions, obsessions, attitudes, and temptations. Which is why “the work on philosophy […] is really more a work on oneself. […] On how one sees things. (And what one expects of them.)”24 To avoid both oversimplifying and degrading the role of the therapeutic method to a caricature, it is necessary to recognize that, while Wittgenstein shares Freudian terminology (sublimation, resistance, therapy, acceptance), “therapy” remains an analogy, and one we must be careful not to force, turning

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

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Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein’s Lectures, Cambridge 1930–32, ed. by Desmond Lee, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980, p. 22. Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969 (1958), p. 1. Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books, p. 6. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §§ 254, 520. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §§ 93, 192. Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books, p. 108. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein’s Lectures, Cambridge 1932–35, ed. by Alice Ambrose, Totowa: Rowman and Littlefield, 1979, p. 134. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 110. Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, p.  44. See also Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, trans. by G.E.M.  Anscombe, ed. by Georg  H.  von  Wright et al., Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978 (1956) IV, p. 53. “The method of philosophizing is to make yourself crazy, and to cure the craziness again.” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Manuscripts 105–113, in: Id. Wiener Ausgabe, vols. 1–5, ed. by Michael Nedo et  al., Klostermann: Frankfurt am Main: 2011, MS 109, p. 84. Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, p. 24. “Difficulty of Philosophy. Not the intellectual difficulty of the sciences, but the difficulty of a change of attitude. Resistances of the will must be overcome.” See “Philosophy”: Sections  86–93 of the so-called ‘Big-Typescript,’ Catalog Number 213. Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Big Typescript: TS 213, trans. and ed. by C. Grant Luckhardt / Maximilian A.E. Aue, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2005, p. 406.

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Wittgenstein’s diagnosis into a courthouse.25 Wittgenstein’s is not the therapy of the doctor who seeks to eradicate a disease in order to improve public health26 (precisely by conceiving philosophical difficulties as intellectual problems, one is tempted to solve them by the external “medicine” of a conclusive argument). “In philosophizing we may not terminate a disease of thought. It must run its natural course, and slow cure is all important.”27 As in psychoanalysis, for a change to be such, it will have to be my change, not simply the acceptance of an image that is imposed on me.28 The point of Wittgenstein’s therapy is to get us to acknowledge that what we feel are necessities can be understood as a particular “way of seeing” things. It allows us to acknowledge what drives us to say and think what we say and think, the disposition to see things in a certain way. To acknowledge the function these dispositions perform in determining the direction if not the structure of our ways of relating to certain topics, to ourselves, and to one another. Wittgenstein’s therapeutic approach is pervasive; it invests the overall sense of his texts and is not located only in specific passages. His texts are not even closed totalities—self-sufficient sets of contents to be received passively (Wittgenstein’s chains of remarks are revised as well as rearranged countless times, obeying to a dynamic practice of reflexive repositioning). They require commitment and participation on the part of the reader, and not only cognitive commitment. In order to understand the Philosophical Investigations, one shouldn’t even look for “reasoning,” since Wittgenstein asserts nothing which could be proved empirically or logically. Instead, his way of composing texts is mostly made of questions, jokes, dialogues, parables, and situations for us to think about. In this sense they are collaborative in nature, they repeatedly address, question, and jolt the reader, through various devices (quick turns, underlining, italics, dashes, tone of voice, emphasis), into active, even painful, reflection (the form and the topic of the Investigations correspond to each other). Reading Wittgenstein cannot be reduced to a merely intellectual enterprise (any difficulties in understanding his texts arise not from disagreement 25 26 27 28

Wittgenstein does not forbid or ban anything; rather, he makes us aware of the unspoken premises from which we start. It is “possible for the sickness of philosophical problems to get cured only through a changed mode of thought and of life, not through a medicine invented by an individual.” (Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, § 132). Wittgenstein, Zettel, § 382. “We can only convince someone else of a mistake if he acknowledges that this really is the expression of his feeling if he (really) acknowledges this expression as the correct expression of his feeling. For only if he acknowledges it as such, is it the correct expression. (Psychoanalysis.) What the other person acknowledges is the analogy I am proposing to him as the source of his thought.” (Wittgenstein, Big-Typescript, p. 410).

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on a philosophical thesis; instead, they are produced by a series of resistances and expectations). It is worth noting that Wittgenstein’s main mode of presentation—suggesting scenes of interaction, showing us how words and concepts are implemented and used in social situations—has something improvisational about it. Savickey calls them improvisational exercises, aimed at awakening the reader’s imagination.29 Consider Wittgenstein’s tireless ability to imagine possibilities, for example forms of life not only distinct from our own but populated by stubborn children, bizarre tribes, dogs, fleas, lions … unusual figures, that extend the series of applications of a rule in unexpected ways, making some aspects of so-called “common [shared] human behavior” practically unrecognizable.30 How Wittgenstein writes is an occurrence of what he writes about. 2.

The Regimented View

I will now exemplify Wittgenstein’s therapeutic approach by focusing on human language. We easily assume that learning a language is learning to follow rules designed to determine what can and what cannot be said. A language governed by a set of syntactic and semantic rules charged with establishing the meaning of our words. A “refined” or “complete” “system of rules” for the use of our words,31 rules that already have inscribed in themselves their own way of functioning. The image used by Wittgenstein to picture such rules is that of the infinitely long railroad track.32 Even among Wittgensteinians there is a tendency to conflate ordinary language with a normative account of prevailing linguistic habits, hence thinking ordinary language as specifying a standard of correctness to which we must conform, as if language (past use) per se could dictate what we say. Wittgenstein invites us to consider such a picture. Is language fixed in this way? He points out that this view is conceivable when we are isolated 29 30

31 32

Beth Savickey, Wittgenstein’s Investigations: Awakening the Imagination, Cham: Springer, 2017. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 206. Tribes that, for their trade, make use of money in arbitrary ways, or that play a chess-like game by shouting and stamping their feet, or, again, that react naturally by looking in the direction of the wrist, instead of in the direction of the fingertips. By means of comparing different possibilities, Wittgenstein seeks to remove the dogmatic inclination to believe that our language or our form of life “must” be as it is. Wittgenstein, Big-Typescript, 257v, p. 203e. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §§ 218–219.

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in our room speculating philosophically, but is much more difficult to hold onto in the concrete context of our daily interactions with others.33 Does not Wittgenstein encourage us to question our seemingly innocuous assumptions, certain ways of setting the stage? “The first step [language as bound by rules] is the one that altogether escapes notice [… and] commits us to a particular way of looking at the matter. […] (The decisive move in the conjuring trick has been made, and it was the very one we thought quite innocent).”34 A language everywhere bounded and governed by rules, always intolerant towards unusual or unexpected use,35 would not only be suffocating; it would not be a language at all (Wittgenstein would rather call it a “philosophical requirement”). In and through the Investigations Wittgenstein is changing our image of language. Language is no longer conceived as a self-functioning semantic system but as a field of communicative possibilities expressed by individuals, a field in which the responsibility for the public nature of language is revealed: where there is language, we speakers are involved. “Philosophers very often talk about […] analyzing, the meaning of words. But let’s not forget that a word hasn’t got a meaning given to it, as it were, by a power independent of us, so that there could be a kind of scientific investigation into what the word really means. A word has the meaning someone has given to it.”36 “Every sign by itself seems dead”; “What gives it life?—In use it is alive.”37 In Wittgenstein, the work of leading words back to their everyday uses is a constant struggle against the temptation to think, or fantasize, that words might somehow speak for us, over our heads as it were, independently of our investing them with meaning (thus rejecting the very conditions under which our words can be meaningful). Cavell describes this fantasy as the idea that “I must empty out my contribution to words, so that language itself, as if beyond me, exclusively takes over responsibility for meaning.”38 A language not spoken by us, a frictionless 33

34 35 36 37 38

As Hume reminded us in a well-known passage of the Treatise, (Book  1, part 4, section 2, paragraph 57), it is when we stop philosophizing and return to our everyday activities that doubts disappear. Cf. David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. by Lewis A. Selby-Bigge, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975 (1739). Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 308. Rules are presupposed in order to notice and distinguish an utterance as problematic, new, unexpected, puzzling. Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books, pp. 27–28. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 432. Stanley Cavell, This New Yet Unapproachable America: Lectures after Emerson after Wittgenstein, Albuquerque: Living Batch Press, 1989, p. 57. This point of view affects our understanding of what can and what cannot be said. The nature of the “can’t” is not related to some alleged limits of language, to the way it limits us, but to the circumstance that we do not want (are unable to) go somewhere in language.

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language that functioned independently of the ways in which we talk to each other, would seem an ideal language. But this would only be a theoretical temptation, a never-never language, to employ the definition of Max Black.39 What we voice in speaking is not a grammatical given (the reproduction of accepted combinations of words) but our investment in language. Although emptiness is attractive (it seems to discharge us of the costs— the burden—of our semantic responsibility and appears to give language an intrinsic stability), language does not work without us. Wittgenstein considers such an image mythical, since it arouses the illusory but self-assuring conviction that rules inexorably recall their consequences as a result of a power that would be immanent to them. No rule has the strength to apply itself and act at a distance, forcing us to respond in a certain way. What appears to be a feature of language—rules ensuring that my words have meaning—turns out to be a feature of our relationship to language (what we want to see in language, our expectations).40 There are no structures detached from us—detached from the concrete experience of everyday communication—that impersonally guarantee agreement or consonance (Übereinstimmung, as Wittgenstein calls it.41) There is only our mutual involvement. When we converge in communicating, it is not because of language per se (because of rules that apply themselves), but because of the ways in which we use language to speak to and for one another. Language is not so much a given as an achievement. 3.

Projective Imagination

What is the significance of connecting language to use? How are we to think of use? What is the relationship between use and rules? As language users, we do not simply follow the norms to which we are subjected. We apply them, adapting them to different and sometimes unforeseen purposes. Using words, following rules, involves what Cavell calls projections.42 39 40 41 42

Max Black, A Companion to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, 1964, p. 10. More generally (methodologically), rules are one of the modes of representation of language, not language’s object of description (or a property of language). Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 201. The term projection is not to be confused with the analogous term of Freudian origin. In philosophy it has been employed in more than one way. In Wittgenstein, for example, it recurs in the Tractatus as well as in the manuscripts of the thirties, in relation to calculation and imagination. Connected to issues of epistemic validity and inference, it is also used by Nelson Goodman in Fact, fiction, and forecast, Cambridge MA: Harvard

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To project means putting words to new uses, throwing them into further contexts. Thus, projections can imply shifts. Consider the following expressions: “feed the kitten,” “feed the meter,” and “to feed one’s pride.” There is a transition from feeding the kitten to feeding the meter. Having accepted the phrase “feed the meter,” we come to understand and accept the phrase “feed his hopes,” recognizing that the “feed” factor is, in the two cases, similar although not identical (through the repetition, a shift is introduced). Someone started to talk about the possibility of “feeding” (as well as under nourishing)43 emotions, just as someone talked about a “burning” pain to describe what s/he felt even in the absence of fire, and such projections were accepted (acknowledging the way words were being used) and redeployed. Those who are unable to grasp such connections and projections—those who are unable to appreciate the fact that emotions can also be nurtured—not only impoverish the concept of emotion, they ignore something fundamental about the linguistic form of life we exist in and inhabit (they lose sight of the affinity between the development of an organism and the dynamics, the growth or decline, of our emotional life). As occurrences of uses that do not reproduce entrenched practices and that nevertheless do not appear to be inconsistent anomalies but rather instances of successful communication, projections put the regimented view (as well as the normative reading of ordinary language, the one that confuses current with common) into question. They show well what it means to say that rules (criteria for using our words) are open. A rule is a repository of practiced uses, not a prescriptive structure separate from social life. It is modified as it is reiterated. Wittgenstein appropriately points out how rules resemble not the evoked railroad track but a pathway.44 Unlike the railroad track, artificially disposed on previously prepared ground, the path is bumpy, imbued with ups and downs and small curves, and above all the result of the steps that cross it. Following rules, mastering concepts, speaking a language, does not only mean arranging words in the right order but grasping similarities amongst different cases (a skill that requires complicity with, as much as distancing oneself from established use).

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University Press, 1955. I have no space here to draw a comparison between Cavell’s notion of projection in language and in film. “Nourish” has a connotation of care. It refers to a benevolent disposition that the more neutral “feed” does not carry within it. Let us also think of the case where we say that the ATM “swallowed” the credit card, even if it is not equipped with an organic body capable of swallowing. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 57.

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I want to point out that these examples are not mere paraphrases45 but forms of semantic and conceptual innovation.46 Projections redefine and expand the concept of feeding, revealing how the contours of concepts are not rigid, how meaning is not predefined. The shift from feeding the cat to feeding pride is an instance of successful extension. It helps us see how pride can be fed, and that this is part of what we mean by pride. Projections are also not to be confused with malapropism or with sentences in clumsy English uttered by a foreigner who has little command of our language.47 These cases are understandable because we have become familiar with a widely shared background knowledge that allows us to compensate for such exceptions, which are parasitic with respect to established use. There is no linguistic innovation, much less invention at the conceptual level (no usage is transformed). Instead, thanks to unprecedented and yet intelligible (because made by imagining a context in which they might find a place) projections, we loosen the conditions of application of the term (the predicate “feed”), creating new possibilities for meaning. We learn to use “feed” in contexts related to nutrition. Then Ludwig comes along and refers to feeding the meter or one’s pride, and we competent language users manage to make (appropriate) sense of that use. Even if we don’t normally use the concept this way, we are not puzzled, we do not experience a communication breakdown. Establishing meaning is not connected to our complying with something given and hidden (grammar), but with the creation of something different.48 The directions projections may take are many, as varied are the cases in which a new projection can be elaborated. Nevertheless, not all projections can be accepted as legitimate (what will count as a legitimate projection is controlled),49 and in any case not arbitrarily. Although malleable, language is also intolerant. We can feed a child and feed the meter, but we cannot feed a child’s self-esteem with coins, and if we wanted to do so at any cost, assuming it were physically possible, we would not be feeding the child’s self-esteem.50 45 46 47 48 49 50

Such as the following sentences: “I gave the kitten to eat” or “I took care of the cat.” See Martin Gustafsson, “Familiar Words in Unfamiliar Surroundings: Davidson’s Malapropisms, Cavell’s Projections,” in: International Journal of Philosophical Studie 19.5 (2011), pp. 643–668. Think for example about someone saying, “I fed the kitchen” (instead of kitten), or “I food cat.” I am not arguing that language is always creative, nor am I assuming that what we say is not influenced by conditions of speech, inheritance of history, relations to concrete others. Stanley Cavell, The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979, p. 183. It is worth mentioning that Gabriel Tarde, in his Psychologie économique, Paris: Félix Alcan, 1902, did imagine a gloriomètre.

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It is here useful to distinguish between projectability in a language per se and the actual projection of particular concepts into new situations, between projectability as a feature of human language and what actually happens when we project a specific concept into a new situation. On the first aspect, emphasizing how language is always potentially open to the unexpected and not subject to a regimentation, Cavell remarks: If what can be said in a language is not everywhere determined by rules, nor its understanding assured in any case by universals, and if there are always new contexts to be encountered, new needs, new relations, new objects, new perceptions to be registered and shared, then perhaps it is as true of a master as it is of an apprentice of language that, although ‘in a sense’ we learn the meaning of words and what objects are, we never cease to learn and always find new potentials in words and always new ways of discovering objects.51

The normative order of language is dynamically modified and even transformed during language use. To repeat a crucial point: a language that was everywhere bounded by rules, that was always or only intolerant, a language without elasticity, would not be a language at all (by not allowing the expansion of the use of words in different contexts, instead of gaining stability, communication would become prohibitive and lead to speechlessness). As Cavell writes: “Both ‘external’ variability and ‘internal’ constancy are necessary if a concept is to fulfill its tasks—to mean, to understand, to communicate.”52 Cavell’s idea is to hold two elements together: there is a language that allows us to express ourselves that we did not create. And, at the same time, there is the possibility of extending it, of projecting words into new situations. There is an inventiveness that is made possible by language that is not inscribed in it before the actual uses we will make of it in specific circumstances (an inventiveness that unfolds according to a logic that cannot be anticipated or controlled).53 It is precisely this double articulation that avoids setting up a polarized, ideological discourse, in which we associate speech with change and freedom and other qualities connect to play and the break from order, as opposed to language or grammar as a regulated system. Besides the property of being potentially innovative, projections are pervasive, i.e. they are always present, even (albeit less visibly) in the simplest cases of word use. It is misleading to interpret past linguistic use as if it represented a non-projective base (shared by all) to which we can ascribe the regularity/ 51 52 53

Cavell, The Claim of Reason, p. 180. Cavell, The Claim of Reason, p. 185. To learn a term is to be initiated into the life of that term, the possibilities and extent of which are to be discovered.

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constancy of our linguistic transactions. A structural core of linguistic usages established independently of projections and capable of guaranteeing communication. We say, “lower the light,” “lower the volume,” “lower the tone,” “lower the offer,” “as he aged, he got lower,” “with that gesture he really lowered himself.” Which of these utterances contain projections and which do not?54 This does not imply that the distinction between primary and secondary use, or between literal and metaphorical, have no place. Depending on our purposes and interests, these distinctions may be useful to draw on specific occasions. Cavell’s point is that such distinctions cannot be drawn a priori, as if it were predetermined once and for all what can be said (correctly, meaningfully) and what cannot be said, regardless of our judgments about what is worth connecting and distinguishing. If such distinctions could be drawn a priori, we would be back to the regimented view. I would like to elaborate on this point. Projections are pervasive. It is an illusion to believe that the transition from “feed the kitten” to “feed the pig” implies no projections; the transition from “feed the kitten” to “feed the meter” implies a small one; and the transition from “feed the kitten” to “feed your pride” implies a large one. The first transition also involves a contextual shift, a grasping of (the importance of certain) nexuses. Even then a projection is involved. Whenever we use a concept in a specific circumstance, no matter how blindly, we are implicitly consenting to its use, we are sharing the commitments embedded in that concept. Also in highly proceduralized situations, such as court decisions, we are implicated. Classifying a legal instance or adhering to a principle, contrary to what one might think, are cases in which it is not the logical or normative force that carries us through, but the circumstance that we make ourselves accountable (in certain ways) by sustaining that principle or validating that legal instance. Even in such cases, then, it is an illusion that the normative mechanism works by itself, without someone drawing this or that conclusion. Let me summarize the basic points outlined so far. The meaning of words is not fixed by pre-established grammatical rules (language as portrayed by the regimented view is really just an idealized picture). Meaning is connected to use. Language use is projection of concepts into new contexts, the capacity to combine our concepts with other concepts in different configurations, the range of which is not given but must be discovered, imagined, improvised (as Wittgenstein says, in some cases we make “up the rules as we go along”55). Language is thus a sort of living enquiry into the possible relations that can be 54 55

Gustafsson, “Familiar Words in Unfamiliar Surroundings,” p. 660. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 83.

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drawn between concepts. Hence our life with words deserves also to be conceived as an “adventure.” 4.

Normativity and Openness to Response

The second relevant aspect of the projective dimension (the fate of individual projections) highlights a complex process: sometimes the new projection is perceived and received (it catches on), changing the way we use words (but those ways may in turn become obsolete and go out of circulation). At other times, the projection is ignored or deemed unintelligible, as if situations admit (invite) some projections and reject others. A further possibility is that conflicts emerge regarding the meaning (appropriateness) of the extension of the concept (one side sees the point or correctness of the new use, while another side does not and finds it absurd), demonstrating that projections cannot be standardized.56 To better analyze this dynamic and discuss its philosophical import, let us briefly consider the portrait of (initiation into) normativity drawn by Kripke in his well-known Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language.57 Kripke concentrates on the prototypical teacher/pupil relation. The teacher addresses the initiate who is struggling to expand a series by offering explanations and exhortations: “this is what we do/how we do things.” A final and insurmountable normative limit. There seems to be little room for contingency (for the awareness that each interaction could develop differently from the expected). In Kripke’s reading of the scene of instruction, necessity is the dominating principle: it is so and not otherwise. What is the source of Kripke’s confidence in behaving like a guardian of normativity?58 That of being philosophically more aware of how language really works? How can he be so sure to represent the normative community? Having hastily identified normativity with normality and brought the earlier back to (blind) obedience, there 56

57 58

The determination of the conditions of a projection’s success (its felicity, as Austin calls it analyzing perlocutions), i.e. what causes a new projection to appear, eventually propagate, merge with other ones, and even die out, is an entirely different project which is beyond the scope of this chapter and would entail an analysis of both different settings, conventions, conditions of reference (think of distinct language games such as poetry, jazz, joking, philosophy, mathematics …) as well as a sociological investigation of specific projections. Saul Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982. Language looks after itself, Wittgenstein remarks; it does not need someone who serves as its legal representative, nor does it require policing by so called experts with access to its “true” grammar.

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seems to be no room, in Kripke, for the realization that projecting concepts can be a risky business. Notice the difference. When confronted with an utterance that has no clearly discernible place in a language-game, Wittgenstein does not assume it is false or nonsensical. Rather, he invites the speaker to clarify how she is using her words, to connect them with other elements of the language-game in a way that displays their meaningfulness (words are not isolated—they imply other words, they allow inferences to be drawn, conclusions to be derived). Wittgenstein is not refuting his interlocutor; he is signaling that, as of today, he is unable to follow him (“I cannot go along with you there”). He is calling attention to the fact that a boundary is emerging between them. Rather than judging an utterance false, Wittgenstein notes how it may be not yet or no longer current,59 as if withdrawn from circulation. By saying or doing something unexpected I have not made a mistake; simply, my projection has found no place in the games being played at present. We can only do things with words if we are aware of the work we must put into making ourselves understandable (into meaning our expressions). If we are willing, moreover, to expose ourselves to others and their responses, and hence to the risk of some kind of failure (the risk of being rebuffed, of discovering that I do not matter to the others, that I am unable to make myself intelligible to them or to make them see the point of a certain rule I claim to follow). In principle, all speech acts are meaning claims pending confirmation or rejection by the relevant language user(s) the speech act is directed to. We are normally right in expecting that a certain sentence, uttered in a certain context, will produce certain effects. Nonetheless, I can never be entirely sure that I will actually be able to make myself intelligible in a given situation. Thus, acting with words means first and foremost exposing myself to an unspecified risk connected to the other person responding in different ways (or not at all) to my words. Thus projections are structurally open to renegotiation and never entirely predictable. I wish to insist on this point. Each of us acts with the expectation of sharing the criteria for attributing meaning. However, we cannot count on, as it were, an “insurance policy” against the unforeseeability of the effects our projections might create. It is by interacting that I find out whether I have done what I intended to do; whether, in those circumstances, what I said stood for what I thought it should mean (was my wink taken for a greeting? And did the 59

Current, that is, employed, employed by someone in certain contexts, occasions and circumstances, circumstances and occasions that take on a paradigmatic value in exemplifying the uses of words in terms of which things in the world are meaningful to us.

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greeting result in a response?). To what extent my words will continue to mean what they mean also depends on whether (some) other people find it worthwhile to continue to understand me. I cannot decide what is shared (or obvious); I must find out.60 How I will emerge out of the interaction—what meaning my projection will receive, what identity will be imputed to me—is not (only) up to me. I might, for example, discover that we use words differently, I might not be able to find myself in you, discovering that I cannot speak to you or even for you. Sure, we are attuned to one another in language—we share judgments, impressions, needs, inclinations, desires, moods, perceptions, games. But how far the limits of this sharing extend is not given a priori. So, speaking (projecting) has an “on the edge of the unknown” character. Contra Kripke, our projections (the exercise of our voice), are ways of exploring rather than relying on (or exploiting) what we (assume we) share with others. Let us think back to the discomfort we feel when, after a comment, a request, or a joke, instead of being taken up as extensions of a common rule, remain suspended, perhaps even for a moment. A situation that testifies to the openness of our rules and criteria. Have I been understood? Will they continue to act like (and therefore interact with) me? Will they develop the series I began? Cavell invites us to reflect on the circumstances in which we appeal to criteria (as well as on the role this appeal fulfills). The point of utterances like the following: “In such circumstances we say …,” “When we say …, we mean …,” or “We don’t say that, but …,” is to remind—others and oneself—what the situation in which one finds oneself (this situation) is. The meaning (the grammar) of a concept is sought precisely when we hit a snag in the traffic of communication, when we are uncertain about our own words and the world they anticipate. In such cases we begin to explore the criteria on which we agree. One aspect of Wittgenstein’s grammatical inquiry is precisely to enable us to discover where we stand in relation to what we are talking about (the world) and in relation to those to whom, and with whom, we are talking (the others). To discover, that is, where a boundary must be drawn (signaling that I have ceased, perhaps temporarily, to be part of a “we”). The very question of meaningfulness or meaninglessness (of a projection) is ultimately a question about whether we can acknowledge each other’s voice. From this point of view, it is misleading to say that language has failed or “gone wrong,” because it is not a question of right and wrong, but of acknowledgment 60

As projections show, the tension between what one intends to say and the meaning that is delineated through the circulation of words (the tension between the propositional content I believe I am conveying and what my words mean in given circumstances) becomes potentially productive.

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and responsiveness. At issue is not the success or failure of a single, isolated speech act, but the capacity to inhabit a shared language as a form of life, thus creating or failing to create the conditions for mutual acknowledgment. Our mutual availability and accessibility shapes the community that comes into being in the medium of our joint responsiveness to each other, the community of which we are a part and we help to make up.61 Kripke admits that we can occasionally face situations in which we are unable to converge with the other. Try as we may, our explanations and justifications come to an end. Wittgenstein describes these situations in which it is unclear whether going on together is possible as hitting bedrock.62 But what does it mean that we have reached bedrock? What lets us know that we have reached that limit? To find oneself “without reasons,” Cavell says, does not mean to find oneself “therefore without any more patience” or imagination.63 A situation in which we are apparently stuck raises the question: how can we develop this situation, and this relationship? Do we want to develop it? When bedrock has been hit our spade bends. The circumstance that the spade bends is interpreted by Cavell as a moment of potential change, the call for a turn in different, unexpected directions. I can’t keep it straight, the spade; I can’t proceed in a straightforward way. I can’t go down the main road. Perhaps I am placed on the wrong spot. I can try to dig further. It is precisely when we prove incapable or unwilling to follow up on the unexpected reactions of the other, like Kripke, that those reactions become “an error,” 61

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This inescapable involvement concerns also the philosophers themselves. Consider the use of the personal pronoun in crucial remarks such as this one, from Tractatus (6.54): “My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them—as steps—to climb beyond them.” (My emphasis) Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. by David F. Pears / Brian F. McGuiness, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961 (1921). Or this other one, from the Investigations (§ 116): “What we do is bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.” First person utterances (singular or plural) in Wittgenstein and in Cavell are not just statements of a viewpoint (or arrogance) but experiments on the boundaries of mutuality, inclusion tests if you will. To what extent can we mean the words we are inclined to say (to what extent can I recognize myself in what I say)? In writing the Preface to the Investigations, Wittgenstein was well aware that few readers would, eventually, understand him (“It is not impossible that it should fall to the lot of this work […] to bring light into one brain or another—but, of course, it is not likely.”) In addressing the American Philosophical Association in 1988, Cavell likewise knew that he would probably be misunderstood, that the risk of his isolation (not only intellectual) was high. Just how far, he seemed always to be asking, can I or anyone else follow what I find myself disposed to say now? Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 217. Cavell, Stanley, A Pitch of Philosophy, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1994, p. 15.

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blocking any possible development. Apparently, the notion of error is inscribed in the normative dimension (one must contemplate error, otherwise the very distinction between correct and incorrect use collapses). Yet, Cavell observes, it is difficult to draw a clear distinction between an error made in learning a rule and the transformation of an established practice. Rather than immediately coinciding with an error, an unexpected projection can foreshadow unanticipated ways of continuing a series, becoming the beginning of something else. What happens when someone’s behavior diverges from the expectations of a second individual who takes it for granted to be following the rules followed by the normative community? Kripke contemplates only two possibilities.64 The first is that of a divergence regarding the application of a particular rule. Let us call this the case of the error being corrected (the individual who intends to be part of the community accepts the correction). Second, there is the stalemate case, where two individuals fail to establish communicative interactions. In this latter case, since it is not possible to ascribe rules to the other’s behavior, I will conclude that s/he is not part of my community. If someone projects concepts in a different, unexpected way (at the fringes of a common ground), Kripke will say either that there is something wrong with his words (and with those who have taught them to him) or that there is something wrong with him. What strikes, in Kripke’s reading, is not so much the power to exclude as his powerlessness to include. Cavell insists on a third possibility. The case in which the person who considers herself a representative of the community opens to the “anomalous” conduct and accepts it as a possible paradigm for a new application of a rule.65 Let us recall in this regard the distinction drawn by Wittgenstein between an error and a different kind of game: “if you follow other rules than those of chess, you are playing another game; and if you follow other grammatical rules, it does not follow you are saying something wrong.”66 The application that does not fully conform to rule X may become the application of a different rule (Y), or the extension of the range of application of rule X, in a manner analogous to the extension of the semantic range of a term 64 65

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Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, pp. 70–80. In the context of Argentine tango, for example, disjunctive moments are inevitable. During the dance things rarely turn out as expected. Yet these unforeseeable moments of loss of control offer the opportunity of being led where we have never gone. Hence the commitment to recontextualize misunderstandings and to work with and for each other. Hence the willingness to follow someone along a path that seems potentially uninviting. If, like Kripke, we are too eager to correct, we cannot be affected by what the other is doing. We are not even really addressing what is happening. Fixated on control, haunted by the syndrome of the anarchic partner, we shut off the world. Our collaboration is no longer a co-elaboration. Wittgenstein, Zettel, § 230.

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we discussed in analyzing projections. If someone witnessing an unusual projection where to react, like Kripke, by crying: “That don’t mean nothing!,” or “But that ain’t tango!,” we could answer by paraphrasing what Gertrude Stein famously said about the portrait Picasso made of her to those who remarked that it didn’t resemble her: “Don’t worry, it will, one day.” 5. Skepticism After this lengthy discussion about projections and their ductility, some might consider the whole debate on the status of language over. The regimented view of language is wrong (false) and has to be replaced by a more appropriate theory of projections. However, we must not forget that Wittgenstein’s purpose is therapeutic: he does not intend to solve the problem of how words bear meaning by advancing a new semantic theory. He wants to understand how language can become (for the philosopher) a problem in the first place and help us recognize its genesis. Wittgenstein invites us to focus on the figures in which our images of language are condensed. Figures such as that of impersonal rules sealed like train tracks, of absolute adherence between words and world, of a complete agreement between language users. Images and figures that seduce or haunt us, and that end up holding us captive.67 Wittgenstein is not simply rejecting a certain picture of language. Nor is he trying to win (outsmart) his interlocutors by proposing a theory that is superior in explanatory power to the ones he is fighting. Rather than true or false theories, Wittgenstein is concerned with our attraction to certain figures or certain word combinations that seem to express great difficulties or great philosophical possibilities but are instead the result of our desire for generality. Because of the craving for theory and the pull of scientism, it is hard to overcome the inclination to think that there must be “some general conception of meaning.” It is hard to give up the attraction of the idea that Wittgenstein must surely be telling us something essential about the nature of language. The real difficulty is not that of grasping the true essence of language. It lies in one’s own inability to relate to what is going on within oneself. To realize (and relate to) our own frustration in coming to terms with the ordinary. It is not language that confuses us, picturing unreliable images; it is we who are confused, having lost our attunement to life. The shift in perspective, from idealized images to the “rough ground” of practice, with all that follows in terms of contingency and indeterminacy, has important implications. Surprise and unexpected developments, 67

Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §§ 108, 115.

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unpredictability, these improvisational qualities, are not pathological or exceptional aspects of human language functioning. To rehearse a famous quote from Cavell: “We learn and teach words in certain contexts, and then we are expected, and expect others, to be able to project them into further contexts. Nothing ensures that this projection will take place […], just as nothing ensures that we will make, and understand, the same projections.”68 And yet, for this very reason, the skeptic in us recoils from such a view. Even we might wonder what the philosophical import of Wittgenstein’s seemingly trivial remarks (language is not everywhere governed by rules, language is use …) is? We are so accustomed to asking: “What account of meaning does Wittgenstein provide us with?,” that we forget to challenge the pertinence of the very question. Wittgenstein’s philosophy has often been considered a quietist one, as if it were necessary to supplement and complete his work with further explanatory activity. Wittgenstein’s “conclusions” seem banal, and perhaps they are. Accepting them as plausible, however, when we are struggling to resist them, is anything but banal (and it is significant that Wittgenstein, while writing that philosophy leaves everything as it is, thought of his method as liberating). In some ways Wittgenstein’s remarks draw our attention to obviousness, but obviousness that we have an irresistible inclination to evade.69 It is precisely this circumstance that signals the need of the therapeutic method. Both Wittgenstein and Cavell propose to replace the figure of the solid, impersonal, static, and definitive foundation of language (something metaphysical, or certified by a science such as biology—something substantively grounded which we can rely—and lean—on) with a different figure, that of a dynamic stability, dynamic because it necessarily implies language users.70 The skeptic desires more from ordinary language, something that language as practice, use—as something spoken by us—seems incapable of securing. He does not even look at use, but spies into it to detect some logical or natural property that makes it possible. This is what Cavell calls a deflection,71 the attempt to evade something difficult to accept in order to take refuge in a neighboring 68 69 70 71

Cavell, Must We Mean What We Say?, p. 52. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 89. Consider how in architecture the properties of building materials, appropriately combined (think of the construction of a bridge), allow both structure and stability, tightness, and tension. Cavell, Must We Mean What We Say?, p. 247. The term is taken up by Cora Diamond, see Cora Diamond, “The Difficulty of Reality and the Difficulty of Philosophy,” in: Partial Answers 1.2 (2003), pp. 1–26, here p. 13. See also Cora Diamond and James Conant, “On Reading the Tractatus Resolutely,” in: Max Kölbel / Bernhard Weiss (eds.), Wittgenstein’s Lasting Significance, London, New York: Routledge, 2004, pp. 42–97.

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aspect of a more abstract and philosophical nature (for example, we avoid looking at how language is used by demanding evidence of the general way words gain meaning). Everyday use does not only correspond to a description of our ordinary form of life, thus to the condition of possibility of our agreement in language. It simultaneously corresponds to what allows the threat of skepticism (the repudiation of the ordinary) to emerge. The vision of language as use and projection seems to confirm the skeptic’s worry that our words do not reach out to the world, do not enjoy determinate meaning, but depend instead on their circulating in our communicative exchanges. To point out that there are no structures detached from us that impersonally guarantee interhuman agreement (because these “are only houses of cards”72); that there is just our mutual involvement, the constant responsibility to find common ground, makes skepticism re-emerge. And this is exactly why Wittgenstein invites us to dwell in the skeptic’s position, to experience it from the inside, showing— therapeutically—how it can be reconceptualized (thus acting on our selfunderstanding). He is articulating it, in the hope that it will be re-articulated (re-enacted) by his readers, in such a way that they simultaneously experience its attraction or grip (nothing is more human than this need to transcend the human) and its vacuity. A therapeutic move.73 6.

From Language to Improvisation

To conclude, I would now like to reflect on the lines of connections between language use, projections and improvisations, in the attempt to clarify to what extent it is justified to ascribe an improvisational quality to human speech. First, what does improvisation refer to? It accounts for a kind of action not based on instructions, scripts, or scores, performed without having previously agreed upon its course or outcome. We call improvisation the need to act when we do not know exactly (or clearly) what it means to go on. As its etymology indicates (im-pro-video), it means to act without foresight. If we compare the improvisational dimension of language we have uncovered via Wittgenstein and Cavell to improvisation in the performative arts, what strikes us are both analogies and differences. As projections show, in 72 73

Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 118. Precisely because the skeptical impulse is deep-seated, the rediscovery of the ordinary is not configured as a single journey that results, as its terminal culmination, in a radical transformation (as if skepticism could be settled once and for all), but therapeutically as a perpetual and never-to-be-concluded task, induced by repeated losses and repeated recoveries of our attunement to the (form of) life that we inhabit.

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language there is genuine creativity at the semantic or conceptual level. Old patterns are not just routinely reproduced but extended. A feature shared by both domains (everyday language and specialized languages, if you will) is contingency, which can be summarized in the expression: “it is so, but also otherwise” (in the sense that each projection could develop differently from the expected). Contingency is distinguished from the principle of necessity, which refers instead to what cannot-not-be: it is so and not otherwise (any alternative is excluded, as in Kripke’s reading of the scene of instruction). Think of an open conversation: after the first move, the speakers rely on a circular process in which each relates/responds to the other and ends up depending on interactional contingencies rather than on the lead intention of the first to speak. In improvised music making, dance or talk, not only can the course of action at any time veer in further directions, dragging us where we would not have imagined we could go. The normative order of such practices can also change. Another shared feature that should be mentioned is situatedness. Improvisation is an activity that takes place here and now, without relying on a preestablished agreement that predetermines what to say or do, and in what order. While the composer can rely on a structured representation of the musical work as a whole (thanks to the score, I have immer das Ganze vor Augen, as Beethoven writes in a letter to Treitschke), improvisers and language users are short-sighted, even if not blind: they can look behind at what has emerged, and respond to it, extending the logic of the previous phrases, shaping an exchange retrospectively, blending the emergent with the intended. We can call these, forms of secondary creativity: at stake is not so much what we bring out of ourselves as what we do with existing conventions, the capacity to react and respond in creative ways to what is part of a tradition.74 At stake is less a coining of new concepts and more a re-working through the ones we have. It is also significant that a jazz musician and improvisation theorist, Derek Bailey, refers to his activity by choosing exactly the term projection: “music involves an aspect of projection. I would say, projecting your imagination into a situation you are not going to be present in, and in that sense it’s not so strange for me to try to project one stage further, which is to project the conditions that I hope, with good will, the musicians will enter into.”75 In the case of specific languages such as jazz, projective imagination is more articulated: I 74 75

Think of a creative cook. S/he might use a recipe and well-known materials (the equivalent of rules and words), but what counts, besides the resources, is her resourcefulness. Existing usages are hence reclaimed and signified upon. Derek Bailey, Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music, New York: Da Capo Press, 1993, p. 60.

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project not only single units (words, sounds) but generate the very conditions within which others can project together with me. Improvisers inhabit spaces generated through interaction within which the performance happens. This event, the happening that allows thing to happen, is crucial. Improvisation, in this case, coincides both with the opening of such spaces and with the projective activity that takes place within them. On the other hand, projections, for Cavell, do not refer to the gift of extraordinary individuals, as if performed only by poets or by Joyce. They are immanent to the use of words (or, differently put, they are the outcome of an emergent collaboration), and it is irrelevant whether they are deliberate or indirect. The source of plasticity can be traced back to the circumstance that language is use. It is as much the medium as the product of those very actions it affords.76 That a linguistic community may consist of dull and unimaginative speakers is likewise an empirical matter that does not invalidate the projective nature of language. This remark allows us to spell out some differences between everyday creativity embedded in language and improvisation in specialized fields. Although conversation, like all human activities, must be enacted and is accomplished with a certain amount of spontaneity and individual nuance, it is less improvised than it might seem. In everyday life we rarely pursue or reward originality (while jazz musicians love surprise, we everyday language users seem to hate it). If one is too original, one is looked upon with suspicion. And then, yes, we improvise, but we know very well within what limits to do so. We avoid intentionally disrupting expectations or producing unheard-of actions by saying bizarre things or incurring in behavioral non sequiturs. If we did, others would become impatient and consider us “weird.” Improvisation in the arts has a centrifugal force. Thus, the difference between innovation as a byproduct of interactional contingencies and creatively induced innovation. Jazz musicians and tango dancers are marked by the capacity to produce or at least make room for the unforeseeable, to allow the unexpected to take place (Hannah Arendt calls it das Wunder, the human miracle).77 They make 76

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Resorting to an image of Wittgenstein, we can compare language to a river in its bed (Wittgenstein, On Certainty, §§ 97, 99). The water flows, but it also tends to expand and contract. Although it always has a determined contour, an outline that constitutes a reference (the river’s edge is the point of friction with respect to change), the river is a metaphor for the way in which language use continually modifies language itself. Hannah Arendt, Was ist Politik. Fragmente aus dem Nachlass, München: Piper, 1993. “It is in the nature of beginnings that something new is started which cannot be expected from whatever may have happened before […] the new therefore always appears in the guise of a miracle.” Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958, p. 178. Although improvisation implies the promise of surprise, nothing can guarantee it, nor prevent the possibility of failure. Nonetheless, we continue to improvise,

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room for, and reward, imagination, and virtuosity (generating ideas conceived, shaped and transformed under the condition of performance), in a way that everyday conversation normally does not. In the arts the question is precisely: how can I bring about the new? The capacity (and need) to pursue newness is a constitutive aspect of the art worlds—we are after all in the realm of art, not of daily life. Being an artist entails generating something different (something that comes out differently or sounds/looks different) from what has previously been expressed, by others but also by the artist herself (who strives to differentiate herself from her previous selves). To put it in a nutshell: jazz improvisers must try to say something different, otherwise their practice, or at least their solo, “dies out.” There is nonetheless a deeper common thread. With Wittgenstein we reassessed the difficulty in relating to human language. What is it that makes me see things in a certain way? What impinges on my vision of language? Why am I tempted to evade the ordinary?78 The questions regarding our life with language are suddenly of concern, referring not so much to what we know and how we think but to who we are.79 It is worth noticing that this acknowledgement plays a crucial role in improvisation as well. Improvisation is not just a skill. In addition to knowing how to improvise, I am questioned. What does improvisation ask of us? It asks us, “how do you relate to this moment here?” (how do you relate to contingency and indeterminacy?). And again, “what do you have to offer to the very person(s) you are interacting with?” (do you allow her projections to be redirected? what limits your ability to be affected by her solicitations?). By improvising, in short, we are tested, aesthetically as well as ethically. Once again, the actual difficulty is not so much that of developing good chops to make music or dance (what I know and what I can), but the willingness to relate honestly to myself, to others and to the current situation (hence who I am).

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pursuing the miracle. And if we must fail, as Beckett said, we try to fail better: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Cf. Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho, London: Calder, 1983. To such questions Cavell pairs other questions: who (or what) is in a position to help us restore our attunement to life when we capitulate to the skeptical impulse? And by virtue of what act, attitude, or device? It may be a medium like the theater, or a film, a text, a person such as a psychotherapist or a friend, or also Wittgenstein’s therapeutic method. Something (someone) capable of provoking me in my fixation and closure, capable of enhancing the possibility of self-transformation. For Cavell therapy concerns not only our ways of thinking of things but also always our thinking about—and relating to—ourselves.

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References Arendt, Hannah, The Human Condition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958. Arendt, Hannah, Was ist Politik. Fragmente aus dem Nachlass, München: Piper, 1993. Bailey, Derek, Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music, New York: Da Capo Press, 1993. Beckett, Samuel, Worstward Ho, London: Calder, 1983. Black, Max, A Companion to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, 1964. Cavell, Stanley, Must We Mean What We Say? A Book of Essays, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969. Cavell, Stanley, The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. Cavell, Stanley, This New Yet Unapproachable America: Lectures after Emerson after Wittgenstein, Albuquerque: Living Batch Press, 1989. Cavell, Stanley, Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome. The Constitution of Emersonian Perfectionism (The Carus Lectures, 1988), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Cavell, Stanley, A Pitch of Philosophy, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1994. Cavell, Stanley, Philosophy the Day After Tomorrow, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2006. Diamond, Cora, The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind, Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1991. Diamond, Cora, “The Difficulty of Reality and the Difficulty of Philosophy,” in: Partial Answers 1.2 (2003), pp. 1–26. Diamond, Cora and Conant, James, “On Reading the Tractatus Resolutely,” in: Max Kölbel / Bernhard Weiss (eds.), Wittgenstein’s Lasting Significance, London, New York: Routledge, 2004, pp. 42–97. Goodman, Nelson, Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1955. Gustafsson, Martin, “Familiar Words in Unfamiliar Surroundings: Davidson’s Malapropisms, Cavell’s Projections,” in: International Journal of Philosophical Studies 19.5 (2011), pp. 643–668. Hume, David, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. by Lewis  A.  Selby-Bigge, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975 (1739). Kripke, Saul, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982. Malcolm, Norman, “Moore and Ordinary Language,” in: Vere C. Chappell (ed.), Ordinary Language: Essays in Philosophical Method, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1964, pp. 5–23. Savickey, Beth, Wittgenstein’s Investigations: Awakening the Imagination, Cham: Springer, 2017.

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Tarde, Gabriel, Psychologie économique, Paris: Félix Alcan, 1902. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1958 (1953). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. by David F. Pears / Brian F. McGuiness, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961 (1921). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Zettel, trans. by G.E.M.  Anscombe, ed. by G.E.M.  Anscombe / Georg H. von Wright, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, On Certainty, trans. by Denis Paul / G.E.M. Anscombe, ed. by G.E.M. Anscombe / Georg H. von Wright, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, The Blue and Brown Books, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969 (1958). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe, ed. by Georg H. von Wright et al., Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978 (1956). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Wittgenstein’s Lectures, Cambridge 1932–35, ed. by Alice Ambrose, Totowa: Rowman and Littlefield, 1979. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Culture and Value, trans. by Peter Winch, ed. by Georg  H. von Wright / Heikki Nyman, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980 (1977). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Wittgenstein’s Lectures, Cambridge 1930–32, ed. by Desmond Lee, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, “Philosophy,” in: The Big Typescript: TS 213, trans. and ed. by C. Grant Luckhardt / Maximilian A.E. Aue, Oxford: Blackwell, 2005, Sections 86–93, pp. 405–435. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Manuscripts 105–113, in: Id., Wiener Ausgabe, ed. by Michael Nedo et al., vols. 1–5, Klostermann: Frankfurt am Main, 2011.

Frame and Framing as Transformative Practices On the Parergonal Constitution of Artworks Eva Schürmann Abstract This chapter examines the framing conditions of aesthetic practice. Through the help of the term “parergonality” we take a closer look at the complete set of conditions that are necessary for the appearance and performance of artworks, such as the room of a museum, the stage, the framing of a film scene, or the lighting. This term refers to more than accompanying aspects of a presentation. What parergonality also points to is the constitutively relevant ‘how’ of artistic practice and experience, which might be even more significant than what it is dealing with. It is therefore necessary to differentiate between various forms of parergonality in the sense of framework factors. Moreover, artworks often consist of particular framing perspectives, in that they create or problematize certain points of view. Artworks thereby manifest a culture’s or era’s style of thinking, as one might say with Wittgenstein. Thus, in a way that is analogous to “seeing-as,” artworks can be regarded as various forms of “showing-as” through deframing and re-shaping. I shall exemplify my thoughts through an artwork by Cristo and Jeanne-Claude that sheds light on the performative forms of discursive framing.

1. A possible distinction between artworks and other objects aims at considering the former as items that are of interest because of how they depict and portray rather than because of what they show or articulate. Thus, the modes or ways of picturing become a central topic of aesthetic research both on the production-aesthetic side and the reception of an artwork. Aesthetic practice, at any rate, is often more concerned with the modalities of artistic portrayal than with their content. When watching a film adaptation of a novel or a recent theatre performance of Othello, for instance, we do not eagerly ask what the story is about, because often we already know the plot from further performances. We then rather experience the dramaturgical ideas and means of stage-management as inventive and enriching or, on the contrary, * This chapter is a revised version of one that first appeared here: Stefan Majetschak / Anja Weiberg (eds.), Aesthetics Today: Contemporary Approaches to the Aesthetics of Nature and of Arts. Proceedings of the 39th International Wittgenstein Symposium in Kirchberg, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2017, pp. 165–180. Thanks to De Gruyter for allowing to reprint.

© Brill Fink, 2023 | doi:10.30965/9783846767450_004

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as rushed and unbalanced. Similarly, we might find the plot and characters of antique or Christian iconography in painting and sculpture strange or uninteresting, were it not for their highly complex and interesting manner of portrayal and arrangement1 or grouping through which some unmitigated motif of human self- and world conditions has been made thematic. What is being represented in the case of the ‘Angel Appearing to Zacharias’ or ‘Bacchus and Ariadne’ might concern us just a little or not at all, yet we admire the coloring and the flow in Ghirlandaio’s or Titian’s manner of painting, respectively. Anna Karenina, too, has not become boring even if today she could simply get divorced. Similarly, we could tell Hamlet to make a decision somewhat earlier. These narratives concern us even though we might not have their problems today or even though their story—as is so frequent in more or less abstruse opera libretti—merely is the obsolete background of past historical conditions or a dramatic exaggeration. Tolstoy’s mode of narrating is unsurpassably subtle and gripping, Shakespeare’s language so fascinating, the music so much more important than the libretto—so that in all these cases it is how something is said, shown, and performed that stands in the center of aesthetic practice. Yet, this ‘how’ of the representation has to be differentiated in very different respects: First, it can be considered as reflexivity, insofar as artworks consist of representing themselves in their being represented—as Friedrich Schlegel wrote.2 Secondly, it also has to be conceived of as style, namely as a characteristic manner to say and show something. Thirdly, it relates to the contextual conditions of being presented and of appearing. In what follows I would like to assess from a Wittgensteinian perspective whether this ‘how’ can be further qualified when examining the parergonal condition of artworks. By this I not only mean the ornamental accessories but also various types of framings that are constitutive of artworks. Already in 1966 Ronald Hepburn introduced an extended sense of words like ‘frame’ and ‘framed’ and conceived of artworks as contextually controlled, even, determined, but he considered this aspect to be crucial to the difference between

1 ‘Arrangement’ here is understood in the sense of Goethe’s term ‘Choir,’ which is equally important to Wittgenstein. See Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Metamorphosis of Plants, trans. by Douglas Miller, Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2009 (1790), and Marco Brusotti, “That they point is all there is to it,” in: Lars Albinus et al. (eds.), Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s ‘Golden Bough’: The Text and The Matter, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2016, pp. 311–338. 2 Friedrich Schlegel, “Athenäums-Fragmente Nr.  238,” in: Kritische Schriften und Fragmente: Studienausgabe, ed. by Ernst Behler / Hans Eichner, 6 vols., Paderborn: Schöningh, vol.  2, 1988, p. 127.

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art and nature.3 I make recourse to the term ‘parergonality’ to denote not only a wide spectrum of framing factors and conditions, but also to emphasize the distinction between the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ in order to show the latter as more decisive for art and aesthetic practice. Depending on the artistic genre, the frame and accessory parts are not necessarily concrete objects. Rather, we can think of the embeddedness of artworks in discursive settings as framework-phenomenon or of the hanging in a museum as a form of framing. In the case of the moving image4 it literally is the framing that forms the artwork, whereas in the case of a score it is its performance. The framing of a moving image consists in showing a section and in disclosing a perspective. That is, the artistic medium is not constituted by a framed object, but it rather is the result of a framing action. In theatre, eventually, it is the entirety of the staging—from decoration to lighting—through which a theatre play becomes an artistic event. And there is yet another form of framing when it comes to the perspectivizations that artistic representations of any medium take by disclosing or questioning interpretative frameworks and their respective thought-patterns. A collection of all these different types of frames and framing is present, so I would suggest, in a specific form of vision-guidance. Referring to Wittgensteinian seeing-as, I contend that the parergonal constitution of artistic (re-)presentation consists of a specific showing-as. That is, the ‘how’ of a portrayal consists of revealing a particular aspect in the sense of a particular conception. When a theatre performance or an actor shows Faust, for example, as a ‘global player’ (as the title of a Faust interpretation by Michael Jaegger5 goes) in that a particular aspect is carved out and in that the character is shown in a certain light, this is due to framing presentation efforts. Yet, this will be unpacked step by step in this chapter.

3 See Ronald Hepburn, “Contemporary Aesthetics and the Neglect of Natural Beauty,” in: Bernard Williams / Alan Montefiore (eds.), British Analytical Philosophy, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966, pp. 285–310. Reprinted in: Peter Lamarque / Stein Haugom Olsen (eds.), Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: The Analytic Tradition, An Anthology, Oxford: Blackwell, 2003, pp. 521–534. 4 See Rebecca Borschtschow, “Bild im Rahmen, Rahmen im Bild,” in: IMAGE 17.1 (2013), pp. 61–68. 5 Michael Jaegger, Global Player Faust oder Das Verschwinden der Gegenwart: Zur Aktualität Goethes, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2013.

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2. In his Critique of Judgment, Kant uses the Greek word ‘parerga’ to denote “ornaments […] as for example the frames of pictures, […] golden frames” or other “external […] complements”6 that play a sophisticated role within the Analytic of the Beautiful, which will not be further discussed here.7 Referring to Kant— though with an important shift of meaning—Jacques Derrida conceives of the parergon as a framing movement and describes it as “a formal and general predicative structure, which one can transport intact […] and reformed […] into other fields, to submit new content to it.”8 I would like to follow up this specific path in order to examine whether the how-level of artworks can productively be made accessible with the help of the concept of parergonality as an activity of framing. A detailed investigation into the issues discussed by Kant or Derrida would take us too far.9 I therefore only take up Derrida’s proposal by conceiving of parergonality as including not only the complete set of conditions that are necessary for achieving and performing artworks, but also the interpretative and discursive imagination and conceptualization frameworks. This broad notion of frame and framing that will receive further sub-differentiations, includes things such as the frame of a picture, the room of a museum, the stage, the hanging, or the preface as well as interpretative patterns, styles of thinking, or world views10 that implicitly or explicitly underlie 6 7

8 9

10

Immanuel Kant, Kant’s Critique of Judgment, trans. by John  H.  Bernard, London: Macmillan, 1914 (1790), p. 76. An alternative translation for the original “Zierate […] wie Einfassungen von Gemälde[n], […] goldene Rahmen« oder andere »äußerliche Zutaten«” (Immanuel Kant, Kritik der Urteilskraft, ed. by Karl Vorländer, Hamburg: Meiner, repr. 1974 (1924), p. 65) is proposed by Paul Guyer: “ornaments […] like the borders of paintings […] gilt frame” or other “addendum” (Immanuel Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, trans. by trans. Paul Guyer / Eric Matthew, New York, Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, 2000 (1790), p. 111). The German term ‘Einfassungen’ is frequently used with reference to jewellery; in English the word ‘mountings’ may come close to this. Jacques Derrida, The Truth in Painting, trans. by Geoffrey Bennington / Ian McLeod, Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press, 1987 (1978) p. 55. On this, see Ulrike Dünkelsbühler, Kritik der Rahmen-Vernunft: Parergon-Versionen nach Kant und Derrida, Munich: Fink, 1991, and Anna Krewani, Philosophie der Malerei bei Jacques Derrida, PhD Thesis, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 2003: Electronic publication, URN: urn:nbn:de:hbz:294–12123. Also see the scientifically very persuasive history of art study by Vera Beyer, Rahmenbestimmungen. Funktionen von Rahmen bei Goya, Velázquez, van Eyck und Degas, Paderborn: Fink, 2008. Denis Paul and Elizabeth Anscombe translate the German term ‘Weltbild’ here as ‘worldpicture.’ See Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty, trans. by Denis Paul / G.E.M. Anscombe, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969.

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or become thematic in artworks. The scope of parergonality, in my view, goes far beyond the decorative and points to what Wittgenstein would call fundamental principles as well as to what with Bateson or Goffman11 could be called framing conditions. Such basic beliefs that are constitutive of world views as well as framing conditions of discursive and social settings define from the outset the framework within which we are enabled to speak, act, think, and perceive. Already in every-day-life our ways of seeing are formed by normative presumptions and culturally predetermined ideas. In artistic portrayals those ways of perceiving are expressed and get visible in certain modes of representation that are based on conceptions and thought-patterns. They act as intrinsic framing conditions and determine the scope of possible interpretations. The term ‘parergon’—whose translation is notoriously difficult12—not only opens up another field of connotation; but I also hope that such a change of focus will enable me to examine an old problem with a shift of emphasis. For the term ‘parergonality’ not solely points to the materiality of frames but also to the process of framing and thus to the movement of a perspectival portrayal or framing outlook. Thus, framings are not merely the respective perspectives;13 they are rather perspectivizations with a virtually transcendental scope, namely general conditions for possible perceptions and potential points of view. In this active, procedural form parergonality, therefore, has a performative14 character. In other words, it realizes itself through practical implementation. As already mentioned, the parergonal constitution of an artistic presentation is linked with practical actions; and only due to their effects we can speak of an artwork. The example of framing and assembling moving pictures is suitable for differentiating the various facets of the concept of ‘framing.’ In relation to my assertion of ‘showing-as,’ however, the similarities between different 11

12

13 14

Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology, San Francisco: Chandler Pub, 1972 and Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience, London: Harper and Row, 1974. A good commentary by Herbert Willems, Rahmen und Habitus. Zum theoretischen und methodischen Ansatz Erving Goffmans, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997. See Ulrike Dünkelsbühler, “Rahmen-Gesetz und Parergon-Paradox. Eine Übersetzungsaufgabe,” in: Ludwig Pfeiffer / Hans Gumbrecht (eds.), Paradoxien, Dissonanzen, Zusammenbrüche. Situationen offener Epistemologie, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1991, pp. 207–233. For an earlier exploration of the term, see Gertrud Koch (ed.), Perspektive—Die Spaltung der Standpunkte, Paderborn: Fink, 2010 and Gertrud Koch / Thomas Hilgers (eds.), Perspektive und Fiktion, Paderborn: Fink, 2016. On the connection between performativity and parergonality, see Uwe Wirth, “Das Vorwort als performative, paratextuelle und parergonale Rahmung,” in: Jürgen Fohrmann (ed.), Rhetorik. Figuration und Performanz, Stuttgart: Metzler, 2004, pp. 603–628.

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framing actions also come to the fore: in the same way as the camera detail and camera work show and bring to mind something-as-something, the exhibition context presents the Bottle-Rack-as-artwork or the actor-Faust-as-globalplayer. In each instance, it is a showing-action that guides the vision, attracts the attention, and facilitates attitudes. I would like to discuss the connection between the intrinsic framing conditions of artworks that are intangible due to their performative nature and what we can call—along with Ludwik Fleck and Ludwig Wittgenstein—styles of thinking. As the characteristic way an action is performed, style is, obviously, something pertaining to the how-level.15 It is this ‘how-something-is-formed’ that conditions how something can appear and be perceived. Physician and philosophy of science thinker Ludwig Fleck’s early investigation of style of thinking (thought style) as preparedness for directed perception is foundational in this regard. For Fleck, a style of thinking is literally like a style of perception; “[s]eeing Gestalt and seeing sense in terms of a style of thinking”16 are the forms of scientific observation that Fleck describes as a sort of aspect-seeing. Wittgenstein coined the term ‘aspect-seeing’ referring to the famous drawing that can be seen either as a rabbit or as a duck, so as to underline that aspect seeing is “half visual experience, half thought.”17 If I see something as something I do not see a meaning in the figure as I would see geographies in cloud formations. It is not an act of imagining, as I cannot see the drawing as something amorphous, and then attribute a certain form to it. Nonetheless, I have two possible ways of recognizing a figure: The drawing stays the same, it is the way we see it which makes the difference. Such double images are relevant to the relation between seeing and interpreting, perceiving and thinking. Aspect seeing is a good example for the indivisibility of perception and sense making, since we “see it as we interpret it.”18 The constitutive proximity of seeing and thinking has also been referred to as the way visual perception is ‘charged’ with theory, meaning the inclination of the perceiver to see in terms of theoretical insights and beliefs. 15

16 17 18

For further remarks on the connection between style and aesthetic perception that is closely related to the present discussion, see Eva Schürmann, “Stil als Artikulation einer Haltung,” in: Stefan Deines et al. (eds.), Kunst und Erfahrung. Beiträge zu einer philosophischen Kontroverse, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2012. Ludwik Fleck, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact, trans. by Frederick Bradley / Thaddeus J. Trenn, Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press, 1979 (1935), p. 99. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M.  Anscombe, ed. by G.E.M. Anscombe / Rush Rhees, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, II, 1958 (1953), p. 197. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, II, p. 193.

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Fleck coined the term style of thinking early on to describe social and historical influences on the development of scientific knowledge. For our context here, it is important to realize that thinking starts with a particular manner of perceiving, thought-styles are virtually ways of perceiving; they “bound Gestalt-perception and ideovision.”19 Wittgenstein makes a comparable use of the term Denkstil as a method of examination and justification, which begins with a way of seeing. Wittgenstein asks: “How much we are doing is changing the style of thinking and how much I’m doing is changing the style of thinking and how much I’m doing is persuading people to change their style of thinking.”20 Accordingly, seeing something differently, in this context, is seeing it within the framework of different thought styles. My claim here is that we have to think of artworks in the wake of Wittgenstein and in terms of thought styles. The manner in which an artist sees and an artistic presentation shows something makes up the sensibly graspable character of its articulation. And it rests on parergonal conditions such as a general interpretative framework or world-view dependent preconceptions and ideas.21 To speak with Wittgenstein: “It is like a pair of glasses on our nose through which we see whatever we look at. It never occurs to us to take them off.”22 That is, a general cultural framework influences the individual forming of an artwork and vice versa. Baroque preferences for the theme ‘theatre,’ for instance, are linked with an era’s patterns and frameworks of thought before they shape the style of an artwork. This is why there are variations of theatre motifs that span over individuals, nations, and genres, such as those of Calderón de la Barca or Rembrandt, or Gian Lorenzo Bernini. A presentation’s modality is shaped by collective patterns of thought that take up a sensible form through style. Framing imagination-contents that ground an artwork, such as an era’s or a culture’s basic normative orientations and the evaluative assumptions of a speech community, become sensibly perceivable through the stylistic ‘how’ of a presentation.

19 20 21 22

Fleck, Genesis, p. 99. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief, ed. by Cyril Barrett, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007 (1966), p. 28. For further discussion on world-view-dependent preconceptions, see Eva Schürmann, “Darstellung einer Vorstellung. Das Bild der Welt auf der Pioneer-Plakette,” in: Christoph Markschies et al. (eds.), Atlas der Weltbilder, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2011, pp. 376–385. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 103.

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3. The unity of a presentation is not only guaranteed by exclusion and inclusion through framing in the literal sense, but is also negotiated through intrinsic conditions. Take, for example, the vanishing-point perspective panel painting that Niklas Luhmann has discussed in connection with his second order observation and what he calls ‘parergonal latency’: The unity of space guaranteed by perspective renders the represented figures observable as observers. The painting’s unity is thus no longer guaranteed solely by the composition but also by the observational relationships displayed within the painting. The frame does not cease to function as the boundary of the composition, but the painting’s internal observational relationships, together with its vanishing-point perspective, reveal the world as transcending the frame and as the true object of representation. In this way, even the invisible can be drawn into the painting and rendered visible.23

Hence, according to Luhmann, the painting’s internal perspective or the point of view that is expressed in an artwork is to be conceived of as framing. Whatever the vanishing-point perspective shows, it insinuates an ideal observer position that gives access to a view that is only visible through the painting. If understood in this way—and this is the aim of my argument—the artwork is thereby the portrayal of a view that presents a very particular idea, point of view, or version of whatever is being represented. Every portrayal (even before the vanishing-point perspective) is perspectival in the sense that it takes up a point of view or standpoint showing not merely something but a particular manner of showing or viewing something. If it co-thematizes this reflexively, it is a form of ‘shown-seeing,’ as I have discussed in detail elsewhere.24 Every portrayal, therefore, does not merely show anything; it rather points to something by determining the way we look at things. In this way, portrayal is akin to Wittgenstein’s aspect seeing: we fail to see something if we merely see the rabbit and not the duck; or we see it through different eyes. This manner of viewing at and showing something makes itself explicit in the style of a presentation. Style is, insofar, the symptom of an original mindset and a typically normative basic attitude. The style of something (be it the political style, the style of driving, or the architectural style) is concerned with the ‘how’ of the realization of a performed action—be it of thinking, portraying, 23 24

Niklas Luhmann, Art as a Social System, Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 2000, p. 86. Eva Schürmann, Sehen als Praxis, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2008.

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telling, or perceiving. It is the differences in the manner of implementing, configuring, painting, or telling that make similar contents to be different artworks, such as Rembrandt’s or Ruben’s Bathsheba, respectively. The portrayed is only what it is, due to the modes of portrayal. Styles of thinking are substantially connected with the conceptions, perspectives, and points of view that are expressed through a presentation and thus with what I here discuss as parergonal conditions of framing considerations. Hence, my thesis is twofold. On the one hand, I claim that the ‘how’ of an artistic performance can reasonably be considered as a transformation of a presentation by the contents of imagination and thought-patterns—patterns that embed, as it were, the seeing of what shows itself through the presentation. On the other hand, I think that the parergonal condition of artistic presentations can, concurrently, be specified, because the internal framing of the painting consists of points of view and perspectives that determine the partly individual and partly collective styles of thinking and perceptual influences. A dense nexus of conceptualizations, perceptions, and imaginative powers influences our intentional relationships to ourselves and to others, no doubt even outside the artistic realm. Yet, artworks provide the only opportunity to make what otherwise merely comes along intrinsically sensuously visible and perceivable. Such relationships should be called performative because it is the ‘how’ of the implementation and of the thereby implied embodiment that matters. How something is shown, seen, presented, or formulated determines what it can be perceived as and realized as. This can only be explained as a process. 4. Considering that in every artwork conventions and interpretative patterns of an era become thematic and that these simply come along unnoticed outside of the art world, we can conceive of the entire art history as a framing survey. In contrast to this, most modern art is devoted to escape the framework or to extend it—be it the framework of the museum, the tangible concept of the work of art, or the normative background assumptions regarding what art is to be. However, even John Cage’s silence25 has to be framed by opening or closing the piano lid, for instance. Thus, the distinction frame/framed enables and guarantees, simultaneously, the distinction between art and non-art. Literally, 25

John Cage’s famous piece 4’33 was premiered in 1952, the score was published in 1960: 3 movements, tacet, 1st movement 33’, 2nd movement 2’40’, and last movement 1’20’.

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the frame is the concrete limit of an artwork; and what is thereby produced is the creation of an inner unity through the dissociation from what is external. The frame opens and closes concurrently. Simmel26 has described this as inward inclusion and outward exclusion; and Derrida mentions that the parerga have a texture that “separates them not only […] from the integral inside, from the body proper of the ergon, but also from the outside, from the wall on which the painting is hung, from the space in which statue […] is erected”27 as well as from their discursive contexts in their widest sense. The parergon marks itself off from all of this in a different way as the ergon does; while the frame itself is atopic—neither inside, nor outside—it is only the frame that assigns the framed a place. Only the atopic accessory parts assign a place to the artwork, makes the artwork to be an artwork, and the apparently incidental guarantees the discriminability between soup cans and artworks. For what is this and what is that, what a urinal and what, by contrast, an influential leap into the open is determined by the framing. If museums or art-discourse did not exist, the explosiveness of the framing-enquiries from Duchamp to Beuys and Warhol would not be perceivable. Following a particular interpretation it is, incidentally, the task of philosophy to enquire about the framing conditions of the relationships towards ourselves and others and to focus on the unexpressed and not thought about, or at least the non-thematized conditions of our thinking, speaking, perceiving, and acting. If the aesthetic denotes the particular sphere of perception in which things are brought to our attention in a way that differs from the ordinary, philosophy itself proceeds in an aesthetic manner when it tries to move away from habitual ways of thinking, which is considered to be one of its main tasks in certain theoretical contexts. In this vein, Nietzsche describes philosophy as the methodologically conducted “seeking-out of all things curious and questionable in existence,”28 Adorno as the systematic “resistance against all clichés,”29 Dewey as casting off “partial ideas to which we are wont to give the name of facts.”30 And 26 27 28 29 30

See Georg Simmel, “The Picture Frame: An Aesthetic Study,” trans. by Mark Ritter, in: Theory, Culture & Society 11.1 (1994), pp. 11–17. The original text was published in 1902. Derrida, Truth, p. 61. Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is & The Antichrist: A Curse on Christianity, trans. and ed. by Thomas Wayne, New York: Algora Publishing, 2004, (1888), p. 8. Theodor W. Adorno, Philosophische Terminologie, ed. by Rudolf zur Lippe, vol. 1, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1973, p. 132. John Dewey, Philosophy and Civilization, New York: Minton, Balch and Company, 1931, p. 12.

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Wittgenstein as “ethnological approach” that has virtually made alienation a routine. Thus, working in philosophy is “really more a working on oneself. On one’s own conception. On how one sees things.”31 Hence, we might reach the view that art and philosophy have a decisive similarity in that they both critically thematize the framework conditions. Moreover, in the same way as the arts and artists, philosophy and its modern age actors cannot ignore their relationship to themselves, their media, their problems of presentation, their traditions, and their discourses. Due to fundamental reasons and due to their parergonal conditions, both are, therefore, reflexive. Artworks have, admittedly, more possibilities of sensual visualization and indicative power than philosophy does. 5. There are plenty of artistic efforts that, as mentioned above, try to escape or at least thematize the framework. A particularly convincing artwork of this kind is, I think, Christo’s and Jeanne-Claude’s project Wrapped Reichstag that took place in the year 1995 (Figure 3.1). Referring to Christo supports my considerations in many ways. First of all, this temporary artwork was an outstanding example of sensual beauty as an end in itself. With its reflecting silver-blue surface, its symmetry wrapped in generous drapery, its sublime magnitude, its surface swayed by the wind, and its charm of mysterious alienation, the historical building from Paul Wallot was, for a brief period, a fairy-tale-like appearance. Moreover, it is obvious that wrapping represents an act of resolute deframing. All the common connotations of the building were virtually bracketed out; it was de-contextualized and singled out to thereby frame it in a new and uncommon way, giving it parergonal accessory parts and only thereby making it to an artwork. Beyond such critical value, however, it is also particularly suitable to shed light on the non-representational and performative character of discursive framing that is linked to schemes of conceptualizations as well as to mindsets. For the artistic event was preceded by almost 24 years of preparation, discussions, and actions. These social processes are very well suited to illustrate what it means for framings to be performative and discursive movements.

31

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, trans. by Peter Winch, ed. by Georg  H.  von Wright / Heikki Nyman, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980 (1977), pp. 24, 45.

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Fig. 3.1

Eva Schürmann

Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, Photo: Wolfgang Volz, © 1995 Christo

Already years before the realization the couple tried to gain support (Figure 3.2) and permission for the wrapping. When his work on the project began, the Wall was far from falling and the political conditions were fundamentally different ones. Before the couple could, at last, wrap the historical building, there was a voting on it in the German Bundestag on the 25th of February 1994 that has become legendary. With the high parliamentary attendance of 531 Members of the Bundestag, a decision was reached after 70 minutes of debate and dedicated addresses on both sides and with 295 votes in favor of the project and 226 opposing it (10 abstentions). Although this was not a particularly close result, it still shows how controversial this project was and what considerable amount of convinced opponents it had. The Member of Parliament Wolfgang Schäuble, for instance, criticized that over the whole debate there was no consistent answer as to what the point of all this actually was. Christo’s action intervened in the prevalent framework conditions to such a fundamental extent that the disagreements were not merely about judging the project in this or that way, but much more about what the discussion really was about: about art or about politics, about an individual quirk or a collective symbol, about democratic voting processes or about aesthetic events. The project was anything but museum business; instead, it took place at the center of the highly competitive area of public assertion and interpretative hegemony. This illuminates precisely what I described earlier in the wake of Wittgenstein as general interpretative world views that portray and challenge framework conditions. The media discussions about the happening reached as far as influencing what is called political style. Hence, the work represents a landmark in the tradition of Beuys’ social sculpture, too. A sequence of practical problems that

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Fig. 3.2

57

Willy Brandt visits Christo and Jeanne-Claude in New York on October 4th 1981. Photo: © Wolfgang Volz/laif

required the participation of many people had to be solved before the work could be put into effect: 90 rope access technicians and 120 assemblymen were involved (Figure 3.3). The business transactions and engineering services were processed and organized by a limited liability company. The vast and accurately calculated panels of fabric had to be purpose-made and recyclable in an environmentally responsible way. It is hard to imagine what the debate would have been, had the event polluted the environment or been financed by public funds. It would have obscured its aesthetic origin altogether. Christo’s incorruptibility and strict conception prevented this from being the case. Companies wanted to “tailor […] bedside carpets, handbags, or curtains”32 with the wrapping material. The artist couple did not consent to this in spite of seven-digit sums that were offered for the rights of use of the fabric. Instead, they gave away small material samples on site to all who wanted to have them.33 The project was financed exclusively by 32 33

Dominik Meiering, Verhüllen und Offenbaren. Der Verhüllte Reichstag von Christo und Jeanne-Claude und seine Parallelen in der Tradition der Kirche, Regensburg: Schnell und Steiner, 2006, p. 81. This artwork could therefore also be discussed in relation to its character as a gift.

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drawings and collages untiringly produced by the artist. The impossibility to take commercial advantage of the artistic event is an indispensable part of the concept of a temporal end in itself.

Fig. 3.3

Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, Photo: Roland Bauer, © 1995 Christo

According to estimates, the action costs amounted to 13 million Deutsche Mark, the visitor number was 3 million, and 1.3 billion Deutsche Mark of income for the city was generated as a result.34 Christo’s projects, however, were not supposed to be bought, nobody should own them, nobody should commercialize them, nobody can ask for an entry fee for the viewing—not even we own these works. Our work is about freedom and freedom is the enemy of all claims of ownership, and ownership is synonymous to duration. Therefore, this work cannot last.35

34 35

According to an estimate by the Berliner Morgenpost (Christiane Richter, “Wie der verhüllte Reichstag Berlin veränderte” http://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/article104267247/ Wie-der-verhuellte-Reichstag-Berlin-veraenderte.html accessed (03.11.2016)). Jacob Baal-Teshuva, Christo und Jeanne-Claude, Köln: Taschen, 1995, p. 82.

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In fact, the artwork makes the discursive context not sensually apparent at all. It is, however, part of its performative framework conditions without which it would not be what it is. Its sensual effect is, nevertheless, not a property of the reflexive but rather an irreducible quality. More than for other contemporary artists, Christo’s exclusive concern is, according to his own statement, sensible beauty: “It really is the case that beauty is the only important thing. Only beauty counts.”36 It should, Christo said in advance, “produce a very broad, angular drapery, almost gothic, incredibly beautiful.”37 With the wrapping the form should be brought to higher prominence and the proportions of the building would only then be revealed. If it was possible to present the Reichstag in this way, displaced from its history, and if the transformed building could be celebrated for 14 days as the epitome of freedom and beauty—both as ends in themselves—this confirms, yet again, that the de-framing represents a new framing in its own right. Within a humanist context we may say that Christo achieved the feat of Schiller’s quest to enact beauty as the sensible perceivable form of freedom. 6. In conclusion, I aimed to show that an artwork is constituted through the ‘how’ of the implementation of a presentation and that this ‘how’ consists of many framework conditions and framework actions. The imaginative framework is just one of these; yet it exists within a whole set of mental images, ideas, and world-view-dependent conceptions. Such patterns determine whether something can—to take Wittgenstein’s example—be seen as a rabbit, as a duck, or in a productively different manner. The productivity of the ‘showing-as’ consists, in a manner of speaking, in taking off the glasses through which one is used to look. The point of aspect seeing is not to look somewhere else, but rather to look at the same thing differently, such that this thing can disclose another aspect of itself.

36 37

The artist couple in an interview with the Tagesspiegel on 30.08.1996. Baal-Teshuva, Christo, p. 10.

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References Adorno, Theodor  W., Philosophische Terminologie, vol.  1, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1973. Baal-Teshuva, Jacob, Christo und Jeanne-Claude, Köln: Taschen, 1995. Bateson, Gregory, Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology, San Francisco: Chandler Pub, 1972. Beyer, Vera, Rahmenbestimmungen. Funktionen von Rahmen bei Goya, Velázquez, van Eyck und Degas, Paderborn: Fink, 2008. Borschtschow, Rebecca, “Bild im Rahmen, Rahmen im Bild,” in: IMAGE 17.1 (2013), pp. 61–68. Brusotti, Marco, “That They Point Is All There Is to It,” in: Lars Albinus et  al. (eds.), Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s ‘Golden Bough’: The Text and The Matter, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2016, pp. 311–338. Derrida, Jacques, The Truth in Painting, trans. by Geoffrey Bennington / Ian McLeod, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987 (1978). Dewey, John, Philosophy and Civilization, New York: Minton, Balch and Company, 1931. Dünkelsbühler, Ulrike, Kritik der Rahmen-Vernunft: Parergon-Versionen nach Kant und Derrida, Munich: Fink, 1991. Dünkelsbühler, Ulrike, “Rahmen-Gesetz und Parergon-Paradox. Eine Übersetzungsaufgabe,” in: Ludwig Pfeiffer / Hans Gumbrecht (eds.), Paradoxien, Dissonanzen, Zusammenbrüche. Situationen offener Epistemologie, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1991, pp. 207–233. Fleck, Ludwik, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact, Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press, 1979. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, The Metamorphosis of Plants, trans. by Douglas Miller, Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2009 (1790). Goffman, Erving, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience, London: Harper and Row, 1974. Hepburn, Ronald, “Contemporary Aesthetics and the Neglect of Natural Beauty,” in: Bernard Williams / Alan Montefiore (eds.), British Analytical Philosophy, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966, pp. 285–310. Reprinted 2003 in: Peter Lamarque / Stein Haugom Olsen (eds.), Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: The Analytic Tradition, An Anthology, Blackwell, pp. 521–534. Jaegger, Michael, Global Player Faust oder Das Verschwinden der Gegenwart: Zur Aktualität Goethes, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2013. Kant, Immanuel, Kant’s Critique of Judgment, trans. by John  H.  Bernard, London: Macmillan, 1914 (1790). Kant, Immanuel, Kritik der Urteilskraft, ed. by Karl Vorländer, Hamburg: Meiner, 1974 (1790).

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Kant, Immanuel, Critique of the Power of Judgment, ed. by Paul Guyer, trans. by Paul Guyer / Eric Matthews, New York, Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, 2000 (1790). Koch, Gertrud (ed.), Perspektive—Die Spaltung der Standpunkte, Paderborn: Fink, 2010. Koch, Gertrud / Thomas Hilgers (eds.), Perspektive und Fiktion, Paderborn: Fink, 2016. Krewani, Anna, Philosophie der Malerei bei Jacques Derrida, PhD Thesis, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 2003, Electronic publication, URN: urn:nbn:de:hbz:294–12123. Luhmann, Niklas, Art as a Social System, Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 2000. Meiering, Dominik, Verhüllen und Offenbaren. Der Verhüllte Reichstag von Christo und Jeanne-Claude und seine Parallelen in der Tradition der Kirche, Regensburg: Schnell und Steiner, 2006. Nietzsche, Friedrich, Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is & The Antichrist: A Curse on Christianity, trans. and ed. by Thomas Wayne, New York: Algora Publishing, 2004 (1888). Richter, Christiane, “Wie der verhüllte Reichstag Berlin veränderte,” http://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/article104267247/Wie-der-verhuellte-Reichstag-Berlin-veraenderte. html (accessed 03.11.2016). Schlegel, Friedrich, “Athenäums-Fragmente Nr.  238,” in: Kritische Schriften und Fragmente: Studienausgabe, ed. by Ernst Behler / Hans Eichner, 6 vols., Paderborn: Schöningh, vol. 2, 1988. Schürmann, Eva, Sehen als Praxis, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2008. Schürmann, Eva, “Darstellung einer Vorstellung. Das Bild der Welt auf der PioneerPlakette,” in: Christoph Markschies et al. (eds.), Atlas der Weltbilder, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2011, pp. 376–385. Schürmann, Eva, “Stil als Artikulation einer Haltung,” in: Stefan Deines et  al. (eds.), Kunst und Erfahrung. Beiträge zu einer philosophischen Kontroverse, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2012, pp. 296–315. Simmel, Georg, “ The Picture Frame: An Aesthetic Study,” trans. by Mark Ritter, in: Theory, Culture & Society 11.1 (1994), pp. 11–17. Willems, Herbert, Rahmen und Habitus. Zum theoretischen und methodischen Ansatz Erving Goffmans, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997. Wirth, Uwe, “Das Vorwort als performative, paratextuelle und parergonale Rahmung,” in: Jürgen Fohrmann (ed.), Rhetorik. Figuration und Performanz, Stuttgart: Metzler, 2004, pp. 603–628. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe, ed. by G.E.M. Anscombe / Rush Rhees, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1958 (1953). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, On Certainty, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe / Denis Paul, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Culture and Value, trans. by Peter. Winch, ed. by Georg  H. von Wright / Heikki Nyman, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980 (1977).

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Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief, ed. by Cyril Barrett, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007 (1966).

Wittgenstein—Philosophy as Aesthetic Practice Katrin Wille Abstract Through a special reading of Wittgenstein’s philosophy, this chapter explores a genuine epistemic mode called “exercising-knowledge.” This kind of knowledge unfolds its epistemic potential only through enacting and can be implemented in philosophical argumentation and reflection in the form of exercises like comparing language-games and imagining situations of language uses, or even of physical exercises to move the body in a certain way. This chapter focuses, in particular, on one important type of exercise, which leads to the limits of sense and provides experiences of nonsense. Exercising-knowledge has a correcting function with respect to any misconceptions and fallacies that arise in abstract thinking and enables a philosophical practice of differentiation. This can be described as a concrete mode of thinking, that takes into account the interactions between thinking, imagination, affectivity, sensitivity, and material and social conditions. A philosophy that explores these constitutive dependencies from an epistemic perspective of participation (through the voluntary designing of appropriate exercises) can be called “philosophy as aesthetic practice.”

Introduction Conceptions of practice are well established in the theoretical landscape of the 20th and 21st centuries, and sociology as a discipline has played and continues to play a particularly important role. The method of praxeology addresses the practices of participants and reflects on theorizing itself as a practice of social self-understanding. In every genealogy of the theories of practice and praxeological methods, Wittgenstein’s philosophy is named as one important source of inspiration.1 This is not surprising, because practice can be understood as a kind of focal mirror for Wittgenstein’s philosophy. The term philosophy as aesthetic practice indicates a way of philosophical theorizing, which transfers philosophical problems and conceptual discussion into practices of solving problems or drawing conceptual distinctions and makes evident their entanglement with practices in everyday life. The dimension of enaction of these practices is at the center of interest. Enaction is not an ensuing application, but immediate realization. This dimension cannot be 1 See as two examples: Theodore R. Schatzki et al. (eds.), The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, London: Routledge, 2001 and Thomas Bedorf / Selin Gerlek (eds.), Philosophien der Praxis, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019.

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grasped through mere reflection on the realization. It is also necessary to adopt the perspective of enaction and to perform the relevant practices. Modes of performance are needed that allow an alternation between performing and reflecting, or an intermingling of the two in a kind of reflection through performing. One possibility is to realize an intersection of reflection and performing through exercises, which are invitations to do something, to follow instructions, and that means to take on the perspective of enaction. Such a perspective surpasses the mental and includes systematically the imaginative, sensual and perceptive capacities in philosophizing, and the corporeal and material aspects. The intentional design of contexts for the sake of studying this enactive dimension is called philosophy as aesthetic practice.2 Philosophy as aesthetic practice establishes entanglements between reflection and performance that can alternate or intermingle. These methods enable an epistemic mode that I want to call “exercising-knowledge.” Wittgenstein’s philosophy is one important source for philosophy as aesthetic practice and I want to present a reading of his work under this perspective. In Wittgenstein’s view, the practice of philosophical theorizing has a tendency to be restricted to classification and generalization, reifying distinctions and favoring the conceptual, underestimating or excising the non- or quasi-conceptual. Such ways of theorizing involve epistemic traps that must be analyzed in a self-critical manner, corrected or supplemented, and sometimes even replaced by other means entirely. In the following I want to focus on Wittgenstein’s suggestions about supplementation and replacement. In his later philosophy Wittgenstein produces less a sequence of arguments than a practical space for reflection. The various paragraphs are like plateaus from which to explore opposing positions or subtle differences. In this sense Wittgenstein often gives instructions to enact exercises such as comparing situations, but also to perform simple physical actions (like raising one’s arm). He sometimes evokes different contexts of use and indicates possible situations. These comments are very brief and remain underdetermined, calling for a reading that highlights ways we might concretize and flesh out Wittgenstein’s suggestions. Passing through this space of reflection may generate “exercisingknowledge,” including the comparison of opposing theoretical positions, the change of perspectives, and deeper perception of subtle differences. 2 Another important part of philosophy as aesthetic practice is the art of description, which starts with the sensed qualities of situations and unfolds their implied references. A rich source for this layer of philosophy as aesthetic practice is Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. Cf. Katrin Wille, “Proust—Philosophie als ästhetische Praxis,” in: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 70.2 (2022), pp. 327–348.

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This practice highlights experimental directives and contexts of performance. The grammatical form of the imperative—do this, imagine that, see it like this, compare these two things, etc.—is everywhere in the texts of the middle and later period of Wittgenstein’s thinking.3 One could speak of a kind of philosophy of the imperative, but this would be misleading, for he is not concerned with the social form of command as a power relation. Imperatives or injunctions are more an irreducible and inescapable mode of the performative that must be included in a philosophy of practice. Through these imperatives, Wittgenstein finds a method expressing his philosophical insight that knowledge is based on and conditioned by practices that we are trained to master. In dealing with problems or uncertainties, philosophy has to take this into account and find ways to bring practical training and conceptual problems together. We have to remember, reimagine or reenact trained practices in philosophizing, and require suitable methods to transform philosophy itself into an aesthetic practice and to design contexts to explore this link. In the following, I want to develop this idea of philosophy as aesthetic practice as a reading of Wittgenstein’s philosophy. I want to follow a line of thought that starts with Wittgenstein’s reflections on the difference between conditions and the conditioned in the early Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which takes not the form of an overcoming but more that of a sublation. In his early philosophy Wittgenstein deals with the difference between conditions and the conditioned as the marker of a boundary, while in the middle period he models the difference as a warning sign and in the later philosophy he creates a space to explore this difference in various contexts of use and types of situation. The difference between conditions and the conditioned has many expressions and one important example is the difference between willing and wishing, which preoccupies Wittgenstein throughout his intellectual biography. I will use this difference as an example to illustrate the transformation in method involved. I start in the first section with some preliminary remarks on the concepts of “practice” and “aesthetic practice.” In the second section, I will present the starting point in Wittgenstein’s early philosophy, the asymmetric difference between conditions and the conditioned. This difference unfolds a dynamics that provokes a transformation of philosophical method. In the third section, Wittgenstein’s change of methods from drawing boundaries in the early philosophy to exploring a practical space in the later philosophy is outlined using 3 Jörg Volbers points to examples and imperatives as method in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, cf. Jörg Volbers, “Die offene Praxis der Sprache. Wittgensteins und Austins pragmatische Wende der Sprachphilosophie,” in: Thomas Bedorf / Selin Gerlek (eds.), Philosophien der Praxis, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019, pp. 141–178.

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the difference between willing and wishing. In the fourth section, I turn to the irreducibility of performing exercises in following Wittgenstein’s philosophizing and give a pertinent example of one such exercise. The philosophical impact is what can be called “exercising-knowledge.” In the last section, I want to summarize under the perspective of philosophy as aesthetic practice. 1.

Wittgenstein as a Philosopher of “Practice” and “Aesthetic Practice”

Theories of “practice” focus on doing, on activities and actions. These encompass different modalities: routine activities as well as creative activities, collective as well as individual action. It is important to include this diversity of modalities and not to focus on intentional action as a model. A double demarcation is therefore characteristic for theories of practice. One is directed against the overemphasis on the individual and the other against that on supra-individual structures. Theories of practice are a project of mediation between both. “Practice” addresses the relation of inclusion. For human beings and human self-understanding there is no outside of practice. Thinking about practice is itself part of practice and takes place within practice. This conceptualization of practice as an encompassing term has far-reaching epistemological and ontological consequences. Epistemic standpoints are only possible within practice, not outside of it. Practice is not entirely controllable and there is no overview from any epistemological standpoint. Therefore, conceptualizations are necessary that can point out the concealed aspects of practice and that can take into account the perspective of participation of the cognizers themselves. Through training and rehearsal, attentional structures, somatic habits as well as worldviews and self-understandings are built up. These processes can be observed and reflected upon and can be described from the perspective of enaction. This also concerns the relation between body and mind. Aspects of the mental belong to practice just as much as aspects of the physical or material. In the absence of either of these aspects, practice remains incomprehensible and reductively conceived. Ontologically, reality has to be understood as a mixture of processes, changes and strivings, where relations of difference and continuous movement take place. “Practice-theoretical” conceptualizations are required that express both kinds of relations, without overemphasizing or neglecting one or the other. Wittgenstein offers a reinterpretation of crucial categorical pairs that traditionally give preference to a rationalist position or prioritize theory over practice. The distinction between conditions and the conditioned is at the center

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of his thinking throughout his intellectual path and he pursues similar distinctions, like rules and their application or the inner and the outer. In Wittgenstein’s view conditions and the conditioned are an asymmetrical difference. Unlike symmetrical differences, the elements of asymmetrical differences exist on different levels. The aspects are not like two symmetrical options to choose between (take different flavors of ice cream), but one aspect is more a medium for the other, which cannot be reified and is more like a shaping or somehow productive activity. The other aspect is shaped or produced and can be objectified. Wittgenstein tries to make evident that our everyday practice is conditioned and shaped by conditions. But these conditions cannot be abstracted from the practice, they exist in the practice and can only be grasped through practice. Conditions are immanent in practices and are always linked with or even expressed through materials and bodies in concrete situations. Wittgenstein tried out different terminologies; in the early period he used the term “logical,” in the middle period the term “grammatical.” The later Wittgenstein became more and more critical of artificial terminology and used helpful pictures like the picture of the riverbed. These terminological changes reflect modifications in method. His strategy to deal with this asymmetric difference changed over time as he searched for philosophical ways to reenact everyday practices and explore their relation to philosophical problems. In the later philosophy, Wittgenstein embeds the problematic categorial pair of rules and their application in a philosophy of practice. Rules and their application are linked in the social practice of following rules, a practice that we are born into, trained to follow, and share with others. Their separation as sequential parts, where one (the rules) determines the other (the application), may be appropriate for the description of certain situations, but these situations can occur because following rules is part of our everyday practice. Questions about how it is possible in everyday life or in theoretical reflection to follow a special rule in a special situation imply the general acceptance of rule following as a shared and habitual practice.4 Practice covers a variety of modes and linguistic or reflexive activities are part of it just as are eating, walking or being afraid of 4 Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe et al., ed. by Peter M.S. Hacker / Joachim Schulte, Oxford: Blackwell, 2009 (1953), § 202: “And hence also ‘obeying a rule’ is a practice. And to think one is obeying a rule is not to obey a rule. Hence it is not possible to obey a rule ‘privately’: otherwise thinking one was obeying a rule would be the same thing as obeying it.” David Bloor emphasizes that Wittgenstein addresses a central contention around the philosophical subject of following rules that is traditionally occupied by rationalist theories prioritizing theory over practice. Wittgenstein debunks this as a misunderstanding and shows that the practice of following a rule is presupposed

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something. All these modes of activities are highly entangled and linked with each other and it is artificial and reductive to distinguish thinking or speaking as higher, autonomous activities. This has consequences for doing philosophy as well. Typical ways of theorizing mentioned above, such as classifying or generalizing, tend toward taking a metatheoretical position that cuts off its entanglement with other practices, which then remain implicit or function as a medium for other theoretical acts. Other forms of theorizing are necessary, more along the lines of a kind of philosophical “participant observation” that takes on the perspective of participation. This changes the nature of philosophy away from being a doctrine (of general theorems and classifications of conceptual relations) toward philosophy as an activity, as Wittgenstein writes in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: “Philosophy is not a body of doctrine, but an activity.”5 Philosophy as an activity includes meditating differences, like the asymmetrical difference between the conditions and the conditioned, through reenactments of everyday practices and their defamiliarization as a way of exploring their relation to conceptual problems. Wittgenstein accomplishes a veritable expansion of philosophical method. Philosophy has to become an aesthetic practice and should create appropriate settings for performance and reflection. The term “aesthetic practice” refers to a research- as well as a study-program that seem helpful for such an expansion of methods.6 “Aesthetic” here is to be understood more broadly than “artistic” or “related to the beautiful.” The term refers to the constitutive role of sensations, perceptions, and sensuality in the practice of theorizing and makes a claim as to their epistemic potential. As an interdisciplinary approach aesthetic practice is on the one hand the object of research and on the other hand its method. In order to sharpen the object of research, common distinctions must be subverted, such as those between art and aesthetics, between high and popular art, between everyday life and art, or between the aesthetics of production and the aesthetics of reception. Aesthetic practice takes into account not only artistic practices but the practices of everyday life or practices in the professional world. Academic practices, in theoretical reflection. Cf. David Bloor, “Wittgenstein and the Priority of Practice,” in: Theodore R. Schatzki et al. (eds.), The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, pp. 103–114. 5 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. by David Pears / Brian McGuinness, London: Routledge 2001, (1921), 4.112. 6 At the university of Hildesheim the concept of “Aesthetic Practice” is the focus of research and study programs, cf.: Rolf Elberfeld / Stefan Krankenhagen (eds.), Ästhetische Praxis als Gegenstand und Methode kulturwissenschaftlicher Forschung, Paderborn: Fink, 2017. Academic practices can also be fruitfully described as aesthetic practices. On this topic, I gave a seminar in summer term 2021 at the University of Hildesheim, see the magazine of the students: https://www.uni-hildesheim.de/media/fb2/philosophie/Fuer_Studieninteressierte/ honoris_causa.pdf.

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for instance, can be profitably observed as aesthetic practices. Philosophy as aesthetic practice focuses on processes of production and reception and the relevance of concrete material and social conditions. Aesthetic practice as a method introduces experimental settings or exercises to perform practices in order to reflect on them. These experimental settings often function as imperatives to do something. At times, they suggest a systematic change between performing an everyday practice and reflecting on it (as a special kind of practice). Other settings allow for reflection while heeding the imperatives, and performance and reflection merge to a certain extent. Aesthetic practice as a method makes available “exercising-knowledge,” that is, the possibility of grasping the functioning of conditions and rules and is therefore of distinctive philosophical value. In the following I present a reading of Wittgenstein’s philosophy that demonstrates the redefinition of philosophy as aesthetic practice. The starting point is Wittgenstein’s struggle with the asymmetric difference between conditions and the conditioned in the philosophy of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The dynamics of this difference leads to the invention of new philosophical forms of practical reflection that include performing basic actions or engaging in situations. 2.

Why the Difference between Conditions and the Conditioned Provokes a Change in Philosophical Method

An important starting point in Wittgenstein’s early philosophy consists in the insight that propositions about the subject, the will or the good life differ from propositions about chemical reactions, for example. Reflection on this difference is a persistent theme in Wittgenstein’s philosophy. In the philosophy of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Wittgenstein seems to suggest a terminological distinction to capture this difference. While propositions about facts like chemical reactions are called “meaningful propositions” (sinn­ volle Sätze),7 propositions about the subject or the will are called “nonsensical” (unsinnig). The latter function differently from the former and point to conditions of action in our collective way of life that encompass various areas like the sciences or culture. The term “nonsensical propositions” disappears in Wittgenstein’s later thinking, but reflection on the relevance of this difference persists. Wittgenstein turns more and more into a critic of philosophical 7 Ogden translates the German “sinnvoller Satz” as “significant proposition” and Pears / McGuinness translate it as “proposition that has sense.” I prefer the translation “meaningful” and use it where I refer to the Tractatus.

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terminology. Philosophy has to use everyday language. In everyday language we communicate within situations and our utterances function as connections to former utterances or non-linguistic actions and invitations to further ones. What is called a “nonsensical proposition” in the philosophy of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is something enabling communicative situations. But this is not a kind of transcendental condition that can be abstracted from situations regarded in isolation (this is the Kantian way). It is something that is part of our experience in communicative situations and can only be grasped in and through practice. This is not an endpoint for philosophy, but it is the limit for certain forms of speaking and for certain forms of theorizing. This is an important negative result of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. In the middle and later philosophy Wittgenstein searches for different methods to entangle lived situations and philosophical reflection in order to grasp this relation between conditions and conditioned practice. Wittgenstein becomes an advocate for the particular over the general, since the nature of general conditions is entangled with particular situations. The point of view from outside has undoubtedly an important cognitive role. It allows the taking of a distance from complicit or biased attitudes and makes possible more objective knowledge. But (general) conditions function differently from objective knowledge; for the sciences, for instance, their ontological status is radically dependent on the perspective of enaction. This is a methodological challenge for philosophy that cannot be identified with everyday life and for which there are no survey or interview methods as in the social sciences. Philosophical methods are needed that allow a kind of collective performance in situations in order to experience the shaping force of conditions. Wittgenstein develops various means for this, such as the invitation to imagine situations or to remember experienced situations, or the creation of experimental settings for exercises. A philosophical text that works with these methods differs from a philo­ sophical text that focuses on argumentation in order to defend a thesis. A philosophical text that includes experimental settings requires ways to encourage the readiness to try out these experiments. Explicit and implicit imperatives are necessary because experiments in philosophical texts can easily be skipped, since the modes of reception are very different in the cases of an argumentative text and that of performative exercises that may include bodily movements, imagining situations, or following a dialogue, and it may be difficult to integrate the one with the other. But this alternation between the perspectives of performance and reflection is necessary to grasp the functioning of conditions in conditioned practice. Performing enables one to experience

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the conditions, while reflection allows for a retrospective generalization of the character of these conditions, yet these reflective remarks are always incomplete and refer back to the practices. That is why Wittgenstein searches for an appropriate language using metaphors and images. I want to offer a reading of his starting point, nonsensical propositions, because some characteristics can be stressed that are responsible for the dynamics of the difference between conditions and the conditioned practice. For this reason it is necessary to look closer at the distinction between types of propositions in the Tractatus. Wittgenstein distinguishes in the Tractatus between meaningful propositions (sinnvolle Sätze) that can be true or false, on the one hand, and two negative forms, on the other: the senseless propositions (sinnlose Sätze) and the nonsensical propositions (unsinnige Sätze). Propositions in which something is said about reality that can be true or false and in which all names refer to something are meaningful propositions. These can convey meaning; they assert something that can always be otherwise. In contrast, propositions about the logical form of propositions themselves represent nothing and convey no meaning. They are tautologies (which are always true) or contradictions (which are always false), which show the form of propositions but do not represent anything. The logical form of propositions cannot be otherwise. Logical propositions are therefore called “senseless” in contrast to propositions that say something about the world. Senseless propositions display the (logical) laws of thought and language. There is still another important type of proposition that functions very differently, namely the “nonsensical” propositions. Nonsensical propositions include names without reference, which are not in fact names but only look like them. Nonsensical propositions express conditions of another type than logical conditions of thought and language, that is, conditions of action or experience. Such names-that-are-not-names include for instance concepts like “subject” (as a condition of consciousness) or “will” (as a condition of action). Nonsensical propositions have the appearance of being meaningful propositions but are not, since the conditions of meaningful propositions are not met. Concepts like “subject” or “will” do not refer to anything. In the Tractatus Wittgenstein deals with this basic difference and apparent similarity only negatively. He draws a distinction between what can be said and what cannot be said, because what cannot be said does not figure as content but as the condition of any content. In the middle period Wittgenstein adopts another negative strategy and emphasizes a warning not to confuse what seems similar but is not; and in the late period he explores the difference and is interested in its various forms and contextual shifts. Despite these

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far-reaching changes in strategy, some of the insights of the early period of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus remain relevant and can orient the transformation of attitude and method. Nonsensical propositions that express conditions are characterized by a peculiar negativity, a self-reflexivity, and a kind of totality.8 The negativity concerns the negative mode (they are nonsensical propositions, whereby they do not function like false meaningful propositions), and their non-referential character.9 They have a self-negating dynamic and convey a content that is withdrawn at the same time. This self-negating character implies a selfreflexivity of nonsensical propositions; they refer to themselves. Nonsensical propositions furthermore express conditions of social practice as a whole, including language and all types of proposition, that must use these conditions at every moment. Conditions of action are immanent in action and cannot be abstracted and observed from an external perspective. The conditions of use are their contents; they thematize their own conditions, which are simultaneously employed and indicated. This is why they seem to have a content, but one that cannot be true or false. Nonsensical propositions are about philosophical topics like the subject or the will. Nonsensical propositions limit meaningful propositions. Considerations of limits and boundaries can be found in various 8 I worked this out more fully in the chapter “Wittgenstein: Über die Gefahr, Wunsch und Wille zu verwechseln” in my book: Katrin Wille, Die Praxis des Unterscheidens, Freiburg: Alber, 2018, pp.  203–214. See a provisional English translation of this chapter: https:// www.uni-hildesheim.de/fb2/institute/philosophie/team/apl-prof-dr-katrin-wille/ buecher-apl-prof-dr-katrin-wille/. 9 In the austere or resolute reading of Cora Diamond, James Conant and others, nonsensical propositions are elucidations or clarifications (Erläuterungen). A debate has arisen in Wittgenstein research as to whether or not Wittgenstein intends to distinguish two kinds of “nonsensical propositions” in the Tractatus. Elizabeth Anscombe, representative of the older Wittgenstein literature, proposed to distinguish those propositions that are nonsensical but still point to something true but unsayable from those that are simply nonsensical. Nonsensical propositions of the first kind are the propositions of the Tractatus; nonsensical propositions of the second kind are certain metaphysical propositions of the tradition that transcend the limits of the sayable without being conscious of them. In contrast, Cora Diamond and James Conant have proposed a new reading of the Tractatus in order to clarify the function of nonsensical propositions. This is precisely the central concern of the Tractatus, to understand that all philosophical propositions are nonsensical in the same way, those of the Tractatus just as much as, for example, the proposition “piggly wiggly tiggle.” Further differentiations are not possible in relation to internal propositional content, but only externally in relation to the different modes of the imagination. In the imagination, nonsensical propositions are used like significant propositions, and the concern of the Tractatus is to make their illusory nature transparent. This is highlighted by Cora Diamond, cf. Cora Diamond, “Ethics, Imagination and the Method of Wittgenstein’s ‘Tractatus,’” in: Alice Crary / Rupert Read (eds.), The New Wittgenstein, London: Routledge, 2000, pp. 149–173.

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places in Wittgenstein’s work, and limits and boundaries always have the double character of limiting something, putting an end to something, but also, and precisely through this, opening up a space for something. The former seems to be a negative function of the boundary, the latter a positive one. A nonsensical proposition refers to the whole of reality, because nonsensical propositions are not directed to specific objects but to something that pervades everything. Conditions have a productive effect, because they shape language users and determine what they are. This reveals a certain antecedence of conditions to their users, and the productive effect is difficult to grasp linguistically and conceptually. Wittgenstein thinks of ethical judgements in this way. They do not refer to facts in the world, but change the boundaries of the world insofar as the world as a whole contracts or expands10 and includes or surpasses the judging person. The negativity, self-reflexivity, and totality of nonsensical propositions give rise to the question of textual pragmatics. How should philosophical texts full of nonsensical propositions be written? With nonsensical propositions, the linguistic mode of philosophy is brought into question, a mode that is presented as a precarious one, systematically subject to confusion. A basic philosophical impulse whenever confusions arise is to philosophically “tidy up.” Terminological distinctions like the one between meaningful and nonsensical propositions are one way of “tidying up.” But this implies either a normative reordering or an abstraction from lived situations, which are often confused. Both consequences are problematic for Wittgenstein. The question thus arises as to how philosophical distinctions like the one between these types of propositions should be understood and employed. What Wittgenstein suggests in his middle and later periods is a kind of wandering from situation to situation and from exercise to exercise to explore the dynamics of the difference between conditions and the conditioned. Philosophical distinctions can be used to focus on important differences, but they can never determine the complexities and dynamics of use. 3.

Why the Difference between Willing and Wishing Provokes a Change in Philosophical Method

For the middle Wittgenstein the procedure of drawing boundaries and suggesting terminological distinctions in a very general way is no longer sufficient. It is necessary to become more concrete and to delve into the peculiar impetus 10

See Wittgenstein, Tractatus, 6.43.

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of different examples. This allows for concretization but entails increased complexity as well, which weakens the evidence of general terminological distinctions. The use of terminological distinctions and abstract discussion without examples must be given up. These changes are connected, and with the methodological use of examples11 the interest in studying subtle differences increases.12 The terminological distinction between types of propositions thus disappears in the middle and later philosophy and the meditation on concrete differences prevails instead. I want to follow this line of thought and begin with some reflections on these differences. Then I turn to an example, the difference between willing and wishing.13 Willing is a condition of action, wishing a conditioned way of acting. One main concern of Wittgenstein’s philosophy is to address problems in which reductions or oversimplifications take place and to decompose distinctions that tend to sever important connections and affiliations. This is a critical activity that does not aim at constructing a final theoretical doctrine, but consists in an art of differentiation. Problems arise when one underdistinguishes or overdistinguishes.14 Underdistinguishing occurs if one blurs the difference between propositions about the will and propositions about chemical reactions, for instance. Overdistinguishing occurs if one fixes this difference through terminological distinctions. In this section, I want to show how Wittgenstein explores the dynamics of differentiation on the basis of concrete differences that share the asymmetrical structure of conditions and the conditioned, like rules and application, the inner and the outer or willing and wishing. Using the example of willing and wishing, I want to condense three steps in this philosophical transformation. Wittgenstein repeatedly reflected on the difference between wishing and willing in the period from 1916 to 1947. In the early period (step 1), the conceptual distinction between types of propositions 11

12 13

14

About Wittgenstein’s philosophizing through examples, see for instance: Matthias Kroß, “Philosophieren in Beispielen. Wittgensteins Umdenken des Allgemeinen,” in: Hans Julius Schneider / Matthias Kroß (eds.), Mit Sprache spielen. Die Ordnungen und das Offene nach Wittgenstein, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1999, pp.  169–187, and Matthias Flatscher, “Das Denken in Fallbeispielen im Spätwerk von Ludwig Wittgenstein,” in: Plurale  1 (2002), pp. 99–117. It is well known that Wittgenstein considered using the line “I’ll teach you differences” (Shakespeare: King Lear, act 1, scene 4) as the epigraph for the Philosophical Investigations. In English, the term “wanting” may at times be closer to willing or to wishing. Cf. Peter  M.S.  Hacker, Wittgenstein. Mind and Will, Part  I.  Essays, Oxford: Blackwell, 1996, pp. 227–230. Even if it sounds less fluid I will retain the terms willing and wishing for the sake of the argument. These terms are suggested by Robert Sokolowski, cf. his: “Making Distinctions,” in: The Review of Metaphysics 32 (1979), pp. 639–676.

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can be taken as background. In the middle period (step 2), Wittgenstein uses distinctions more as warning signs, because the main concern is to point out confusions. The later Wittgenstein (step 3) explores differences and maps a practical space of possible situations or exercises. The first remarks on wishing and willing stand in the context of the philosophy of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Wittgenstein’s initial reflection on this difference is found in the philosophical Notebooks of 1914–1916. In several passages of the middle work, for instance in the remarks in the so-called Brown Book (1934–1935), he discusses willing and wishing and is implicitly dealing with the theoretical positions of Arthur Schopenhauer and William James.15 In paragraphs 611–628 of the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein again works on the difference between wishing and willing. In these passages many references to and direct quotations from earlier texts can be found, for example from the philosophical Notebooks or the Brown Book. I want to sketch briefly the three steps mentioned. The first step: Wittgenstein’s reflections in the philosophical Notebooks of 1914–1916 aim at the fact that willing and acting are not only closely connected, but are even the same thing: Wishing is not acting. But willing is acting. (My wish relates, e.g., to the movement of the chair, my will to a muscular feeling.) The fact that I will an action consists in my performing the action, not in my doing something else which causes the action. […] The wish precedes the event, the will accompanies it. (4.11.1916)16

“Willing is acting” is an example of a nonsensical proposition.17 It expresses a condition of our social practice, because we assume that the actions of others as well as our own are most of the time voluntary and not mechanical. In social practice we understand movements as expressions of people’s interests or moods and we know how to respond, even if misunderstandings may sometimes arise. If we see a very old person starting to walk across a busy road, we would say that the person wants (in the sense of willing) to cross the street and may ask whether we can help (this, of course, does not exhaust the spectrum 15 16 17

I worked this out more fully in my book: Wille, Die Praxis des Unterscheidens, pp. 214–232. See a provisional English translation of this chapter: https://www.uni-hildesheim.de/fb2/ institute/philosophie/team/apl-prof-dr-katrin-wille/buecher-apl-prof-dr-katrin-wille/. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Notebooks 1914–1916, trans. by G.E.M.  Anscombe, ed. by Georg H. von Wright / G.E.M. Anscombe, Oxford: Blackwell, 1979 (1961). It is also a discussion with Schopenhauer. In this sentence, Wittgenstein seems to adopt Schopenhauer’s assertion of the identity of willing and doing and thus possibly the juxtaposition of a world of will and a world of imagination (Vorstellung).

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of possible actions, but we may experience a demand to offer help in such a situation). In reacting to the behavior of others we are practically attributing voluntary actions to them. Willing something manifests itself in actions and is not separate from them. The nonsensical proposition “willing is acting” identifies what appears to be separable and seems to convey some information that can be true or false, but as a nonsensical proposition it expresses a “selfnegating” dynamic. The content of this proposition is not really a content that can be true or false, it rather expresses a condition that is inseparable from doing itself and can only be grasped through doing. As a nonsensical proposition it refers to the whole of reality, since it is not directed to a specific object but to something that pervades human practice as a whole. The second step: In the Brown Book, Wittgenstein articulates a warning not to confuse wishing and willing: The confusion of willing with wishing is dangerous here.– For if I raise my arm, I don’t first wish it would rise, after which it actually rises. (Although that too could happen in certain cases.)18

Confusing the distinction is described as dangerous. So strong a claim is remarkable and needs to be meditated on. In a confusion, we overlook an important difference. Something can be lost here, which has consequences that are considered dangerous. The context of the cited passage shows that the loss comprises several aspects. First, it blurs the asymmetric difference and the conditional character of willing. Willing is necessary for social practice, while wishes are parts of social practice. Confusing them also suggests a certain idea of willing as a succession. The sequence starts with a consideration of whether one should do something, for example lifting a heavy object; then one determines oneself to do so, invests some effort and lifts it. This description is certainly appropriate for some situations, and it seems as though a preceding volition can be isolated from the subsequent performance through a bodily movement. This is clearly the case for acts of wishing or desiring, so willing and wishing seem to have the same structure. But if one generalizes this analogy one overlooks those cases in which one could only say that one’s arm was raised, for instance. Raising one’s arm is in a range of situations a primitive and yet a voluntary action and not a synthesis of two components, volition and bodily execution, in succession. Situations in which one simply 18

Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein, “Eine philosophische Betrachtung (Das braune Buch),” in: Schriften 5, ed. by Rush Rhees, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970, pp. 117–237, here p. 235, this part of the Brown Book is translated by Garth Hallett, A Companion to Wittgenstein’s “Philosophical Investigations,” Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977, p. 580.

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does something, like raising one’s arm, have to be integrated into the reflection on the will; they function differently and not analogously to acts of wishing. Wittgenstein turns to exactly these cases and considers them crucial in order to understand ourselves as volitional beings. Thus, it is first necessary to bring the multiplicity of cases into an overview and not declare one type as the norm. This would be a strategy that Wittgenstein calls elsewhere a “one-sided diet” containing only one type of example.19 The third step: In paragraphs 611–628 of the Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein produced a kind of (philosophical) space for open reflection to explore the asymmetrical difference between willing and wishing. The difference between willing as a condition of social practice and wishing as a part of social practice is not absolute. Willing has also a phenomenology and is not just a kind of invisible shaping precondition. Its character is twofold: it is a condition of formation that cannot be objectified without being used; and it manifests itself and can be experienced, observed and reflected on. That’s why it is not enough to warn against confusion here, it is necessary to study different situations or to design experiments as well. Adopting the performative perspective is necessary in order to grasp this twofold character of willing. Wittgenstein’s directives to do something and his use of imperative forms demonstrate this. He is not interested in the so-called first-person perspective or in the question of what it is like to will something. He is not an advocate of the subjective and the irreducibility of inner experiences. The necessity to leave the level of argumentation and external reflection behind emerges from this twofold character of willing. The conditioning power can only be taken into account through doing. Philosophers who are interested in these topics should multiply their methods. Wittgenstein is a pioneer in doing so. The following paragraphs 629–631 have a transitional function between the reflections on willing and the subsequent topic of intentional states, to which wishing also belongs. Wittgenstein asks in these transitory paragraphs for the peculiar temporality of action and intentional states and their relation to prediction. The practical space of reflection is not strictly linear and it is not possible to take all directions at once. One has to make decisions or follow particular resonances. In these paragraphs Wittgenstein makes careful observations and tries to question popular images and expressions for their implications. This takes place partly through short conversational sequences or requests to imitate or perform something, and then to reflect on it in order to see what it reveals. One can explore how our ways of speaking function and where one-sidedness takes 19

Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 593: “A main cause of philosophical disease— a one-sided diet: one nourishes one’s thinking with only one kind of example.”

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place in the formation of theories about willing. The whole text can be read as a request to explore a practical space of reflection in order to discover something about willing and action and wishing. Wittgenstein’s theory of action is often labeled “anti-causalist” and “ascriptivist.” This assigns Wittgenstein’s philosophy of action a certain place in the theoretical landscape. But such a label transforms Wittgenstein’s deeply antiterminological thinking into a doctrine. Philosophizing as an activity has to be cautious and skeptical toward terminologies. Rather, it is a matter of constantly questioning differences through possible concrete situations. The text forces us to move from our search for positions to explore our ways of talking about willing. Wittgenstein does not tell us what the point is, what the whole thing is supposed to be for or against. This enables different ways of reading. One way of reading, trained by theoretical argumentative texts, is to single out the dense aphoristic parts that seem like conclusions or give pause for thought, such as “What is your aim in philosophy?—To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle” (§  309). These are possible readings that work a bit like climbing from peak to peak. What can be found in the valleys in between? There is no rigorous argumentation that leads to the peaks as conclusions or theorems. The valleys in between are full of invitations to do something, like raising one’s arm or envisioning situations of use or misuse. Part of this practical space are situations recalling aspects of everyday life. Another set of paragraphs provide intentionally strange scenarios in order to explore the boundaries of sense. Here Wittgenstein uses a negative strategy or a kind of performative reductio ad absurdum. This becomes clear if one takes up the suggested scenario and follows through with it until problems arise. I want to discuss one example, paragraph 621 of Philosophical Investigations: But there is one thing we shouldn’t overlook: when ‘I raise my arm,’ my arm rises. And now a problem emerges: what is left over if I subtract the fact that my arm rises from the fact that I raise my arm? ((Are the kinaesthetic sensations my willing?))

One reaction after reading this paragraph may be: what is the problem? What should one do, a kind of exercise of subtraction: x minus y equals z? X should be: “I raise my arm” and y should be: “My arm rises.” This kind of exercise sounds irritating and absurd; what can be done to perform the exercise? A means to perform this kind of “subtraction” is missing and it is hardly possible to deal with bodily movements as with numbers. The exercise leads to the boundaries of sense and provides an experience of nonsense, if one tries to isolate aspects of action that are practically one. Through the failure to perform

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the subtraction-exercise one can realize that the differentiation between the intentional aspect of a subject and a bodily performance of this intention is a retrospective reflection that cannot be performed. Performance and reflection convey different epistemic potentials and this difference must be experienced itself. In retrospective reflection one can differentiate the intentional state (wanting to lift one’s arm) and the bodily movement (the lifting of the arm). But this is a functional differentiation of a single act that helps to describe certain situations where one aspect may play a special role (like an action involving many obstacles that require what may be called mental strength). A problem arises if one asks of this functional distinction whether these aspects have a causal or a teleological relation. This can be named a “theory-practice fallacy,” because a theoretical retrojection causes a kind of hypostatization. It is not an ontological distinction, in the sense of different realms of being that interact causally or otherwise. This has consequences for muscle sensation or kinesthetic sensation, which in the earlier considerations, following Schopenhauer, seemed to be direct expressions of volition. The starting point is rather the volitional action by which kinesthetic sensations can be distinguished from other aspects. In the following I want to go further into this co-performing of exercises and following through of imperatives in the text. My thesis is that this is not a stylistic idiosyncrasy that can be taken seriously or not, but that it has a philosophical impact and an epistemic upshot. I call this “exercising-knowledge.” 4.

How to Gain Exercising-Knowledge

In this section I will discuss the use of imperatives in Wittgenstein’s philosophy in three steps. First, I present an overview of different forms of imperatives, appeals, orders or invitations that can be found in the text (paragraphs 611–628 of the Philosophical Investigations). Second, I describe an exemplary following through of one of Wittgenstein’s imperatives. Third, I reflect on the “exercisingknowledge” gained in this experiment. The first step: One can find direct or more indirect requests to do something. In the selected paragraphs one finds the order to “examine” twice and to “compare” once (§ 627, § 630). Using the grammatical form of an imperative evokes social contexts of giving commands and following them. These are social interactions between at least two positions, held by two persons or consisting in a self-relational action conducted by one person in two roles. Someone (or a part of a person) wants someone else (or a different part of a person) to do

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something. There can be very different contexts for the activity of giving orders; very often we encounter it in sports training, education or work contexts. In paragraph 630 various levels of orders are interleaved.20 The paragraph opens with the request to examine two language-games. The first language-game is itself a situation of practicing gymnastics, where an instructor gives orders to make particular arm movements and adopt particular bodily positions. This language-game is important for the reflection on action, willing, and wishing. Wittgenstein gives here the order to examine a possible situation of giving and following orders in gymnastics. The language-game of giving instructions itself has a wide range of variations. There are lots of different words that can evoke various non-linguistic actions. Examples are: to order, to appeal, to request, to command, to invite, to prompt. The instruction in gymnastics is a kind of prototype, because it combines linguistic with non-linguistic activities, presupposes familiarity with the social form of giving and following orders, and constitutes a field where the orders are often given and followed through demonstration or imitation. Instructor and pupil must know how to give orders (Do this or Do it like this) and how to follow orders. Wittgenstein’s method of giving orders in a philosophical text is linked with this practice and allows for the transferral of the nature of everyday practices of giving and following orders into the practice of philosophizing. In these paragraphs of the Philosophical Investigations one can find indirect forms of orders as well, which function more like invitations to follow and to repeat for oneself what the textual “I” performs. An example is paragraph 616, which starts with the sentence: “When  I raise my arm, I have not wished it might go up.” The textual “I” might be the philosophical researcher whom we can identify with. It is less an “I” that is sharing its personal experiences than one that has an appellative function, either to think about it as a revealing example for something, or, even stronger, as an invitation to follow, that is, to perform the 20

Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations,  §  630: “Examine these two language-games: (a) Someone gives someone else the order to make particular movements with his arm, or to assume particular bodily positions (gymnastics instructor and pupil). And here is a variation of this language-game: the pupil gives himself orders and then carries them out. (b) Someone observes certain regular processes—for example, the reactions of different metals to acids—and thereupon makes predictions about the reactions that will occur in certain particular cases. There is an evident kinship between these two language-games, and also a fundamental difference. In both one might call the spoken words ‘predictions.’ But compare the training which leads to the first technique with the training for the second one.”

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same action (raising one’s arm) and follow the reflection on it. A similar function has the use of the first person plural “we” (e.g. § 617) or the neutral “one” (e.g. § 619). What is the reader invited to do while following the textual “I,” “we” or “one”? The special distinction between willing and wishing involves bodily movements (like raising the arm), experiments with movements and bodily positions (like crossing the fingers in a special way,  §  617) or interactions with materials like touching a stick (§  626). Some of these experiments imply a reference to a physiological discussion about kinesthetic sensations that was taking place at the beginning of the 20th century. William James participated in this discussion and developed a position that is criticized by Wittgenstein mainly in the Brown Book.21 But this reference functions as a possible theoretical framework and it is not necessary to know it in order to follow the orders or try out the experiments. Many of the orders or experiments are taken from everyday life, sometimes with allusions to possible situations in which they occur. The given orders refer to conventions or habits and experiences we share, which are somehow virtually present. The virtually present functions as an implicit reference to social conventions or shared history. Following an order or trying out an experiment means for the reader to create a situation in which an aspect of the virtually present conventions, habits or experiences can be actualized or become relevant. These paragraphs seem to have a certain incompleteness. Wittgenstein often does not tell his readers what the aspects he wants to explore in a paragraph are. We have to find out for ourselves, which is not always easy. Without explicit indications we are left with something like procedural notes. We can use them as an invitation to follow these procedures and to understand them as exercises. This can naturally be done in various ways, depending on the reader’s questions, interests, understanding, and experience. Only in the realization of one concrete way does emerge what I call “exercising-knowledge.” The second step: In the following, I put into practice the invitation of paragraph 616 and follow through the direct or indirect imperatives or invitations. The context of the paragraph is the exploration of the difference between willing and wishing. I will give a short report of the concrete phases and decisions to actualize aspects of the virtually present situations, conventions or experiences. First, I read paragraph 616: When I raise my arm, I have not wished it to rise. The voluntary action excludes this wish. It is, however, possible to say: “I hope I shall draw the circle faultlessly.” 21

Cf. Wille, Die Praxis des Unterscheidens, pp. 222–232.

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Katrin Wille And that is to express a wish that one’s hand should move in such-and-such a way.

I understand the “I” as an invitation to repeat what the textual “I” performed. This surpasses cognitive attention and I have to consider my body and concrete material. I do the following (and I invite the reader to follow with her body and her concrete material): First, I raise my arm. What am I doing? I’m following an order and I’m moving my body in a certain way. I’m sitting on a desk chair, but I could also stand somewhere. At the moment and in most cases it is easy to raise my arm, if I’m not carrying heavy things or if I’m not in a crowded place. It is a little strange to follow this order out of the blue and while reading a philosophical text, because the contexts in which we are used to raising our arms are missing. Typical contexts would be an exercise in gymnastics, wanting to get something in the kitchen, or waving to somebody. But even if these contexts are missing we know perfectly well what to do. Now, I look back to the text and reread the first sentence. I try to perform the second action indicated: Wishing that the arm would go up. What am I doing? I’m looking at my arm and I’m grumbling: I wish that the arm would go up. My arm is not moving and I can see that this is a different activity from the first, that of raising my arm. This second action, this wishing, is even stranger than the first. I can fulfill an order like this, but I can hardly find a context in life where I’m used to performing such an activity. It seems artificial, irritating; it has little or no sense. What can I do with this now? I can try to conclude something or ask myself whether I experienced and understood something when I reflected on the difference between the two experiments. Or I can imagine or remember a situation in which this action of wishing that something would happen is more appropriate and not as strange. The text of the paragraph invites us to do both. Let’s read the statement-like sentence and compare it with what I may conclude: “The voluntary action excludes this wish.” I realized that the two activities are very different, we do different things. One is an ordinary movement that can be used in very different contexts while the other is an activity that we may engage in, although the appropriate context is missing. Moving the body and wishing that bodily movement may happen are different and cannot be done at the same time. Wittgenstein also pushes it further: raising the arm is a voluntary action and this excludes the wish that something would happen. Exclusion is a strong term and it can indicate different types of relation. Logical incompatibility can be understood as exclusion. Are the two activities like coordinated terms under a shared category, such as apples and pears under the category fruit, which exclude each other? Or are the two activities like complementary terms, such as human and non-human, which

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exclude each other? Or are the two activities like disparate terms that have nothing in common and thereby exclude each other, such as apples and triangles? Exclusion is also a social act, but this is probably not the right track here. To what extent is the experience of the two experiments reflected in the term “exclusion”? If I perform one activity (raising my arm), I’m not doing the other (wishing that my arm would go up). But is it impossible to do both? Did I experience an impossibility? This is very abstract; it seems more concrete to say that my attention is directed to different things, first to the execution of the bodily movement, second to an exterior perspective on the arm that lies on my desk. This difference or “exclusion” may provide evidence that an action like raising one’s arm does not consist in the combination of the two activities into a sequence. Raising one’s arm is not first wishing that the arm would go up and then raising the arm. I go back to the feeling of strangeness when I perform the exercise of “wishing that my arm would move.” The feeling of strangeness disappears when I don’t know whether I will succeed in a given situation. Imagine or create or remember a situation like that. Let’s stay with the arm-moving. I can wish that I may raise my arm high enough to grasp something if the shelf is very high and it is unclear whether I will manage to reach it. In that situation I can say to myself: I wish that I could reach it by simply raising my arm, because there is no chair to stand on. Wittgenstein gives another example. Let’s follow him: take a pencil and a piece of paper and try to draw the most perfect circle (or remember when you tried it or imagine that you do it, all of these are ways to follow the order). If I follow the order with a pencil and paper I may be able to draw quite a well-shaped circle. Perhaps it comes out more in a form of an egg and I try again or change strategy and start to plan my action with help of grid paper, setting markers in all four directions. After this preparation I can say: “I hope I will draw the circle flawlessly.” And this is a wish that the hand will move smoothly and evenly. When following the order with bodily movements and materials, we experience the challenges of the material, techniques and instruments, which cannot be the case in remembering or imagining. And these challenges and potential difficulties seem to mark the difference between the activity of (voluntarily) doing something and the activity of wishing to do something. If there are obstacles of any kind, whether physical, mental, or social, something hinders the doing and the activity of wishing takes over. And these activities have very different phenomenologies. If I raise my arm I do it in a certain way with the right arm or the left, to a certain level and at a certain angle. This is a necessary component that is in a subtle relation to the environment, the amount of space I have and other aspects, and it is often not determinable by a purely conscious decision. This is brought to attention if an obstacle occurs or something is judged as difficult, like drawing a circle flawlessly. Then movements of the body such as raising one’s arm may be brought to

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attention. One may realize: if I raise my arm higher, it would be easier to control the pencil or to reach the shelf. And because one cannot control the action in the face of difficult obstacles, one can wish that one may succeed, that things go well. The “just doing” of raising one’s arm is somehow interrupted and becomes problematic. “Just doing” and “becoming problematic” exclude each other. The type of exclusion is less a logical incompatibility of the types mentioned above, and not a social exclusion, but more an exclusion between background as a condition and foreground. The medium of operation changes into an object of attention. The third step: I argued that the effective enaction of an order or an invitation enables an epistemic surplus, called “exercising-knowledge.” I try to elucidate this claim in this third step. Sometimes I refer back to the report in the second step in parentheses. Following through an implicit or explicit order means that we have first to take on a perspective of participation. We enact something that is overdetermined in the sense that conventions, habits, and situations of use are virtually present. We can experience this overflow of meaning only through a perspective of participation, when associations of possible contexts (typical contexts would be an exercise in gymnastics, wanting to get something in the kitchen) or affects that pervade a situation (the feeling of strangeness disappears) arise. The perspective of participation makes clear that bodily practices and social practices in general encompass every single activity and form a condition for reflexive thinking and understanding. Exercising-knowledge is therefore in the first place an acceptance of the epistemic standpoint of participation. Another closely related aspect of exercising-knowledge emerges through repeating an activity that conveys a whole history of individual and collective habituations in a variety of contexts. These contexts and their individual and collective history are virtually present. We can easily follow the order to raise our arm, because we have done so in several contexts; we can imagine them, remember them or enact them. Enacting them means to realize the material conditions. We are able to transfer movements from context to context and we are able to isolate them and to preserve the different contexts. Exercising-knowledge allows awareness of this preserved through multiplying contexts or processes of decontextualization. When we enact an exercise we have an experience of what is easy to accomplish, what is not possible (the subtraction-exercise from above, paragraph 621 of Philosophical Investigations), or which activities require different microactions compared to others. These micro-actions, which are not perceivable from an external perspective, may give evidence of differences that can be easily overlooked or confused. (This difference or “exclusion” may give evidence that an action like raising one’s arm does not consist in the combination of the two

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activities in a sequence. Raising one’s arm is not first wishing that the arm might go up and then raising the arm.) Exercising-knowledge allows the perception of micro-actions and can have a corrective function. In the perspective of enaction an interaction between the performer and her body and the environment has to be managed. (I may wish that I can raise my arm high enough when the shelf is very high and it is uncertain whether I will manage to reach it. In that situation I may possibly say to myself: I wish that I could reach it only by raising my arm, because there is no chair to stand on.) Differences between activities can be made evident through various interactions with the environment, which require different adjustments through feedback-loops between performer and environment. Exercising-knowledge makes evident interactions between performer and environment in an exemplary situation. Following through activities in exemplary situations makes possible the exploration of the quality of the difference between activities. Wittgenstein uses the term “exclusion” in paragraph 616 and seems to conceptualize this difference. The exclusion that can be experienced here has the character of a dialectic between what is operational and what is thematic. Raising one’s arm and what the body does while raising one’s arm is operational. If an obstacle occurs, it comes to the center of attention and becomes thematic. This dialectic between the operational and the thematic is a variation of the difference between conditions and conditioned that Wittgenstein explores in his later philosophy. It is insufficient to draw a boundary and insufficient to warn against a confusion, rather one must explore a transformation in type through exemplary situations. Exercising-knowledge is able to explore the dynamics of the asymmetric relation between conditions and the conditioned, so as to redraft it according to the asymmetric relation between operational and thematic activities. 5.

Philosophy as Aesthetic Practice

I want to conclude my reflections on the transformation of Wittgenstein’s thought into a philosophy as aesthetic practice by looking forward. In the case of Wittgenstein I wanted to show why the exploration of the difference between conditions and the conditioned and, related to this, the difference between willing and wishing provoke a change in philosophical method. Through the use of implicit and explicit imperatives, the perspective of enaction with its epistemic potential can be adopted and reflected on. The perspective of enaction is necessarily concrete but conveys also more general insights.

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Both aspects, the concrete and the general, are combined in exemplary situations. The creation and exploration of these exemplary situations is therefore of great significance. Wittgenstein developed a literary form full of proposals and hints to outline exemplary situations and we should continue to supplement his suggestions. A philosophy as aesthetic practice can learn a lot from Wittgenstein and I want to stress especially the systematic construction of exemplary situations. Exemplary situations have an appellative character for the access to exercising-knowledge. They can be sketched out in texts, in discussions or in individual or collective exercises. The systematic use of exemplary situations in philosophy can be criticized as subjectivist or aesthetic, a self-centered l’art pour l’art unable to bring deeper structures into view. In order to address this criticism the concept of the exemplary and the concept of situation must be discussed at some length, with reference to the conceptual contributions of Nelson Goodman concerning the process of exemplification, and to phenomenology and pragmatism concerning the concept of situation. The theoretical reflection on philosophy as aesthetic practice must proceed further here. Wittgenstein can therefore be a helpful reference, but it is necessary to include other sources and to develop other appropriate ways to work with exemplary situations in philosophy.22 I want to close with a short prospect for further discussion here. The peculiar characteristic and theoretical force of situations lies in the mediation between their being singular events (Ereignis), on the one hand, and being expressions of shaping structures (social, economic, historical), on the other. It is a major task to develop this mediation and to avoid any onesidedness in the concept of situation. An overemphasis on its unrepeatable and untransferable singularity leads to problematic subjectivist or aesthetic reductions, while overemphasis on the shaping structures exaggerates the intrinsic logics of situations and overlooks conflicting forces. With the concept of exemplary situations one is able to explore concrete examples that take place at a certain time, in a certain place, with certain participants, and to work out the implications of situations. The concrete situation here and now implicates the more comprehensive situations of a community or historical position that are somehow virtually present and thereby efficacious.

22

I explored the systematic use of exemplary situations in philosophical argumentation in the first part of Wille, Die Praxis des Unterscheidens, where I discuss the concept of exemplary situations and develop three exemplary situations in order to explore the conceptual distinctions in play.

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The interaction between the concrete here-and-now and the more general situations implicated therein cannot be grasped and analyzed from an external perspective by itself, but requires methods of participation and systematic change of perspective. And this interaction cannot be apprehended by cognition alone, but should include imagination, affectivity and somatic expressions. In order to fulfill this task, philosophy must expand its methods and transform into an aesthetic practice itself. References Bedorf, Thomas / Gerlek, Selin (eds.), Philosophien der Praxis, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019. Bloor, David, “Wittgenstein and the Priority of Practice,” in: Theodore  R.  Schatzki et  al. (eds.), The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, London: Routledge, 2001, pp. 103–114. Diamond, Cora, “Ethics, Imagination and the Method of Wittgenstein’s ‘Tractatus,’” in: Alice Crary / Rupert Read (eds.), The New Wittgenstein, London: Routledge, 2000, pp. 149–173. Elberfeld, Rolf / Krankenhagen, Stefan (eds.), Ästhetische Praxis als Gegenstand und Methode kulturwissenschaftlicher Forschung, Paderborn: Fink, 2017. Flatscher, Matthias, “Das Denken in Fallbeispielen im Spätwerk von Ludwig Wittgenstein,” in: Plurale 1 (2002), pp. 99–117. Hacker, Peter M.S., Wittgenstein. Mind and Will, Part I. Essays, Oxford: Blackwell, 1996. Hallett, Garth, A Companion to Wittgenstein’s “Philosophical Investigations,” Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977. Kroß, Matthias, “Philosophieren in Beispielen. Wittgensteins Umdenken des Allgemeinen,” in: Hans Julius Schneider / Matthias Kroß (eds.), Mit Sprache spielen. Die Ordnungen und das Offene nach Wittgenstein, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1999, pp. 169–187. Schatzki, Theodore R. et al. (eds.), The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, London: Routledge, 2001. Sokolowski, Robert, “Making Distinctions,” in: The Review of Metaphysics 32 (1979), pp. 639–676. Volbers, Jörg, “Die offene Praxis der Sprache. Wittgensteins und Austins pragmatische Wende der Sprachphilosophie,” in: Thomas Bedorf / Selin Gerlek (eds.), Philosophien der Praxis, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019, pp. 141–178. Wille, Katrin, “Proust—Philosophie als ästhetische Praxis,” in: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 70.2 (2022), pp. 327–348. Wille, Katrin, Die Praxis des Unterscheidens, Freiburg: Alber, 2018.

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Wittgenstein, Ludwig, The Blue and Brown Books, Oxford: Blackwell, 1969 (1958). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, “Eine philosophische Betrachtung. (Das braune Buch),” in: Schriften 5, ed. by Rush Rhees, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970, pp. 117–237. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Notebooks 1914–1916, trans. by G.E.M.  Anscombe, ed. by Georg H. von Wright / G.E.M. Anscombe, Oxford: Blackwell, 1979 (1961). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. by David Pears / Brian McGuinness, London: Routledge, 2001 (1921). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe et al., ed. by Peter M.S. Hacker / Joachim Schulte, Oxford: Blackwell, 2009 (1953).

Working on Oneself

Philosophical Exercises in Wittgenstein and Valéry Andreas Hetzel Abstract This chapter brings Ludwig Wittgenstein and Paul Valéry into dialogue, both of which are seen as advocates of an understanding of philosophy as self-transformative practice. They will be discussed as theorists of an (em-)practical knowledge that can only be achieved in action. Such knowledge is accompanied by a certainty arising from the interior perspective of a practice, which thus depends on ways of actually performing this practice. For both thinkers, (em-)practical forms of knowledge arise most centrally with respect to the philosophy of language. For both, the actual performance of a practice serves as a groundless reason of all philosophical argumentation. Both also derive from this starting point comparable consequences in relation to their own philosophical self-understandings, writing practices and theories of language. Finally, both express, with different emphases, an ascetic and therapeutic understanding of philosophy that is bound more closely to practical exercises than to propositional contents and claims of validity.

Introduction From its inception, Western philosophy has been structured by a tension between two ways of understanding itself. These conceptions enter into a conflict that, as in the debate between Plato and the Sophists, may be contested between schools, but can also traverse the work of single authors. On the one hand, philosophy is conceived as an oral or written conversation that aims to extend the experiential range of the philosophizing subject. This subject should be cultivated and transformed in the course of this conversation. Philosophizing here means exercising or working toward a permanent transformation of the self. On the other hand, philosophy sees itself as revealing supra-temporal truths whose validity is independent of the subject position from which they are articulated. Thus from one perspective, there is a contingency-conscious and performance-oriented philosophy; from the other, a validity-oriented philosophy accompanied by strong metaphysical claims. Validity-oriented philosophy sees its task as a complete rational determination of everything that exists; it seeks answers to the question of what something really is (Plato’s ho pote on), what we can know about it, and how the

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claim to validity connected with this knowledge can be justified in a universally binding way. The texts and practices in which theoretical claims are put forward and examined are conceived as forms of mediation that are secondary. The validity of theoretical truths exists independently of their manner of articulation and actualization. In contrast, performance-oriented philosophizing defines itself as a form of activity bound to specific texts and exercises and thus historically situated, which makes it impossible to distinguish categorically between its content and the practice of expressing it. This performanceoriented philosophizing does not renounce the search for knowledge and the possibility of its justification, but it binds every knowledge and every claim to validity to the materiality of verbal or bodily performances and speaker positions. From this perspective, philosophizing appears as a language-bound, socially mediated, and self-transformative exercise; every philosopher always speaks as herself, forms a distinctive voice, and cannot hide behind a general voice of reason that expresses itself through her individual discourse, nor a knowledge of universal conditions of validity of arguments that precede the concrete act of argumentation. Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault, in their readings of Hellenistic and Roman sources, have reminded us that philosophy in later antiquity was primarily conceived of and pursued in this second sense: as a practice that was accompanied by specific self-transforming exercises.1 Philosophy was not only an episteme, a form of knowledge and cognition, but furthermore and first of all a form of life. It was not only bound to texts, arguments and the claims to validity put forward using arguments, but also to askesis and melete, to a series of concrete exercises that focus on the cultivation of the self. The Hellenistic philosopher Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BCE–50 CE), for example, handed down a short list of such exercises: philosophizing meant practicing joint investigation (zetesis), thorough examination (skepsis), reading (anagnosis), developing listening skills (akroasis), attention (prosoche), and self-control (enkrateia).2 The 1 Cf. Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life. Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, trans. by Michael Chase, ed. by Arnold I. Davidson, Malden MA / Oxford, et al.: Blackwell, 1995 (1981); Pierre Hadot, The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, trans. by Michael Chase, Cambridge MA / London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998 (1992); Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality. Volume 1: An Introduction, trans. by Robert Hurley, London: Penguin Book, 1990 (1976); Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality. Volume 2: The Use of Pleasure, trans. by Robert Hurley, London: Penguin Books, 1992 (1984); Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality. Volume  3: The Care of the Self, trans. by Robert Hurley, London: Penguin Books, 1990 (1984); Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality. Volume 4: Confessions of the Flesh, trans. by. Robert Hurley, London: Penguin Books, 2021 (2018). 2 Philo Judaeus, “Who is the Heir of Divine Things,” in: Id., Philo. In Ten Volumes, Volume IV (On the Confusion of Tongues. On the Migration of Abraham. Who Is the Heir of Divine Things?

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practice of these mental exercises, supplemented by physical exercises, was part of an early perfectionist ethical program aimed primarily at increasing the lived potential of the philosophizing subject. In particular, as the four volumes of Foucault’s History of Sexuality encapsulate, the ethics of late antiquity strove to establish an aesthetic of existence that was oriented less toward justifying and conforming to norms than toward the question of what kind of person one wanted to be. As Hadot points out, the emphasis on the practical aspect went so far that in Rome even a politician like Cato, who had never written any philosophical work but followed a consistent way of self-cultivation, was called a philosopher.3 Epictetus, one of the most important representatives of the younger Stoa, led a school of philosophizing without ever having written a work himself.4 At the end of antiquity, according to Hadot and Foucault, a bifurcation occurred within the culture of self-care with the emergence of Christianity. Practical exercises were taken over into the new religious framework and transformed into the disciplinary rules of a monastic way of life. Philosophy lost its practical aspects and became a purely theoretical subject, a pursuit of knowledge rather than a way of life.5 At the threshold of this development stands Augustine, who on the one hand erected an extensive doctrinal structure, but on the other remained in a rhetorical and philosophical tradition of practicing. Thus, in his Confessiones, Augustine wrote about himself, analyzed himself, tried to integrate his individual way of life into his way of thinking, and vice versa. In doing so Augustine emphasized the limits of discursive knowledge, the limits of all attempts to completely determine things conceptually. Such limits arose, for example, in relation to the solvability of the problem of the relation between body and mind or that of the essence of time. Thus, for Augustine, “the manner in which our spirits are united with our bodies in order to make us living beings is extraordinarily mysterious and incomprehensible to us, even though we are just such a union.”6 Something similar can be

3 4 5 6

On Mating with the Preliminary Studies), trans. by Francis H. Colson / George H. Whitaker, London 1932: Harvard University Press, pp. 284–447, p. 413; cf. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, p. 84. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, p. 272. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, p. 191. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, p. 269 f. Augustine, The City of God. Books XVII-XXII, trans. by Gerald G. Walsh / Daniel J. Honan, Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008, XXI, § 10, p. 367.

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said about time: “So what is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I want to explain it to someone who asks me, I do not know.”7 Augustine does not plead for an absolute abstention from any judgment in either case. He does not mean that we cannot say anything at all about the relation of body and mind or about time. However, in his view, we cannot speak about either the mind-body relation or time in a definitional and objectifying attitude. If we submit mind, body or time to a Platonic ho-pote-on-question, a what-is-it-question, they slip away from us. In this sense, there is no final answer to the question of what an animate bodily being is, because we are animate bodily beings. And there is no definitive answer to the question of what time is, because we stand in time, in the middle of the river and not upon its banks. However, we do have a kind of knowledge of being an animate bodily creature or of being in time, a knowledge that we can describe today with Gilbert Ryle8 and Elisabeth Anscombe9 as “practical knowledge,” with Michael Polanyi as “tacit knowledge,”10 or with Karl Bühler and Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer as “empractical knowledge.”11 This is a knowledge in action, a certainty that arises only from within the perspective of a practice and thus depends on ways of performing this practice. In this chapter, I will first bring into dialogue two modern exponents of an understanding of philosophy as self-transformative practice, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Paul Valéry, and consider the insights to be gained thereby (1). Then  I will briefly discuss Valéry’s and Wittgenstein’s respective ways of writing (2), in order to present, in a third step, their very similar visions of language, which are rooted in their concepts of philosophy as practicing (3).

7 8 9 10 11

Augustine, Confessions, trans. by Thomas Williams, Indianapolis / Cambridge MA: Hackett, 2019, XI, § 14 (p. 210). Cf. Gilbert Ryle, “Knowing How and Knowing That,” in: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society XLVI (1946), pp. 1–16; repr. in Collected Papers, London: Hutchinson & Co., 1971, vol. 2, pp. 212–225. Cf. Elizabeth Anscombe, Intention, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2000, p. 12 f., p. 79 f. Cf. Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension, London: Routledge, 1966. Cf. Karl Bühler, Sprachtheorie—Die Darstellungsform der Sprache, Stuttgart: Gustav Fischer Verlag, 1965, p. 52; Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer, Philosophie des Selbstbewußtseins. Hegels System als Formanalyse von Wissen und Autonomie, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2005, p. 49, p. 194.

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1.

Wittgenstein and Valéry as Therapists “Work on philosophy is actually closer to working on oneself. On one’s own understanding. On the way one sees things.”12 Ludwig Wittgenstein “I work upon my work, I go through the desert.”13 “Thought is a process of transformation.”14 Paul Valéry

Ludwig Wittgenstein and Paul Valéry can be seen as thinkers of an empractical certainty. Similarities in their thinking have so far been neglected in Wittgenstein and Valéry research.15 For both thinkers, practical ways of being are central; for both the actual performance of a practice serves as a groundless reason in all philosophical argumentation. Both also derive from this starting point comparable consequences in relation to their own philosophical selfunderstandings, writing practices and theories of language. Both express, with different emphases, an ascetic and therapeutic understanding of philosophy under modern conditions. “Philosophy,” as Wittgenstein famously puts it in the Tractatus, “is not a body of doctrine but an activity”16—a never-ending activity, we may add. In the same sense Valéry “loves” philosophy only “so long as it is under construction. The works of man are excretions to me—residues of acts. I love them only in order to imagine the acts of their formation.”17 Philosophy does not proclaim ex cathedra prefabricated, pre-existing truths, but opens up possibilities for the philosophizing subject to find her own way, to form her own voice. For this it is first of all necessary to become accustomed to a 12 13 14 15

16 17

Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Big Typescript: TS 213, German–English Scholars’ Edition, ed. and trans. by C. Grant Luckhardt / Maximilian A.E. Aue, Malden MA / Oxford: Blackwell, 2005, § 86 (p. 300e). Paul Valéry, Cahiers / Notebooks, vol. I, trans. by Paul Gifford / Siân Miles / Robert Pickering / Brian Stimpson, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2000, p. 117–118. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. I, p. 155. The relationship between Wittgenstein and Valéry has been neglected in research so far. Two exceptions are Régine Pietra, “Valéry, Wittgenstein et la philosophie,” in: Cahier du groupe de recherches sur la philosophie et le langage, 1 (1981), pp.  75–83; Jürgen Schmidt-Radefeldt, “Affinitäten zwischen Valéry, Cassirer und Wittgenstein,” in: Zeitschrift für Kulturphilosophie 6.1 (2012), pp. 65–78. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. by Charles  K.  Ogden / Frank P. Ramsey, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1922 (1921), 4.112. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. I, p. 108 (translation modified).

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skeptical-Socratic18 attitude, to free ourselves from supposed certainties that function as presuppositions for established concepts, to break with allegedly self-evident truths. To successfully show “the fly the way out of the fly-bottle”19 it is “not enough to state the truth; one must find the way from error to truth,”20 and proceed this way, step by step. This progress is an end in itself. Wittgenstein quotes Augustine at a central passage of his Philosophical Investigations: “Augustine says in the Confessions: ‘quid est ergo tempus? Si nemo ex me quaerat scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio.’ […] Something that we know when no one asks us, but no longer know when we are supposed to give an account of it, is something that we need to remind ourselves of.”21 He defines this something, of which we are certain without being able to comprehend it, as a conduct or way of life to which we are accustomed through practice. Such a practice can only be presupposed, but never explained. It evades the question as to what it actually is. In a comparable way Valéry writes, without quoting Augustine directly: “What is clear in transition is obscure when you pause to reflect. Reflection clouds the words.”22 In the work of both authors, the same motif becomes central: only on the way, in the duration, in the reality and experience of the performance itself, does a certainty emerge that cannot be hypostatized as a final result in fixed terms, but which is nonetheless capable of saving us from any generalized skepticism. This certainty only follows so long as we perform such exercises,23 and practice philosophy as a skeptical and therapeutical project. Paul Valéry, philosopher and protagonist of literary modernism, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, heir to logical positivism and pioneer of the pragmatic turn in 20th century philosophy, not only never met, but also never took note of each

18 19 20 21 22 23

Cf. James Conant, “Some Socratic Aspects of Wittgenstein’s Conception of Philosophy,” in: James Conant / Sebastian Sunday Grève (eds.), Wittgenstein on Philosophy, Objectivity, and Meaning, Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, 2019, pp. 231–264. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe et al., ed. by Peter M.S. Hacker / Joachim Schulte, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009 (1953), § 309. Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Mythology in Our Language. Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough, trans. by Stephan Palmié, Chicago: HAU Books, 2018 (1967), p. 32. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 89. Paul Valéry, Cahiers / Notebooks, vol. IV, trans. by Norma Rinsler / Brian Stimpson / Rima Joseph / Paul Ryan, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2010, p. 50. Pietra stresses that Valéry and Wittgenstein first of all share an understanding of philosophy as permanent exercise: “Ces deux penseurs me paraissent avoir en quelque sorte des profils semblables. Ce ne sont pas des philosophes de profession et s’ils ont philosophé, c’est plus par exercice—j’aimerais dire par hygiène—que par vocation, leur attrait premier étant les mathématiques.” Pietra, “Valéry, Wittgenstein,” p. 65.

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other. Yet, despite the many differences in detail, they can be seen to share a fourfold philosophical self-understanding: (1.1) Both are initially fascinated by the subject of mathematics and the claim to a precise philosophical use of language associated with mathematics. Beginning with his early engagement with Russell’s and Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica, Wittgenstein deals with various aspects of the philosophy of mathematics throughout his life. Valéry calls “mathematics” the “science of rational expression,”24 praises the “formal delights”25 of its practice, and repeatedly states that his “nature detests what is vague,”26 that a mathematical attitude can help to overcome forms of deceit and illusion. Both conceive mathematics not as “knowledge” but as a “knowing how to,”27 a way of doing things rather than a fixed set of beliefs. And both admire (and in the case of Wittgenstein even practice) architecture as a quasi-mathematical science. Valéry writes: “My first love was architecture.”28 (1.2) Valéry and Wittgenstein break with any rationalistic claim to raise philosophy to the state of a self-explicative and complete system. Their texts are not closed, but fragmentary and experimental. They invite the reader to make her own connections and to think for herself. Both address their readers explicitly, speak to them, ask them questions, and invite them to accompany them on their path of writing, which is at the same time a path of shared peripatetic philosophizing. (1.3) Both tend toward an “epistemic solipsism,”29 thinking of themselves as contingent subjects of their philosophizing and constantly thematizing their participation in it. “The world is my world,”30 Wittgenstein points out, so there is no purely objective view on the world. Philosophy has to take the subject of the activity of philosophy into account. This subject must not be considered as permanent, but enters into a constructive philosophical task. The writings of both authors aim not least at self-understanding and self-transformation; they are less directed at publication than at the movement of a textually mediated

24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Valéry, Cahiers, vol. IV, p. 185. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. IV, p. 73. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. IV, p. 56. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. IV, p. 240. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. I, p. 116. Schmidt-Radefeldt, “Affinitäten zwischen Valéry, Cassirer und Wittgenstein,” p. 73. Wittgenstein, Tractatus, 5.62.

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self-transformation. From their practices of reading and writing, the subjects of these practices emerge as fundamentally changed by the experience. (1.4) By allowing the reader as well to see “the road he is led” along, the textual stages and means of argumentation and not just the “goal,”31 the message or overall meaning of the text, the writings of Wittgenstein and Valéry allow us to gradually free ourselves from conventional meanings. They open up the perspective of a critique of language that sensitizes us to how our thinking is determined by lexical and grammatical conventions, including and even especially in philosophy, and how we can come to appreciate the contingency of these conventions. For Valéry “the whole philosophy is born of illusions about knowledge, which are ultimately illusions about language.”32 We encounter the same critical impetus in Wittgenstein’s attempt to relate the language of philosophy back to everyday language, which he conceives as the ultimate metalanguage. After this first brief indication of similarities in the philosophical self-understanding of Wittgenstein and Valéry, the next section will take a closer look at parallels in their ways of writing. 2.

Writing Processes

Wittgenstein and Valéry can be brought into dialogue not only through the subject matter they have in common, but above all because they share the same understanding of writing. They both philosophize through the process of writing, tentatively questioning and progressively transforming themselves as the author-subjects of their texts. Both write in a deliberately exploratory rather than systematizing manner, both prefer the open and small form, the form of the aphorism and the fragment. Both leave it to their readers to establish links between these fragments, to take up and pursue certain ideas, to participate in thought experiments, to push language games in unforeseen directions: “[…] to publish them, the whole will be significant. The reader—and even myself— will make a coherent unit of it. And this formation will be, will constitute, something else—unforeseen by me until that point.”33 Philosophical writing,

31 32 33

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Lecture on Ethics, ed. by Edoardo Zamuner et  al., Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2014, p. 2. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. IV, p. 70. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. I, p. 47.

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for Valéry, thus aims at “transformations that cannot be reversed”34 and invites readers to participate in parallel transformations. For more than five decades, from 1894 until his death in 1945, Valéry wrote daily in his Cahiers between five and eight in the morning, entering into a process of philosophical self-understanding in which he discussed, reflected on, and transformed the same motifs in ever new perspectives. These motifs included, above all, language, the relation between language and thought, the question of body and mind, science, time, mathematics, dreams, attention, sensibility, affectivity, memory, and consciousness. Valéry’s editors have posthumously organized the material under these headings, a decision that is certainly not without problems, since it neglects the interconnectedness of the themes and breaks up the chronology of the texts. The enterprise of the Cahiers represents a lifelong experiment, a writing practice that does not aim at completion in any singular work. Valéry’s precursors are certainly the ancient Stoic writing exercises—he regularly quotes Stoic sources—but also Lichtenberg’s Sudelbücher, Goethe’s Maxims and Reflections, the fragments of the early Romantic Athenaeum, and Nietzsche’s aphorisms. In his notebooks, Valéry explicitly embarks on a path of “unending self-exploration.”35 He makes it very clear that his writing aims at a process of self-formation and self-transformation. What goes into his notebooks are “Experiments, Sketches, Studies, Outlines, First Drafts, Exercises, Tentative steps.”36 ‘Exercises’ explicitly appear in this list. Valéry’s writing takes itself for a writing-exercise, his philosophizing for a philosophizing-exercise. It does not aim at a work, a book, with its beginning and end, its author and year of publication, its legal and economic identity: “Everything which is written in these notebooks of mine has the characteristic of never claiming to be definitive.”37 Valéry emphatically calls his notebooks “counter-works, counter-finalities.”38 For him, any possible end of thinking would be a contingent end, due to random circumstances, a problematic disruption: “For it’s quite improbable that the work of the mind should stop at a particular point—unless as the result of some accidental circumstance.”39 Philosophy as the activity of thinking, which is concerned with thinking itself, knows no end; any end would be an arbitrary, ultimately violent breaking off. Likewise, Valéry is skeptical of any initial starting point or final ground upon which thinking might be based. 34 35 36 37 38 39

Valéry, Cahiers, vol. IV, p. 91. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. I, p. 41 (translation modified). Valéry, Cahiers, vol. I, p. 42. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. I, p. 42. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. I, p. 48 (translation modified). Valéry, Cahiers, vol. I, p. 50.

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Like Augustine in his Confessions, Valéry includes himself as a contingent historical subject in his writing process. He writes about himself, addresses what is written to himself, identifies himself with the movement of a writing that is in the process of forming itself. This writing, however, does not aim at establishing any self-identity for the author. “When I write in these notebooks, I write myself. But I don’t write myself completely.”40 Something remains left over, or does not fit. Self-formation in writing is thus not project-like, as it does not aim at an ideal self that would have to be constructed. The course of writing itself becomes a goal, a formation of life rather than a form of life. This formation is at the same time a transformation, a work on the self. In his essay on Valéry’s very striking image of a source that can never be fully present to itself, which cannot refer back to itself, Jacques Derrida has pointed out that Valéry’s writing disidentifies and disunites itself precisely because in writing about himself the author-subject is multiplied. He refers to Valéry’s neologism “implex,” an alienation and splitting of the self in its very attempt to identify with itself. Derrida reads Valéry’s “implex” as a “complication of the same and the other which never permits itself to be undone, it divides or equally multiplies infinitely the simplicity of every source, every origin, every presence.”41 Valéry lives, to say it with Kierkegaard, “in despair not to will to be oneself” and at the same time to be “in despair to will to be oneself.”42 He pursues an ethics of writing that raises the question of what kind of person he wants himself to be, but more importantly, not to be. Valéry does not write in a confessional manner, but practices a disidentifying writing: “I hate myself when I recognize myself […]; I don’t want to be anybody.”43 In this respect, he also understands his writing as “exercising myself against myself.”44 This writing, therefore, at least as measured by the criteria of a productive, result-oriented writing, is doomed to a constitutive failure: “A success in the normal sense is not a success for me. To be successful is to be Somebody.”45 There is not only a poetics of désœuvréement, of inoperativity46 underlying the Cahiers, but also one of 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

Valéry, Cahiers, vol. I, p. 52. Jacques Derrida, “Qual Quelle: Valéry’s Sources,” in: Jacques Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, trans. by Alain Bass, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982 (1972), pp. 273–306, here p. 302. Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death, in: Kierkegaard’s Writings, XIX, ed. and trans. by Edna H. Hong / Howard V. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980 (1849), p. 77. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. I, p. 100. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. I, p. 101. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. I, p. 104. Cf. Jean-Luc Nancy, Inoperative Community, trans. by Peter Connor, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1999 (1986).

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the disidentification of the author-subject. In his Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein is engaged in a very similar conversation with himself, although he does not appear in his writings in the same direct way as a real individual with fears, hopes and idiosyncratic desires. While the Cahiers sometimes come very close to a private diary, Wittgenstein’s Investigations are still focused on philosophical problems in a stricter sense. It would be very promising to compare Wittgenstein and Valéry in the light of debates on the relation between philosophy and literature in general, but also of debates on autobiographical and autofictional writing, which I cannot do in this context. After the publication of his Tractatus, Wittgenstein too keeps only notebooks and does not think in terms of publishing an oeuvre. Even with regard to the Tractatus, the question can be raised as to whether there was really an intention to produce the self-explicative unity of a system of thought, which the numbers of the paragraphs may suggest. Under the title The New Wittgenstein, James Conant, Cora Diamond and others have shown that Wittgenstein’s Tractatus cannot be read as a founding document of scientistic analytic philosophy.47 In the Tractatus, they argue, Wittgenstein precisely does not advocate logical atomism and a representationalist theory of meaning, but stages their failure. In this respect, the usual distinction between Wittgenstein 1 and Wittgenstein  2, between the early and the late Wittgenstein, which became a commonplace in Wittgenstein research, can no longer be supported. Wittgenstein’s philosophy is on the whole a performative philosophy, and a philosophy that is self-aware in its performativity. Already in the Tractatus Wittgenstein pursues a therapeutic and not an epistemological program: “My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.”48 Wittgenstein’s late philosophy keeps faith with this therapeutic claim: “What is your aim in philosophy?—To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.”49 However, Wittgenstein should not be understood in either of the quoted passages as taking the aim of philosophizing to be the overcoming of philosophy. What Wittgenstein wants to leave behind is a knowledge-oriented and validity-oriented philosophizing that goes hand in hand with the objectivist claim to assign a proper place to everything and everyone.

47 48 49

Cf. Alice Crary / Rupert Read (eds.), The New Wittgenstein, London / New York: Routledge, 2000. Wittgenstein, Tractatus, 6.54. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 309.

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Visions of Language

The fact that Wittgenstein and Valéry, although contemporaries, could not have read each other is not only due to contingent reasons, but also to their writing practices, which did not aim at publication. The Cahiers as well as the Philosophical Investigations, the Philosophical Remarks, the Philosophical Grammar, the Blue Book, the Brown Book and On Certainty were published posthumously. A dialogue between the two authors, however, could have been very fruitful. It has already been noted that both shared a fascination for the precision expressed in architecture and mathematics. Wittgenstein, who himself designed a house for his sister, would have understood Valéry when in his dialogue Eupalinos or the Architect he makes Socrates regret, on the Shores of the Beyond, not having taken the path of the architect.50 The thought of both authors is centered around mathematical problems and the relationship between mathematics and language. As the French philosopher Régine Pietra puts it: Valéryan philosophy […] offers striking parallels to Wittgenstein; the same mistrust of abstractions, the same appeal to experience, the same reiteration of thoughts, the same cavalier attitude to traditional philosophy, a comparably rigorous ethic of thought and, above all, a similar ambition, at once modest and overweening: to know what one is saying and to say it clearly.51

The most significant and obvious similarities are found in the role that Wittgenstein and Valéry give to language and philosophy of language. Both authors stand for a linguistic turn, which they at the same time orient in the direction of a pragmatic turn. They take the same path in philosophy of language by sharing four premises. Both articulate a critique of language directed in particular against nominalizations and essentializations of a substantialist tradition (3.1). Both plead for holism in philosophy of language, i.e., for the fact that the meaning of an utterance can only be understood in the context of a form of life or language game (3.2). Both understand ordinary language as the ultimate metalanguage (3.3). Finally, both formulate a theory of meaning as use, i.e., they give pragmatics a primacy over semantics and emphasize the role of actual uses for an understanding of language as praxis (3.4). 50 51

Cf. Paul Valéry, Eupalinos or the Architect, trans. by William McCausland Stewart, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932. Régine Pietra, “An Art of Rethinking: Valéry’s ‘Negative Philosophy,’” in: Paul Gifford / Brian Stimpson (eds.), Reading Paul Valéry. Universe in Mind, Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 85–102, here p. 98.

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The fact that both authors are interested in questions of language should not be taken to mean that they attempt to define the essence of language. Rather, their philosophies of language are an expression of the dilemma described at the beginning of this chapter, namely that clarity and certainty only ever arise in the process of actual speaking and writing, not when we seek to objectify what is spoken of or written about.52 Thus Wittgenstein and Valéry develop not so much a philosophy of language as a philosophy of the process of languageuse, a process beyond which we cannot go. (3.1) Critique of language. Valéry speaks very early on about the “impossibility of studying language in itself.”53 In Wittgenstein we can read analogously: “We are under the illusion that what is peculiar, profound, essential in our investigation, resides in its trying to grasp the incomparable essence of language. […] Whereas, of course, if the words ‘language,’ ‘experience,’ ‘world,’ have a use, it must be as humble a one as that of the words ‘table,’ ‘lamp,’ ‘door.’”54 Both authors reject any essentialization of language and rather examine singular, situated, historically contingent variations in speech that are socially effective. Wittgenstein’s attitude to language is very aptly summed up by Donald Davidson when he writes: I conclude that there is no such thing as a language, not if a language is anything like what many philosophers and linguists have supposed. There is therefore no such thing to be learned, mastered, or born with. We must give up the idea of a clearly defined shared structure which language-users acquire and then apply to cases.55

Philosophy of language, then, does not imply for either Valéry or Wittgenstein the reduction of all thought to language. Both show that our language influences and often distorts our thinking. Thus they share in an enterprise of critiquing language that is influenced by Locke, Lichtenberg, and Nietzsche. Valéry notes: “Language obscures almost everything—because it forces you to see things in a fixed way and because it generalizes without you wanting it to.”56 Wittgenstein is also critical of these generalizations. The subject-object-predicate structure of the sentences of our Indo-European languages have seduced philosophers 52 53 54 55 56

Cf. Andreas Hetzel, Die Wirksamkeit der Rede. Zur Aktualität klassischer Rhetorik für die moderne Sprachphilosophie, Bielefeld: transcript, 2011. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. IV, p. 37. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 97. Donald Davidson, “A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs,” in: Donald Davidson, Truth, Language, and History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 89–108, here p. 107. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. IV, p. 38.

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again and again to divide the world into subjects and objects and to hypostatize both sides. In § 115 of the Investigations Wittgenstein puts this in the following way: “A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.”57 In § 116 he continues: “When philosophers use a word—‘knowledge,’ ‘being,’ ‘object,’ ‘I,’ ‘proposition,’ ‘name’—and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must always ask oneself: is the word ever actually used in this way in the languagegame in which is its original home?—What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.”58 This bringing back also consists in the tracing of ‘substances’ back to processes, of supposed things to practices and activities. “The philosopher,” says Valéry, believes in the word in itself—and his problems are ones of words in themselves, of words which become obscure when you pause over them in isolation—and which he elucidates as best he can, when held and isolated, become semantically obscured—and which he explains by inventing, as best he can by creating for them as best he can, artificially through reflective and imaginative means, that which precisely was taken away by his pausing and his doubts—their transitional character—for language is purely transition—a path of communication.59

Just as Wittgenstein warns against the “bumps” that “the understanding has got by running its head up against the limits of language,”60 Valéry warns against the “deceptive tricks of human language,”61 especially anthropomorphisms. It is noticeable that languages and their elements are not a problem for us when we speak and use them, but only become so when we begin to reflect on them as language: How frequently you find that the same word, unambiguous when you use it, loses its clarity when you weigh it up. That’s because you always use words with their meaning of the moment, with what’s needed to sustain them. Taken on their own, you look closely at them—seeking to replace them with the indeterminate set of their relations—while in fact the set becomes determined through combination.62

And further: “It is so strange that one is able to use, to handle and to speak with notions—in a completely accurate way, although one would not be able 57 58 59 60 61 62

Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 115. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 116. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. IV, p. 87. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 119. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. IV, p. 39 (translation modified). Valéry, Cahiers, vol. IV, p. 44–45.

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to define them.”63 Meanings remain clear as long as we do not ask about them and do not seek to isolate them. We cannot evade the immanence of linguistic performance, of thinking, speaking, and writing, and cannot establish a formal theory of thinking, of language, or of their elements. (3.2) Holism and context. Wittgenstein and Valéry share a holistic and situated understanding of language as practice. Words, for Valéry, are “in process of constant change” and at the same time are “employed in context—as soon as you isolate them, they become less clear.”64 Thus what Augustine said of time also applies to words: as long as no one asks us about them, we know how to use them. We can only use them in contexts, in forms of life, in the framework of a practice that Wittgenstein conceives as a language game. “I keep telling myself,” Valéry also says, “that as far as words like time, present, thought, etc. are concerned, best not delve into them. Leave them to usage and use them accordingly.”65 Wittgenstein’s demand sounds like an echo of this: “Look on the language-game as the primary thing!”66 Only in the context of a language game, which is seen by Wittgenstein less as a system of rules than as a practice in actual performance, does an utterance or a sentence gain meaning, not through a reference to pre-linguistic or pre-social facts. The playing of the language-game is thus for Wittgenstein unable to be analyzed; it forms the groundless ground of our world-relations. “Our mistake,” i.e. that of the philosophers, “is to look for an explanation where we ought to look at what happens as a ‘proto-phenomenon.’ That is, where we ought to say: this language-game is played.”67 In On Certainty, Wittgenstein notes: “Giving grounds, however, justifying the evidence, comes to an end;—but the end is not certain propositions’ striking us immediately as true, i.e. it is not a kind of seeing on our part; it is our acting, which lies at the bottom of the language-game.”68 For Stanley Cavell, who follows Conant and Diamond in a performative interpretation of Wittgenstein’s philosophy, Wittgenstein’s vision of language is “that any form of life and every concept integral to it has an indefinite number of instances and directions of projection; […]. The phenomenon I am calling ‘projecting a word’ [= its use in different language-games connected only by a family resemblance, governed by no universals,] is the fact of language 63 64 65 66 67 68

Valéry, Cahiers, vol. IV, p. 45. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. IV, p. 45. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. IV, p. 59. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 656. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 654. Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty, trans. by Denis Paul and G.E.M. Anscombe, Oxford: Blackwell, 1969, § 204 (emphasis added).

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which, I take it, is sometimes responded to by saying that all language is metaphorical.”69 Wittgenstein would thus be read not only as a representative of performativity-oriented philosophizing, but also as an exponent of a performative and postfoundationalist conception of language.70 (3.3) Ordinary language as metalanguage. Wittgenstein and Valéry discover the non-theorizable nature of ordinary language. They distance themselves from all philosophical attempts to develop a mathesis universalis, a formalized, unambiguously defined and thus non-ambivalent universal or meta-language. “Ordinary language,” says Valéry, “is the necessary condition for our relationship with ourselves and with others.”71 Wittgenstein, too, sees himself decidedly as a philosopher of ordinary language, in which all inquiries find an end: “When I talk about language (words, sentences, etc.) I must speak the language of the everyday.”72 Every attempt to go beyond the realm of ordinary language leads us to fall into metaphysical traps that we have set for ourselves. Only a therapeutic form of philosophizing that is critical of language can free us from these traps: “The strange thing about philosophical uneasiness and its resolution might seem to be that it is like the suffering of an ascetic who stands there lifting a heavy ball above his head, amid groans, and whom someone sets free by telling him: ‘Drop it.’”73 (3.4) Meaning as use. Valéry, like Wittgenstein, can be seen as one of the founders of a pragmatic tradition within modern philosophy of language. In a note from 1928, he distinguishes “different uses or roles of language” and differentiates between an “emotive role,” a “persuasive role,” a “creative role,” and a “demonstrative role” of utterances.74 With this he anticipates a terminology that was developed much later by John L. Austin and John Searle in almost identical terms, the terminology of “illocutionary roles” of speech acts which determine their specific mode of action. Austin’s and Searle’s illocutionary role 69 70

71 72 73 74

Stanley Cavell, The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979, p. 185, p. 190. Lucilla Guidi, “Die Grundlosigkeit der Praxis in Wittgensteins Über Gewissheit. Kritik als Übung des Kontingenzbewusstseins,” in: Anne Siegetsleitner et al. (eds.): Krise und Kritik: philosophische Analyse und Zeitgeschehen. / Crisis and critique: philosophical analysis and current events. Beiträge des 42. Internationalen Wittgenstein Symposiums 4.-10. August 2019 Kirchberg am Wechsel (Contributions of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society, Bd. 27), Kirchberg am Wechsel: Österreichische Ludwig Wittgenstein Gesellschaft, 2019, pp. 86–90. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. IV, p. 84. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 301. Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 307e. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. IV, p. 84.

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defines whether an utterance functions, for example, as an assertion, command or promise. Its specific mode of action constitutes the utterance as an utterance in the first place. In other words, post-Wittgensteinian pragmatics concedes no “pure” utterance, no utterance that does not always already have a certain character of acting. “Metander,” a mythological figure (whose name recalls the Greek comedy poet Menander) invented by Valéry, “had received from the gods the remarkable gift of being unable to hear words that have no meaning (universe, etc.). […] It was natural for him to regard their meaning as an act of the person speaking—(a more or less considered and complete act)—before hearing them as standing for something.”75 The “meaning” of words, Valéry continues, “is simply an effect, and thus only part—of a certain cycle of an act.”76 This specific character of acting is not added after the fact to a representational core-content of the utterance, but constitutes the utterance as such. For Wittgenstein, I learn a language not by internalizing independent lexical and grammatical elements, vocabulary and rules, but by using it. Using it means enacting it. Language games are “practiced,”77 we learn a language while using “words by practice.”78 Practicing, performing or enacting, which had to be understood in the tradition of Aristotelian hexis and ethos, mark the extreme vanishing point of Wittgenstein’s and Valéry’s projects in the philosophy of language. “But the end,” says Wittgenstein, “is not an ungrounded presupposition: it is an ungrounded way of acting.”79 Since language has no essence and is not governed by deep structures or constitutive rules, it remains entirely unstable and changeable. “Language” is, according to Valéry too, “purely provisional.”80 What language “is, is mixed together with the accidents of putting it into use.”81 Perhaps somewhat more strongly than Wittgenstein, Valéry thereby emphasizes the freedom afforded by the fortuity and elusiveness of language. We could also say that the groundlessness, contingency and impermanence of language is our freedom. “I am subject to language,” Valéry says, “and language is subject to me.”82 That I use it and that it does not exist beyond its use also means that I can always use it differently or, as Wittgenstein would

75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82

Valéry, Cahiers, vol. IV, p. 95. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. IV, p. 95. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 54. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 208. Wittgenstein, On Certainty, § 110. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. IV, p. 119. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. IV, p. 124. Valéry, Cahiers, vol. I, p. 489.

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put it, that there is always a way in which we can modify language games—“as we go along.”83 References Anscombe, Elizabeth, Intention, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. Augustine, The City of God. Books XVII–XXII, trans. by Gerald G. Walsh / Daniel J. Honan, Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008. Augustine, Confessions, trans. by Thomas Williams, Indianapolis / Cambridge MA: Hackett, 2019. Bühler, Karl, Sprachtheorie—Die Darstellungsform der Sprache, Stuttgart: Gustav Fischer Verlag, 1965. Cavell, Stanley, The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. Conant, James, “Some Socratic Aspects of Wittgenstein’s Conception of Philosophy,” in: James Conant / Sebastian Sunday Grève (eds.), Wittgenstein on Philosophy, Objectivity, and Meaning, Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, 2019, pp. 231–264. Crary, Alice and Rupert Read (eds.), The New Wittgenstein, London / New York: Routledge, 2000. Davidson, Donald, “A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs,” in: Donald Davidson, Truth, Language, and History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 89–108. Derrida, Jacques, “Qual Quelle: Valéry’s Sources,” in: Jacques Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, trans. by Alain Bass, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1980, (1972). Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality. Volume 1: An Introduction, trans. by Robert Hurley, London: Penguin Book, 1990 (1976). Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality. Volume 3: The Care of the Self, trans. by Robert Hurley, London: Penguin Books, 1990 (1984). Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality. Volume  2: The Use of Pleasure, trans. by Robert Hurley, London: Penguin Books, 1992 (1984). Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality, Volume 4: Confessions of the Flesh, trans. by. Robert Hurley, London: Penguin Books, 2021 (2018). Guidi, Lucilla, “Die Grundlosigkeit der Praxis in Wittgensteins Über Gewissheit. Kritik als Übung des Kontingenzbewusstseins,” in: Anne Siegetsleitner et al. (eds.), Krise und Kritik: philosophische Analyse und Zeitgeschehen. / Crisis and critique: philosophical analysis and current events. Beiträge des 42. Internationalen Wittgenstein 83

Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 39.

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Symposiums 4.-10. August 2019 Kirchberg am Wechsel (Contributions of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society, Bd.  27), Kirchberg am Wechsel: Österreichische Ludwig Wittgenstein Gesellschaft, 2019, pp. 86–90. Hadot, Pierre, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, trans. by Michael Chase, ed. by Arnold I. Davidson, Malden MA / Oxford, et al.: Blackwell, 1995 (1981). Hadot, Pierre, The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, trans. by Michael Chase, Cambridge MA / London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998 (1992). Hetzel, Andreas, Die Wirksamkeit der Rede. Zur Aktualität klassischer Rhetorik für die moderne Sprachphilosophie, Bielefeld: transcript, 2011. Kierkegaard, Søren, The Sickness unto Death, in: Id., Kierkegaard’s Writings, XIX, trans. and ed. by Edna H. Hong / Howard V. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980 (1849). Nancy, Jean-Luc, Inoperative Community, trans. by Peter Connor, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999 (1986). Philo Judaeus, “Who is the Heir of Divine Things,” in: Id., Philo. In Ten Volumes, Volume IV (On the Confusion of Tongues. On the Migration of Abraham. Who Is the Heir of Divine Things? On Mating with the Preliminary Studies), trans. by Francis H. Colson / George H. Whitaker, London 1932: Harvard University Press, pp. 284–447. Pietra, Régine, “Valéry, Wittgenstein et la philosophie,” in: Cahier du groupe de recherches sur la philosophie et le langage, Université des sciences sociales de Grenoble  1 (1981) pp. 75–83. Pietra, Régine, “An Art of Rethinking: Valéry’s ‘Negative Philosophy,’” in: Paul Gifford / Brian Stimpson (eds.), Reading Paul Valéry. Universe in Mind, Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 85–102. Polanyi, Michael, The Tacit Dimension, London: Routledge, 1966. Ryle, Gilbert, “Knowing How and Knowing That,” in: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society XLVI (1946), pp. 1–16; repr. in Collected Papers, London: Hutchinson & Co., 1971, vol. 2, pp. 212–225. Schmidt-Radefeldt, Jürgen, “Affinitäten zwischen Valéry, Cassirer und Wittgenstein,” in: Zeitschrift für Kulturphilosophie 6.1 (2012), pp. 65–78. Stekeler-Weithofer, Pirmin, Philosophie des Selbstbewußtseins. Hegels System als Formanalyse von Wissen und Autonomie, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2005. Valéry, Paul, Eupalinos or the Architect, trans. by William McCausland Stewart, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932 (1923). Valéry, Paul, Cahiers/Notebooks, vol. I, trans. by Paul Gifford / Siân Miles / Robert Pickering / Brian Stimpson, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2000. Valéry, Paul, Cahiers/Notebooks, vol. IV, trans. by Norma Rinsler / Brian Stimpson / Rima Joseph / Paul Ryan, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2010.

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Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. by Charles  K.  Ogden / Frank P. Ramsey, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1922 (1921). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, On Certainty, trans. by Denis Paul / G.E.M. Anscombe, Oxford: Blackwell, 1969. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, The Big Typescript: TS 213. German–English Scholars’ Edition, ed. and trans. by C. Grant Luckhardt / Maximilian A.E. Aue, Malden MA / Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe et al., ed. by Peter M.S. Hacker / Joachim Schulte, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009 (1953). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Lecture on Ethics, ed. by Edoardo Zamuner et al., Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2014. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, The Mythology in Our Language. Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough, trans. by Stephan Palmié, Chicago: HAU Books, 2018 (1967).

Section II Philosophical Exercises and Ethical Transformations

The Dissolution of Philosophical Problems and the Transformation of Thinking Oskari Kuusela Abstract This chapter develops an alternative to accounts of the dissolution of philosophical problems promoted by the so-called therapeutic interpretations of Wittgenstein, characteristic of which is that they connect the notion of dissolution with the claim that having no theses means having no positive philosophical views. Dissolution thus becomes a matter of dismissing the dissolved view as nonsensical with nothing offered in its stead. I argue that this gets Wittgenstein’s notion of dissolution fundamentally wrong. A dissolution always involves proposing an alternative view or way of looking at things in the context of which the original problem no longer arises. Without such an alternative there is no dissolution. Accordingly, the transformation of one’s way of thinking is crucial to the dissolution of philosophical problems. This is what makes dissolution difficult. There’s no easy way to dissolve a problem by pointing out the nonsensicality of what someone says.



Introduction Grasping the difficulty in its depth is what is hard. For if you interpret it in a shallow way the difficulty just remains. It has to be pulled out by the root; & that means, you have to start thinking about these things in a new way. The change is as decisive e.g. as that from the alchemical to the chemical way of thinking.— The new way of thinking is what is so hard to establish. Once it is established the old problems disappear; indeed it becomes hard to recapture them. For they are embedded in the way we express ourselves; & if we clothe ourselves in a new form of expression, the old problems are discarded along with the old garment.1

In this chapter I discuss Wittgenstein’s view of the dissolution of philosophical problems. I argue that dissolution for the later Wittgenstein is never merely a matter of showing the nonsensicality or unworkability of a philosophical view, or that there is something wrong with philosophical problems as they 1 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein’s Nachlass: The Bergen Electronic Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, MS 131, 48, 1946; references by manuscript/typescript number according to the von Wright catalogue. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, trans. by Peter Winch, ed. by Georg H. von Wright / Heikki Nyman, Oxford: Blackwell, 1998 (1977), p. 55.

© Brill Fink, 2023 | doi:10.30965/9783846767450_007

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have been posed. Instead, dissolution necessarily involves the introduction of an alternative view in the context of which the problems in question no longer arise. Hence, Wittgensteinian dissolutions involve as an essential component the transformation of ways of thinking. This has consequences for the interpretation of what Wittgenstein means by philosophizing without theses or theories. Philosophizing without theses or theories cannot be understood as a matter of only dissolving problems without offering any views in their place. Accordingly, not having theses or theories is not a matter of not having philosophical views. In conclusion, I contrast the proposed interpretation with Rupert Read’s recent reading of Wittgenstein’s philosophy as liberation from philosophical views, and this kind of liberation, which involves no commitment to any views as more correct than others, as the ethical goal of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. I argue that, whilst liberation from the thrall of views is part of Wittgenstein’s philosophical approach, this cannot by itself explain the role of ethical considerations as an aspect of his philosophy. 1.

Answering Philosophical Questions vs. Dissolving Them

A characteristic feature of Wittgenstein’s approach to philosophy, both early and late, is his view that, rather than rushing to answer philosophical problems, we should examine the questions in terms of which the problems are expressed for their sense, i.e. consider whether the questions make sense rather than merely appear to do so, and whether they can be answered. The early Wittgenstein explains this as follows: Most statements and questions, that have been written about philosophical matters, are not false, but nonsense. We cannot, therefore, answer questions of this kind at all, but only establish their nonsensicality. Most questions and statements of philosophers depend on our not understanding the logic of our language.2

In the next remark he then goes on to characterize philosophy as a “critique of language” proposing Bertrand Russell’s analyses of definite descriptions as a model for such a critique: “Russell’s merit is to have shown that the apparent

2 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. by Charles  K.  Ogden, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951 (1921), 4.003; (amended translation). I have on occasion revised extant translations. If no published translation exists for quotes from Wittgenstein’s Nachlass, the translation is mine.

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logical form of the proposition need not be its real form.”3 This suggests the following interpretation of what the early Wittgenstein meant by establishing the nonsensicality of philosophical propositions and questions. Their nonsensicality is to be established through logical analysis by employing a logical notation, such as Russell’s.4 This interpretation is further supported by what Wittgenstein says at the end of his book about the strictly correct method of philosophy: The right method of philosophy would be this. To say nothing except what can be said, i.e. the sentences of natural science, i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy: and then always, when someone else wished to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his sentences. This method would be unsatisfying to the other—he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy—but it would be the only strictly correct method.5

This remark outlines a formal approach, characteristic of which is that instead of making claims about how things are in reality, i.e. material true/false statements, philosophy examines the statements of philosophers for their sense.6 A main concern would be pointing out where philosophers have fallen into nonsense by trying to state something about essential, universal or exceptionless non-empirical necessities, which according to the Tractatus cannot be the object of true/false statements.7 According to this view, something being an essential or internal property—defined as a property that one could not 3 Wittgenstein, Tractatus, 4.0031. 4 The Tractatus proposes various improvements to Frege’s and Russell’s notations as well as rethinking their philosophy of logic. For discussion, see Oskari Kuusela, Wittgenstein on Logic as the Method of Philosophy: Re-examining the Roots and Development of Analytic Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019, chapter 2. 5 Wittgenstein, Tractatus, 6.53; cf. 4.112. 6 See Kuusela, Wittgenstein on Logic as the Method, chapter 3 for discussion. 7 Arguably, Wittgenstein has specific kinds of philosophical confusions in mind, relating to the characteristic aspiration of philosophers to put forward theses about non-empirical essential necessities (Wittgenstein, Tractatus, 4.122–4.125). He is therefore not using “metaphysical” in a derogatory way for confused philosophy, as Rudolf Carnap and many early analytic philosophers influenced by the logical positivists do. (See Oskari Kuusela, “On Wittgenstein’s and Carnap’s Conceptions of the Dissolution of Philosophical Problems, and against a Therapeutic Mix: How to Solve the Paradox of the Tractatus,” in: Philosophical Investigations 42.3, pp.  213–240, and Oskari Kuusela, Wittgenstein on Logic and Philosophical Method: Elements in the Philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, 2022, chapter 1, for discussion.) Similarly, Read characterizes metaphysical use for the later Wittgenstein as simply confused, “not a genuine category of language-use.” Rupert Read, Wittgenstein’s Liberatory Philosophy: Thinking Through His Philosophical Investigations, New York: Routledge, 2021, p. 164, cf. p. 191.

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conceive the object as not having—cannot be stated by means of a proposition. Instead, such essential necessities must be clarified in a different way, by means of the internal features of propositions.8 “The existence of an internal property of a possible state of affairs is not expressed by a proposition, but it expresses itself in the proposition which presents that state of affairs by means of an internal property of this proposition.”9 The proper way to clarify essential necessities thus is to encode them into the structure of a logically perspicuous notation which consequently reflects them in its structure. (Such languages differ in this regard from colloquial language which misleadingly presents essential necessities as a possible object of true/false propositions.) On the Tractatus’ view, propositions in a logically perspicuous language then mirror the logical or essential characteristics of the states of affairs that they represent, giving expression to essential characteristics in this way. Accordingly, it is not Wittgenstein’s view even in the Tractatus that what the metaphysician tries to say is to be discarded as mere nonsense, and that there’s no proper way to express essential universal or exceptionless necessity. Rather, a main point of the book is to clarify the proper way to express necessity, and to put forward an alternative method for doing so that does not suffer from the confusions of traditional philosophical theses.10 To be sure, Wittgenstein’s views about philosophy as logical clarification go through important developments after the Tractatus with him coming to recognize “grave mistakes” in his early approach.11 However, in his later philosophy too Wittgenstein regards the solution of philosophical problems as a matter of making them disappear rather than answering them as they are posed. Likewise, there is a continuity between Wittgenstein’s early and later views about the expression of essential necessities. Similarly to his early philosophy, he holds that essential necessities are not expressible in terms of true/false propositions or theses, and continues to reject true/false philosophical propositions/theses as the proper expression of necessity. Instead, the correct way to express logical necessity is to codify it into the structure of a philosophical model, such as a grammatical rule or a system thereof, a simple

8 9 10 11

Wittgenstein, Tractatus, 4.122–4.123. Wittgenstein, Tractatus, 4.124. See Kuusela, Wittgenstein on Logic as the Method, chapter 2 for discussion. A more compact account is provided in Kuusela, Wittgenstein on Logic, chapter 1. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe et al., ed. by Peter M.S. Hacker / Joachim Schulte, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009 (1953), preface.

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language-game or a calculus. Thus, the Tractatus’ method is accommodated as a special case of philosophical methodology, rather than rejected.12 In the so-called Big Typescript from the early 1930s, Wittgenstein writes about philosophical problems and the dissolution as follows: The philosophical problem is an awareness of the disorder in our concepts, and can be solved by ordering them. A philosophical problem always has the form: “I simply don’t know my way about.” As I do philosophy, its entire task is to shape expression in such a way that certain worries disappear. ((Hertz.)) If  I am right, then philosophical problems really must be solvable without remainder, in contrast to all others. When I say: Here we are at the limits of language, that always sounds as if resignation were necessary at this point, whereas on the contrary complete satisfaction comes about, since no question remains. The problems are solved in the literal sense of the word—dissolved like a lump of sugar in water.13

Here the three first remarks have corresponding ones in the Investigations, where Wittgenstein similarly describes a philosophical problem as a matter of not finding one’s way about in language.14 Likewise the Investigations characterizes the task of philosophy as one of establishing “an order in our knowledge of the use of language,” although it adds that this is “an order for a particular purpose; one out of many possible orders; not the order.”15 Here the “particular purpose” that the different orderings of language use serve is the dissolution of particular philosophical problems, i.e. making them “completely disappear.” Accordingly, just as the Big Typescript, the Investigations describes the goal of philosophy as one of making the problems disappear:16 We don’t want to refine or complete the system of rules for the use of our words in unheard-of ways.

12 13 14 15 16

See Kuusela, Wittgenstein on Logic as the Method, especially chapter 4, for discussion of the proper way to articulate logical or conceptual necessity and the continuity of Wittgenstein’s philosophy. Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Big Typescript: TS 213, trans. and ed. by C. Grant Luckhardt / Maximilian A.E. Aue, Oxford: Wiley, 2005, pp. 309–310 / Wittgenstein, Nachlass, TS 213, 421; cf. TS 211, 194; MS 110, 99. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 123; cf. §§ 203, 664. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 132. I return later to connections between Wittgenstein’s later philosophy and the two last remarks about dissolution. Importantly, connections exist here too.

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Oskari Kuusela For the clarity that we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear. The real discovery is the one that enables me to break off philosophizing when I want to—The one that gives philosophy peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself in question.—Instead, a method is now demonstrated by examples, and the series of examples can be broken off.— Problems are solved (difficulties eliminated), not a single problem. There is not a single philosophical method, though there are indeed methods, as it were, different therapies.17

This is a complicated remark, and not everything Wittgenstein says is relevant for my discussion. In addition to his continuing endorsement of the idea that philosophical problems can be made to completely disappear the following is noteworthy. The later Wittgenstein no longer thinks that there is just one method, such the method of logical analysis of the Tractatus, that could be used to dissolve all philosophical problems. Instead methods are demonstrated through examples. In this way they can be introduced without putting forward any theses about the nature of philosophy, such as the Tractatus committed itself to by claiming that all philosophical problems had been solved “in essentials” through the introduction of its method.18 Rather, the later Wittgenstein is concerned to solve particular problems. Importantly, demonstrating a method by examples, i.e. showing how it enables one to respond to particular problems, is open ended. Such examples do not constitute a closed definition or thesis about how one must always respond to philosophical problems. To explain the point differently, for the later Wittgenstein there is not a single fundamental problem, contrary to what he assumed in the Tractatus, such that solving it enables us to solve all the rest of philosophical problems. This single fundamental problem in the Tractatus pertained to the foundations of logic and more specifically the essence of proposition as the core of the Tractarian logical calculus.19 The idea was that once we have determined the nature of propositions, and thus the nature of language as a totality of propositions, we have determined a way to analyze language that covers all its sensible uses. As Wittgenstein later realized, however, his approach did not only fail to do justice to the complexity of language and the diversity of its uses, it was also 17 18 19

Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 133; cf. Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, pp. 203, 316 / Wittgenstein, Nachlass, TS 213, 259, 431. Wittgenstein, Tractatus, preface. Hence, 6.53 also speaks confidently about the correct method of philosophy that can always be applied when dealing with philosophical problems. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Notebooks 1914–1916, trans. by G.E.M.  Anscombe, ed. by Georg  H. von Wright / G.E.M. Anscombe, Oxford: Blackwell, 1981 (1960), p. 39.

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unstable in that it allows philosophy to bring into question itself: all proposed solutions to particular philosophical questions can be problematized by questioning the solution to the single fundamental problem that constitutes the foundation for the right method.20 This crucial change in Wittgenstein’s approach is also reflected in  § 132 where he emphasizes that the order in our knowledge of the use of language which philosophy seeks to establish is “an order for a particular purpose, one out of many possible orders, not the order.”21 This can be explained as follows. The particular purpose for which we try to establish an order or orders into our knowledge of language use is the solution of particular philosophical problems. In this regard it is important that different ways of ordering our knowledge of language use might be required in response to different problems relating to the very same objects of investigation. There is not any single definite way of ordering our knowledge of language use that contains the solution to all philosophical problems, contrary to what the Tractatus assumed. Rather, in order to deal with different problems we may need to highlight different characteristics of relevant uses of language or concepts, because of their relevance to these different problems. What ultimately matters is that whatever is relevant for the dissolution of the problems at hand is taken into account, but not every feature of an object of investigation will be relevant for every problem about it.22 With these points regarding the development and continuity of Wittgenstein’s thought in mind, let us return to the Big Typescript and what Wittgenstein says there about dissolving problems or making philosophical problems disappear by ordering our knowledge of the use of language. Before doing so, however, let me explain why this text is of particular interest for my topic. It is certainly possible that there are methodological developments in Wittgenstein’s views between the Big Typescript and the Investigations that are relevant for understanding his view of the dissolution of philosophical problems. The possibility cannot be ignored that his views about this matter 20

21 22

Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 23. See Oskari Kuusela, The Struggle Against Dogmatism: Wittgenstein and the Concept of Philosophy, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2008, chapters 1.5 and 2.3, and Kuusela, Wittgenstein on Logic as the Method, pp. 146 f. for discussion. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 132. Wittgenstein’s point that there are many ways to arrange our knowledge of language use therefore does not imply relativism about truth, but only that philosophical clarifications constitute responses to specific difficulties, there being no “general purpose clarifications.” Put differently, whilst what is relevant for dissolving a problem depends on the problem, what is true or what is the case does not depend on what problems we happen to have.

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change. Textual evidence, however, suggests that this is not the case.23 The Big Typescript then is of particular interest for understanding his conception of dissolution of problems, because Wittgenstein states there various relevant points in an abstract way, whereas in the Investigations these points are enacted on or carried out. As noted, the latter seeks to demonstrate a method by examples, i.e. by showing how Wittgenstein’s methods work, not through abstract philosophical statements about methodology. Nevertheless, Wittgenstein’s abstract statements in the Big Typescript open up a perspective on the Investigations that helps to understand what is going on there. This, roughly, is the point of studying Wittgenstein’s Nachlass in general: it offers clues to understanding what Wittgenstein is trying to do in the Investigations, whilst the latter is the authoritative text. Consequently, if there are differences between the Investigations and the Nachlass, and if we want to understand the views of the mature later Wittgenstein, we should go with the Investigations.24 But it is worth emphasizing that what counts as a change of view is a matter of interpretation. Remarks from the Nachlass may also create a false appearance of changes and development.

23

24

By contrast, Cora Diamond, “Criss-cross Philosophy,” in: Erich Ammereller / Eugen Fischer (eds.), Wittgenstein at Work: Method in the Philosophical Investigations, London and New York: Routledge, 2004, maintains that in the Big Typescript Wittgenstein still continues to think in terms of “big questions” similarly to the Tractatus. Likewise, James Conant, “Mild Mono-Wittgensteinianism,” in: Alice Crary (ed.), Wittgenstein and the Moral Life: Essays in Honour of Cora Diamond, Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2007, pp. 31–142 argues that in the Big Typescript Wittgenstein still believes that there is one correct method of philosophy. However, textual evidence indicates that Wittgenstein abandons both commitments in the early 1930s as part of his response to the problem of dogmatism which negatively affected the Tractatus. (See note 42 below for references.) These methodological changes are then reflected upon and described explicitly by Wittgenstein around 1936–37 (in manuscripts MS 157a and MS 157b) when he has already practiced his new methodology for a while. See Kuusela, Struggle Against Dogmatism, chapter 3 for an argument in support of this interpretation; 2008, endnote 123 (p. 318) lists different interpretative positions. Although my focus here is not the exegetical question of continuity, in order to make apparent the continuity of Wittgenstein’s view of dissolution in the period from the 1930s until his last years, I provide the year of composition for relevant remarks. Read, Liberatory Philosophy, pp.  195–196 fails to appreciate my explicitly stated methodological principles for the use of Nachlass to this effect in Kuusela, Struggle Against Dogmatism, pp.  13–15. Consequently, his argument against the interpretation of Philosophical Investigations, § 133 proposed there fails.

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What Makes Philosophical Problems Difficult to Solve

Relating to the point in Investigations § 132 about ordering our knowledge of language use, in the Big Typescript Wittgenstein describes the difficulty of solving philosophical problems as follows: You ask why grammatical problems are so tough and seemingly ineradicable.— Because they are connected with the oldest thought habits, i.e. with the oldest pictures that are engraved into our language itself. ((Lichtenberg.)) Teaching philosophy involves the same immense difficulty as instruction in geography would have if a pupil brought with him a mass of false and falsely simplified ideas about the courses and connections of rivers and mountains. Human beings are deeply imbedded in philosophical, i.e. grammatical, confusions. And freeing them from these presupposes extricating them from the immensely diverse associations they are caught up in. One must, as it were, regroup their entire language.—But of course this language developed as it did because human beings had—and have—the tendency to think in this way. Therefore extricating them only works with those who live in an instinctive state of dissatisfaction with language. Not with those who, following all of their instincts, live within the very herd that has created this language as its proper expression.25

Here we encounter again the idea of solving philosophical problems by ordering, re-organizing or re-grouping language. As Wittgenstein describes the situation, misleading pictures or ways of thinking about the objects of philosophical investigation have been engraved into language itself, because humans have a tendency to think about issues in those ways.26 Consequently, releasing them from philosophical difficulties requires reordering or regrouping their language. Language is here to be thought of as constituting the medium of their thinking, not merely an instrument for expressing thoughts somehow independently articulated. In this medium there might then be misleading associations and connections between the different items (concepts) that 25 26

Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 311 / Wittgenstein, Nachlass, TS 213, 423; cf. TS 213, 421. Wittgenstein raises later questions about how local such thinking habits are. “Do we have to do with mistakes & difficulties that are as old as our language? Are they, so to speak sicknesses that are bound together with the use of a language, or are they special, characteristic of our civilisation? […] Or also: is the preoccupation with the means of language that penetrates our whole philosophy an age-old feature of all philosophy, an age-old struggle? Or is it new like our science. Or like this as well: does philosophizing always waver between metaphysics & a critique of language?” (Wittgenstein, Nachlass, MS 132, 7–8, 1946; see Kuusela, Struggle Against Dogmatism, chapter 7.2 for discussion.) I take this to indicate that Wittgenstein is not committed to any general claims about the habits of thinking of humanity in the old style of universal philosophical theses.

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make up, so to speak, well-trodden paths leading from one place to another. As Wittgenstein also remarks: Language has the same traps ready for everyone; the immense network of easily trodden false paths. And thus we see one person after another walking down the same paths and we already know where he will make a turn, where he will keep going straight ahead without noticing the turn, etc., etc. Therefore wherever false paths branch off I ought to put up signs to help in getting past the dangerous spots.27

For example, there is a tendency to think of mental states as something inner and private in the sense that no one else has access to my mental states. Wherever this tendency might come from, it seems to be almost automatically imposed on one. This then gives rise, for example, to the so-called problem of other minds. If my mental states are inner and not accessible to anyone but me and the same with you, how can we understand each other’s mental states or know that the other has any at all? Strangely enough, despite the fact that this way of thinking about mental states leads us into trouble almost immediately, we are not usually inclined to backtrack and trace the problem back to our ways of thinking about the issues. Instead the usual response is to start developing answers to the problem without questioning the way of thinking about that gave rise to it in the first place. Thus, I might for example, try to explain knowledge of the inner states of others by postulating that they have something similar than I experience, i.e. we explain knowledge of the inner states of others, such as pain, by postulating an analogy between ourselves and others. But as Wittgenstein points out, such an explanation will not work: to simply state that the other has the same as me determines no criterion of sameness for pain.28 The question is thus left open: what is the basis for saying that the other has the same as me? Insofar as we keep thinking of mental states as essentially inner, we have made no progress.29 Similarly, we may be tempted to think of 27 28 29

Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 312 / Wittgenstein, Nachlass, TS 213, 423. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §§ 349–351. In everyday life we use behavioral criteria for the presence of mental states in the third person case, and this may make the thought seem unproblematic that others have the same as me. Addressing relevant philosophical problems, however, requires that we examine what sameness would mean in the case of essentially inner states, without wavering unnoticed between this use and the everyday use. Conceiving mental states as essentially inner we land in problems, because this conception does not recognize any essential connection between behavioral criteria and inner states. By contrast, young boys who sometimes test their bravery by doing things that cause pain, for example subject themselves to mild electric shocks, have little doubt that each feels the same pain, due to the fact that they all respond in the same way in terms of facial and bodily expressions.

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the meanings of words as what the words refer to, as if referring to things were a simple matter that happens automatically and independently of how words are used. To make this referential account of meaning to work we then seem to need to postulate unusual entities, for example, abstract non-temporal objects, such as numbers in Platonic heaven, as the reference of number-words. Both tendencies of thinking illustrate the tendency to rush ahead theorizing without it occurring to us to question our original way of thinking that gives rise to the problems. The point of these quick examples is merely to illustrate the situation Wittgenstein describes. Our habits of thinking engraved in language suggest to us certain pictures of how things are. For example we connect the expression ‘mental state’ with that of ‘inner state,’ as if mental states were obviously inner and nothing but inner. This is strange in that all of us have seen happiness and anger on the face of another person, and states like tiredness or excitement reflected in their body and behavior. Yet, our habits of thinking lead us to exclude such phenomena as non-essential for understanding mental states. This, I take it, is what Wittgenstein means by our being deeply embedded in philosophical confusions. Note also that, insofar as the conception of mental states as essentially inner is based on the inference that, since in each individual case the other could deceive us, behavioral criteria cannot constitute criteria for the presence of mental states, the conception is based on a fallacy. The inference from what is possible in each individual case to what is possible in all cases is not valid, as illustrated by the possibility that each runner in a competition could be the winner but not all of them. These difficulties relating to philosophy can also be connected with another remark Wittgenstein makes in the Big Typescript: What makes a subject difficult to understand—if it is significant, important—is not that it would take some special instruction about abstruse things to understand it. Rather it is the antithesis between understanding the subject and what most people want to see. Because of this the very things that are most obvious can become the most difficult to understand. What has to be overcome is not a difficulty of the intellect, but of the will.30

In the case of the example of mental states it is indeed almost as if we wanted to see things in a certain way. It does not occur us to try to think about things differently. As said, all of us have seen happiness and anger on the face of another. We are not dealing with a rare or difficult to understand phenomenon, as if searching for Big Foot or Yeti in remote mountains or trying to establish 30

Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 300 / Wittgenstein, Nachlass, TS 213, 407.

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what causes Alzheimer’s disease. Everything is open to view. As Wittgenstein remarks in the Big Typescript and similarly the Investigations: “Since everything lies open to view there is nothing to explain.”31 An important related point, connected with the idea that we need to order or re-organize our language or, as Investigations puts it, establish an order in our knowledge of the use of language, is that in philosophy we are dealing with something we already know. In the case of philosophy, as Wittgenstein conceives it, we already know relevant facts, unlike in the case of empirical problems, such as establishing whether Yeti exists or what causes Alzheimer’s. Wittgenstein makes this point in both the Big Typescript and the Investigations: “The work of the philosopher consists in assembling reminders for a particular purpose.”32 The particular purpose which reminders are assembled for is the solution of particular philosophical problems. Still, that everything lies open to view and that we already know relevant facts and only need to re-organize them in order to be able to render matters comprehensible does not make the task of philosophy easy. Being accustomed to think of issues in certain ways we may well feel resistant to changing our habits of thinking. As Wittgenstein says in the earlier quote from the Big Typescript, extricating people from their habits of thinking and language use, and the associated confusions, “only works with those who live in an instinctive state of dissatisfaction with language.”33 It may be important that this point is not included in the Investigations. If someone does not feel any need to change their way of thinking, they are unlikely to take the trouble of doing so. As Wittgenstein says, solving philosophical problems may require one to overcome a difficulty of will, not merely an intellectual difficulty. But this difficulty of the will has other roots too, and thus this Nietzsche-style talk about herd and rebellion may come across as arrogant, as if the problem were indeed just that some people do not want their philosophical problems solved. One contributing difficulty, commented on in both the Big Typescript and Investigations, relates to seeing what is familiar and in front of one’s eyes: “The aspects of language that are philosophically most important are hidden behind their simplicity and ordinariness. / (One is unable to notice this importance because it is

31 32 33

Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 308 / Wittgenstein, Nachlass, TS 213, 419; cf. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §§ 126, 129. Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 306 / Wittgenstein, Nachlass, TS 213, 415; cf. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §§ 127, 89, 253. Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 311 / Wittgenstein, Nachlass, TS 213, 423.

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always (openly) before one’s eyes.)”34 Perhaps this is the case with the external expressions of inner states. Partly due to our familiarity with them, we fail to properly consider their philosophical importance—which can be seen more easily if we imagine them as absent or irregular unlike in actual life.35 (I come back in section 4 to other sources of the difficulty of transforming one’s view.) Before discussing the issue of what is to be understood more precisely by ordering or re-organizing language or knowledge of its use, let me briefly note one more way in which Wittgenstein describes the dissolution of philosophical problems. Dissolution as a matter of freeing people from their confusions can be connected with a description of the task of philosophy that Wittgenstein makes use of already in his early philosophy and frequently in the 1930s, but which disappears and no longer occurs in the Investigations. In the Big Typescript he writes: The philosopher strives to find the liberating word [erlösende Wort], and that is the word that finally permits us to grasp what until then had constantly and intangibly weighed on our consciousness. (It’s like having a hair on one’s tongue; one feels it, but can’t get hold of it, and therefore can’t get rid of it.) The philosopher provides us with the word with which we can express the matter and render it harmless.36

It is not entirely clear how the notion of a liberating word should be understood, and how it relates to the other characterization that we are liberated from our confusions through ordering language or knowledge of its use. Neither is it clear why Wittgenstein drops this characterization in terms of the liberating word. It is still included in the 1936 manuscript of the Investigations, MS 142, and its typescript versions TS 220 and 239, but not in the Investigations.37 In 1944 Wittgenstein modifies the remark, making the point more specific. I come back to this later at the end of section 3 when we are in a position to see the point of this modification.

34 35 36 37

Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 309 / Wittgenstein, Nachlass, TS 213, 421; cf. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 129. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 142. Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 302 / Wittgenstein, Nachlass, TS 213, 409. The numerous other occurrences of this remark or its close variants include Wittgenstein, Notebooks, pp. 39, 54 / Wittgenstein, Nachlass, MS 102, 65r, 122r; MS 105, 44; MS 107, 144; MS 110, 17; MS 115, 30; MS 142, 109; MS 146, 55; MS 147, 9v; TS 211, 128; TS 220, 83; TS 238, 11; TS 239, 84.

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Dissolving Problems through Ordering or Re-ordering What We Know

As we have seen there are many connections and similarities between how Wittgenstein describes the task of philosophy in the Big Typescript and in the Investigations. The dissimilarities between his views in the two texts are less clear. But what is it more precisely to create an order in our knowledge of the use of language or to re-organize our language? Let us now turn to this issue of what dissolving philosophical problems through ordering or reorganizing language involves. In the Big Typescript Wittgenstein describes the dissolution to philosophical problems as follows: When one asks philosophy: “What is—for instance—substance?” one is asking for a rule. A general rule, which is valid for the word “substance,” i.e. a rule according to which I have decided to play. […] Just remember the case of the Law of Identity in order to see that taking care of a philosophical problem is not a matter of pronouncing new truths about the subject of the investigation (identity). The difficulty lies in understanding how establishing a rule helps us. Why it calms us after we have been so profoundly anxious. Obviously what calms us is that we see a system that (systematically) excludes those structures that have always made us uneasy, those we were unable to do anything with, and that we still thought we had to respect. Isn’t the establishment of such a grammatical rule similar in this respect to the discovery of an explanation in physics—for instance, of the Copernican system? There is a similarity.—The strange thing about philosophical uneasiness and its resolution might seem to be that it is like the suffering of an ascetic who stands there lifting a heavy ball above his head, amid groans, and whom someone sets free by telling him: “Drop it.” One wonders: If these propositions made you uneasy and you didn’t know what to do with them, why didn’t you drop them earlier? What stopped you from doing this? Well, I believe it was the false system that he thought he had to accommodate himself to, etc.38

A few comments are required on the notion of rule. As Wittgenstein explains in the Big Typescript his approach consists of investigating language with respect to its rules. To this extent it involves envisaging language as a calculus or comparing it with one. This approach must be distinguished from that of the Tractatus, in that in Wittgenstein’s later work, including the Big Typescript, no claim is made about language actually being a calculus or used according to definite rules. By contrast, the Tractatus postulated an underlying level of definite 38

Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 307 / Wittgenstein, Nachlass, TS 213, 417; cf. MS 112, 199v; TS 211, 520. For comments on the law of identity, referring back to its elimination from the correct logical language in the Tractatus, see Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, pp. 203, 304.

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rules that allegedly governed language use, a postulation which according to the later Wittgenstein involves a confusion about ideal notions in philosophy and logic.39 Instead, the conceptions of language use as governed by definite rules and language as a calculus are to be recognized as idealized models or modes for representing language use that serve the purpose of philosophical/ logical clarification. But there are other kinds of clarificatory models too, such as language-games and what one might call natural historical pictures which involve the description of the uses of language as embedded in actions and life, rather than in terms of rules.40 Recognizing that the conception of language as rule governed constitutes a particular mode of representing language is then important because it puts us in a position to avoid Wittgenstein’s earlier confusion about ideal notions, and the misleading simplifications and dogmatism that the Tractatus fell into. These mistakes were due to it projecting the characteristics of its mode of representing language onto actual language, and claiming that this is what language use must be.41 Wittgenstein remarks about this in the Big Typescript: The object of comparison, the object from which this way of looking at things is derived, has to be given to us, so that injustices won’t constantly flow into the discussion. For everything that holds true for the archetype is now being claimed for the object under examination: and it is claimed that “it always has to …” This comes from wanting to give the characteristics of the archetype a foothold in the investigation. We conflate the archetype and the object, and then we have to dogmatically attribute to the object what should be ascribed only to the archetype. On the other hand, we think the investigation doesn’t have the generality we want to give it, if it really holds true only for the one particular case. But the archetype should be presented as precisely that; in such a way that it characterizes the whole investigation, determining its form. So it stands at the apex of the investigation and for that reason is superior, but not because everything that holds true only of it is predicated of all of the objects being investigated.42

39 40 41 42

Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §§ 100–102; see Kuusela, Wittgenstein on Logic as the Method, chapter 4 for discussion. For language-games and Wittgenstein’s naturalism, see Kuusela, Wittgenstein on Logic as the Method, chapters 5 and 6. Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, pp. 203–204 / Wittgenstein, Nachlass, TS 213, 259. Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 204 / Wittgenstein, Nachlass, TS 213, 259. The first version of this remark is found in MS 111, 119–120 from 1931 (published in Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, pp. 21–22). Before the Big Typescript it also occurs in MS 211, 72 and MS 212, 745; see later on this is taken up in MS 115, 56–57 (from 1934), where it is formulated slightly differently. Finally, the same point is made in Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §§ 130–131 which is quoted next. See Kuusela, Struggle against Dogmatism, chapter 3 for a more detailed discussion of the different versions of the remark and their relations.

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Archetypes in the sense in which Wittgenstein speaks of them here constitute a model for other relevant cases or a mode of representing them. In the Investigations the same point is expressed more generally as comment on philosophical models, and the logical status of simple language-games as examples of such models: Our clear and simple language-games are not preliminary studies for a future regimentation of language as it were, first approximations, ignoring friction and air resistance. Rather, the language-games stand there as objects of comparison which, through similarities and dissimilarities, are meant to throw light on features of our language. For we can avoid unfairness or vacuity in our assertions only by presenting the model as what it is, as an object of comparison—as a sort of yardstick; not as a preconception to which reality must correspond. (The dogmatism into which we fall so easily in doing philosophy.)43

As the key point may be summed up, rules and language-games are not, for the later Wittgenstein, the object of philosophical investigation of which any claims are made or theses put forward. They are examples of the kind of modes of representation and clarification that a philosopher or a logician might use to clarify the functioning of language, for example, with the purpose of clarifying the notion of a substance which Wittgenstein mentions as an example. To put the point yet differently in order to connect it with establishing an order or orders in our knowledge of language use, rules are one way in which we might seek to bring order into language use. Such orderings, however, serve particular purposes, i.e. they are created in response to particular philosophical problems; Wittgenstein is not looking to establish the order. As the Big Typescript similarly explains, making a point corresponding to Investigations §§132–133: “We don’t want to refine the system of rules in un-heard of ways, nor do we want to complete it. We want to remove the confusions and anxieties that stem from the difficulty of having an overview of the system.”44 Another remark from the early 1930s that predates the Big Typescript puts the point thus: “I would like to call a rule an instrument. / ‘To clarify grammar’ means to present it in the form of a game according to rules.”45 Here the notion of presenting language as a game according to rules is to be kept strictly separate from any theses about language actually being such a game. With these exegetical 43 44 45

Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations,  §§ 130–131; Wittgenstein, Nachlass, TS  220, 85 makes clear the connection between the preceding Big Typescript remark and Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 203 / Wittgenstein, Nachlass, TS 213, 257v. Wittgenstein, Nachlass, MS 113, 23v–24r; TS 211, 570–571.

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points regarding the development of Wittgenstein’s method in place, how does stating rules help? This is where the similarity between philosophy and physics that Witt­ genstein observes, and the example of Copernicus becomes relevant. As I will try to show, this comparison turns out to be illuminating. What Copernicus did by replacing the Ptolemaic geocentric picture of our solar system with the heliocentric picture is a re-ordering of what we know. This was not so much a discovery of any new facts but a matter of re-organizing or re-ordering what astronomers had been observing over a long period. Remarkably, what Copernicus achieved through this reorganization, was the dissolution of many problems relating to the calculation of the orbits or paths of heavenly bodies that are very difficult to calculate in the Ptolemaic system, because it requires the postulation of various epicycles to explain their movements. By contrast, such complexities and problems created by epicycles simply do not arise in the Copernican system; the old problems are dissolved, rather than answered. They are thrown away with the old garment, as Wittgenstein says in the quote I used as the motto, and which sums up his notion of the dissolution of philosophical problems. Importantly, what Copernicus did not do is to determine the orbits of heavenly bodies in the way that astronomers had been trying to do before him. He did not answer their questions in the context of the old Ptolemaic system accepting its presuppositions. Instead, he changed the way we look and conceptualize the solar system. As Wittgenstein also describes the situation, Copernicus changed our way of looking at things by discovering a fruitful aspect. “The real service of someone like Copernicus or Darwin was not the discovery of a true theory but of a fruitful aspect.”46 The similarity with philosophy is made explicit in another mark from the mid-1930s: “Oh it’s like that [Ach so]—!” we say when a philosophy explanation is given to us and we breathe out. The solution to problems consists in the elimination of an anxiety generating [beunruhigenden] aspect that is dissolved by certain analogies in grammar. Philosophy changes the aspect. By showing us other analogies. By sliding in intermediate cases. And so on.47

Here, I believe, we can see how Wittgenstein thinks about the dissolution of philosophical problems, and what he means by saying that they can be completely dissolved. Such problems are not dissolved by showing that whatever a person said was nonsense and that, due to this, their questions cannot be 46 47

Wittgenstein, Nachlass, TS 211, 518. Wittgenstein, Nachlass, MS 157b, 14r.

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answered.48 The solution is not a matter forcing the interlocutor to accept any facts about grammar and to try to convince them in this way that their nonsensical questions cannot be answered. If this were how Wittgenstein thinks about the dissolution of problems, it is hard to see how he could also maintain that it “always sounds as if resignation were necessary at this point, whereas on the contrary complete satisfaction comes about, since no question remains. / The problems are solved in the literal sense of the word—dissolved like a lump of sugar in water.”49 Neither does this seem compatible with his remarks about philosophy that it only states what everyone grants to it,50 including his repeated declarations that he is willing to drop any point not agreed upon. “I won’t say anything that anyone can dispute. Or if anyone does dispute it, I will let that point drop and pass on to say something else.”51 If the aim is to change someone’s way of looking at things, this is not anything that could be achieved by simply showing someone that they are confused or have said something nonsensical. Rather, the way to change someone’s way of thinking is to lead them from one way of thinking or view to another, for example, by introducing new analogies and bringing in intermediate cases that highlight a connection between cases originally regarded as distinct. Of course there is then no guarantee that this will work out and no conclusive arguments to this effect. A person might resist changing their way of looking at things, and sometimes little can be done about this.52 As Wittgenstein also remarks in a late remark: If one does not want to solve philosophical problems—why does one not give up being occupied with them. For to solve them means changing one’s point of view, changing the old way of thinking. And if you do not want that you should not call them difficult but unsolvable.53 48

49 50 51

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53

Such readings of the later Wittgenstein, including Read’s, are perhaps tacitly, even if not explicitly, influenced by logical positivists such as Carnap who regard it as sufficient for dismissing philosophical views that one establishes their nonsensicality. See Kuusela, “Conceptions of Dissolution.” Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 310 / Wittgenstein, Nachlass, TS  213, 421; full remark quoted earlier. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §§ 128, 599. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics, Cambridge 1939, ed. by Cora Diamond, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976, p. 22; see also pp. 55, 102–103; Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein’s Lectures, Cambridge 1932–35, ed. by Alice Ambrose, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1979, p. 97. For a discussion of why there are no conclusive arguments for changing a person’s point of view, see Oskari Kuusela, “Wittgenstein’s Comparison between Philosophy, Aesthetics and Ethics,” in: Stefan Majetschak / Anja Weiberg (eds.), Aesthetics Today: Proceedings of the 39th International Ludwig Wittgenstein-Symposium in Kirchberg, 2016, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017, pp. 333–348. Wittgenstein, Nachlass, MS 174, 6r; 1950.

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I return this point about willingness to change one’s view, and the ethical issues it raises, in section 4. In conclusion to the preceding sections, I want to emphasize, that for Wittgenstein the dissolution of philosophical problems is never a matter of simply showing the unworkability of a view, i.e. that it is hopeless or nonsensical, and that the problems as they have been posed cannot be answered. The philosophical task is not just to liberate us from problematic ways of thinking without replacing them with some different and better way or ways of thinking that render/s the matter comprehensible. This conclusion can now be connected with Wittgenstein’s notion of a liberating word. He writes about this: “The ‘liberating word’ is only this because it is the final stone to a building, the last still missing link in a chain. For the person who lacks this presupposition it is not a liberating word.”54 As this change to Wittgenstein reoccurring remark about the liberating word indicates, the liberating word is not doing some kind of magic on its own. In order for it to dissolve a problem, it must be the final piece that is put in place in the context of an alternative view. Thus, we reach again the conclusion that for Wittgenstein not having theses and theories is not a matter of having no views on the issues. Not only does the view that dissolution would not involve the articulation of an alternative view go against how he describes his approach. It also begs crucial questions against his attempts to philosophize without theses or theories, as if the only way to have a view in philosophy would be to have a theory or a thesis. Consistently with this, Wittgenstein, of course, does not merely point out the unworkability of the view of mental states as inner states or the unworkability of the conception of meaning as reference. In both cases he has a better alternative view to put in place of the rejected view, as exemplified by his conception of meaning as use and his account of the inner and outer as essentially intertwined. 4.

Philosophy and Ethics: The Difficulty of Transformation

The interpretation proposed in the preceding puts me in disagreement with the so-called therapeutic readings of Wittgenstein, such as formerly represented by Read and Phil Hutchinson, according to whom Wittgenstein’s aim is merely to show the nonsensicality of philosophical accounts without offering any better accounts in their place. Here Wittgenstein’s goal is taken to be to merely liberate us from the urge to theorize in philosophy, and from problematic “thought-restricting” metaphysical tendencies of thinking on which the 54

Wittgenstein, Nachlass, MS 124, 218; 1944. Cf. MS 179, 3v.

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problems depend.55 This disagreement also seems to carry over to Read’s recent liberatory reading that similarly takes Wittgenstein not to be in the business of offering any philosophical accounts.56 I conclude by contrasting the proposed interpretation with Read’s to highlight some features of Wittgenstein’s approach, as I construe it. (My purpose therefore is not criticism as such.) Read writes: In this chapter and in the rest of the book I rely on no account being given by Wittgenstein (not a theoretical account nor any other kind) of meaning (nor of anything else). The vision of Wittgenstein’s method that I aim to exemplify here involves us, rather, centrally making ourselves ‘transparent’ to ourselves and thereby able to gain autonomy with respect to our disturbing and confining inclinations to mire ourselves in what we will ourselves on reflection take to be nonsense. […] [T]his freedom extends not just to being held captive by an account of meaning, nor to the rejection of dogmatic accounts of meaning (though it certainly includes both these points), but to questioning the alleged necessity of having an account of meaning at all.57

And: “Is it even possible for one not to have an account, of some minimal—or tacit—form, at least? I am submitting that the assumption that one must, an assumption very widespread indeed in philosophy, is a thought-constraint, a hidden dogma.” “[…] [T]he best thing to say, on balance, is that Wittgenstein offers no account of meaning, at all, no matter of what kind.”58 As I hope is clear on the basis of the preceding discussion, it is no part of Wittgenstein’s view to merely cure or liberate philosophers without offering a better alternative view that dissolves relevant problems. Mere liberation from views is not a possible way to construe what he means by dissolution of philosophical problems. As argued, dissolution always involves the articulation of a better alternative view in the context of which the problems plaguing previously held view do not arise. Transparency to ourselves is therefore not enough by itself. The alternative account offered has to actually be able to dissolve the problems at hand. That dissolution involves the introduction of a better alternative account does not, of course, imply a commitment to philosophical theses in the sense of true/false universal/exceptionless statements about the necessary or essential features of philosophy’s objects of investigation that would provide us with 55 56 57 58

Rupert Read and Phil Hutchinson, “Therapy,” in: Kelly Dean Jolley (ed.), Wittgenstein: Key Concepts, Durham: Acumen, 2010, pp. 149–159, here p. 151. For differences between therapeutic and liberatory readings of Wittgenstein, see Read, Liberatory Philosophy, pp. 192–193, 199–200. Read, Liberatory Philosophy, p. 109. Read, Liberatory Philosophy, p. 114 and p. 27 respectively.

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the philosophical account of the matter at hand, telling us how all relevant cases must be understood.59 As explained, philosophical clarifications are responses to particular problems, and different things may need to be said in response to different problems relating to one and the same object of study. Accordingly, Wittgenstein describes the Investigations as an album, that consists of sketches of landscapes “over a wide field of thought” whereby “[t]he same or almost the same points were always being approached afresh from different directions, and new sketches made.”60 However, insofar as the goal is to dissolve philosophical problems, developing better accounts is not optional. Here lies the difficulty of philosophy in a very basic sense. It is not easy to come up with an account that actually works, dissolving the problems and rendering the matters comprehensible. Even though liberation from problematic views is an aspect of the dissolution of philosophical problems, liberation alone cannot achieve dissolution. Hence, the notion of liberation cannot explain what it is to philosophize without theses. Not having theses is not a matter of not having philosophical views or accounts.61 Here the ethical aspects of philosophical work come into view. As Wittgenstein says in the last quote in the previous section (from MS 174), if one is not willing to change one’s point of view or way of thinking in philosophy 59 60

61

Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §§ 130–131, quoted in section 3. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, preface. For an interpretation of Wittgenstein’s remarks on the notion of truth in philosophy in contrast to propositional truth in terms of comparisons with different types of pictures, such as historical vs. genre-paintings and landscape paintings, see Oskari Kuusela, “Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, and Future Philosophers: The Notion of Truth in Philosophy,” in: Pascal Zambito / Shunichi Takagi (eds.), Wittgenstein and Nietzsche, New York: Routledge, forthcoming. For discussion of what Wittgenstein means by not having theses in philosophy, and what it is to philosophize without theses, see Kuusela, Struggle against Dogmatism and Wittgenstein on Logic as the Method. It is worth noting that Read also writes: “Alternatively, we are free to say that Wittgenstein entertains various accounts—that such accounts are in that sense very much present within his text—but that none is presented as definitive/ dogmatic and they are only offered up as objects of comparison to work through a particular problem(s). In this latter sense too, Wittgenstein is not offering an account in the sense in which that term is standardly used in philosophy: an account that one attaches to or privileges” (Read, Liberatory Philosophy, p. 27). This suggests that the formulations just quoted might be intended as polemic, as a provocative play with the ambiguity of the word “account.” Although the formulation just quoted seems easier to agree with (it comes close to what I have suggested in the Struggle Against Dogmatism and Kuusela, Wittgenstein on Logic as the Method), ultimately it too seems dissatisfactory. Insofar as dissolving a problem necessarily involves replacing a problematic view with another one in the context of which those problems do not arise, dissolution does privilege one account over another. To suggest that dissolution would not require privileging any account downplays the difficulty in philosophy of finding an account that actually works.

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one should treat philosophical problems as unsolvable. This is the same point as made already in the Big Typescript almost twenty years earlier that philosophical problems involve, not merely an intellectual difficulty, but a difficulty of the will (see section 2). Importantly, however, Wittgenstein remarks in the late 1940s, commenting on the difficulty of questioning the views one holds, he does not think the difficulty is merely a problem of the will in the sense of unwillingness. This brings out a philosophical (not merely exegetical) problem with Read’s liberatory reading insofar as it denies the need to articulate better alternative accounts as an essential part of addressing philosophical problems. The problem, in short, is this. Insofar as the interlocutor has no other view to substitute for the old problematic view, the likely result of attempts to liberate her is merely that she will keep trying to fix the old view. This stands in stark contrast with Wittgenstein’s Copernican-style dissolutions where the dissolution consists in replacing the problematic view with a new one in the context of which the old problems no longer arise. Thus, it seems that nothing much can be achieved by simply rejecting philosophical views as unworkable or nonsensical, and through liberation from philosophical views in this sense. This, I take it, is part of why Wittgenstein thinks about dissolution in the way outlined in the preceding sections. Accordingly, he remarks on the difficulty of philosophy: “Nothing is more difficult than face a concept without prejudices. (And this is the main difficulty of philosophy).” And: “Nothing is more difficult than facing a concept without prejudices.—For the prejudice is a system—that is, a form of understanding, even though not of the correct understanding.”62 Importantly, even a problematic view is still a way to try to understand something. Left with no way to understand a matter consequent to philosophical therapy or liberation, a person seems likely only to turn back to their old account and to resuscitate it, because they need some way to think about the matter, and even a problematic account is better than none.63 A dissolution that merely aims to demonstrate the nonsensicality of a view, or to liberate us from views, therefore, seems likely to merely result in a cycle of attempts to fix the old view and criticisms showing that the fixes do not work. Consequently, interpretations such as Read’s earlier therapeutic and his new liberatory 62 63

Wittgenstein, Nachlass, MS 136, 11a and MS 136, 18b, from 1947, cf. MS 137, 77b. Something analogous might also help to understand why ethical and political views can sometimes be difficult to change. Changing such views may be very difficult or impossible in situations where a person cannot accept the alternatives on offer, consequently feeling it necessary to stick to their old view. Here too solutions might be sought in the same way as in philosophy, by articulating novel ways to think about things that dissolve the problems to which the old view gives rise. Thus, finding solutions may require creative and non-conventional thinking.

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reading do not seem able to explain either what Wittgenstein means by philosophizing without philosophical theses and theories or the ethical aims and tasks of philosophy. Liberation in the sense of liberation from unworkable views is not what his philosophy aims at. Consequently, this cannot explain the ethical aspects of his philosophical approach either.64 What does dealing with philosophical prejudices and overcoming the main difficulty of philosophy, as described in the remarks just quoted, involve? As the Big Typescript explains about the difficulty of philosophy understood as the difficulty of the will, philosophy requires work on oneself and one’s conception of relevant matters. “As is frequently the case with work in architecture, work on philosophy is actually closer to working on oneself. On one’s own understanding. On the way one sees things. (And on what one demands of them).”65 This, of course, merely describes the task without saying what is required to successfully carry it out. However, it is important that Wittgenstein describes the issue as one of working on oneself and on one’s own views, not the attitudes and views of others. This is important, because it indicates the need in philosophy for certain virtues, such as courage, which one cannot make others develop like one can try to develop them oneself, the task being one of working on oneself or self-development. Accordingly, Wittgenstein remarks about the issue of dealing with one’s prejudices: “What [earlier variant: where] is the borderline between a judgment and a prejudice [Urteil & Vorurteil]?—/ The edifice of your pride must be demolished. And that is a dreadful work.”66 As this indicates, besides the understandable need to have some view, even if it is problematic, vices, such as pride, may also affect one’s philosophizing—and no doubt this list can be expanded with other vices such as laziness, cowardice or desire to play safe, conventionality or unwillingness to contest received views, and lack of honesty indicated by moral failures such as prioritizing one’s academic career, originally built on promoting certain views, over truth. To counteract these vices philosophy calls for virtues, such as courage. As Wittgenstein explains, “I believe that what is essential is for the activity of clarification to be carried out with courage; without this it becomes a mere clever game.” “You could attach prices to ideas. Some cost a lot some little. […] And how do you pay for ideas? I believe: with courage.”67 Here ethics in the sense 64 65 66 67

For liberation and ethical aspects of Wittgenstein’s philosophy, see Read, Liberatory Philosophy, pp. 2–3, 13–14, 33. Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 300 / Wittgenstein, Nachlass, TS 213, 407; direct continuation from the quote in section 2 on the difficulty of the will. Wittgenstein, Nachlass, MS 157a, 58r. Wittgenstein, Nachlass, MS 154, 16v / Culture and Value, p. 16 and MS 132, 75–76 / Culture and Value, p. 60 respectively.

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of the development and practice of virtues such as courage emerges, not as a branch of philosophy, but as a dimension of philosophical work that pervades it through and through, similarly to what Socrates maintained a long time ago.68 Philosophy requires courage, not merely to counteract vices such as just mentioned, but also in order to be able to stare into the abyss of not having a view as part of attempts to replace a view that one has held with a better one. (This can be a very scary experience, with plenty of capacity to deprive one from sleep at night.) As the preceding hopefully makes clear, ethical considerations and requirements do indeed inform Wittgenstein’s philosophical approach. They constitute an essential aspect of philosophical practice without which philosophy is in danger of being reduced to a mere clever game or perhaps mere selfpromotion. As  I have argued, however, the role of these ethical considerations as an aspect of philosophy cannot be understood in terms of liberation regarded as a matter of liberation from the thrall of problematic views. No doubt the latter is part of Wittgenstein’s approach, as indicated by the notion of the liberating word. However, as Wittgenstein’s last formulations of the significance of the liberating word indicate,69 the liberating word can only function as such in the context of a philosophical view offered as a way to dissolve philosophical problems. This is because the aim of philosophy is to achieve an understanding of its objects of investigation, not merely to liberate from misunderstandings. This is also why transformation of one’s views constitutes an essential aspect of philosophy. What one needs to be able to do in order to achieve an understanding of what one aims to understand is to question and transform one’s view so as to be able to move from lack of understanding or defective understanding to correct understanding. Whilst philosophical statements for Wittgenstein do not constitute propositions or theses about metaphysical truths that would exhaust the truth about the objects of study, in the capacity of instruments of clarification the function of philosophical statements nevertheless is to help to tease the truth out and bring it to the open, so that we can achieve and understanding of the objects of investigation. Wittgenstein’s album of sketches of landscapes in the Investigations provides an example that illustrates how this works, whilst the Big Typescript describes the approach more abstractly. Undeniably, the Investigations introduces a 68

69

See Oskari Kuusela, “Wittgenstein’s Reception of Socrates,” in: Christopher Moore (ed.), Brill Companion to the Reception of Socrates, Leiden: Brill, 2019, pp. 883–907 for the relation between Wittgenstein and Socrates and the methodological affinities between their approaches that can be detected by looking at Socrates’ actual practice, as opposed to Plato’s sublimation of its goals in metaphysical terms. See end of section 3.

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number of novel philosophical views, as exemplified by his account of meaning as use and the intertwinedness of the inner and the outer in response to the problem of other minds as well as other problems that arise with the conception of mental states as essentially inner. As this indicates, the Investigations aims at the dissolution of philosophical problems, not mere liberation from philosophical views.70 References Conant, James, “Mild Mono-Wittgensteinianism,” in: Alice Crary (ed.), Wittgenstein and the Moral Life: Essays in Honour of Cora Diamond, Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2007, pp. 31–142. Diamond, Cora, “Criss-cross Philosophy,” in: Erich Ammereller / Eugen Fischer (eds.), Wittgenstein at Work: Method in the Philosophical Investigations, London and New York: Routledge, 2004, pp. 201–220. Kuusela, Oskari, The Struggle Against Dogmatism: Wittgenstein and the Concept of Philosophy, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2008. Kuusela, Oskari, “Wittgenstein’s Comparison between Philosophy, Aesthetics and Ethics,” in: Stefan Majetschak / Anja Weiberg (eds.), Aesthetics Today: Proceedings of the 39th International Ludwig Wittgenstein-Symposium in Kirchberg, 2016, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017, pp. 333–348. Kuusela, Oskari, “On Wittgenstein’s and Carnap’s Conceptions of the Dissolution of Philosophical Problems, and against a Therapeutic Mix: How to Solve the Paradox of the Tractatus,” in: Philosophical Investigations 42.3 (2019), pp. 213–240. Kuusela, Oskari, Wittgenstein on Logic as the Method of Philosophy: Re-examining the Roots and Development of Analytic Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Kuusela Oskari, “Wittgenstein’s Reception of Socrates,” in: Christopher Moore (ed.), Brill Companion to the Reception of Socrates, Leiden: Brill, 2019, pp. 883–907. Kuusela, Oskari, Wittgenstein on Logic and Philosophical Method: Elements in the Philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, 2022. Kuusela, Oskari, “Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, and Future Philosophers: The Notion of Truth in Philosophy,” in: Pascal Zambito / Shunichi Takagi (eds.), Wittgenstein and Nietzsche, New York: Routledge, forthcoming. 70

I would like to thank Rupert Read, and the participants in the conference “Wittgenstein’s Exercises: Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations,” which took place in July 2021 within the activities of the DFG Research Training Group 2477 “Aesthetic Practice” at the University of Hildesheim, for comments on this essay.

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Read, Rupert, Wittgenstein’s Liberatory Philosophy: Thinking Through His Philosophical Investigations, New York: Routledge, 2021. Read, Rupert and Hutchinson, Phil, “Therapy,” in: Kelly Dean Jolley (ed.), Wittgenstein: Key Concepts, Durham: Acumen, 2010, pp. 149–159. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. by Charles  K.  Ogden, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951 (1921). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Notebooks 1914–1916, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe, ed. by Georg H. von Wright / G.E.M. Anscombe, Oxford: Blackwell, 1981 (1960). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Wittgenstein’s Lectures, Cambridge 1932–35, ed. by Alice Ambrose, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1979. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics: Cambridge, 1939, ed. by Cora Diamond, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Culture and Value, trans. by Peter Winch, ed. by Georg  H. von Wright / Heikki Nyman, Oxford: Blackwell, 1998 (1977). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Wittgenstein’s Nachlass: The Bergen Electronic Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. References by manuscript or typescript number according to the von Wright catalogue. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, The Big Typescript: TS 213 trans. and ed. by C. Grant Luckhardt / Maximilian A.E. Aue, Oxford: Wiley, 2005. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe et. al., ed. by Peter M.S. Hacker / Joachim Schulte, Oxford: Wiley, 2009 (1953).

Transformative Thinking

Wittgenstein and Dewey on the Power of Reflection Jörg Volbers Abstract This chapter compares and examines both the later Wittgenstein’s and Dewey’s ‘turn to practice,’ e.g., their thesis that reasoning and reflection should be understood as a constitutively practical activity. Both are presented as departing from the late modern suspicion that the traditional intellectualistic conception of the mind cannot account for how thinking can be a trusted and reliable guide in managing our affairs. In response, both present not only a practical account of reflection but a further conception of their own philosophy as a transformative activity, the authority of which cannot be reduced to intellectual insight alone. Yet, while Wittgenstein develops this consequence by focusing on the individual self, struggling to gain a clear view of what can be demanded from thinking, Dewey instead presents thinking as an on-going interactive process of which the thinking self is but one part, a difference which results in diverging estimations of how powerful philosophical reflection, once put into perspective, can still be.

Introduction Modern philosophical ethics is characterized by a tension with regards to the question of how ‘theoretical’ moral philosophizing can and should be. Two basic answers have emerged over the last hundred years, which are however often seen as incompatible, what has been termed the alternative of ‘theory vs. anti-theory.’1 There are, for one, those who argue that moral philosophy should give moral guidance by providing systematized theoretical frameworks. These theories are supposed to clarify, rationalize and explain our moral intuitions, with the aim of ideally offering action-guiding insights into the nature 1 Conflicting perspectives on the role of theory are not new, but only recently has this difference become an explicit topic of debate in moral philosophy; see for an overview Nicholas Fotion, Theory vs. Anti-Theory in Ethics: A Misconceived Conflict, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Alternative labels roughly pointing to the same difference are, for example, ‘ideal vs. non-ideal theory’; see here Charles W. Mills, “‘Ideal Theory’ as Ideology,” in: Hypatia 20.3 (2005), pp.  165–183; Onora O’Neill, “Abstraction, Idealization and Ideology in Ethics,” in: J.D.G.  Evans (ed.), Moral Philosophy and Contemporary Problems, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements 22, Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, 1987, pp. 55–71.

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of morality. On the other hand, it is argued that the very idea of trying to solve moral problems within the realm of theory is mistaken, for it seriously distorts the conflict-laden, situated and often incoherent reality of moral life and moral demands. As a consequence, it is recommended to move away from theoretical justification towards a consideration of the intricacies of particular moral cases, e.g., by moving from normative ethics towards a genealogical approach. While this broad outline certainly cannot claim to be exhaustive, it serves to illustrate an opposition which is found throughout contemporary moral philosophy.2 It shows how, under modern conditions, the very status of moral theorizing has become controversial. But what exactly is the problem with ‘moral theory’? In the following, I want to suggest that, contrary to appearance, the root of the problem is not the abstract nature of theory itself but rather a prevailing ambivalent attitude towards the authority of theory and the judgments backed by it. Thus, the defenders of ‘theory’ rightly emphasize that, when facing moral perplexities, it is necessary to gain a clear view and to help the reflecting subject emancipate herself from her preconceptions and spontaneous inclinations. One of the best known instances of such a theoretical perspective in ethics is Kant, who explicitly sets the demands of reason against our mere wishes and desires. On the other hand, critics of ‘theory,’ such as Bernard Williams for example, persuasively highlight that such a thoroughly reasoned account of morality misses the crucial importance of existential commitments, as well as the complicated realities of moral life. By this view, a moral theory serves at best as a pale and forceless proxy for the real moral self. At worst, it is an instrument of suppression, paradoxically turning morality against others and against oneself—a suspicion which is, among others, associated with the works of Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud. From the perspective taken here, this tension between ‘theory’ on the one hand, and what is sometimes called ‘anti-theory’ or even ‘anti-philosophy’ on the other, should be read as the manifestation of an intractable indeterminateness, or openness, in our reflective self-understanding. Under modern conditions, the very authority of thought and reflection has become ambivalent, a problem which quite naturally comes into view when considering moral

2 It could be argued that in the 21st century, this opposition is outdated given the rise of virtue ethics and the widespread acceptance of ‘pragmatic’ arguments within ideal normative theory, such as Rawls’ overlapping consensus. For a good defense of the contemporary relevance of the contrast drawn, see however Nora Hämäläinen, “Is Moral Theory Harmful in Practice?—Relocating Anti-Theory in Contemporary Ethics,” in: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 12.5 (2008), pp. 539–553.

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reflection.3 On the one side, the moral self is seen to be in need of a guiding theoretical assessment, while on the other, it is in danger precisely because of such an authoritative gesture. In both cases, however, what is implicitly agreed upon is that the moral self, as it stands, is susceptible to confusion. In other words, both positions are united in the assumption that a given moral selfunderstanding can be problematically misguided and is thus in need of further clarification and correction—whether that be because it is too entangled in the prejudices and desires of real life, or alternatively because it is cut off from them. In this chapter, I want to present Wittgenstein and Dewey as two authors who are sensitive to this problem, of which the opposition between ‘theory’ and ‘anti-theory’ in ethics is an expression. As we will see below, both assign philosophy the task of articulating and exposing that problematically instable self-understanding which results in confusion. More specifically, they see the root cause in a misconception of what it means to think. The point here is not that there is an epistemological disagreement about the nature of thinking, simply due to its complexity for example. Rather, what Wittgenstein and Dewey both reflect upon is instead the fact that our very conception of what it means to think influences the way we approach problems, often in ways that we are at first sight unaware of. As Wittgenstein puts the point in his Investigations: “Concepts lead us to make investigations; are the expression of our interest, and direct our interest.”4 In a similar sense, Dewey remarks: “The conceptions that are socially current and important […] furnish the centres about which […] personal expeditions and perceptions are ordered.”5 Beliefs are not passive; they direct the ways we act and think. While such a diagnosis of the nature of conception seems to be far away from moral philosophy proper, it actually pinpoints the basic issue. For the problem, as it has been described, is decidedly not whether we should simply employ theory or not. We would not need to discuss the merits and dangers of theory, if it were just a question of its application, all else being equal. On the 3 It can even be argued that philosophy, as a discipline, emerged in the historic moment where language and reason themselves became a problem of power in the context of Athenian democracy. On this view, the problem of the ‘authority of thought’ is engrained in the very idea of reasoning as an alternative to other ways of regulating conduct. See for example Jean Pierre Vernant, The Origins of Greek Thought, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982, and Stephen Gaukroger, The Failures of Philosophy: A Historical Essay, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020, pp. 25–59. 4 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe et al., ed. by P. M.S. Hacker / Joachim Schulte, Oxford: Blackwell, 1967 (1953), § 570. 5 John Dewey, The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 12 (1924): Essays, Miscellany and Reconstruction in Philosophy, Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1982, p. 132.

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contrary, what is touched upon in these moral discussions is how reflection should be understood, given that our conceptions of thinking might themselves turn out to be morally compromising simply by guiding thought in the way they actually do. It is in this sense, therefore, that the tendency towards abstraction inherent to moral theorizing can become problematic. How can theory be an authority to which we should turn, given that in doing so—in trusting it, as it were—our perception of the very issue at hand might be seriously distorted? Once this suspicion has been raised, the ambivalence pointed out above becomes palpable. Theory can appear as the means by which this suspicion may be allayed, by systematically separating wrong from right ways of thinking, for example. Alternatively, the suspicion of being misguided by the authority of thought might be extended to this very act of reflection itself, with the result that all kinds of reflection now come under scrutiny. In both cases, the seemingly abstract issue of what it means to think assumes a moral quality, for its answer also concerns how to guide oneself in moral matters. We see this moral dimension of thought come to the fore in the work of both Wittgenstein and Dewey if we focus on their greatest commonality, namely, their mutual ‘turn to practice.’ It is well known, for example, that both philosophers are critical of overly intellectualistic preconceptions of the mind. Instead of attributing our mental grasp of something, e.g., in knowing, to some ‘inner’ operation of an isolated mind, they hold that mental operations are constitutively bound to a broader practical context within which they acquire meaning. But in doing so, what these philosophers reject is not simply a false conception of mind. More importantly, as we will see, they take issue with the consequences of such a false understanding. And these consequences concern precisely the ethical problem that in reflection, we might be seriously misled by a preconception of what it means to reflect properly, thus possibly evading the real problem without even noticing it. In concrete terms, both Wittgenstein and Dewey argue that philosophy, as long as it holds on to a purely intellectualistic conception of meaning and mind, effectively obstructs genuine reflective engagement. For such an intellectualistic self-understanding deprives the self, and specifically the moral self, of the means to make productive use of its power of reflection, even if it were just to acknowledge its limits. Consequently, both authors see the bulk of contemporary philosophy engaged in, to quote Wittgenstein, “illusions,”6 or kept busy, as Dewey complains, with “speculations that recognize no law except 6 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 110.

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their own dialectic inconsistency.”7 In short, they criticize an incoherent pretension of intellectual authority and seek to replace it with an understanding with which the self can once again effectively engage with the world. The moral dimension of their thought is further manifest in a second common point. For both Wittgenstein and Dewey, the appeal to ‘practice’ is combined with an understanding that this philosophical position must itself be accompanied by a practical reconfiguration of our engagement with the world. We are, in short, told to transform our own understanding of ourselves as reflective beings. This transformative dimension is most directly visible in Wittgenstein, who famously likened his philosophical method to a kind of therapy. The Wittgensteinian therapy is not a purely theoretical exercise in foro interno, however, but instead calls upon the reader to practically reconfigure her understanding of what it means to be a thinking being, including the hopes, expectations and worries associated with it.8 For this reason, Wittgenstein’s writings do not conform to the traditional philosophical style of distant exposition, but instead engages the reader directly, drawing her in by means of literary devices such as dialogue, ellipses, unanswered questions and suggestive analogies. By contrast, Dewey’s writings are much more traditionally composed. He does not engage in a dialogue with the reader, but rather offers a critical reconstruction of prevalent concepts which contribute to the false understanding of the mind he seeks to address, such as ‘experience,’ ‘thought’ or ‘end.’ And yet for Dewey too, his philosophy is meant to induce not only a change in our perspective on what it means to think, but in our actual ways of being. Philosophy, he claims, “must become operative and experimental.”9 In sum, both do not only assume that it is morally problematic to hold a false intellectualistic self-conception, but they also suggest that in order to overcome that conception, it is necessary to engage with that world, and with oneself, in an alternative way. The false conception is thus a practical challenge which cannot be solved by reflection alone. Nonetheless, their approaches differ in terms of how the required practical transformation can be realized. For 7 John Dewey, The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 4 (1929): Quest for Certainty, Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1984, p. 63. 8 The therapeutical aspect of Wittgenstein’s philosophy has been emphasized, for example, by Gordon Baker, who however reduces it to merely theoretical transformation. An appreciation of its practical dimension has been presented by Cavell, and in suite by the so-called resolute reading. See for a good reconstruction and criticism of Baker’s too theoretical approach Roger Foster, “Working on the Self: Adorno and Wittgenstein on the Therapeutic Task of Philosophy,” in: Telos 179 (2017), pp. 109–133. The ‘resolute’ reading is accessible in the volume Alice Crary / Rupert Read (eds.), The New Wittgenstein, London: Routledge, 2000. 9 Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy, p. 149.

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given that the self-understanding that is to be corrected, for them, cannot be reduced to a merely intellectual problem, the specifics of the proposed alternative necessarily influence their respective methods, and vice versa. In the following, I will thus present Wittgenstein and Dewey as two authors who self-reflectively employ a methodology that embodies the very kind of process they want the reader herself to undertake. Following the argumentation given above, I will present these methodological reflections in a purely ‘theoretical’ way, putting aside any explicit discussions of moral philosophy proper. For what is at issue here is precisely how these reflections always already have a moral dimension, insofar as they claim to assess and to transform the guiding power of thought. In the view taken here, both Wittgenstein and Dewey are thus concerned with how our very conception of what it means to think can be brought to bear upon our lives in such a way as to not lead us astray. This concern, however, cannot be restricted to purely epistemological or metaphysical questions; it is to be placed against the background of seeking a way to live with the authority of thought, which has become so problematic today. As we will see, both authors aim at reconnecting the reflecting self to practice by restricting the problematic pretension of full intellectual authority, such as it is embodied in the modern intellectualistic conception of thought as an isolated mental activity. Yet they put forward different moral visions of what it means to engage in such a self-corrective reflection. We will first turn to Wittgenstein, who emphasizes the need to let go of the illusory demands of theory, focusing on the individual and her relation to herself. He frames philosophical reflection primarily as the therapeutic activity of “working on oneself,”10 the import of which is ethical in a literal sense, for it concerns the ethos, the attitude of the philosophizing subject—“one’s way of seeing things,”11 as Wittgenstein puts it. Dewey, to which we turn then, sets his hopes instead on a collectively shared reconception of the activity of thinking. He assigns philosophy the task to “generate methods of utilizing the energies of human beings in accord with serious and thoughtful conceptions of life,”12 with the consequence that these conceptions are to be understood as recommendations for everyone, having an impact on the way politics, education and social institutions are to be formed. Importantly, this social understanding of 10 11 12

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, trans. by Peter Winch, ed. by Georg H. von Wright, Oxford: Blackwell, 1980, p. 16. Ibid. John Dewey, The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 9 (1916): Democracy and Education, Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1980, p. 339.

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philosophy and its transformative work leaves room for a moderated recognition of the value of moral theorizing. In the perspective taken here, Dewey and Wittgenstein thus locate the problem of the authority of thought differently. While Wittgenstein addresses the conflicted individual self, Dewey sets out to transform our shared understanding of what it means to have recourse to rational methods in the face of such conflicts. In both cases, however, the problem is not simply that theory is ‘abstract,’ but rather that the disquieting possibility of being misled by thought is, in fact, a practical challenge which calls for a change of our ways of engagement with the world and with each other. 1.

Wittgenstein’s Therapy

In this section I will sketch how Wittgenstein’s philosophy consistently calls on the reader to examine herself. In presenting Wittgenstein as a philosopher of self-knowledge, I roughly follow the lead of Stanley Cavell and the so-called ‘resolute’ way of reading Wittgenstein that has been influenced by him.13 I am not therefore claiming exegetical originality. My interest is not in teasing out yet another aspect of Wittgenstein’s rich philosophical work, but rather in outlining how the problem of the authority of thought actually manifests itself in Wittgenstein’s philosophy. One of the main tenets of the ‘resolute’ approach is that Wittgenstein’s philosophy should be read as being thoroughly guided by the rejection of what McDowell has called a ‘sideways-on view.’14 A sideways-on view depicts philosophy as an activity that can and should assume a position which is independent of any specific understanding of the world and thus look on the relation of mind and world from aside, as it were. The rejection of this view is at its base another way to articulate the insight that it is impossible for the philosophizing self to completely detach itself in such a radical way. This critical premise is not exclusive to Wittgenstein; it can be found in Dewey as well as in Hegel and Heidegger, to give just a few examples.15 Variants of this thought actually feature in all philosophies which, in the wake of Kant, insist on the formative and world-disclosing character of our forms of understanding, yet which also 13 14 15

Crary / Read, The New Wittgenstein. Crary / Read, The New Wittgenstein, p. 44. For Heidegger, see Denis McManus, Heidegger and the Measure of Truth, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 9–48; for Hegel, see Sally Sedgwick, “Hegel’s Critique of Kant: An Overview,” in: Graham Bird (ed.), A Companion to Kant, Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006, pp. 473–485.

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question—pace Kant—our ability to establish an unmediated access to these constitutive forms. Opinions differ, however, about the consequences that are to be drawn from this insight. Here ‘resolute’ is meant to indicate that Wittgenstein stands for a particularly firm denial of such a sideways-on view. With this observation, we already touch the problems of self-knowledge and self-transparency. For from the ‘resolute’ perspective, the sideways-on view is not simply a false philosophical premise which can be discarded easily. It is instead a standing threat to philosophizing, insofar as we are tempted to assume such a position even in cases where we recognize that we are not entitled to it. This temptation comes particularly well to the fore in interpreting the Tractatus. The work confronts its readers with the paradox that it seems to first delineate a comprehensive logical theory of what it means to refer to reality, but then states that this theory should be recognized as nonsense for the reasons just given. The epithet ‘resolute’ thus is supposed to express the position that for Wittgenstein, this terminal recognition does not give allowance for granting an intermediate status to this theory, e.g., by seeing it as an explanation which captures the truth of our logical relation to the world only by ‘showing’ it as opposed to explicitly ‘saying’ it. It rather should be discarded as a whole, anything else being a case of—as Cora Diamond puts it—“chickening out.”16 This way of reading Wittgenstein has raised heated debates, and not only with regard to the correct understanding of the Tractatus.17 I am not interested here, however, in Wittgenstein’s early work. Independently of the question of how to read the Tractatus, the merit of the resolute reading is that it grasps quite well Wittgenstein’s radical criticism of a certain understanding of selfknowledge. For what is indeed resolutely rejected in the Investigations is the idea that in seeking such knowledge, we might ultimately arrive at some kind of item, be it a rule, an ‘inner’ mental state, an image or a concept, that does in itself authoritatively dictate how it is to be understood and used. For what such an idea of knowledge amounts to is an ‘understanding’ fully delegated to this putatively authoritative item, and as a consequence a conception of ourselves, as understanding beings, as being subjugated to this mechanism thus laid bare. It is clear that a theory that purports to draw the limits of language once and for all, such as it is announced in the preface of the Tractatus, would represent a further instance of such a falsely authoritative item. 16 17

Cora Diamond, The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind, Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1991, p. 181. See for example the special issue Edward  H.  Minar (ed.), Contemporary Tractatus, in: Philosophical Topics 42.2 (2016).

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In sum, one distinctive feature of the sideways-on view is that it implies what Cora Diamond calls dismissively “the disease Belief in Abstract General Ideas,”18 that is, the introduction of a formative reality behind the phenomena. The item at which such a sideways-on inquiry aims is supposed to have an authority which is to be taken as ‘real’ regardless of whether we accept it or not, or even ever take notice of it. It is thus placed in a separate sphere from which it exerts its power upon us, a conception which is nicely captured in the conception of philosophy as an activity which discovers the truth, e.g., by uncovering the actual logical constituents of thought. Against this, Wittgenstein famously declares that his philosophy is not offering any hypotheses or “new information,” but instead works “by arranging what we have always known.”19 Philosophy is thus specified as “assembling reminders for a particular purpose.”20 Given this, one might come to the conclusion that the sideways-on view is a real option, which is however unfortunately unavailable to us finite human beings. On such a premise, it seems natural to understand Wittgenstein’s method as a sort of linguistic positivism, for it suggests that since philosophy is not engaged in a metaphysical discovery, it is restricted to a mere registration of what is actually being said and done. Yet Wittgenstein’s aim is precisely to overcome this false alternative, to go beyond it. And this is another lesson to be learned from the ‘resolute’ reading: On inspection, it turns out that the sideways-on view is an abstraction which proves to be logically incoherent, so that even God could not be said to occupy such an aperspectival perspective.21 The notion of a sideways-on view thus is a shorthand for a problem relating to the nature of philosophical questioning, and by extension to the person asking it. What is lacking, in short, is a clear understanding of what she actually wants to explain. From a logical point of view, we can see that this confusion, of which the philosopher might well be not aware, is due to the fundamental self-referential nature of self-reflection. The confusion is caused by the fact that what is reflected upon is not some kind of object, but rather the very way we get ahold of certain objects, including ourselves as possible objects of reflection. For this 18 19 20 21

Diamond, The Realistic Spirit, p. 50. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 109. Ibid., § 127. The claim that the sideways-on view is incoherent can be also found in Heidegger’s criticism of Kant’s notion of the ‘Ding an sich,’ see Martin Heidegger, Vorlesungen 1919– 1944, Einleitung in die Philosophie: Freiburger Vorlesung Wintersemester 1928/29, ed. by Friedrich-Wilhelm von Hermann / Ida Saame-Speidel, Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1996, p. 94.

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reason, self-reflection is always claiming identity and difference at the same time. For it finds itself torn between the demand to correct its ways of understanding in the name of the then-found authoritative item, and to be equally called upon to assess this putative explanation using precisely these capacities which are supposed to be explained. Given this structure, we can see that the sideways-on view is one instance of that general conflict, because it expressly calls for a comprehensive break with all established forms of understanding. The conflict, however, can also recur in less ambitious forms of reflection as well. To return to Wittgenstein’s method, we can see that the ‘reminders’ he calls for are not simple facts to be collected, but rather appeals which are supposed to help the philosophizing subject to find a way out of this confusion. Not unlike psychoanalytic therapy, they do not authoritatively prescribe a certain self-understanding, but rather offer new perspectives for self-reflection.22 They serve as tools for a clarification of the kind of content that could actually be at issue in a philosophical problem. They assist by reminding one of the particular contexts wherein these words, which have only become problematic through oversight of these particularities, actually makes plain and unequivocal sense. Relatedly, note that Wittgenstein nowhere forbids the philosopher to invent new terms, or to insist on a new way of understanding something. We might just as well create new concepts, such as ‘language game,’ and articulate novel descriptions of what we do.23 The problem, in other words, is not a possible deviation from established use on the side of the philosopher, but rather the incoherent claim to grant full authority to some external item (e.g., a theory) while it is in fact the philosopher herself who assumes that authority. From this perspective, one important purpose of the method of ‘assembling reminders’ is to show the philosopher that in these contexts of use she is reminded of, she does as a matter fact exercise that authority, and has no problem in being bound to that understanding. A good example of that method, as well as an illustration of the problematic presumption of detached authority, is Wittgenstein’s discussion of a so-called private language. A ‘private language’ is defined as a language which can only be understood by the speaker alone.24 It is not a variant or an extension of an existing language; it rather represents the sideways-on fantasy of a language 22 23 24

Compare for an understanding of psychoanalytic therapy in this direction Jonathan Lear, Therapeutic Action: An Earnest Plea for Irony, New York: Routledge, 2003, p. 54. See, for example, Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 132. See the definition in Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 243.

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which is logically independent of all existing ways of speaking. This language does not share our categories, nor can it take advantage of established mechanisms to secure meaning, e.g., by defining something through pointing it out.25 Note that this presupposition of detachment is both quite natural for philosophers and yet confusing, for what kind of thing can such a private language possibly be? But instead of describing this incoherence in a straightforward way, as we are doing here, Wittgenstein explores this idea by depicting potential use cases. He takes the demand seriously and therefore asks the reader to imagine cases which might possibly stand in for what we wish to understand. For example: We could write a sign—‘S,’ for sensation—in a private diary every time a certain sensation occurs.26 This use case articulates the philosophical demand behind the idea of a private language in a concrete way. It translates the wish for full logical independence of all established ways of speaking into the practical requirement that such a diary not only documents what we experience, but also serves as the only source of truth in cases of conflicting interpretations. In this way, the item (the private sign ‘S’) can be said to be authoritatively representative of certain sensations, without at the same time being dependent on our established public ways of dealing with them. But on closer inspection, this demand ultimately turns out to be impossible to meet. To show this, Wittgenstein does not offer abstract reasons, but instead asks us how we would proceed in certain cases—he reminds us of how we do certain things. For instance, he shows that we can neither define that sensation nor even identify it coherently. For whatever justification we might give for the claim that ‘S’ refers to this specific sensation as opposed to another, it might be countered by the claim that we have misunderstood the sign—and given that this language is private, there is no way to escape that skeptical predicament.27 Saul Kripke has presented an influential interpretation of this argument, claiming that it points to the insight that when using a word, it must be used in conformity with others if it is to have some stable meaning.28 But this 25

26 27 28

Wittgenstein’s argument against the impossibility of an ‘inner’ ostensive definition has close parallels to Hegel’s criticism of the Sinnliche Gewissheit in his Phenomenology. See Andrew Norris, “Hegel and Cavell on Meaning and Sublation,” in: Conversations: The Journal of Cavellian Studies 9 (2022), pp. 72–84. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 258. For a more comprehensive reconstruction of this point, see Jörg Volbers, Selbsterkenntnis und Lebensform: Kritische Subjektivität nach Wittgenstein und Foucault, Bielefeld: transcript, 2009. Saul  A.  Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Oxford: Blackwell, 1982; Michael Esfeld, “Regelfolgen 20 Jahre nach Kripkes Wittgenstein,” in: Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 57.1 (2003), pp. 128–138.

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interpretation crucially misses Wittgenstein’s point, for it declares ‘the community’ to have that sort of authority which cannot be found in the private sign alone. In contrast, the point is rather that it is wrong to look for such an all-encompassing external authority at all. The fantasy of the private sign is the fantasy that we do know what we mean by simply referring to these representative items, whereas the real knowledge is of a practical kind—it is the spontaneous ability to use this representative item authoritatively in a particular practice, to be able to respond to it, or to someone else who uses it. In these practices, of which Wittgenstein wants to remind us, we do know with certainty what we do when we use that item, e.g. when we put down a note that some sensation recurred.29 And in these practices, we also deal with unforeseen problems without falling into this kind of skeptical vertigo just described. So if the philosophical reflection has led to the result that we have no reason to confide in that everyday practical certainty, the mistake must be in the reflection itself. In sum, these Wittgensteinian reminders serve to elicit responses in the reader, with the aim to make her recognize that the supposed content of the original philosophical proposal under discussion is substantially unclear. On one occasion, Wittgenstein remarks that his investigation “is directed not towards phenomena, but, as one might say, towards the ‘possibilities’ of phenomena.”30 I take this statement with its Kantian ring to mean that given how quick we are, in philosophy, failing to make sense of what we want to understand, what is investigated is the many ways we actually do command about a secure understanding. We can very well understand what it means to refer to a sensation, but it can become puzzling if we mistake a description of that understanding for a fully authoritative explanation of what is happening in reality. The puzzle is not to be solved, but dissolved, since it turns out that it was deeply incoherent from the start. Importantly, we should reject the temptation to construe this criticism as a kind of rejection of philosophical reflection tout court. On such a “split-level interpretation” of Wittgenstein, as Jonathan Lear calls it, practice is taken as being separate from reflection, and Wittgenstein’s therapy is thus interpreted as a turning away from reflection, towards the plain acceptance of this practical ground.31 This split-level interpretation, however, has the problem that it 29 30 31

See Wittgenstein’s illuminating analogy to taking hold of a towel in Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty, trans. by Denis Paul / G.E.M.  Anscombe, ed. by G.E.M.  Anscombe / Georg H. von Wright, Oxford: Blackwell, 1969, § 510. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 90. Jonathan Lear, “Transcendental Anthropology,” in: Id., Open Minded: Working out the Logic of the Soul, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1998, pp. 247–281, here p. 260.

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ignores that human practice is reflective through and through, and that the philosopher’s problem is not external to it. As has already been noted, there is no reason to stop using, or even inventing, reflective concepts. The dissolution demanded from Wittgenstein is hence better seen as the appeal to turn to oneself, insofar the real root of the confusion which becomes manifest in sideways-on philosophy is a confused understanding of one’s own lived practice. It thus involves a transformation not only of what one seeks, in the sense of abstaining from a sideways-on view, but also of how one actually relates in practice to those issues which are involved in the problem at hand, e.g., our understanding of ourselves as beings who have sensations. One apt illustration of that deeply practical sense of ‘therapy’ is Wittgenstein’s insistence on the prevalence of what is called, in the English translation, ‘training.’32 Wittgenstein points out that before we are even able to make sense of some language-game, we have to be initiated into it. This initiation, however, cannot operate in the distanced, intellectual way the sidewayson philosopher typically imagines. Consequently, the German word originally used by Wittgenstein to describe this initiation, Abrichtung, evokes strong associations to military drill and plain repetitive instruction. Its primary goal is to teach to respond in certain ways, and that with certainty. Such a training must entail an irreducible amount of pre-reflective, or bodily, exercise which cannot be replaced by explanations or reasons; it is cognitively ‘blind.’ One reason for this is the holistic nature of meaning: If understanding is akin to the capacity to move freely within a certain conceptual realm, it has to emerge gradually, insofar such a capacity contains many different, but related perspectives. So we have to learn how to approach a topic from different angles, and to be able to recognize it in different contexts. Such a process cannot be cut short, even though it can, of course, take more time or less time. It is thus implied that there are always phases where we simply learn what to do by plain training, groping for an understanding and copying examples without yet really understanding what is at stake. For Wittgenstein, this practical aspect is not an intermediary step on the way to the ‘true’ grasp of the concept, but rather constitutive for its possession. Returning to the notion of ‘therapy,’ one of its aims is thus to recognize that indispensable practical dependency of thought, in the sense that there is no way to cut short the need for a change of our practical engagement. Powerful as reflection might be, its result cannot fully replace the link between a certain sort of understanding and the ability to participate in a practice, or more generally, to live in a particular way. Again the point is not to forgo reflection, but 32

See for example Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §§ 5–6.

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to see its limits—and to accept that these limits are part of what we are, of our “form of life.”33 This position, of course, raises a host of questions which cannot be dealt with here adequately. However, in closing this section, I want to shortly mention the issue of relativism. Wittgenstein’s appeal to practice is often understood as inviting a form of relativism, a reading that is supported by Wittgenstein’s acknowledgment that, when reasons run out, all we can say is: “This is simply what I do.”34 But this remark would only be an instance of relativism if it were understood as marking a constraining limit, something which cannot be transcended anymore. Such a take, however, is yet a further instance of the sideways-on view, expressing the wish to intellectually pass over the practical dimension. The real root of the quick diagnosis of ‘relativism’ should then be looked for elsewhere, e.g., in the anxiety that we could inhabit a fundamentally wrong way of life, and that our beliefs, certainties and convictions might be misleading in a disturbingly deep way.35 To this worry, Wittgenstein’s philosophy does indeed not offer a reassuring reconciliatory intellectual standpoint. Instead, it holds that this disquieting impression, which is philosophically well expressed in skepticism, has to be dissolved by turning to the practical factors which might cause it, e.g., our sometimes inarticulate attitudes, expectations, hopes, or even fears. For remember that the problem leading to such a skeptical conclusion is not the fact that in describing what we do, we do use pictures, or concepts, but that we are unable to see that we put incoherent demands on them.36 Thus the aim of a Wittgensteinian therapy, in this view, is to expose that binding force behind a philosophical problem by articulating it. In this process, we can make well use of philosophical concepts such as ‘language-game,’ as long as we do not fall into the trap of putting our misguiding demands on them instead. Ultimately, in successfully articulating what binds our understanding, the problematic point of view might become accessible to transformations and thus open up to a new perspective.

33 34 35 36

Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 241. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 217. Terry Pinkard, “Analytics, Continentals, and Modern Skepticism,” in: Monist 82.2 (1999), pp. 189–217. See also Anna Boncompagni’s contribution to this volume, which highlights that the inevitable use of ‘pictures’ has a captivating as well as a liberating side, Anna Boncompagni, “Between Captivity and Liberation: The Role of Pictures in Wittgenstein’s Philosophy,” in: Lucilla Guidi (ed.), Wittgensteinian Exercises. Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations, Paderborn: Brill/Fink, pp. 165–186.

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Dewey’s Reconstruction

We have seen that Wittgenstein’s approach can be usefully described along the lines of the workings of therapy. Even though his work is not a treatise in psychology, it is acutely aware of the pervasive and strong power certain implicit conceptions of what it means to think can have on us. For we might be demanding philosophical explanations where we should rather be letting go of such demands. Dewey’s philosophy, to which we turn now, shows no such heightened awareness. Even though he also recommends a ‘turn to practice,’ his writings exhibit little reflection on the possibility of being misled by oneself, in the sense in which this thought features prominently in Wittgenstein’s writings. Fittingly, there’s a persistent line of criticism pointing out that Dewey lacks what some critics call a ‘tragic sense,’ or a recognition of ‘human restiveness.’37 It is indeed true that Dewey’s philosophy exhibits a confidence in the power of reflection which Wittgenstein lacks. For Dewey, the goal of philosophy is to improve upon the ways we reflect, so as “to make it possible to like and choose knowingly and with meaning, instead of blindly.”38 To that end, Dewey nonetheless proceeds by criticizing the prevailing intellectualistic conception of the mind and proposes, as we will see, an alternative conception of the mind as constitutively active, situated and embodied. But this criticism is accompanied by a clear awareness that there is more than just theoretical concerns to overcome. In fact, Dewey charges traditional modern philosophy with the pretension that it is easy to “break away from current and established classifications and interpretations of the world.”39 Not unlike Wittgenstein, he points to psychological reasons which in reality stand in the way of a full realization of genuine self-criticism. For example, he explains that the “failures of philosophy have come from a lack of confidence in the directive powers that inhere in experience,”40 a distrust which is elsewhere explained as the result of a quite natural human fear of change and the unknown.41 37

38 39 40 41

Cornel West, “Pragmatism and the Tragic,” in: Id., Prophetic Thought in Postmodern Times, Monroe: Common Courage Press, 1993, pp. 31–58; Naoko Saito and Paul Standish, “What’s the Problem with Problem-Solving? Language, Skepticism, and Pragmatism,” in: Contemporary Pragmatism 6.1 (2009), pp. 153–167. John Dewey, The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume  1 (1925): Experience and Nature, Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1981, p. 321. Dewey, Experience and Nature, p. 170. Dewey, Experience and Nature, p. 5. Dewey, Experience and Nature, pp.  42–68; cf. Jörg Volbers, “Reclaiming the Power of Thought. Dewey’s Critical Appropriation of Idealism,” in: European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 10.2 (2018).

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We come closer, however, to Dewey’s particular understanding of the task of philosophy if we note that this lack of faith in the “directive powers” of experience is, for him, not just a merely psychological stance. They are rather deeply engrained habits of thought, rooted in a long philosophical tradition and kept alive by what Dewey considers to be poor education, unjust politics and social division. For instance, the separation of theory from practice, for Dewey, had been caused and then deepened by an undemocratic social division of labor. Since Antiquity, the power and creativity of thought had been attributed to an educated elite, while at the same time the practical skill of the artisan was more and more devalorized.42 Because of the formative influence of these and similar social forces, the transformation Dewey calls for is never tasked to the individual alone but extends to the society and culture which has fostered these problematic attitudes. For this reason, Dewey’s philosophy should be understood as a conceptual proposal of how we can and should understand ourselves in the light of certain actual problems. Like Wittgenstein, this method aims at changing the way we look at things and ourselves, and it likewise operates by reminding us of salient facts. Yet Dewey’s so-called “denotative method”43 uses these facts to construct a new, alternative vision of how we are to relate ourselves to them, thereby offering a “reconstruction,” as he calls it.44 An important aspect of this methodology is that it does not invent new concepts, but rather uses existing ones, such as ‘experience,’ for example, and therein gives them an altered meaning. For his method seeks to change our perspective by using only those materials which already exists, so that they themselves appear in a new light. As I will show now, one of the problems Dewey persistently returns to in his philosophy, and upon which he wishes to cast a new light, is precisely the ambivalent claim to rational authority discussed here. Yet, where Wittgenstein approaches the topic by focusing on the individual’s search for authoritative explanations, Dewey instead takes a more panoramic perspective. He points out that, in modern culture, there is a stark mismatch between the power of thought in the realm of modern science, on one side, and its factual powerlessness when it comes to moral matters, on the other. With science, the Western tradition has established procedures and institutions which produce, correct, and improve reliable bodies of knowledge in a tremendously successful way. 42 43 44

See Dewey, Quest for Certainty; and John Dewey, The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 5 (1929–1930): Essays, the Sources of a Science of Education, Individualism, Old and New, and Construction and Criticism, Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1984, pp. 41–124. Dewey, Experience and Nature, pp. 10–42. Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy.

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And yet the Western philosophical tradition, and with it moral thought, seems to be unable to find an adequate position towards this success. While science is associated with systematic, rational, and objective knowledge, moral judgments have proved to be problematically bound to particular experiences and perspectives, thereby lacking that kind of authority which scientific results usually enjoy, their fallibility notwithstanding. As a result, philosophy either idolizes science at the expense of non-intellectual experiences, such as the perception of aesthetic and moral qualities, thereby effectively declaring the latter to be out of reach for a ‘rational’ assessment. Or alternatively, it shuns direct confrontation by postulating a non-empirical, idealized sphere of value, where science has no say. In both cases, we are asked to “give our emotional and theoretical assent to principles and creeds which are no longer actively operative in life.”45 In sum, it seems that under contemporary conditions, philosophical reflection has no bite.46 For Dewey, this in turn calls for a re-evaluation of the leading conceptions around which this reflection is practically organized. The culprit here, in his view, is modern subjectivist epistemology with its categorical separation of subject and object, fact and value, or knowledge and action.47 For in conceiving of the mind as a mere spectator whose mental activities are constitutively isolated from a world to which it has a merely theoretical access, this subjectivist scheme makes it difficult to explain how knowledge, meaning and thinking can actually be a part of the world, influencing it as well as being influenced by it. Here Dewey’s Hegelian heritage comes through, insofar as he shares the idealist critique that the modern philosophical notion of the subject

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Dewey, Quest for Certainty, p. 62. Note that Dewey does not claim that philosophy should become authoritative, possibly even trumping the intellectual authority of the results of the sciences. The problem is not that philosophy has no power, but rather that it cannot use the little power it has in a productive way. Thus Dewey well knows that philosophy is just one voice among many and cannot claim superiority, a humility he expresses with the metaphor that philosophy has “no Mosaic or Pauline authority” (Dewey, Experience and Nature, p. 305). Dewey derisively talks of the “industry of epistemology” (see Id., The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 10 (1916–1917): Journal Articles, Essays and Miscellany, Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1980, p. 23). It is characterized by the wrong assumption that “experience is something set over against the world” (ibid.). By treating knowledge as a general problem only, it implies—Dewey argues—the postulate of a subject relating to the world only in general ways, thereby placing it effectively outside of this world with its particular problems and challenges.

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problematically widens the gap between mind and world, instead of helping to understand how they are linked.48 Based on this diagnosis, Dewey recommends turning to modern sciences as a paradigmatic case of reflection where these difficulties supposedly do not arise. Scientific practice, as Dewey understands it, displays precisely the sensitivity for the interaction between mind and world which classical epistemology denies. For it does not content itself with merely reflecting on its propositions in theoretical ways, nor is it immediately satisfied once a conclusion is shown to be true. Instead, it puts its propositions constantly to test, thus turning ‘thinking’ into an essentially experimental procedure.49 This experimental practice, as Dewey understands it, is characterized by a steady variation of both the conditions under which objects are observed, as well as of the employed conceptions themselves. Or rather, the conceptions used in the course of the experiment, for Dewey, are actually part of the conditions of observation, since they also contribute, and significantly so, to the specific perception of the objects and the problem examined. In short, the experiment such as it is conceived of by Dewey is a circular procedure in which concepts, physical instruments and material arrangements all act as means which provoke consequences, and are then readjusted in the light of these results. Importantly, this course of action is repeated many times over, in systematic variations, with the aim of actually provoking those unforeseen consequences which force a revision. It is in this sense, then, that for Dewey, all knowledge is a “mode of doing.”50 There is no fundamental difference between ‘knowing how’ and ‘knowing that,’ for even propositional knowledge, in this conception, is to be explained by placing it in the functional circle of practical interaction.51 To know something means to do something with the certainty that specific consequences result, and if it fails, we did not really know it. Thus, an essential aspect of the scientific practice is a certain willingness to accept the provisory and fallible nature of its results, an ethos Dewey attributes to

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For an interpretation of Hegel which presents his philosophy as a response to the failures of subjectivism, as it can be found in Kant as well as in classical British Empiricism, see Sedgwick, “Hegel’s Critique of Kant.” For a full account of that experimental conception, including its origins in Peirce, see my Jörg Volbers, Die Vernunft der Erfahrung: eine pragmatistische Kritik der Rationalität, Hamburg: Meiner, 2018. Dewey, Quest for Certainty, p. 184. John Dewey, The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 12 (1938): Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1986.

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science as such: “The scientific attitude may almost be defined as that which is capable of enjoying the doubtful.”52 In this view, the experimental procedure is but one illustration of a more general principle, namely, the pragmatist claim that ‘meaning something’ consists in projecting possibilities into the future.53 For instance, if we believe that this piece of sugar is sweet, then we hold that by dissolving it in some beverage, it will result in a certain experience of sweetness when tasted.54 By integrating these ‘meaningful’ projections into the circular series of test and correction, the experimental procedure ensures that these possibilities remain in the realm of the real. Or rather, they are tested for their capacity to contribute to the particular cases in which they are supposed to do their work, and they are thereby held accountable, to be more than an abstract, general statement with no implications for our understanding of reality at all. This circular arrangement is not restricted to the experiment proper, however. It can be found when working with texts, as in the so-called ‘hermeneutic circle’ of interpretation, or in other articulatory practices, for example.55 Dewey also locates it in the activities of the biological organism, which “foreshadow”56 the pattern of inquiry here, too, insofar as the organism uses means—e.g., the various parts of its body—with the expectation that they will contribute to an overall process or help achieve some end. And here, too, the organism is ready to vary its pattern of use in such cases where the means employed do not lead to the desired effect. The key point is always that in these activities, thinking (or its organic precursor) is practiced as a form of interaction, where a potential meaning, be it a thought, idea, or concept, or simply an inchoate piece of knowledge, is brought to the test by applying it to a concrete case and subsequently checking the experienced result. In its most general form, the modern scientific experimental procedure thus raises to the level of a consciousness what Dewey sees as the principal structure of effective thinking. Following Peirce, Dewey terms this general structure inquiry, thereby highlighting that the experiment is not done simply for its own sake, but with reference to the experience of a problem which has to be settled, a context which Dewey summarily refers to as ‘the problematic 52 53 54 55 56

Dewey, Quest for Certainty, p. 181. Charles S. Peirce, “What Pragmatism Is,” in: Nathan Houser / Christian J.W. Kloesel (eds.), The Essential Peirce Vol. II. 1893–1913: Selected Philosophical Writings, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998, p. 340. Dewey, Logic, p. 131. Matthias Jung, “Erfahrung als Artikulation,” in: Id., Gewöhnliche Erfahrung, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014, pp. 74–87. Dewey, Logic, p. 30.

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situation.’ An important aspect of this notion of ‘inquiry’ is that Dewey conceives of the initial problematic situation, as well as its potential settlement, as objective states of affairs. A problem is caused by being objectively unable to make determinate sense of the situation, an experience in which some existing concepts in practice fail to further guide action and thought.57 As a consequence, the subsequent reflection on this situation, inquiry proper, is thought of as the effective transformation of this context. For Dewey, every successful settlement of a problem is the result of an objective change of the situation, which also affects the meaning of those tools which have been brought to bear in it, either by confirming their projected utility for this kind of problem or by proving them ineffective. This conception of inquiry as an objective transformation is one of the most disputed ideas of Dewey’s philosophy, since it seems to imply the overly idealist claim that prior to our process of gaining knowledge, the object of knowledge does not exist. Yet following Godfrey-Smith, Dewey’s philosophy can well be presented as a species of realism.58 Dewey’s point is, as Godfrey-Smith rightly emphasizes, always the nature and possibility of control. So what is lacking, in a problematic situation, is a way to effectively control the situation, in the ordinary sense of being able to interact with the world, to engage with it practically. The transformation effected by inquiry therefore should not be understood as imposing a structure on a world previously devoid of any order, but as instituting a new way to relate to something existing: “the world was one way and now it is another.”59 Thus a concept is brought to bear upon the situation in order to see what effects ensue from its application, in the same way as the conditions of an experimental setting are adjusted in order to observe what happens. If this intervention succeeds, we are in a position to interact in new ways with this situation, thereby effectively changing it even if it was just a ‘conceptual’ change. It should finally be noted that in Dewey’s conception, inquiry cannot be reduced to being a mere means to satisfy individual needs and wishes. The criterion for the success of an inquiry is determined by the situation, including the inquiring subject, but not restricted to it. The very first step of inquiry is the 57

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Note how far away this definition is from the philosophical stereotype of the pragmatist thinker as one concerned with solving problems alone. It does nowhere preclude the possibility of instituting forms of inquiry and thereby actively provoking problems, such as is common in the sciences. Neither does it have to deny the existence of forms of mental engagements with the world which do not assume a problem-solving form, which Dewey, for example, locates in the arts. Peter Godfrey-Smith, “Dewey and the Question of Realism,” in: Noûs 50.1 (2016), pp. 73–89. Ibid., p. 77.

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“institution of the problem,”60 as Dewey calls it, which is therefore already the first intervention in the experienced situation, the first conception brought to bear in it. And since inquiry is a cyclic pattern, this initial step of framing the problem might well be repeated if it turns out that the first take does not help to settle the inability to act. The objective dimension of inquiry is important because it sheds light on our overall topic, the authority of thought. In Dewey’s view, we attribute authority to thought because of its undeniable potential to effectively contribute to inquiry. We thereby express our expectation that these conceptions will effectively guide practice, if put to use. “The authority of thought,” Dewey states, “depends upon what it leads us to through directing the performance of operations.”61 What is valued in these cases is thus the potential of these conceptions to open up new possibilities, yet this potential is never finalized. In each new particular situation, it can turn out to be a mistake, and different conceptions may yield better results. Given this interpretation of the authority of thought, a quite differentiated estimation of the potential use and abuse of theory becomes possible. Like all kind of operations within the context of inquiries, abstraction, too, is to be judged by its capacity to contribute to given problems. Here Dewey sees the significance of abstract thought in its potential to handle complexity: “Artificial simplification or abstraction,” he writes, “is a necessary precondition of securing ability to deal with affairs which are complex.”62 More specifically, it turns out to be indispensable to those kind of affairs “in which there are many more variables and where strict isolation destroys the special characteristics of the subject-matter.”63 In other words, abstraction is a tool which tries to preserve complexity at the cost of specificity. Yet this price does not render it a priori powerless or dogmatic, since in Dewey’s view, abstractions can always be brought to the test by establishing chains of inference which connect them with a particular situation. It is precisely in this sense that moral theories, and abstract moral principles, are of value for Dewey. Theories like Kant’s moral philosophy and abstract principles such as the Golden Rule, for Dewey, are tools which enable the reflecting subject to consider a given problem from the specific perspective embodied in them. By using them, the individual profits from systematic reflections which suggest, among other things, “alternatives that might be 60 61 62 63

Dewey, Logic, pp. 111–112. Dewey, Quest for Certainty, p. 110. Dewey, Quest for Certainty, p. 173. Ibid.

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otherwise overlooked,”64 and which help the individual to relate to the experienced problem in the first place, since they can indicate the larger context to which it might belong. Yet in Dewey’s view, these abstract tools cannot and therefore should not claim an ultimate authority independently of the particular case at hand. For in analogy to the experimental practice, it is always the situation itself which is imperative, simply because it is the particular reality which has to be settled. Thus moral theory and abstract principles “can render personal choice more intelligent,”65 but they should not serve as a replacement for the situated nature of judgment. In sum, we have seen that Dewey explains the potential use of theory by placing it within the wider context of inquiry. In doing so, the use of theory takes part in the general pattern which characterizes, according to Dewey, all kinds of reflection. A certain concept, thought or idea is brought to bear in a specific situation, with the hope or expectation that its application will contribute to its settlement, or minimally change it in a significant way. Importantly, the question of whether this expectation will be fulfilled is only answered by actually using it, by applying the concept in this concrete case, and thus remains accountable to experience. Hence abstract thought is not seen as the sole medium of reflection, nor is it condemned as being a priori too independent of practice. Rather, it is taken as one possible contribution from a broad range of operations, with a specific value which however cannot be taken for granted. Moreover, once successful use has been made of abstract theory, this effect can never be attributed to theory alone, but always remains a function of the experience of inquiry as a whole, with its host of intellectual as well as non-intellectual factors. 3. Conclusion As we have seen, both Wittgenstein and Dewey respond to the problem of the authority of thought, both embarking from the diagnosis that thinking, and in particular theoretical reflection, potentially leads astray. Yet they differ in their respective assessment of the cause of this disengagement. For Wittgenstein, the problem is the tendency of the philosophizing individual to deceive herself by putting false hopes in theory, while for Dewey, the difficulty is a false conception of how theory works, against which he proposes the alternative account 64 65

John Dewey, The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 7 (1932): Ethics, Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1985, p. 166. Dewey, Ethics, p. 166.

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of reflection as ‘inquiry.’ In both cases, however, the authority of thought is put into perspective. Reflection is conceived of as an imminent practical activity, always bound to practice, to society and ultimately to the form of life in which it is situated in. One way to summarize the differences between these approaches is to look at the one to whom Wittgenstein and Dewey address themselves in their attempt to transform our understanding of what it means to think. Wittgenstein portrays the reader as an individual who is struggling to find an explanation for phenomena, whereas the phenomena themselves and our practical involvement in them should be center stage. For example, we should not seek to explain the fact that we have a firm grip on our language use by looking for ‘inner mental items’ responsible for our understanding. In doing so, we would be denying what is actually central, at least according to Wittgenstein, namely that we are responding to each other and to the world in spontaneous ways, and that these ways of responding are constitutive of our understanding. Importantly, Wittgenstein sees no way to justify these modes of response from the perspective ‘sideways-on,’ which is so characteristic for philosophy. As a result, the problem of the authority of thought is cast by Wittgenstein as a problem of the self looking for herself where she is actually deceiving herself. In contrast to this self-centered approach, Dewey assumes a perspective in which the individual is but one part of a broader context of interaction. The authority of thought is reconstructed in terms of its capacity to contribute to the control of further experience. On this view, our beliefs are authoritative insofar as they can successfully guide our action, and it is the task of philosophy to show how we can secure this authority, e.g., by adopting the practical conception of rational reflection as ‘inquiry.’ From this broader perspective, the difficulties of the self with itself which plague Wittgenstein disappear. While Dewey recognizes that the philosophical tradition demands too much from philosophical reflection, his approach turns this into a conceptual misunderstanding of the nature of reflection. From this perspective, it is indeed possible to identify the practical causes of this misunderstanding, e.g., the dividing forces of social hierarchies, and to apply the lessons of experimental science for betterment. It has thus been shown that for both authors, their ‘turn to practice’ is linked to a practical transformation in the way we understand ourselves, in contrast to a mere intellectual enterprise. It is by re-framing the authority of thought that their positions, as I have argued above, should themselves be seen as deeply ethical even where they do not explicitly touch upon conventional ethical or moral questions. Due to the limited space available, we have refrained here from further qualifying the moral import of this reconception of thought.

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However, I want to end with a short assessment of what I take to be the overarching moral outlook that results from the considerations given above.66 I will begin by noting that for Dewey, moral discourse is itself not fundamentally different from other forms of reasoned reflection. Like any other kind of abstract thought, systematic moral theories should be understood as tools which have to be assessed by their capacity to fruitfully contribute to the problematic situation at hand. By doing so, Dewey is in a position to explain not only how we should use moral theories in a given morally problematic situation, but also why there has been the recurrent attempt, throughout history, to find new ways of conceptualizing moral life. The development of moral theory, in this view, is a response to actual changes, in our social, economic, or cultural lives. Dewey’s proposed transformation of our ways of thinking thus boils down to the idea that thought has to transform itself by heeding the directive power of experience, or in other words, to allow itself to be transformed by it. In typical enlightenment optimism, Dewey expresses his hope that this revised conception “inspires the mind with courage and vitality to create new ideals and values in the face of the perplexities of a new world.”67 Wittgenstein’s moral vision is more difficult to assess. While Dewey wrote quite extensively about ethical and moral topics, Wittgenstein hardly mentions these topics at all.68 Yet it is not by accident that a rich literature on the potential of a ‘Wittgensteinian Ethics’ has emerged. For, as we have seen, his later philosophy consistently confronts the problem that we are, as it were, untrue to ourselves. “Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself,” Wittgenstein observes.69 If I understand Wittgenstein correctly, one particular instance of such a self-deception is exactly that kind of enlightenment optimism that we can find in Dewey. For, while Dewey is confident that every action can, in principle, become the object of rational inquiry, Wittgenstein points to the implication of the inquiring self into a collectively shared practice which exceeds the individual’s cognitive control. Thus the private language argument, on which we have focused above, is linked with Wittgenstein’s general conviction that

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For an alternative assessment which presents Pragmatism and Wittgensteinian Perfectionism as complementary, see Roberto Frega, “New Voices for Expressive Pragmatism: Bridging the Divide between Pragmatism and Perfectionism,” in: Metaphilosophy 45.3 (2014), pp. 399–421. Dewey, Experience and Nature, p. 4. Duncan Richter, “Sketches of Blurred Landscapes,” in: Reshef Agam-Segal / Edmund Dain (eds.), Wittgenstein’s Moral Thought, London: Routledge, 2019, pp. 153–173. Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, p. 34.

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his philosophy is itself prone to being misunderstood, given that the conception of the mind he criticizes is deeply embedded in the culture of our times.70 It is important to see, as we have pointed out, that this contextualism does not amount to a denial of the possibility of the individual to find new ways of relating to practice. Yet, in contrast to Dewey’s sometimes glowing appraisals of the power of inquiry, this potential is presented in a much more reserved way in Wittgenstein. The Wittgensteinian point of view should thus be seen as pointing out further authoritative forces beyond the authority of rational reflection. The process of initiation into a language game, for example, requires that the novice believes the masters of the game, so that learning also implies the acceptance of what is learned “on human authority.”71 Similarly, from a Wittgensteinian perspective, our point of view can be so deeply embedded in such a collectively shared practice that its transformation cannot proceed by inquiry alone, for that would require us to distance ourselves from the very background which constitutes the way we act and think. Consequently, such a deep transformation might entail devices such as ‘persuasion’72 or even ‘conversion,’73 a fundamental practical change of the way we see ourselves. I think that Wittgenstein’s engaging prose, with its undeniable literary quality, is crafted in the way that it is partly in recognition of that necessity. As this very example shows, it would thus be wrong to claim that this requirement of conversion would be a full leap into irrationality, for Wittgenstein’s philosophy is still using arguments, and quite sophisticated ones even. However, it is clearly not fully rational in the Deweyan sense of conducting an inquiry, for it is not attempting to solve a particular problem, nor is it trying to increase our control on the further course of experience. Instead, it aims at changing our point of view in such a way that these problems will be dissolved, not least by recognizing that their incoherence is due to our own misleading understanding of what we demand from philosophical reflection.74 Importantly, the authority of practice to which Wittgenstein points does not represent a mere proxy for the false intellectualistic assumption of full private control. In the perspective opened up by Wittgenstein, this practical context represents rather yet another authoritative force, in addition to rational explanation, acting upon and limiting our mental life. Ultimately, it means to forego the hope that in reflecting, be it theoretically guided or in its tempered variant 70 71 72 73 74

Foster, “Working on the Self.” Wittgenstein, On Certainty, § 161. Ibid., §§ 262, 612. Ibid., §§ 92, 612. Saito and Standish, “What’s the Problem with Problem-Solving?”

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of pragmatist inquiry, we will in principle be able to deal with the challenges of life in a satisfactory way. It is a moral vision that is characterized by the acceptance of the possibility of irreconcilable conflicts, where “each man declares the other a fool and heretic.”75 References Boncompagni, Anna, “Between Captivity and Liberation: The Role of Pictures in Wittgenstein’s Philosophy,” in: Lucilla Guidi (ed.), Wittgensteinian Exercises. Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations, Paderborn: Brill/Fink, pp. 165–186. Crary, Alice / Rupert Read (eds.), The New Wittgenstein, London: Routledge, 2000. Dewey, John, The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 1 (1925): Experience and Nature, Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1981. Dewey, John, The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume  4 (1929): Quest for Certainty, Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1984. Dewey, John, The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 5 (1929–1930): Essays, the Sources of a Science of Education, Individualism, Old and New, and Construction and Criticism, Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1984. Dewey, John, The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume  7 (1932): Ethics, Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1985. Dewey, John, The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume  9 (1916): Democracy and Education, Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1980. Dewey, John, The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 10 (1916–1917): Journal Articles, Essays and Miscellany, Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1980. Dewey, John, The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 12 (1924): Essays, Miscellany and Reconstruction in Philosophy, Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1982. Dewey, John, The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 12 (1938): Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1986. Diamond, Cora, The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind, Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1991. Esfeld, Michael, “Regelfolgen  20 Jahre nach Kripkes Wittgenstein,” in: Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 57.1 (2003), pp. 128–138. Foster, Roger, “Working on the Self: Adorno and Wittgenstein on the Therapeutic Task of Philosophy,” in: Telos 179 (2017), pp. 109–133. Fotion, Nicholas, Theory vs. Anti-Theory in Ethics: A Misconceived Conflict, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. 75

Wittgenstein, On Certainty,  §  611.—I want to thank James Matthew Fielding for useful advice and Lucilla Guidi for accepting contingency.

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Frega, “New Voices for Expressive Pragmatism: Bridging the Divide between Pragmatism and Perfectionism,” in: Metaphilosophy 45.3 (2014), pp. 399–442. Gaukroger, Stephen, The Failures of Philosophy: A Historical Essay. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020. Godfrey-Smith, Peter, “Dewey and the Question of Realism,” in: Noûs 50.1 (2016), pp. 73–89. Hämäläinen, Nora, “Is Moral Theory Harmful in Practice?—Relocating Anti-Theory in Contemporary Ethics,” in: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 12.5 (2008), pp. 539–553. Heidegger, Martin, Vorlesungen 1919–1944, Einleitung in die Philosophie: Freiburger Vorlesung Wintersemester 1928/29, ed. by Friedrich-Wilhelm von Hermann / Ida Saame-Speidel, Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1996. Jung, Matthias, “Erfahrung als Artikulation,” in: Id., Gewöhnliche Erfahrung, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014, pp. 74–87. Kripke, Saul A., Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Oxford: Blackwell, 1982. Lear, Jonathan, “Transcendental Anthropology,” in: Id., Open Minded: Working out the Logic of the Soul, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1998, pp. 247–281. Lear, Jonathan, Therapeutic Action: An Earnest Plea for Irony, New York: Routledge, 2003. McManus, Denis, Heidegger and the Measure of Truth, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Mills, Charles W., “‘Ideal Theory’ as Ideology,” in: Hypatia 20.3 (2005), pp. 165–183. Minar, Edward H. (ed.), Contemporary Tractatus, in: Philosophical Topics 42.2 (2016). Norris, Andrew, “Hegel and Cavell on Meaning and Sublation,” in: Conversations: The Journal of Cavellian Studies 9 (2022), pp. 72–84. O’Neill, Onora, “Abstraction, Idealization and Ideology in Ethics,” in: J.D.G.  Evans (ed.), Moral Philosophy and Contemporary Problems, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements 22, Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, 1987, pp. 55–71. Peirce, Charles S., “What Pragmatism Is,” in: Nathan Houser / Christian J.W. Kloesel (eds.), The Essential Peirce Vol II. 1893–1913: Selected Philosophical Writings, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998, pp. 331–346. Pinkard, Terry, “Analytics, Continentals, and Modern Skepticism,” in: Monist 82.2 (1999), pp. 189–217. Richter, Duncan, “Sketches of Blurred Landscapes,” in: Reshef Agam-Segal / Edmund Dain (eds.), Wittgenstein’s Moral Thought, New York: Routledge, 2019, pp. 153–173. Saito, Naoko / Paul Standish, “What’s the Problem with Problem-Solving? Language, Skepticism, and Pragmatism,” in: Contemporary Pragmatism 6.1 (2009), pp. 153–167. Sedgwick, Sally, “Hegel’s Critique of Kant: An Overview,” in: Graham Bird (ed.), A Companion to Kant, Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006, pp. 473–485. Vernant, Jean Pierre, The Origins of Greek Thought, Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1982.

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Volbers, Jörg, Selbsterkenntnis und Lebensform: Kritische Subjektivität nach Wittgenstein und Foucault, Bielefeld: transcript, 2009. Volbers, Jörg, Die Vernunft der Erfahrung: Eine pragmatistische Kritik der Rationalität, Hamburg: Meiner, 2018. Volbers, Jörg, “Reclaiming the Power of Thought. Dewey’s Critical Appropriation of Idealism,” in: European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 10.2 (2018). West, Cornel, “Pragmatism and the Tragic,” in: Id., Prophetic Thought in Postmodern Times, Monroe: Common Courage Press, 1993, pp. 31–58. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe et al., ed. by P.M.S. Hacker / Joachim Schulte, Oxford: Blackwell, 1967 (1953). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, On Certainty, trans. by Denis Paul / G.E.M. Anscombe, ed. by G.E.M. Anscombe / Georg H. von Wright, Oxford: Blackwell, 1969. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Culture and Value, trans. by Peter Winch, ed. by Georg  H. von Wright, Oxford: Blackwell, 1980 (1977).

Between Captivity and Liberation The Role of Pictures in Wittgenstein’s Philosophy Anna Boncompagni Abstract Wittgenstein often uses metaphors of imprisonment and liberation. This chapter explores this issue with special attention to three passages. In the first one, the later Wittgenstein of the Investigations, writing about the early Wittgenstein of the Tractatus, claims that “a picture held us captive,” and that because such a picture lay in our language, we cannot get outside it (Philosophical Investigations, § 155). The second passage is Wittgenstein’s famous statement that his aim in philosophy is “to show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle” (Philosophical Investigations, § 310). In the third passage, Wittgenstein observes that a room with an unlocked door imprisons someone if the door opens only inwards and one thinks one must push, not pull, to exit (Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, IV, § 37). The examination will suggest that pictures themselves play a double role in Wittgenstein: they can imprison us, and they can set us free. The exercise of seeing aspects emerges therefore as crucial for the liberating practices of philosophy.

Introduction The themes of seeing and of pictures permeate Wittgenstein’s whole philosophical trajectory, from the so-called picture theory of language1 to the exhortation “Don’t think, but look!” with which he constantly addressed the readers of the Investigations, drawing their attention to the forms of life in which our linguistic practices are embedded. But the aim, subject, and style change, and so the theme of pictures offers a vantage point that allows us to fully appreciate the evolution of Wittgenstein’s thought. This chapter has three sections, each of which revolves around one main quotation from Wittgenstein’s work. The first section briefly illustrates the view of the proposition as a picture of a fact, then focuses on pictures as captivity. As we shall see, this is the way in which the later Wittgenstein characterizes his early work on language. The second section connects the “captivating” 1 By referring to the “picture theory” I am not committing to the idea that Wittgenstein did propose a fully-fledged theory of language in the Tractatus (or elsewhere). The debate on the theoretical vs. therapeutic nature of Wittgenstein’s work is not my concern here, although I will touch on some aspects of it in section 3.

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and “liberating” sides of pictures, where the latter is a picture’s ability to free the mind from a fixed, obstructed vision. Here, the famous image of the fly and the fly-bottle, including some less-known, earlier versions, will be analyzed. The third section introduces Wittgenstein’s metaphor of a man who cannot escape a room because he does not realize that he has to pull, not push, the door. This part of the chapter will briefly discuss the wider theme of aspect seeing, and pictures will be interpreted as a means to exercise oneself to achieve a certain sensitivity to seeing aspects. A preliminary clarification before starting. In what follows, I am going to talk of pictures and images, but also similes, analogies, and metaphors. Distinguishing different notions, determining, for instance, when a simile becomes a metaphor and vice versa, is not the aim here. This is not a technical paper on figurative language and the different shapes that it can assume. The aim is to explore the role of pictures, in the broadest sense, in Wittgenstein’s approach to philosophy. The relevant distinction is between pictures that captivate and pictures that liberate. Relatedly, the dialectic between captivity and liberation is itself the subject of many pictures that Wittgenstein proposes, and in this sense the “picture of pictures” that emerges in Wittgenstein’s work will be explored. 1.

Pictures of Captivity

As is well-known, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus2 describes the proposition as a picture of a fact. According to this view, the elements of the proposition, standing in a certain relation to each other, correspond to the elements of the depicted fact, that in turn stand in a certain relation to each other. The isomorphism between the way in which the elements of the proposition are connected, and the way in which the elements of the fact are connected, is what makes the former a picture of the latter. I am oversimplifying here for the sake of brevity. Much more could be said on how language can represent complex facts, conditional facts, and false facts. And more could be said about Wittgenstein’s insistence on the impossibility for language to represent the relationship between proposition and fact itself. The most intuitive way to grasp this latter idea is to think about a photo and the scene it portrays: it does not make sense to try to photograph what makes the picture a picture, that is, to try to portray the similarity between the scene and the photo. One cannot 2 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. by Charles  K.  Ogden / Frank P. Ramsey, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1922 (1921). The Tractatus is quoted by paragraphs.

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represent in words the logic of representation, where the logic of representation is what makes language itself possible, both in its fundamental function of representing facts, and in its derivative function of producing similes, metaphors, and the like.3 This logic, according to the Tractatus, shows itself in the general form of a proposition, and is captured in statements such as “This is how things are,” or “Such and such is the case.”4 In the eyes of the later Wittgenstein, the very idea that there is a general form of the proposition constitutes a captivating but, in the end, misleading picture that keeps us prisoners. As he noted in a conversation in 1931, in which he affirmed that the Tractatus was too “dogmatic”: When I wrote “A proposition is a logical picture of a fact” I meant that I could insert a picture, literally a drawing, into a proposition and then go on with my proposition. I could accordingly use a picture in the same way as a proposition. How is that possible? The answer is, just because both agree in a certain respect, and what they have in common is what I call a picture. […] The word “picture” has one advantage: it has helped me and many other people to make something clear by indicating a common feature and pointing out: “So that is what matters!” We then have the feeling, “Aha! Now I see, a proposition and a picture are of the same kind.”5

What is fascinating in the notion of a proposition as a picture, what captivates our attention, is that it helps us see something seemingly relevant in the proposition, namely, its representational function. That is what it has in common with a picture. Putting proposition and picture side by side allows one to see the picture in the proposition, to grasp this commonality. The analogy suggests: look at the proposition as a picture of a fact; and you will see something important. This discloses a key, previously unseen element in the nature of the proposition itself. Hence the “Aha” moment in the quote. And yet, there is a risk here. This same idea of the proposition as a picture, indeed, identifies in a trait shared by the proposition and the picture the essence that reveals the “real” nature of the proposition and therefore of language and the relationship between language and world. Precisely in its claim of general validity, the idea of the proposition as a picture can imprison our imagination. It holds the imagination captive; we are now unable to see the proposition another way.

3 Cf. Wittgenstein, Tractatus 4.015. 4 “Es verhält sich so und so,” Wittgenstein, Tractatus  4.5; see Tractatus  6 for the formal characterization. 5 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ludwig Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle. Conversations Recorded by Friedrich Waismann, trans. by Joachim Schulte / Brian McGuinness, ed. by Brian McGuinness, Oxford: Blackwell, 1979 (1967), p. 185.

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What was once a helpful suggestion now keeps us from moving outside the boundaries of the simile. Here we come to the first of the main quotes that I would like to examine. It is a passage from the Philosophical Investigations, in which Wittgenstein quotes his own previous words from the Tractatus. His previous view—that the proposition is a picture of a fact, and that on this basis it is possible to identify the general form of propositions—is now itself seen as a picture. This picture lay in language, is thus ingrained in our habits of thinking, and thereby constrains how we look at things (at language, in this case). A simile that has been absorbed into the forms of our language produces a false appearance which disquiets us. “But this isn’t how it is!”—we say. “Yet this is how it has to be!” “But this is how it is – – –,” I say to myself over and over again. I feel as though, if only I could fix my gaze absolutely sharply on this fact and get it into focus, I could not but grasp the essence of the matter. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (4.5): “The general form of propositions is: This is how things are.”—That is the kind of proposition one repeats to oneself countless times. One thinks that one is tracing nature over and over again, and one is merely tracing round the frame through which we look at it. A picture held us captive. And we couldn’t get outside it, for it lay in our language, and language seemed only to repeat it to us inexorably.6

The picture of the proposition as a picture, while promising to deliver the essence of things, actually draws our attention towards one particular way of approaching the issue, one that leaves many other phenomena of language uncovered. The notion of the proposition as a picture is a much narrower canon than it initially seems. Additionally, this notion suggests that a proposition, just like (allegedly) a picture, is self-evident and carries its own meaning in itself, independently of the uses we make of it, of our prior understanding of the background that makes that picture a picture, and more generally of its belonging to a form of life.7 In this light, it is not by chance that Wittgenstein began the Investigations— a work that he desired to be read in parallel with the Tractatus so that the latter’s most problematic aspects could emerge—with a comment on a passage from Augustine, in which a particular (though widespread) conception of 6 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe / P.M.S. Hacker / Joachim Schulte, ed. by Peter M.S. Hacker / Joachim Schulte, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009 (1953), §§ 112–115. 7 Steven  G.  Affeldt, “Captivating Pictures and Liberating Language: Freedom and the Achievement of Speech in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations,” in: Philosophical Topics 27.2 (1999), pp. 255–285; here pp. 266–271.

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language is explained. Augustine claimed that as a child he learned the meanings of words by the ostensive gestures of adults, who named an object while showing or indicating it to him. Wittgenstein observes that this explanation gives us only “a particular picture of the essence of human language”8 and that although such a picture describes a system of communication (correct in that respect), it does not exhaust everything that we call language.9 This picture is partial, and it is misleading if it is taken as a description or an explanation of what language essentially is. This idea, at a certain point, stops being a guide and becomes the target of Wittgenstein’s (self-)criticism. It is not that he denied the productivity of pictures and their capacity to show us interesting connections, when they are purposively chosen or invented as similes and metaphors;10 as we shall see, he made extensive use of images of this kind. But he realizes that some analogies embedded in and suggested by language cause deep misunderstandings and puzzles, just like eyeglasses that distort our perception without us realizing that we can take them off. As he puts it in the Philosophical Remarks, some pictures “tyrannize” us, because while we are in the language of the metaphor, we cannot step outside it.11 Dissolving such puzzles by unmasking the misleading nature of these pictures becomes the task of Wittgenstein’s grammatical investigations.12 Some analogies and pictures are especially troublesome because they silently transfer a linguistic practice from one domain to another. While in everyday life this may be innocuous, when the picture is the implicit basis of a philosophical, scientific, or mathematical investigation, it can have disastrous theoretical consequences.13 A classic example in philosophy and psychology is the picture of the mind as an inner realm or theater. The picture produces the illusion of a subject being able to see and “grasp” sensations, meanings,

8

9 10 11 12 13

Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 1 (emphasis added); cf. Gordon Baker, Wittgenstein’s Method. Neglected Aspects, ed. by Katherine J. Morris, Oxford: Blackwell, 2004, here chapters 1 and 12; and Beth Savickey, “Wittgenstein’s Use of Examples,” in: Marie McGinn / Oskari Kuusela (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 667–696. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 3. Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books, ed. by Rush Rhees, Oxford: Blackwell, 1969 (1958), p. 28. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Remarks, trans. by Raymond Hargreaves / Roger White, ed. by Rush Rhees, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1998 (1964), § 49. Cf. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §§ 90, 101. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics, Cambridge 1939, ed. by Cora Diamond, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976, pp. 15, 111, 239–240.

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and ideas just like in the outer world one sees and grasps an object.14 Another example is the image of time as a river, which makes it seem legitimate to ask, “Where does the past go?”, as though the past were a piece of wood carried away by the river.15 Captivated and bewitched by the analogy, we are led into puzzlement. But the point is that such puzzlement is simply the result of the apparent legitimacy of our questions. Were we able to realize that the problem lies implicitly in the question, rather than in the lack of an answer, the puzzle itself would dissolve. In fact, the misleading picture is sometimes already there and suggested by our question; the question suggests the language, the conceptual framework, and the imaginative environment in which our reasoning is expected to work. It sets the scene, so to speak, and when we start reasoning we do so by already employing the implicit picture that causes troubles. “The question itself keeps the mind pressing against a blank wall, thereby preventing it from ever finding the outlet,” Wittgenstein says in the Brown Book. He continues: “To show a man how to get out you have first of all to free him from the misleading influence of the question.”16 The latter quote is an interesting one, as, while talking about the misleading power of pictures, Wittgenstein is proposing, again, a picture: the mind is kept pressing against a wall, and hence it cannot find an answer. But by relieving the pressure of the analogy, one can free a person’s mind and show them the way out. This is a metaphor of captivity and liberation at the same time, and it is used by Wittgenstein in order to show his interlocutor where the problem lies. In this case, Wittgenstein is intentionally building a metaphor, with the specific purpose of illustrating something, namely, the way in which a picture embedded in the question prevents one from finding the answer. With this metaphor in place, we can move to the “liberating” side of pictures, that is, to the clarificatory and productive use of metaphors and similes in Wittgenstein’s thought. 2.

Pictures of Liberation

In parallel with the awareness of the misleading nature of pictures and analogies entrenched in our language and worldview, Wittgenstein indeed develops an ability to invent and make use of other pictures and analogies. These can be characterized as broadly educational and heuristic, in that they are tools

14 15 16

Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books, pp. 7, 16, 61. Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books, pp. 107–108. Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books, p. 169.

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that help our understanding. Both his writings and the testimonies from his lectures offer many examples showing that this was an essential part of his style of teaching and working, as well as, in the end, his personality. And it is something he was well aware of. In 1937, for instance, he curiously annotates: I just took some apples out of a paper bag where they had been lying for a long time; I had to cut off & throw away half of many of them. Afterwards as I was copying out a sentence of mine the second half of which was bad, I at once saw it as a half-rotten apple. And that’s how it always is with me. Everything that comes my way becomes for me a picture of what I am thinking about. (Is there something feminine about this outlook?).17

Already in the Tractatus, he did not refrain from using images. Besides proposing a visual method for conceptualizing the logical relationships between propositions (see what became known as truth tables, 4.31 and 4.442, and the figures through which he explained tautologies, 6.1203), we find several drawings, such as the eye and the visual field (5.6331) and the cube that anticipates the later theme of aspect perception (5.5423). But there are also several similes. Examples include the members of a chain illustrating how objects hang together in atomic facts (2.03), the feelers with which a picture touches reality (2.1515), the projection (3.11), language as clothes that disguise thought (4.002), the gramophone record, music notation and waves of sound (4.014–4.0141), the hieroglyphic writing (4.016), the scaffolding of the world that shows in logical propositions (6.124), the square or triangular mesh exemplifying Newton’s mechanics (6.341), not to mention, of course, the ladder that one needs to climb and then throw away (6.54). Most of these images from the Tractatus are aimed at showing how the proposition can be intended as a picture of reality; they are different examples illustrating the same point at various levels (although some of them, such as the ladder, are used to elucidate other issues and themes). In later writings instead Wittgenstein’s use of similes is meant to illustrate the heterogeneity of our linguistic practices.18 Besides the metaphors of language-games and of family resemblances, now both common conceptual tools in philosophy, another significant cluster of similes has to do with the instrumental nature of words, that Wittgenstein often compares to utensils, handles, but also chess pieces, and money, for the multiplicity of uses that they can have.19 17 18 19

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, trans. by Peter Winch, ed. by Georg H. von Wright et  al., Oxford: Blackwell, 1998 (1977), p.  36. See also p.  3, “A good simile refreshes the intellect.” See Jerry H. Gill, Wittgenstein and Metaphor, Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1996; and Savickey, “Wittgenstein’s Use of Examples.” Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §§ 11, 12, 316, 120.

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The later Wittgenstein’s most eloquent image concerning these topics, however, is the fly in the fly-bottle: What is your aim in philosophy?—To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.20

With this single line Wittgenstein captures his idea of philosophy. Philosophy, he thinks, is both an illness and a cure; it imprisons the fly, and it can liberate it.21 The genesis of this remark indeed clearly shows that the fly finds itself in the bottle precisely because it is attracted to philosophical reflection that indulges solipsistic tendencies. To my knowledge, the first time Wittgenstein uses this image is in a manuscript from 1935–36, consisting mainly of notes for lectures. Here is the remark later published in “Notes for Lectures on ‘Sense Data’ and ‘Private Experience’”: “I am in the lucky position of being in the source of the visual world/field/. It is I who see it!” I have a comfortable feeling while saying this although the statement isn’t one of the class of statements which in general give me this kind of feeling. I said it as though I had said “I have more money than anyone else in this place.” But what I now see, this view of my room, plays a unique role, it is the visual world! (The solipsist flutters and flutters in the fly-bottle, strikes against the walls, flutters further. How can he be brought to rest?)22

Inside its fly bottle, the solipsist fly cannot find peace because it cannot renounce the idea that the visual field, the way in which the world appears to the fly, essentially originates from and belongs to it, like a private, absolute privilege. And although the fly can perceive the world, it cannot reach the world, nor can it really live in it. Because the way the world appears to the fly is the fly’s private world, the fly is secluded from the world. It is secluded from alterity, reality, and life. 20 21

22

Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 309. On the relevance of this metaphor for understanding Wittgenstein’s overall conception of philosophy, see Severin Schroeder, Wittgenstein: The Way Out of The Fly Bottle, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006. On the double nature of philosophy, as an illness and a cure, see Anna Boncompagni, “Common Sense, Philosophy, and Mental Disturbance: A Wittgensteinian Outlook,” in: Jorge Gonçalves et al. (eds.), Schizophrenia and Common Sense. Explaining the Relation between Madness and Social Values, London: Springer Nature, 2018, pp. 227–238. Ludwig Wittgenstein, “Notes for Lectures on ‘Private Experience’ and ‘Sense Data,’” trans. by Peter Winch, ed. by David  G.  Stern, in: James  C.  Klagge / Alfred Nordmann (eds.), Ludwig Wittgenstein. Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1993 (1976), pp. 200–288, here p. 258. The last sentence is in German in the original manuscript: “(Der Solipsist flattert und flattert in der Fliegenglocke, stößt sich an den Wänden, flattert weiter. Wie ist er zur Ruhe zu bringen?).”

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Yet, the fly bottle does have a way out. The point is that the fly, the ill philosopher, is not able to see it. And it is here that the therapeutic philosopher enters the stage. Another variation on the theme of the fly shows how this happens. In the Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, Wittgenstein introduces the example of a game, a puzzle consisting in making a geometrical figure by putting together different smaller pieces. The way in which the pieces should be put together does not intuitively appear to us; discovering the correct arrangement of the smaller pieces is difficult and requires unconventional thinking. What kind of discovery is the discovery of the right arrangement, Wittgenstein asks? The pieces are always the same; what is new and previously unseen is the arrangement or the position they should assume. This new arrangement, Wittgenstein continues, the figure that shows the solution, in a certain sense “removes a blindness” or “changes your geometry”: It as it were shews you a new dimension of space. (As if a fly were shewn the way out of the fly-bottle).23

The task of the therapeutic philosopher, then, once seen according to this metaphor, is showing the solipsist philosopher an unforeseen way of putting together the pieces, in such a way that the puzzle is solved, or better, it does not exist anymore as a puzzle. The fly is shown the surprising way out; surprising because it was already there, not hidden, but simply unseen. Note that the method through which Wittgenstein illustrates the point, that is meant to disentangle one from misleading pictures, is by way of other pictures, this time intentionally made up as similes or metaphors. These pictures, therefore, instead of keeping us captive, have a liberatory power.24 Wittgenstein talks about the positive employment of pictures and similes on several occasions, including in the recently published notes that he dictated to Francis Skinner. Here one can read: “Usually we think of similes as second-best

23 24

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe, ed. by Georg H. von Wright et al., Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978 (1956), I, § 44. Baker, Wittgenstein’s Method, frames this difference in terms of unconscious and conscious pictures, drawing a similarity between Wittgenstein and Freud (see for instance pp. 34, 265–267, 287, and chapter 10). I am not following his characterization here. Indeed, I think that 1. captivating pictures need not necessarily be unconscious; 2. unconscious pictures are not necessarily negative; and 3. not all conscious pictures are pictures that one intentionally builds with liberatory purposes.

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things, but in philosophy they are the best thing of all,” which testifies to the importance he attributed to this technique.25 There are two techniques associated with the use of similes that Wittgenstein seems to privilege. One of them is also described in these notes, as well as in the contemporary fragments of the “Yellow Book” edited by Alice Ambrose, and elsewhere. This technique consists in giving parallel cases, demonstrating that a certain phenomenon is not unique and thereby changing our outlook on it.26 By means of parallel cases, Wittgenstein explains, the uniqueness of the case at hand is destroyed, and the impression that there is something special about it disappears. One subject matter to which Wittgenstein applies the technique of giving parallel cases through similes is the idea of understanding the meaning of a word, which is sometimes thought of in terms of a feeling (his target here is most likely William James and his view of meaning, including the alleged existence of “a feeling of and, a feeling of if, etc.”27). The simile he draws in order to overcome the tendency to conceive of meaning in terms of a special feeling, is that between mastering a language and mastering a game, like chess. He compares the case of understanding the meaning of a word with understanding a rule of chess; we understand the meaning of “and” when we know how to use this word, just like we know what a piece of chess is when we know (master) how to use it; we know, that is, what moves we are allowed to make with each piece. The analogy, by way of adding parallel cases, shows that there is nothing unique that we feel when we understand a word. Knowing the rules, indeed, is not a state of consciousness, and if we compare the mastering of a language to the mastery of the rules of a game, we are not prone to the temptation of conceiving of meaning in terms of a state of consciousness.28 Notably, it is 25 26 27

28

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Dictating Philosophy to Francis Skinner. The Wittgenstein-Skinner Manuscripts, ed. by Arthur Gibson / Niahm O’Mahony, Cham (Switzerland): Springer, 2020, p. 110 (emphasis added). Wittgenstein, Dictating Philosophy, pp.  114–15; Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein’s Lectures: Cambridge, 1932–1935, ed. by Alice Ambrose, Oxford: Blackwell, 1982, p. 50. See the chapter on the Stream of Thought in William James, The Principles of Psychology, 2 vols., Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1981 (1890). On James and Wittgenstein see Russell Goodman, Wittgenstein and William James, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, and Anna Boncompagni, “James and Wittgenstein,” in: Alexander Klein (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of William James, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein’s Lectures: Cambridge, 1932–1935, p.  50. Note that the problem of describing understanding in terms of a feeling or a state of consciousness also derives from a misleading picture, a metaphor we are inclined to use. In the Lectures on Philosophical Psychology, referring to James’s description of “groping for a name,” Wittgenstein mentions the metaphor of the wraith (Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein’s

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precisely the aim of contrasting the alleged uniqueness of certain phenomena that gives rise to Wittgenstein’s reflection on the change of aspects.29 A second technique that Wittgenstein uses with liberatory purposes, usually in combination with the first one, consists in allowing the misleading picture to completely run its course, thereby showing the subject its consequences in full. Once such consequences are displayed, the enchanting power of the picture loses its grip, because it actually originated from some ambiguities that are now clarified and neutralized. Examples of Wittgenstein’s use of this technique are in his Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics, where one of his aims is to show that mathematics does not deal with a “realm” of numbers and does not make discoveries in this realm like science does in the realm of natural phenomena. For instance, after quoting from Hilbert, “No one is going to turn us out of the paradise which Cantor has created,”30 Wittgenstein comments: I would say, “I wouldn’t dream of trying to drive anyone out of this paradise.” I would try to do something quite different: I would try to show you that it is not a paradise—so that you’ll leave of your own accord. I would say, “You’re welcome to this; just look about you.”31

What is the alleged paradisiac “realm” of mathematics to which Wittgenstein alludes? How is one to look around in this environment? If you are developing the mathematics of a certain expression, he claims, and you want to know how its “realm” looks like, what you need to do is ask yourself in which kind of propositions and contexts such expression is used. As soon as you do this, as soon as you look around yourself and see what the concrete domain of use of such an expression is, he continues, “you get an entirely different picture of what you have been doing.”32 Instead of imagining yourself as flying over the realm of mathematics and maybe mysteriously going beyond the end of the cardinal number series, you will see yourself or the mathematician simply as someone who has mastered a technique (note the resemblance with the case of mastering a language). As a result of this exercise, one is not fascinated anymore by the misleading picture attached to a certain expression, and loses interest in it, because such a picture was exciting only insofar as it remained “fishy.”33

29 30 31 32 33

Lectures on Philosophical Psychology 1946–1947, ed. by Peter T. Geach, New York: Harvester, 1988, p. 343). Cf. Avner Baz, Wittgenstein on Aspect Perception, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. I expand a bit on seeing aspects in the next section. Wittgenstein, Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics, p. 103. Ibid. Wittgenstein, Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics, p. 252 (emphasis added). Wittgenstein, Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics, pp. 141, 267.

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The examples and similes that Wittgenstein uses, sometimes very ordinary and at the same time so unexpected that they end up producing a comical effect, have the same function that the epiphany has in literature: they surprisingly reveal something that was hidden in plain view, a new sense that can lead to a radical revision of one’s alleged certainties.34 The two techniques just described—showing parallel cases so that the uniqueness of the phenomenon is challenged, and allowing the misleading picture to run its course—produce a sort of enlightenment that is, in the end, a reconciliation with the ordinary. It is as if the picture that was holding us captive shows itself to be nothing but a painted curtain that falls down and reveals the real scene taking place in ordinary life. I am once again using a metaphor that Wittgenstein himself proposes, in this case to show the misleading nature of the simile of the “inner”: “The ‘inner’ is a delusion—he says—. That is: the whole complex of ideas alluded to by this word is like a painted curtain drawn in front of the scene of the actual word use.”35 Eventually, a metaphor, leading us beyond the metaphor, takes us back to the ordinary flux of life, and gives us a new awareness of our belonging to such flux. The fly is shown the delusive nature of its captivity. What the fly was not able to see, indeed, was the glass: its transparency kept it captive.36 The metaphor of the fly is, therefore, in this sense, another picture about pictures, and how they might be invisible to us. In making pictures emerge (often by means of alternative pictures), Wittgenstein’s techniques dissolve their power.

34

35

36

Cf. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 524; see on this Marjorie Perloff, “Writing Philosophy as Poetry: Literary Form in Wittgenstein,” in: Marie McGinn / Oskari Kuusela (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 714–728. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology / Letzte Schriften über die Philosophie der Psychologie, vol. 2, trans. by C.G. Luckhardt / Maximilian A.E. Aue, ed. by Georg H. von Wright / Heikki Nyman, Oxford: Blackwell, 1992, p. 85. It is noteworthy that the scene revealed once the curtain falls is a theater scene; is this not just another illusion? In a sense it is, but in another important sense, this illusion is the best means that the philosopher has when it comes to showing everyday contexts. Maybe because a theatre scene shares so many features of everyday scenes: think of temporality, interaction, tridimensionality, the presence of people, a story—the “flux of life,” we may say. Wittgenstein is indeed explicit about this: the best way to portray the contexts of use of a word or a sentence, he writes, is a theatre play; and in a play, no one ever asks a character what their feeling of meaning is when they pronounce a word. It is the context of action in which words are embedded, that gives them their meaning. See Wittgenstein, Last Writings, p. 7. Cf. İlham Dilman, “The Philosopher and the Fly Bottle,” in: Ratio (New Series) XI. 2 (1998), pp. 102–124, here p. 105.

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One might go beyond and affirm, as Blumenberg does, that the transparency of the fly-bottle symbolizes language as it is described in the picture theory: a means through which the world becomes for us an image, apparently within our reach, but actually forever separated in forced captivity.37 Or one might comment, as Erden does, that the job of metaphors is that of liberating the philosophers from their temptation to see the world sub specie aeterni.38 But my point is less ambitious, though perhaps with broader implications: a good simile can shift our attention to a previously unnoticed aspect of the situation under consideration. 3.

See It This Way

The cluster of themes that might be called seeing-as, seeing aspects, and aspect-dawning, systematically investigated in section xi of part II of the Investigations (also known as Philosophy of Psychology—A Fragment), makes its appearance in Wittgenstein’s writings much earlier than what is usually thought (a first occurrence, as mentioned earlier in passing, was already in the Tractatus, 5.5423), and shapes a large part of Wittgenstein’s entire work. Briefly, the point here, as Wittgenstein frames the issue in Part II of the Investigations, is the categorical difference between two senses of “to see”: the ordinary sense in which one sees an object and can offer a description or a copy of it, and a second sense in which one sees an aspect, such as the similarity between two faces, or the duck in the famous duck-rabbit drawing.39 While in the former sense we say that what is seen is objective and arguably not only visible but seen by everyone in the same perceptual situation, in the latter sense it might be that some people, even in front of the very same objective figure or figures, remains blind to the aspect. Wittgenstein’s whole idea of philosophy could be characterized, without much stretch, as an effort to educate the gaze towards a certain sensibility to aspects.40 His aim indeed, as exemplified in the remark on the fly and the fly bottle, is producing a change in the way one perceives things, that allows one 37 38 39 40

See Hans Blumenberg, Hölenausgänge, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1989, p. 777. See Yasemin  J.  Erden, “Wittgenstein on Simile as ‘the Best Thing’ in Philosophy,” in: Philosophical Investigations 35.2 (2012), pp. 127–137. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophy of Psychology. A Fragment, in: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe et al., ed. by Peter M.S. Hacker / Joachim Schulte, Oxford: Blackwell, 2009 (1953), § 118. Again, I am remaining neutral with respect to whether this involves or not the use of theories. More on this below. On aspect perception and its significance in Wittgenstein see

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to notice something previously overlooked (the way out of the fly-bottle), not because it was not there, but because the subject was not paying attention to it in the right way. The goal in other words is a change in the way of seeing.41 If the aim of altering the way we see is continuous in Wittgenstein’s thought, connecting his early and later philosophy, what changes over time is that the claim to generality characterizing the Tractatus fades. We then become aware of the many practices in which our language is embedded. Indeed, many later reflections connecting aspect perception to the nature of philosophy are aimed at highlighting the different human practices and “facts of living” that confer meaning to our words.42 In parallel, the later Wittgenstein employs many different methods aimed at this goal, depending on one’s specific purposes.43 The third and last quote that I would like to examine can be framed as a reflection on seeing aspects. Here is the remark, written in 1942 and published in both Culture and Value and the Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics (from which I am quoting): A human being is imprisoned in a room, if the door is unlocked but opens inwards; he, however, never gets the idea of pulling instead of pushing against it.44

What  I would like to focus on here, besides the imprisonment/liberation dialectic that I have already highlighted, is the fact that there is an activity involved: there is something to do that the perceptual change allows. Indeed, here and elsewhere (including in the fly-bottle remark), Wittgenstein seems interested in the practical consequences that we draw from a shift in the way we see things.45 When we recognize a figure as, for instance, an arrow, our seeing it as an arrow is our attitude towards that figure; handling it as an arrow shows that we see it as an arrow. The example is simple, but it applies to more complex cases

41 42 43 44 45

William Day and Victor J. Krebs (eds.), Seeing Wittgenstein Anew, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010; and Baz, Wittgenstein on Aspect Perception. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Zettel, trans. by G.E.M.  Anscombe, ed. by G.E.M.  Anscombe / Georg H. von Wright, Oxford: Blackwell, 1981 (1967), § 461. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology / Bemerkungen über die Philosophie der Psychologie, 2 vols., trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe, ed. by G.E.M. Anscombe / Georg H. von Wright, Oxford: Blackwell, 1980, I, § 630. See in this volume Oskari Kuusela, “The dissolution of Philosophical Problems and the Transformation of Thinking,” in: Lucilla Guidi (ed.), Wittgensteinian Exercises. Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations, Paderborn: Brill/Fink, 2023, pp. 111–136. Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, IV, § 37. Cf. Wittgenstein, Philosophy of Psychology. A Fragment, § 176.

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as well.46 Seeing something as something amounts to acting on it as that something. Additionally, seeing aspects is at least in part a matter of attention,47 and attention is at least in part a matter of will: one can, to a certain extent, will to see an aspect or another. This is something one can learn to do, and also teach and persuade to do. As Wittgenstein puts it, to a certain extent experiencing a change of aspect resembles an action, because “it is a paying of attention”;48 and we can imagine an order or an exhortation to see an aspect (“Now see the figure as this”).49 So, it makes sense, for aspect seeing, to try to see an aspect, and to call upon another person to see it.50 Indeed, one might say that sometimes it is because it is voluntary—because it must be wanted, attempted, pursued— that it can be difficult to achieve. And the consent or the decision to try to see an aspect can itself be difficult, because it can go against one’s entrenched habits of perception and of thought, or one’s tendencies towards their favorite traps and mental cramps.51 It is interesting to see how often Wittgenstein uses expressions such as “temptation,” “prejudice,” “superstition,” “courage”— expressions undoubtedly colored with a moral tone, sometimes even a religious one—when dealing with habitual, ordinary (and conversely, extra-ordinary) ways of thinking in philosophy. There is an emotional and moral effort in the attempt to overcome the captivating power of certain pictures, not necessarily connected with the content of such pictures (for instance, it might take courage to abandon the picture of the mind as an inner realm, where such a picture does not entail anything that we would normally characterize as morally dubious). And the philosopher is called to constantly exhort themselves and others to the duty of such an effort. This hortatory component, I believe, is an integral part of Wittgenstein’s overall approach to philosophical activity. William James, before Wittgenstein, worked in a similar spirit and on similar themes.52 In particular, I would like to draw attention to the Principles of Psychology chapter on the stream of thought, one that Wittgenstein was very familiar with and commented on often. One of the most important features 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

Cf. Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, III, § 47. On the relevance of attention in Wittgenstein see Lars Hertzberg, “Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Attention,” unpublished, 2012, available at http://web.abo.fi/fak/hf/filosofi/ Staff/lhertzbe/Text/Attention.pdf (accessed 05.07.2021). Wittgenstein, Last Writings, pp. 14–15; see also p. 43. Wittgenstein, Philosophy of Psychology. A Fragment, § 256. Baz, Wittgenstein on Aspect Perception, p. 6. cf. Baker, Wittgenstein’s Method, here pp. 46, 269. Goodman, William James and Wittgenstein; Sarin Marchetti, Ethics and Philosophical Critique in William James, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015; Anna Boncompagni, Wittgenstein and Pragmatism. On Certainty in the Light of Peirce and James, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, and “James and Wittgenstein.”

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of thought, James affirmed here, is that it is selective: it constantly chooses aspects worthy of consideration and rejects most of what appears in the flux of perception.53 In thinking, we choose (deliberately or not) to pay attention only to portions of what flows in our minds. Moreover, a whole chapter of the Principles is dedicated to the phenomena of attention. James here criticizes traditional empiricism for a misleading notion of experience, and explains: Millions of items of the outward order are present to my sense which never properly enter into my experience. Why? Because they have no interest for me. My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind—without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos. Interest alone gives accent and emphasis, light and shade, background and foreground— intelligible perspective, in a word.54

A part of this chapter is on “preperception,” consisting in having the mind already predisposed, by habit and education, or actively predisposing the mind, to the perception of a particular aspect of a figure. Here James adds a series of examples and ambiguous figures that one can see in different ways, clearly anticipating both the Gestalt theory and Wittgenstein’s own reflection on aspect seeing.55 Aspect perception and the connection between interest, selective attention, and will are themes extensively explored in Wittgenstein’s Lectures on Philosophical Psychology (1946–47)—a work highly influenced by James’ Psychology, at the same time a source of inspiration and an object of criticism— in which Wittgenstein for instance affirms: The concepts we have show what selection of phenomena we make—what interests us. Aspects may change automatically; but one always can change an aspect voluntarily. This distinguishes ‘seeing as’ from seeing red, say.56

In these lectures, just like in the contemporary Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, references to James abound. In my view, the Wittgensteinian theme of aspect perception is especially interesting if seen from a pragmatist standpoint. Both Wittgenstein and James indeed work on the relevance of the way in which one approaches an issue—be it the meaning of a sentence, a picture, a situation, an action; both underline the relativity of what is meaningful and significant to our interests and needs, without limiting this to the criterion 53 54 55 56

James, Principles, p. 273. James, Principles, pp. 380–381. See for instance James, Principles, p. 418. Wittgenstein, Lectures on Philosophical Psychology, pp. 52, 113.

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of usefulness in a strict sense (though Wittgenstein did criticize pragmatism on this). Both can be said to work on educating our gaze and our capacity to change, enlarge, and shift our attention, especially—but not only—in matters of aesthetics and ethics.57 Let’s go back to our main topic—pictures. What emerges here is that some pictures—those that we can invent, control, and put to use, like similes and metaphors—can be an instrument for altering and training our gaze in the perception of aspects. Besides stimulating a fuller awareness of the inevitably aspectual nature of perception (in a broad sense), similes and metaphors can be put to use against other, non-voluntary, largely inherited and implicit pictures that keep us captive insofar as we remain unaware of them or neglect their partiality. In using his own pictures against other traditional pictures, Wittgenstein exhorts us (and himself): see it this way, compare the case with these other examples that I offer. Then, what once was compelling in the picture, what held you captive will hopefully lose its grip on you. This exhortative work is a form of persuasion as opposed to an argumentation based on premises and logical reasoning; however, it is not a form of irrational persuasion. On the contrary, it involves a totally rational way of comparing cases and scenarios, exercising one’s capacity to put aspects into focus, making the consequences of certain pictures explicit, and imagining their possible developments. It is a method that works on imagination as well as on reasoning. Following James, we might call this form of persuasion “rational,” though not “ratiocinative,”58 and stress the relevance of analogies, similes, and “furnishing parallel cases”59 (James’ words!) for showing a point or convincing one’s interlocutor. Wittgenstein indeed at times described his way of doing philosophy explicitly as a form of persuasion.60 At this point, one might ask: in providing parallel cases and alternative pictures, is one simply offering another, equally partial way of seeing, or in some sense a better way of seeing—one that, perhaps, is closer to represent things as they are? In other words, can one picture be closer to the truth than another? If 57

58 59 60

On the wider significance of aspect perception for the individual, see Garry L. Hagberg, “In a New Light: Wittgenstein, Aspect-Perception, and Retrospective Change in SelfUnderstanding,” in: William Day / Victor  J.  Krebs (eds.), Seeing Wittgenstein Anew, pp.  101–119. On the importance of relevance and interest, as opposed to accuracy, in Wittgenstein’s notion of pictures, see Juliet Floyd, “On Being Surprised. Wittgenstein on Aspect-Perception, Logic and Mathematics,” in: William Day / Victor J. Krebs (eds.), Seeing Wittgenstein Anew, pp. 314–337, here p. 324. See William James, Essays in Philosophy, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1978, p. 986; James is here writing about Shakespeare. James, Essays, p. 987. See for instance Ludwig Wittgenstein, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology, and Religious Belief, ed. by Cyril Barrett, Oxford: Blackwell, 1966, p. 27.

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so, what exactly distinguishes a picture from an ordinary claim on how things are, one that can have truth conditions and be justified or unjustified? Pictures, I believe, are different in important ways from ordinary claims that can be true or false (in particular, pictures are not “correct” or “incorrect” in terms of mere correspondence or non-correspondence with the facts).61 But this does not amount to saying that every picture is “just a picture” and hence has no import at all on our understanding of things. In other words, some pictures are better than others; some lead us and some mislead us; some improve and some hinder our understanding.62 Not all pictures are good for the fly to see the way out, or for the person in the room to understand that they must pull instead of push the door. Even if he does not advance theories in a traditional sense, Wittgenstein’s techniques—giving parallel cases, inventing alternative pictures, exercising our gaze to see aspects—are not merely negative, not merely aimed at destroying bad pictures; they also include the proposal of a more productive, fruitful, satisfying (though hard-won) way of seeing.63 Conclusion In the first section of this chapter, we noticed how the so-called picture theory of language from the Tractatus, as seen by the later Wittgenstein, includes a misleading simile: the idea of the proposition as a picture of a fact, an idea that is itself nothing but a picture. We saw how the later Wittgenstein uses metaphors and similes as instruments that enable us to alter our vision, and how he uses such instruments especially for the sake of unmasking the misleading pictures that keep us captive. The metaphor of the fly and the fly-bottle, in this sense, has two levels. On the first level it is a metaphor of captivity and liberation: we are captive in the bottle, but we can free ourselves. On the second level, however, this is also a sort of meta-metaphor aimed at unveiling the delusional nature of our captivity. In fact, this is a prison only insofar as we allow it to be one. The bottle, just like the room, does have a way out once we see it. The picture theory of language is a prison only insofar as we allow it to be one, by 61 62

63

Cf. Baker, Wittgenstein’s Method, p. 266. This discussion is topical in the debate between the theoretical vs. therapeutic readings of Wittgenstein, on which I cannot expand for obvious limits of space. For a recent therapeutic reading, see Rupert Read, Wittgenstein’s Liberatory Philosophy: Thinking Through His Philosophical Investigations, London: Routledge, 2020; for a recent anti-therapeutic reading, see Annalisa Coliva, “Doubt, Philosophy, and Therapy,” in: Midwest Studies in Philosophy 45 (2021), pp. 155–177. See, in this volume, Kuusela, “The dissolution of Philosophical Problems and the Transformation of Thinking.”

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indulging our solipsistic temptations. Once we make room for other aspects— once we acknowledge, for instance, that our language belongs to a form of life and its multifarious practices—the captivating picture loses its grip. Other facets of our condition, and other possibilities of action, become clear.64 Wittgenstein’s positive use of pictures is an effort to exercise and attune our capacity of vision and attention, by which we also become aware of the twofaced nature of pictures. Captivation is on one face, liberation on the other. This way, Wittgenstein’s philosophy teaches a sort of responsible use of pictures, a use that enables us to see and respect meaningful distinctions among phenomena. “I’ll teach you differences,” Wittgenstein said quoting Shakespeare;65 philosophy is “the habit of always seeing an alternative,” said James.66 Without training our attention and vision, we cannot see the delusional nature of what keeps us captive, nor can we solve or dissolve philosophical problems. “Unless you can show that a puzzle is not a puzzle,”—to quote the final lines of the Lectures on Philosophical Psychology, “you are left with what really are puzzles: a puzzle is something with no solution.” But if we show that the puzzle is not a puzzle, the puzzle disappears. We must just realize that the door is unlocked, and that to get out we must pull.67 References Affeldt, Steven  G., “Captivating Pictures and Liberating Language: Freedom and the Achievement of Speech in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations,” in: Philosophical Topics 27.2 (1999), pp. 255–285. Baker, Gordon, Wittgenstein’s Method. Neglected Aspects, ed. by Katherine J. Morris, Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. Baz, Avner, “Aspect Perception and Philosophical Difficulty,” in: Marie McGinn / Oskari  Kuusela (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 697–713. 64 65 66 67

Affeldt, “Captivating Pictures,” p. 277. Rush Rhees (ed.), Recollections of Wittgenstein, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984, p. 175. James, Essays, p. 4. A very early version of this text was first presented during a seminar on philosophical writing at the University of Florence in 2014. This final version (save a few amendments) was presented at the workshop on “Wittgenstein’s Exercises: Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations” organized by the DFG Research Training Group 2477 “Aesthetic Practice” based at the Stiftung Universität Hildesheim, Germany, in July  2021. I would like to thank the organizers and the audiences at both events for their precious feedback. Special thanks to Oskari Kuusela, Annalisa Coliva, and Alois Pichler for conversations on the text and related topics.

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Baz, Avner, Wittgenstein on Aspect Perception, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Blumenberg, Hans, Höhlenausgänge, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1989. Boncompagni, Anna, Wittgenstein and Pragmatism. On Certainty in the Light of Peirce and James, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Boncompagni, Anna, “Common Sense, Philosophy, and Mental Disturbance: A Wittgensteinian Outlook,” in: Jorge Gonçalves et  al. (eds.), Schizophrenia and Common Sense. Explaining the Relation between Madness and Social Values, London: Springer Nature, 2018, pp. 227–238. Boncompagni, Anna, “James and Wittgenstein,” in: Alexander Klein (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of William James, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Coliva, Annalisa, “Doubts, Philosophy, and Therapy”, in: Midwest Studies in Philosophy 45 (2021), pp. 155–177. Day, William / Krebs, Victor J. (eds.), Seeing Wittgenstein Anew, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Dilman, İlham, “The Philosopher and the Fly Bottle,” in: Ratio (New Series) XI. 2 (1998), pp. 102–124. Erden, Yasemin  J., “Wittgenstein on Simile as ‘the Best Thing’ in Philosophy,” in: Philosophical Investigations 35.2 (2012), pp. 127–137. Floyd, Juliet, “On Being Surprised. Wittgenstein on Aspect-Perception, Logic and Mathematics,” in: William Day / Victor J.  Krebs (eds.), Seeing Wittgenstein Anew, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 314–337. Gill, Jerry  H., Wittgenstein and Metaphor, Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1996. Goodman, Russell, Wittgenstein and William James, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Hagberg, Garry L., “In a New Light: Wittgenstein, Aspect-Perception, and Retrospective Change in Self-Understanding,” in: William Day / Victor  J.  Krebs (eds.), Seeing Wittgenstein Anew, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 101–119. Hertzberg, Lars, “Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Attention,” unpublished, 2012, available at http://web.abo.fi/fak/hf/filosofi/Staff/lhertzbe/Text/Attention.pdf (accessed 05.07.2021). James, William, Essays in Philosophy, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1978. James, William, The Principles of Psychology, 2 vols., Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1981 (1890). Kuusela, Oskari, “The Dissolution of Philosophical Problems and the Transformation of Thinking,” in: Lucilla Guidi (ed.), Wittgensteinian Exercises. Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations, Paderborn: Brill/Fink, 2023, pp. 111–136. Marchetti, Sarin, Ethics and Philosophical Critique in William James, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

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Perloff, Marjorie, “Writing Philosophy as Poetry: Literary Form in Wittgenstein,” in: Marie McGinn / Oskari Kuusela (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 714–728. Read, Rupert, Wittgenstein’s Liberatory Philosophy. Thinking Through His Philosophical Investigations, London: Routledge, 2020. Rhees, Rush (ed.), Recollections of Wittgenstein, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984. Savickey, Beth, “Wittgenstein’s Use of Examples,” in: Marie McGinn / Oskari Kuusela (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 667–696. Schroeder, Severin, Wittgenstein: The Way Out of The Fly Bottle, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. by Charles K. Ogden and Frank P. Ramsey, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1922 (1921). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology, and Religious Belief, ed. by Cyril Barrett, Oxford: Blackwell, 1966. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, The Blue and Brown Books, ed. by Rush Rhees, Oxford: Blackwell, 1969 (1958). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics, Cambridge 1939, ed. by Cora Diamond, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe, ed. by Georg H. von Wright et al., Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978 (1956). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Ludwig Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle. Conversations Recorded by Friedrich Waismann, trans. by Joachim Schulte and Brian McGuinness, ed. by Brian McGuinness, Oxford: Blackwell, 1979 (1967). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology / Bemerkungen über die Philosophie der Psychologie, 2 vols., trans. by G.E.M.  Anscombe, ed. by G.E.M. Anscombe and Georg H. von Wright, Oxford: Blackwell, 1980. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Zettel, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe, ed. by G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright, Oxford: Blackwell, 1981 (1967). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Wittgenstein’s Lectures: Cambridge, 1932–1935, ed. by Alice Ambrose, Oxford: Blackwell, 1982. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Wittgenstein’s Lectures on Philosophical Psychology 1946–1947, ed. by Peter T. Geach, New York: Harvester, 1988. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology / Letzte Schriften über die Philosophie der Psychologie, vol. 2, trans. by C.  Grant  Luckhardt and Maximilian A.E. Aue, ed. by Georg H. von Wright / Heikki Nyman, Oxford: Blackwell, 1992. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, “Notes for Lectures on ‘Private Experience’ and ‘Sense Data,’” trans. by Peter Winch, ed. by David G. Stern, in: James C. Klagge / Alfred Nordmann

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(eds.), Ludwig Wittgenstein. Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1993 (1976), pp. 200–288. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Culture and Value, trans. by Peter Winch, ed. by Georg  H. von Wright et al., Oxford: Blackwell, 1998 (1977). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Dictating Philosophy to Francis Skinner. The Wittgenstein-Skinner Manuscripts, ed. by Arthur Gibson / Niahm O’Mahony, Cham (Switzerland): Springer, 2020. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Remarks, trans. by Raymond Hargreaves / Roger White, ed. by Rush Rhees, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1998 (1964). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M.  Anscombe / P.M.S. Hacker / Joachim Schulte, ed. by Peter M.S. Hacker / Joachim Schulte, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009 (1953). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophy of Psychology. A Fragment, in: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe et al., ed. by Peter M.S. Hacker / Joachim Schulte, Oxford: Blackwell, 2009 (1953).

Wittgenstein and the Art of Conversing with Oneself The Philosophical Investigations as a Book of Exercises Lars Leeten Abstract Wittgenstein’s later writings, particularly the Philosophical Investigations, reflect a practice of self-transformation, a ‘work on oneself.’ This chapter interprets this philosophical practice in the light of Pierre Hadot’s conception of ‘spiritual exercises.’ The Investigations display an interior dialogue of the self that speaks in different voices, which in many respects resembles ancient exercises of conversing with oneself. In contrast to its ancient precursors, however, these attempts at self-transformation do not aim at ideals of virtue or wisdom. Instead, Wittgensteinian exercises are meant to enable the subject to take a critical stance towards modern self-conceptions. The Investigations develop a practice of philosophical reflection that does not rely on a unified rational self, but builds on a continuous process of exploring oneself through exercise.



Introduction: Wittgenstein’s Practice of Writing the Self

It has often been observed that Wittgenstein’s way of philosophical thinking cannot be separated from his style of writing. The form of his texts is integral to his mode of thought. In an early text about the Philosophical Investigations, Stanley Cavell points out that this fact alone is remarkable about Wittgenstein: “The first thing to be said in accounting for his style is that he writes: he does not report, he does not write up results.”1 The late Wittgenstein, in other words, does not simply write in order to express his ideas, let alone ready-made claims. Rather, his written texts are expressive of his thinking because it is essentially a process of writing. What one calls Wittgenstein’s ‘style’ is not only a rhetorical means supposed to convey certain thoughts. It is the trace of a thoughtprocess. ‘Accounting for his style’ then means acknowledging the fact that it reflects a philosophical practice.

1 Stanley Cavell, “The Availability of Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy,” in: Must We Mean What We Say? A Book of Essays, Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, 2002 (1969), pp. 44–72, here p. 70.

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What philosophical practice is it that becomes manifest in Wittgenstein’s later writings? To answer this question, one could of course bring into play the idea of philosophy as “a struggle against the bewitchment of our understanding by the resources of our language.”2 Wittgenstein strives to free us from the grip our own linguistic practice has on our minds. But it is all-important to see how fundamentally this endeavour differs from mere linguistic analysis: where the mind is ‘bewitched’ it will not suffice to correct mistakes. Rather, therapy is called for. This is why Wittgenstein’s philosophy “treats a question like an illness.”3 Its principal purpose is not finding objective truths about the world but bringing the mind into a certain state of clarity and calm. “The real discovery” is “the one that gives philosophy peace.”4 What becomes manifest in Wittgenstein’s later works is, in other words, a transformative practice. We may say, then, that the style of writing characterizing the Investigations bears the marks of a transformative practice. Wittgenstein’s philosophy is inseparable from the way he writes because his writing is involved in what he himself calls a philosophical “work on oneself.”5 It is an aesthetic practice affecting the soul or, to borrow a term from Michel Foucault, a technique of “self-writing.”6 In the following, I will try to offer an interpretation of this technique. Of course, different approaches, by no means mutually exclusive, suggest themselves here. The practice of self-writing has a long tradition in our intellectual history. Wittgenstein’s specific version of it can be understood in the light of Augustine’s Confessions, or along psychoanalytical lines, as a therapeutic self-scrutiny. In this chapter, however, I will use the idea of spiritual exercises as a framework. In his work Philosophy as a way of life, Pierre Hadot has made us aware that large parts of philosophy, most evidently the Greco-Roman tradition, are not engaged in the teaching of theories but essentially directed at “the transformation of our vision of the world, and the metamorphosis of our being.”7 Such an endeavour naturally requires more than intellectual effort in a narrow sense, since it is concerned with the philosopher’s personality as a whole, 2 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe et al., ed. by Peter M.S. Hacker / Joachim Schulte, Oxford: Blackwell, 2009 (1953), § 109. Translations from Wittgenstein have occasionally been revised. 3 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 255. 4 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 133. 5 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, trans. by Peter Winch, ed. by Georg H. von Wright, Oxford: Blackwell, 1998 (1977), 24e. 6 Michel Foucault, “Writing the Self,” in: Arnold Davidson (ed.), Foucault and His Interlocutors, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1997, pp. 234–247. 7 Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, trans. by Michal Chase, ed. by Arnold I. Davidson, Oxford: Blackwell, 1995 (1981), p. 127.

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i.e. with their practical habits and inclinations, their ways of perceiving, their emotional dispositions. What is demanded for progress in philosophy, then, is changing one’s way of life; and such a conversion cannot happen in an instant, it has to be achieved gradually, by way of exercises. In this view, philosophy is a kind of gymnastics of the mind: “just as, by dint of repeated physical exercises, athletes give new form and strength to their bodies, so the philosopher develops his strength of the soul, modifies his inner climate, transforms his vision of the world, and, finally, his entire being.”8 This chapter is guided by the assumption that Wittgenstein’s philosophical practice fits this description perfectly, writing being his chief means of self-transformation. What has come to be called the ‘style’ of the Philosophical Investigations can be interpreted as the trace of a spiritual exercise, and indeed reflects a constant effort to transform our vision of the world and entire form of life. Wittgenstein’s self-writing is a therapeutic exercise of the mind, albeit a modernized version. It is a kind of mental gymnastics for the modern mind. For gaining a clearer understanding of this mental gymnastics, one characteristic of Wittgenstein’s later writings will prove crucially important: that it is essentially dialogic. There is more than one voice speaking in the Investigations. The reader witnesses a dialogue between different voices or, more precisely, a struggle of voices, a wrestling of conflicting perspectives. I will argue that this struggle can best be interpreted as an internal struggle, as a difficult conversation of the philosophising mind with itself. For Pierre Hadot, this alone is a hallmark of a spiritual exercise: “we must let ourselves be changed, in our point of view, attitudes, and convictions. This means that we must dialogue with ourselves, and hence we must do battle with ourselves.”9 This will serve as a guideline here. Wittgenstein’s practice of self-writing is an exercise in conversing with oneself. Of the many techniques used in the tradition of philosophical exercises, the technique of writing and, more specifically, dialogical writing therefore promises to be the most instructive for our purposes. Anyone who carefully reads Wittgenstein’s later work will be drawn into this dialogue, this internal struggle. This is why the Investigations can be regarded as a book of exercises. In the next section I will briefly review the conception of spiritual exercises, particularly the technique of conversing with oneself (1). In this light, I will take a closer look at the dialogic structure and the different voices emerging in the Investigations (2). Then I will ask what Wittgenstein’s exercises are good for

8 Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, p. 102. 9 Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, p. 91.

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(3), and how they work precisely (4). Finally, I will briefly discuss the value of Wittgenstein’s art of conversing with oneself for contemporary philosophy (5). 1.

Transforming One’s Vision: Spiritual Exercises

In his monograph Philosophy as a Way of Life, Pierre Hadot suggests that large parts of premodern philosophy ought to be understood not only as an intellectual endeavour but also as a practice aiming at transforming those engaged in it, their personalities and ways of life. Today this interpretation is broadly acknowledged. In Hadot’s view, the methods such philosophy employs are not reducible to rational argument and a critique of beliefs in a narrow sense. Rather, a transformative practice has to develop means to affect one’s deepseated practical habits, retrain one’s emotional dispositions and ways of perceiving the world. This is the purpose of spiritual exercises. Greco-Roman philosophy serves as a paradigm here. In hellenistic thought, the aim of self-transformation is particularly obvious, and the system of exercises takes a fully developed form. Hellenistic philosophy recommends several types of exercises that have been categorized in different ways.10 A well-known example is exercises of imagination, like the contemplation of death (praemeditatio mortis) or the ‘view from above’ practiced by the Stoics. Discursive practices too could be carried out as philosophical exercises, e.g. exercises of listening and remaining silent, reading, writing and conversing with oneself and others. Other exercises concerned the habits of daily life, such as waking up early, fasting or exercises aimed at postponing the satisfaction of curiosity (e.g. the delayed opening of letters one has received). Of course, the boundaries are not always sharp; methods of philosophical meditation and the philosophers’ ways of life are part of one and the same practice. It is important to remember that Hadot initially introduced this concept of ‘philosophy as a way of life’ for hermeneutic purposes: due to their various forms and genres, ancient texts frequently pose problems of interpretation; they can hardly be read like articles presenting a theory. Hadot reminds us that very often this is just not what they are designed to do. Instead of complaining about texts allegedly hiding their ‘content’ behind literary forms, it is thus necessary to ask what the original function of the text in its practical context 10

For recent work on the conception of philosophy as a way of life see, e.g., Michael Chase et al. (eds.), Philosophy as a Way of Life. Ancients and Moderns, London: Blackwell, 2013, or Matthew Sharpe / Michael Ure, Philosophy as a Way of Life. History, Dimensions, Directions, London: Bloomsbury, 2021.

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actually was. In this respect the concept of spiritual exercises is highly instructive. As soon as one becomes aware that philosophy can have a transformative purpose, it turns out that this can be the chief purpose of philosophical texts too. Contrary to what modern readers are inclined to take for granted, these texts do not always convey theories. More often than not ancient philosophical writings prove to be resources in a ‘spiritual’ practice, i.e., a practice of self-transformation. It is noteworthy that Hadot first makes his case by drawing on Wittgenstein’s later works, more specifically on his concept of ‘language games.’11 Hadot mainly emphasizes Wittgenstein’s insight that speech can be used for countless purposes, but the reference also underlines that Wittgenstein himself is a case in point. His writings also cannot be separated from their transformative purpose. Just like so many ancient writings, they are the trace of a philosophical practice. In 1959, long before his seminal Philosophy as a Way of Life, Hadot already remarked that Wittgenstein’s later works, given their therapeutic nature, have to make use of a “certain literary genre.”12 The ‘style’ of the Investigations has to be explained by reference to their functioning as a ‘work on oneself.’ Wittgenstein indeed figured prominently in the development of Hadot’s conception. To realize the self-transformative purpose of Wittgenstein’s writings, it is helpful to look at how Hadot generally characterizes the philosophy of exercises. One of his essential claims is that such philosophy aims at changing the way we see the world. Spiritual exercises, he writes, “correspond to a transformation of our vision of the world, and to a metamorphosis of our personality.”13 More precisely, they are guided by the idea that our personalities can be converted by virtue of a transformation of our vision of the world. By transforming the way we ‘see things,’ we can renew our fundamental point of view and thus our whole way of being. Strikingly, this seems to match Wittgenstein’s own understanding of philosophy as a work on oneself, which is explained as a work on “one’s own conception,” on “how one sees things.”14 Exactly like Hadot, Wittgenstein has in mind a conversion of one’s personality by virtue of a conversion of one’s vision. It is the ‘way of seeing’ that has to be transformed first. 11 12 13 14

See Pierre Hadot, “Jeux de langage et philosophie,” in: Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 46.3 (1962), pp. 330–343. See Arnold  I.  Davidson, “Introduction: Pierre Hadot and the Spiritual Phenomenon of Ancient Philosophy,” in: Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, pp. 1–45, here p. 17. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, p. 82. Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, 24e. The German word ‘Auffassung,’ rendered as ‘conception’ in the quotation above, might also be translated as ‘outlook,’ ‘way of perceiving’ or ‘view.’

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What does that mean? First and foremost, the imagery of seeing reminds us that the philosophical work envisioned here cannot be merely intellectual. The reflective mind, as Wittgenstein has it, is not made of pure thoughts. In his view, it cannot be separated from the totality of processes that constitute human existence. What we call ‘the mind’ is entangled with how we live, embedded in the complex web of our everyday activities. Far from being a purely cognitive entity hidden inside of us, it emerges in the midst of the perceivable world, as a mundane and embodied phenomenon. “If one sees the behaviour of a living being one sees its mind.”15 This does not mean that body and soul are one and the same thing; it simply means that there is no specific thing to be seen. We discern the mind in the ‘behaviour of a living being’ because it is expressive of a form of life. “The human body is the best picture of the human soul.”16 Given this framework, the ‘worldview’ of a person is most fundamentally determined not by a ‘system of beliefs’ but by the ways he or she relates to the world in speech and action. The realm of the ‘mind’ is broader than the realm of mere thoughts; it is reflected in a web of concrete habits. The ‘behaviour (Verhalten) of a living being’ constitutes this being’s general outlook or most fundamental ‘relation’ (Verhältnis) to the world; and this can be described as the way someone ‘sees’ the world. For human beings, the way we see the world in this loaded sense becomes of course manifest in how we use language and symbols, in the ‘pictures’ we employ to make sense of everything. Our vision of the world or basic ‘world-perspective’ is a complex web of attitudes and habits reflected in our use of language. Wittgenstein’s imagery of seeing implies that a change in ‘how one sees things’ will change everything. This premise can already be discerned in the Tractatus, which famously states: “The world of the happy is quite another than that of the unhappy.”17 One world is different from the other because it is looked at differently—and there is no clear line drawn between ‘seeing something differently’ and ‘seeing something different.’ In Wittgenstein’s later works, this theme is of course explored in connection to aspect-seeing—a discussion that provides a kind of groundwork for the philosophical work on ‘how one sees things.’ What is so peculiar about an aspect is that something can indeed be wholly determined by the way it is seen. A duck-rabbit, e.g., can be a duck or a rabbit, depending on how we look at it. In this way an aspect, or perspective, 15 16 17

Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 357. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophy of Psychology. A Fragment, in: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe et al., ed. by Peter M.S. Hacker / Joachim Schulte, Oxford: Blackwell, 2009 (1953), pp. 183–265, here § 25. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. by David Pears / Brian McGuiness, London: Routledge, 2001 (1921), 6.43.

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constitutes a mode of perceiving, while itself remaining invisible. It is revealed only in the transition from one aspect to another. “I see that it has not changed; and yet I see it differently. I call this experience ‘noticing an aspect.’”18 Against this background, we can make sense of the idea that our whole life can be converted if our vision of the world is transformed. By renewing our general outlook, our world will be remade, and with it our way of being. In fact, this points to what the Investigations want from us. They do not present arguments for theoretical claims but attempt to change our way of seeing, to enable us to shift perspectives. In this sense, Wittgenstein’s philosophical ‘work on oneself’ “leaves everything as it is”19 while at the same time trying to change everything:20 it is directed at renewing our whole being, our personality, by renewing how we relate to things. It is clear from what has been said that philosophical reflection, in this framework, cannot address ‘pure thought’ but must integrate elements of a more complex kind of self-scrutiny, self-exploration and retraining. Reflection naturally takes the form of a transformative practice. Mere theories cannot retrain the mind, and in any case, constructing theories is not the business of philosophy in Wittgenstein. Rather, his work on ‘one’s own conception,’ on ‘how one sees things,’ is aimed at the ability to see. His philosophical practice is indeed ‘therapeutic,’ but it requires participation; as long as we remain mere patients of philosophical treatment our habitual world view will remain the same. We break habits by learning to do things differently. This is why it is no coincidence that Wittgenstein’s philosophy bears a striking resemblance to the age-old practices of ancient philosophy. Like any work on the habits of the mind it consists essentially in spiritual exercises. 2.

Wittgenstein’s Play of Voices: Confronting the Habits of the Mind

We have said that Wittgenstein’s style of writing is essential to his philosophical practice and even expressive of it; it bears the traces of the thought-process itself. To elaborate further on how exactly Wittgenstein’s philosophy of exercises proceeds, it seems reasonable to begin with his style of writing. If we look at the Philosophical Investigations, their dialogic character is certainly a point to start from. It has often been observed that there are different voices at play in 18 19 20

Wittgenstein, Philosophy of Psychology. A Fragment, § 113. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 124. See Gordon  C.F.  Bearn, “Wittgenstein. Spiritual Practices,” in: Journal of Philosophy of Education 53.4 (2019), pp. 701–714, here p. 702.

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this work, at least two, maybe more, communicating with one another in ways not easy to grasp. A philosopher not interested in ‘form’ but only in ‘content’ will tend to regard this play of voices as a fancy means of expressing a philosophical theory, usually interpreting one voice as representing the ignorant person that has to be enlightened, the other as the voice of the teacher, i.e. as Wittgenstein’s voice. On such a reading, the dialogic form of the Investigations is an unnecessarily circuitous way of making theoretical claims that might as well have been stated in a more straightforward way. As soon as the dialogic structure is taken seriously, however, and carefully examined, one becomes aware that the schematic distinction between the two roles of the ignorant and the teacher will distort the text rather than unlock it. There simply are no clear-cut roles of this sort. Not only are the voices in the Investigations too intimately connected; more often than not they are not even clearly separated. Customarily, one voice addresses the other in the German second person singular (‘du’), as if addressing a friend; the tone is mostly cooperative, sympathetic and even caring; and when on occasion one voice seems to become displeased with the other, this too might just underline how close the voices are. Often they are only separated by a dash, one voice starting a sentence, the other finishing it, and at many points the voices become almost indistinguishable and seem to merge.21 Their roles are neither well-defined nor do they belong to distinct persons: therefore it seems appropriate to describe the Wittgensteinian play of voices as an interior dialogue. Certainly, this interior dialogue does not share much with the Platonic ‘dialogue of the soul with itself.’ Philosophical reflection does not proceed as an edifying conversation here. Rather, the different voices represent conflicting forces in an internal struggle. When Cavell identifies the “voice of temptation and the voice of correction” as the “antagonists in Wittgenstein’s dialogues,”22 he only points to the most striking parties in this struggle. The reader of the Investigations witnesses at the same time constant philosophical efforts and permanent resistance of the mind. The odds are that the conflict is irreconcilable. This is the very reason why the form of dialogue is indeed indispensable: if the conflict of voices could be definitely decided and transformed into a unified philosophical position, Wittgenstein might as well speak with one voice. That he does not do this indicates that he is facing tensions that cannot be 21

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For an attempt at clarifying the complex play of voices in Wittgenstein see e.g. David Rudrum, “Hearing Voices: A Dialogical Reading of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations,” in: David Rudrum (ed.), Literature and Philosophy. A Guide to Contemporary Debates, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, pp. 204–218. Cavell, “The Availability of Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy,” p. 71.

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disposed of once and for all. In order to understand Wittgenstein’s practice of philosophical writing or, rather, of ‘writing philosophy,’ one has to ask why this is so. Why is the mind inhabited by different forces tending in different directions? What are the reasons that make the play of conflicting voices inevitable? What kind of conflict is it? Why is one voice at odds with the other? Let us first recall how the different forces inhabiting the mind become noticeable in the Investigations. Typically, one voice is ‘inclined to say’ this and that, it is drawn to certain expressions that are shown to be problematic by another voice. The self seems to be torn between different ways of looking at a matter—e.g., between the idea that a fictitious game of chess, unlike a real one, does not need to have a beginning and the idea that it must have one because “otherwise it would not be a game of chess.”23 There are, in other words, certain perspectives suggesting themselves that one voice is reluctant to give up even though they seem to produce confusion, while the other voice constantly tries to “pass from unobvious nonsense to obvious nonsense.”24 Where does the resistance come from? Obviously, we would not have to ask such questions if we were dealing with a Cartesian mind of pure thought. If the interior dialogue were a strictly intellectual event it would not be conflictladen in the first place. Wittgenstein’s mind is not exclusively dealing with itself anymore: it does not inhabit a lofty ‘space of reason’ where rational control is guaranteed. In this light, the play of voices becomes explicable. The interior dialogue implies voices of ‘temptation’ and of ‘correction’ because habits naturally resist re-education. The self is resistant because it clings to what it is accustomed to. The mind is full of inclinations because old habits die hard. As mentioned above, being engaged in a ‘dialogue with ourselves’ or even a ‘battle with ourselves’ is a hallmark of spiritual exercise according to Hadot. After all, what these exercises want from us is that we become different persons. When the process is all about a metamorphosis of the self, it is hardly surprising that there be some resistance. Working on ourselves seems to demand that we say no to who we are. This explains why Wittgenstein’s dialogues can be read as confessions, as Cavell has emphasised.25 There will be no real selftransformation without the self acknowledging that change is needed; and,

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Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 365. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 464. Stanley Cavell, Philosophical Passages. Wittgenstein, Emerson, Austin, Derrida, Oxford: Blackwell, 1995, pp.  125–186; see also Garry  L.  Hagberg, “Wittgenstein’s Voice. Reading, Self-Understanding, and the Genre of Philosophical Investigations,” in: Poetics Today 28.3 (2007), pp. 499–526.

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conversely, for such acknowledgment to be sincere it has already to imply selftransformation. “A confession has to be part of your new life.”26 That philosophy is demanding just because it requires transforming oneself was a familiar theme to ancient teachers. Time and again they emphasize how hard it is to abandon one’s habits, to get rid of one’s inclinations, to seriously question oneself, to try to become someone different. In antiquity, of course, working on oneself first and foremost implied learning to rationally control oneself. There are two voices only: the voice of passion and the voice of reason. The discursive exercises of listening, reading, writing and speaking ultimately aim at bringing to bear the voice of reason.27 This is why listening was the most basic competence and had to be practiced first in many philosophical schools of antiquity. Most famously, initiates into Pythagoreanism had to remain silent for years in order to train their ability to listen. By exercising reading, which in antiquity meant voiced reading, the students learned to recall the teacher’s voice, even embody this voice, by using the teacher’s words to speak to oneself. In the order of ancient askesis, reading is followed by writing, which is at first typically exercised in response to what someone has seen, heard or read. In this context, Foucault points to the importance of informal notes (hypomnemata).28 Assuming that such notes could later be read, even by others, we see how the philosophising subject gradually develops its own way of speaking, its own voice. At the same time, it learns to look at itself from a certain reflective distance and thereby regulate its disposition. The writing of dialogues is the next step in this process. It was often a mandatory exercise in rhetorical schools, as Marcus Aurelius reports;29 and we may assume that this practice reaches back at least to the pupils of Socrates. Here we have an interplay of different voices, considering a matter from different angles. If we again keep in mind that such dialogues were read—and that all voices were voiced—a complex mimetic practice emerges. It stands to reason that this practice was an important step on the way to philosophical speaking, 26

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Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, p. 18e. In a letter to Norman Malcolm, dated 16.11.1944, Wittgenstein writes: “You can’t think decently if you don’t want to hurt yourself.” See Brian McGuiness (ed.), Wittgenstein in Cambridge. Letters and Documents 1911–1951, Oxford: Blackwell, 2012 (2008), p. 370. For discursive exercises see Michel Foucault, The Hermeneutics of the Subject. Lectures at the Collège de France 1981/82, New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2005 (2001). For an alternative account see Lars Leeten, Redepraxis als Lebenspraxis. Die diskursive Kultur der antiken Ethik, Freiburg: Verlag Karl Alber, 2019, pp. 224–260. See Foucault, “Writing the Self.” Hadot maintains that this interpretation is mistaken; see Philosophy as a Way of Life, p. 209. Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations, vol.  1, trans. and ed. by A.S.L.  Farquharson, Oxford: Clarendon, 1944, I 6.

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which begins with the exercise of speaking to oneself, which in turn prepared a person for dialogues with others. According to ancient testimonies, there were simple forms like the famous repetition of mnemonics (epilegein), more developed exercises of self-praise and self-berating, and finally the advanced ability of conversing with oneself. The latter was held in highest esteem among Greek and Latin philosophers. For Pyrrho, conversing with oneself amounted to “exercising to become valuable” (meletan chrestos einai), and Antisthenes is said to have remarked that the “ability of consorting with oneself” (to dynasthai heauto homilein) is the essential outcome of philosophical studies.30 Writing dialogues and conversing with oneself, then, are essential to the ancient system of exercises, the former preparing for the latter. Wittgenstein’s art of conversing with oneself can be regarded in this light. However, it is not the ‘voice of reason’ he brings to bear. His exercise of speaking with different voices has to be interpreted as a modern version of ancient spiritual practices. 3.

Why Therapy? Retraining the Cartesian Self

We have seen that Wittgenstein’s philosophy can be described as an operation upon our general outlook on the world and, through this process, as transforming ourselves and our whole being. The visual imagery Wittgenstein uses to describe the philosopher’s work underlines this account. The philosophical ‘struggle against the bewitchment of our understanding by the resources of our language’ is a struggle for a renewed worldview. As we have seen, the peculiar style of the Investigations can be interpreted in this light: the struggle for fundamental changes in perspective, for a new way of seeing the world, takes a dialogic form. It is a struggle between different voices that represent different perspectives imposing themselves on us. Wittgenstein’s orchestration of his play of voices reflects the philosophical effort he is engaged in and to which the reader is invited. The style of the Investigations indicates that it can be read as a ‘dialogue with oneself,’ as the written form of what Hadot regards as the paradigmatic form of meditation.31 It is paradigmatic because it reveals that self-transformation demands that we ‘let ourselves be changed,’ as Hadot puts it, that it amounts to a ‘battle with ourselves.’ It requires that we have learnt to speak with different voices and acknowledge that we should become someone else. 30 31

For these and other testimonies of the ancient practice of speaking to oneself see Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, p. 91 and p. 118, n. 94. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, p. 91.

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Before we take a closer look at the Wittgensteinian play of voices, however, we should ask why this retraining of our mental habits is even necessary. How is it that the self is in need of philosophical therapy? What is this therapy good for? “A philosophical problem,” the famous formula says, “has the form: ‘I don’t know my way about.’”32 This indicates that Wittgenstein’s interior dialogues, his struggle toward a new vision of the world, are directed at restoring the sense of orientation. As long as the mind is conflicted, speaking with different voices, it has lost its way and lacks a compass. But what kind of disorientation are we dealing with? On the surface, of course, it is language that bewitches our mind, and linguistic confusion seems to be the primary business of philosophical work. Indeed, language is a double-edged sword in Wittgenstein. On the one hand, it is our chief medium of orientation; without concepts and meanings we could not even begin to navigate the world. At the same time, however, language has a way of seducing and misguiding us; it produces pipe dreams and puzzles. Language guides us through our everyday life, but sometimes it lets us down and “goes on holiday.”33 It is at once the disease and the remedy. Of course, in Wittgenstein’s view, language is not a system of signs and rules that could be made into a scapegoat responsible for our day-to-day confusions. Language is itself a practice entrenched in the ways we live. When we become ‘bewitched’ by language, therefore, we are not controlled by alien forces; rather, there is something in our linguistic form of life that causes trouble. The double-edged character of language concurs with the fact that every way of life has its downsides, every mode of orientation its limits. In most of our everyday affairs our habits will reliably guide us, but there will come a time when they suddenly lead to dead ends. They enable us to ‘find our way about’ in the world in countless cases, until suddenly we get “entangled in our own rules.”34 We sense that we have reached the limits of our worldview, yet still it can ‘hold us captive.’ Philosophy, then, is a quest for reorientation by critically revising our worldview as it is constituted by language. “Language is a labyrinth of paths. You approach from one side and know your way about; you approach the same place from another side and no longer know your way about.”35 The world has not changed, and yet we seem to find ourselves in a completely unknown region. It is the business of philosophy to transform our vision in such a way

32 33 34 35

Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 123. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 38. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 125. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 203.

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that we find our way about again. This is the struggle that Wittgenstein’s philosophical wrestling with the resistant mind reflects. But, once again: why is such a therapy even necessary? Certainly Wittgenstein does not want to offer an intervention into psychological crisis. His philosophical therapy must have a more general meaning. In this respect, we were certainly ill-advised to look at the ancient doctrines of the good life. Here, exercises are means philosophers use to place themselves in the eternal order of the kosmos.36 From a contemporary perspective, however, any such universal cosmic reason seems to be out of reach. Yet it is obvious that a philosophical therapy cannot be designed to cure the individual self, with all of its own flaws. Unlike psychotherapy or coaching, it is concerned with general problems human beings share. The treatment Wittgenstein recommends must have a general meaning because it is designed to treat a general illness. And in fact, our linguistic and non-linguistic habits are entrenched in the social practices modern life is built on. What needs retraining or reorienting are some of the mental habits or ‘pictures’ we have collectively inherited since the 17th century, which guide society as we know it. Among these are, e.g., the idea of a unified, self-transparent mind, the idea of inner representations mirroring the outer world, the duality of body and soul, and certain ideas of autonomy. For the sake of brevity, we might call these ideas ‘Cartesian’ premises. Wittgenstein’s modern spiritual exercises are made for the modern Cartesian mind. The modern mind tends to go astray in certain respects, one of the great sources of confusion being its attempts to make sense of itself along Cartesian lines. This is why philosophical therapy is needed. This therapy, however, does not so much consist in ‘correcting’ Cartesian premises, let alone in developing principles for a new ‘theory of mind.’ Nor should we expect Wittgenstein to provide a systematic account of how language truly works.37 His philosophical exercises are directed at restoring 36

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In this vein, Hadot says about the practice of therapeutic writing: “Writing, like the other spiritual exercises, changes the level of the self, and universalizes it. The miracle of this exercise, carried out in solitude, is that it allows its practitioner to accede to the universality of reason within the confines of space and time.” See Philosophy as a Way of Life, p. 211. Sometimes Wittgenstein seems to say as much, e.g. when he remarks that the “main source of our failure to understand is that we don’t have an overview of the use of our words” (Philosophical Investigations, § 122). If language is at once the problem and the remedy, it might look like we are tasked with systematizing language. However, this is not Wittgenstein’s programme. When, in the preface of the Investigations, he writes that instead of survey-maps he only provides “sketches of landscapes,” (p.  3) this could be a motto for all his later works. The way he introduces the concept of ‘language games,’ e.g., underlines its methodological character: the trouble with “the general concept of

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orientation, not at gaining knowledge. One could even go further and say: a crucial step on the way to clarity is getting rid of the idea that there could be such a thing as a true ‘theory of mind.’ For orienting oneself it does not help to examine the world or understand how things work. Wittgenstein’s work on ‘how one sees things’ revolves around the ability to see because getting a clear vision is the best way of getting clear about oneself. We have to learn to ‘use our eyes.’38 The description of philosophy as a ‘work on oneself’ can be read in this light: to find our way in language and social practice more broadly, we have to educate our sense of orientation. In order to do this, we have to revise the ways we approach the world, the pictures we use to make sense of life. This means that we have to liberate ourselves from the grip of traditional ideas of how the mind works. Wittgenstein’s spiritual exercises, in other words, have an essentially critical function.39 They are engaged in criticizing the premises of Cartesian thought by way of philosophical self-examination. And the idea that philosophical reflection has to take the form of a purely cognitive endeavour is itself Cartesian in nature. Since the early modern age it has been a premise of philosophy, hardly ever questioned, that one of the subject’s most basic skills is to operate with ‘inner ideas.’ Given this premise, which was regarded as integral to the ideas of autonomy and rationality, the subject is directly transparent to itself. A problem of self-reflection therefore does not exist; modern philosophy falls into line with the traditional Platonic idea of a ‘soul conversing with itself.’ From a Wittgensteinian point of view, however, the whole conception self-transparency, of an ‘inner life’ independent of the social world, of ‘ideas’ in the mind’s eye, becomes utterly dubious. Thus the process of self-reflection has to be conceived of differently. It takes place in the midst of human life, searching for ways of reorienting our habits, the deeply entrenched linguistic and non-linguistic practices that form the texture of our world. This is how what once was reflection becomes self-transformation. It is crucial to see that such self-transformation or ‘work on oneself’ amounts to a philosophical critique of the modern self. Wittgenstein’s embodied reflection

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the meaning of a word” is that it “surrounds the working of language with a haze which makes clear vision impossible.” Wittgenstein suggests to instead study primitive languages “in which one can clearly survey the purpose and functioning of the words,” (§ 5) thereby outlining the concept of ‘language games’ as a method of clarifying our ‘vision.’ Wittgenstein, Philosophy of Psychology. A Fragment, § 361: “Ask yourself: How does a man learn to get an ‘eye’ for something? And how can this eye be used?” See Jörg Volbers, “Self-Knowledge as a Technology of the Self: Foucault and Wittgenstein on the Practice of Philosophy,” in: Volker Munz et al. (eds.), Language and World (I). Essays on the Philosophy of Wittgenstein, Frankfurt: Ontos, 2011, pp. 110–121.

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is a working on the mental habits we collectively inherit, directed at the deeply seated habits of the mind entrenched in the language we share, and designed to critically revise these habits. The task now is to elaborate how this philosophical practice proceeds. 4.

Reading the Philosophical Investigations as a Book of Exercises

Above I maintained that Wittgenstein’s exercises of writing leave their marks on his style. My aim in this section is to spell this out in greater detail. For this purpose, I will now take the position of a reader. As mentioned in the introduction, everyone studying Wittgenstein carefully will get involved in his dialogical play of voices. The Investigations bear not only traces of a spiritual exercise, they are also a guidebook to such exercises. This becomes particularly clear in the frequent use of instructions. Anyone who studies the Investigations seriously cannot avoid noticing how often this text asks the reader to do something. The reader is, e.g., directed to imagine things, to compare different cases, to look at something more closely or even to perform certain actions. Here are some examples: “Try this experiment: say the numbers from 1 to 12. Now look at the dial of your watch and read them.”40 Or: “Look at the blue of the sky and say to yourself, ‘How blue the sky is!’” (§ 275). Or: “Look at the stone and imagine it having sensations” (§  284). Such passages can be found throughout the Investigations;41 they reflect the way the self-dialogue Wittgenstein is orchestrating addresses the reader, who is inevitably drawn into the conversation. Wittgenstein’s style not only springs from a ‘work on oneself,’ it also invites the reader to take part in this work. It reflects spiritual exercises we can follow up on. To arrange the material, one might ask for a classification of some kind. Judging from what the reader is directly instructed to do, it seems reasonable to distinguish, roughly, between exercises of imagination, linguistic or discursive exercises, practical exercises, and exercises of self-scrutiny. “Imagine people who could only think aloud” (§ 331) is an example of an instruction to exercise one’s imagination; “Move your arm to and fro with your eyes shut” (§ 624) is a 40 41

Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 161. If one goes through the text, one finds that of the 693 sections of the Investigations well over 200 include instructions of some sort. Many of them are instructions in a literal sense and can be discerned by the usage of the imperative mood. Others operate more indirectly, e.g. by using the second person or demanding the reader to respond to questions or problems. It is clear, therefore, that instructions dominate the basic nature of the book as a whole.

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practical instruction; “Describe the aroma of the coffee!” (§ 610) is an example of linguistic instructions; “Negate something and observe what you are doing” (§ 547) is a direction to self-scrutiny. However, it becomes clear very soon that this approach is not quite sufficient. The division proves to be too artificial, since the different kinds of instruction hardly ever stand alone; they are in fact closely entangled with one another. This is, of course, consistent with the way Wittgenstein pictures the living mind: the non-Cartesian self is a cognitive as well as linguistic, perceptive and embodied being. The training of the mind, then, has to cover all these dimensions. Indeed, the exercises the Investigations point to typically combine different elements. Often, what is required is action and self-reflection combined: “Make such a movement of the hand as if you were guiding someone along, and then ask yourself what the guiding character of this movement consists in” (§ 178). In other cases, the required act is linguistic in nature and comes combined with self-perception: “But now, just read a few sentences in print as you usually do when you are not thinking about the concept of reading, and ask yourself whether you had such experiences of unity, of being influenced, and so on, as you read” (§ 171). Practical instructions are seldomly separated from elements of meditation and perception. Still, it is striking that exercises of imagination by far outweigh the others. Given the overall purpose of revising ‘how one sees things’ this is hardly surprising. “The concept of an aspect is related to the concept of imagination (Vorstellung).”42 One can improve one’s ability to see by training one’s imagination. In fact, the reader of the Investigations is repeatedly asked to follow the author into a fantasy. Formulas like “think of …” (‘denk dir’), “imagine …” (‘stell dir vor’) or “suppose …” (‘nimm an’) are pervasive. The very first sections introduce this type of exercise. Here, Wittgenstein invents several language games that the reader is asked to imagine, the request “Now think of the following use of language” in the opening section (§ 1) being a leitmotiv. While these examples are cases of what one might call ‘guided imagination,’ where the author himself spells out what should be thought, Wittgenstein seems to gradually move on to exercises where the reader has to complete the task for themselves. When, e.g., one voice requests the other to “[i]magine various different cases” of how one directs one’s attention to a colour, a list of cases is given that is clearly meant to be continued (§ 33). Often, imaginary scenes pose questions that remain unanswered: “But suppose that after a time [the chair] disappears again—or seems to disappear. What are we to say now? Have you rules ready for such cases—rules saying whether such a thing is still to be called a ‘chair’?” (§ 80). 42

Wittgenstein, Philosophy of Psychology. A Fragment, § 254.

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Or: “Think of means of expressing negation different from ours: by the pitch of the uttered sentence, for instance. What would a double negation be like here?” (§  554). Sometimes, finally, a request to think of something stands alone: “Imagine people who could think only aloud. (As there are people who can only read aloud)” (§ 331). Naturally, the exercises of imagination in Wittgenstein seem to be most reminiscent of spiritual exercises in antiquity. They fit Hadot’s description of ancient philosophy as a ‘transformation of our vision of the world.’ When e.g., Marcus Aurelius admonishes himself to put human affairs into perspective by applying the famous ‘view from above,’ or to see his food as dead flesh in order to train his eye for the mortal constitution of all things, these exercises are all about changing one’s vision.43 However, it is crucial that Wittgenstein, unlike Marcus, does not intend to place philosophers in an eternal cosmic order. Being a philosophical critique of the modern self, the spiritual exercises in the Investigations guide us to the limits of the worldview we have inherited. This becomes noticeable when the change of perspective is provoked by the reader’s being confronted with unsolvable tasks. “Could one imagine a stone’s having consciousness?” (§ 390). Apparently, this is not quite easy. “But can’t I imagine that people around me are automata, lack consciousness, even though they behave in the same way as usual?” (§ 420). Apparently, the answer is: this is virtually impossible. Wittgenstein’s exercises have a critical function, they push us to the limits of what is imaginable for us, thereby making us aware of where certain lines of thought lead us.44 Experiencing the limits of one’s imagination is a way of turning ‘unobvious nonsense’ into ‘obvious nonsense.’ The critical function of Wittgenstein’s spiritual exercises is at least as evident in other exercises where the more practical or discursive elements take the lead. It can hardly be overstated how peculiar are the activities that readers of the Investigations are asked to engage in. Take the following example: “Say: ‘Yes, this pen is blunt. Oh well, it’ll do.’ First, with thought; then without thought; then just think the thought without the words” (§ 330). A little later the reader is even asked to sing: “Sing this song with expression! And now don’t sing it, but repeat its expression!” (§ 332). If we imagine a diligent reader seriously following such instructions, it becomes apparent that getting involved in 43 44

See Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations, IV 32, XII 24, or VI 13. Marcus also recommends exercises of division (dihairesis), e.g. the division of melodies into single notes, which are supposed to make a person more detached from things, XI 2. One should keep in mind that one of the meanings of the German word ‘Vorstellung,’ which is rendered as ‘imagination’ in the translation of the Investigations, is ‘representation,’ a linchpin of the Cartesian self.

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‘obvious nonsense’ can amount to making a fool of oneself. The same is true for the following passage: “Move your arm to and fro with your eyes shut. And now try, while you do so, to talk yourself into the idea that your arm is staying still and that you are only having certain strange feelings in your muscles and joints!” (§ 624). Funnily enough, liberating oneself from the grip of Cartesian thought has the potential for being hilarious. Wittgenstein’s exercises have a mainly critical function; they make the reader aware of the limits of their habitual perspective on the world. Still, such experience is helpful and can indeed contribute to educating the senses. When there are philosophical ‘propositions’ in Wittgenstein—sentences regularly interpreted as ‘theorems’—then these can best be understood as condensed experience. This is one of the reasons why, for Wittgenstein, “philosophy ought to be written like one writes poetry”:45 it is about articulating what human beings experience. Wittgenstein at times wrote down the same or virtually the same sentences in different manuscripts, which once again underlines how his writing has the character of an exercise. Just as Marcus went through the Stoic dogmata repeatedly, saying them to himself (prolegein), thus gradually internalising them, so Wittgenstein’s philosophical exercises can result in a “marshalling of recollections (Erinnerungen) for a particular purpose” (§ 127). Wittgenstein’s philosophical findings are indeed such ‘recollections’—one might as well translate: ‘admonitions’—that can bring to mind the troubles we experience when we sail along Cartesian lines. 5.

Concluding Remarks: How the Modern Mind Gets to Know Itself

Wittgenstein’s philosophical practice rests on a thorough revision of how the ‘reflective mind’ is traditionally conceived. But, like the mind, reflection too must be a process emerging in the midst of the experienced world. It must be mundane and embodied, and it has to accommodate a variety of forces. Wittgenstein’s peculiar way of doing philosophy, the practice of dialogic writing reflected in his later works, can be regarded as a response to this challenge. This is why his thinking is not simply expressed in his writings but virtually inseparable from his practice of writing: as soon as the peace of the rational mind is disturbed, reflection has to take a more worldly form. The habits of the mind will never be impacted by pure thoughts. This is why exercises are necessary. One might say that the Investigations try to gain a foothold beyond 45

Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, p. 14.

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the Cartesian mind by developing a modern practice of philosophical reflection that does not have to rely on a unified rational self any longer. At the same time, it offers a critique of Cartesian thinking. It might be surprising that such a critique takes the form of self-exploration and even self-transformation. But as I hope to have shown, this approach is entirely consistent with Wittgenstein’s philosophical stance. A thorough study of the Investigations, then, would not just take the form of a conventional reading that could be performed in an armchair, with a book and a pencil. If we took Wittgenstein literally, we would rather have to perform all sorts of actions, like looking at stones or the sky, saying certain words aloud, moving our limbs, intentionally imagining things, trying to gain clarity in our inner life. Of course, we do not know if anyone in fact ever read Wittgenstein in this way. Are there readers who while studying the Investigations count from 1 to 12, whisper to themselves or sing songs? And what about Wittgenstein himself? Did he indeed practice these experiments when he wrote his texts? Of course, we do not know, but I think it is fair to say that this is hard to imagine. There seems to be a tendency not to take this side of Wittgenstein’s writing quite seriously. Apparently we are, e.g., inclined to ignore the instructions in the Investigations or, more precisely, to not take them literally, as if they were mere illustrations of philosophical thoughts. What I wanted to suggest here, however, is a reading of the Investigations that takes their instructional character seriously, even literally. As Wittgenstein’s practice of philosophy is a transformative endeavour it will necessarily imply concrete exercises. This is why we have all the more reason to regard them as essential. They can make us aware that modern philosophy, just like ancient philosophy cannot dispense with exercises of the mind. References Bearn, Gordon  C.F., “Wittgenstein. Spiritual Practices,” in: Journal of Philosophy of Education 53.4 (2019), pp. 701–714. Cavell, Stanley, Philosophical Passages. Wittgenstein, Emerson, Austin, Derrida, Oxford: Blackwell, 1995. Cavell, Stanley, “The Availability of Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy,” in: Must We Mean What We Say? A Book of Essays, Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, 2002 (1969), pp. 44–72. Chase, Michael et al. (eds.), Philosophy as a Way of Life. Ancients and Moderns, London: Blackwell, 2013.

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Davidson, Arnold  I., “Introduction: Pierre Hadot and the Spiritual Phenomenon of Ancient Philosophy,” in: Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, Oxford: Blackwell, 1995, pp. 1–45. Foucault, Michel, “Writing the Self,” in: Arnold Davidson (ed.), Foucault and His Interlocutors, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1997, pp. 234–247. Foucault, Michel, The Hermeneutics of the Subject. Lectures at the Collège de France 1981/82, trans. by Graham Burchell, New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2005 (2001). Hadot, Pierre, “Jeux de langage et philosophie,” in: Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 46.3 (1962), pp. 330–343. Hadot, Pierre, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, trans. by Michal Chase, ed. by Arnold I. Davidson, Oxford: Blackwell, 1995 (1981). Hagberg, Garry L., “Wittgenstein’s Voice. Reading, Self-Understanding, and the Genre of Philosophical Investigations,” in: Poetics Today 28.3 (2007), pp. 499–526. Leeten, Lars, Redepraxis als Lebenspraxis. Die diskursive Kultur der antiken Ethik, Freiburg: Verlag Karl Alber, 2019. Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations, vol. 1, trans. and ed. by A.S.L. Farquharson, Oxford: Clarendon, 1944. McGuiness, Brian (ed.), Wittgenstein in Cambridge. Letters and Documents 1911–1951, Oxford: Blackwell, 2012 (2008). Rudrum, David, “Hearing Voices: A Dialogical Reading of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations,” in: David Rudrum (ed.), Literature and Philosophy. A Guide to Contemporary Debates, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, pp. 204–218. Sharpe, Matthew and Ure, Michael, Philosophy as a Way of Life. History, Dimensions, Directions, London: Bloomsbury, 2021. Volbers, Jörg, “Self-Knowledge as a Technology of the Self: Foucault and Wittgenstein on the Practice of Philosophy,” in: Volker Munz et al. (eds.): Language and World (I). Essays on the Philosophy of Wittgenstein, Frankfurt: Ontos, 2011, pp. 110–121. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Culture and Value, trans. by Peter Winch, ed. by Georg  H. von Wright, Oxford: Blackwell, 1998 (1977). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. by David Pears / Brian McGuiness, London: Routledge, 2001 (1921). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe et al., ed. by Peter M.S. Hacker / Joachim Schulte, Oxford: Blackwell, 2009 (1953). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophy of Psychology. A Fragment, in: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M.  Anscombe et  al., ed. by Peter  M.S. Hacker / Joachim Schulte, Oxford: Blackwell, 2009 (1953).

Resistances of the Will Must be Overcome Wittgenstein on the Difficulty of Philosophy Andrew Norris Abstract In Philosophical Investigations § 133, Wittgenstein distinguishes between the solving of philosophical problems and “the real discovery” that brings the philosopher Ruhe and enables her to stop doing philosophy when she wants. While some have argued that no such discovery is possible, this leaves unclear why Wittgenstein would suggest otherwise. In this chapter, I take him at his word, and argue that the real discovery is the achievement of a kind of autonomy, and that Wittgenstein’s work is written for those who currently lack it. Though Wittgenstein urges us to look and see how language and the world work, he also argues that we cannot see what is in plain view because we do not want to see it. Wittgenstein follows Augustine in rejecting classical intellectualism and embracing a conception of our fundamental difficulty as a perversity of the will whereby we turn away from ourselves and what we most desire.

*** As is well known, Wittgenstein labored for many years over the composition of Part One of Philosophical Investigations.1 He eventually settled upon an arrangement in which a large number of methodological or metaphilosophical remarks are bunched together fairly early on, beginning with § 89 and concluding—and perhaps culminating—with  § 133, where Wittgenstein describes the goal of his philosophy as a Ruhe in which philosophy need not “bring itself into question.”2 Such peace of mind or composure or stillness allows the philosopher to achieve a freedom of the will: “the real discovery [eigentliche Entdeckung] is the one that makes me capable of 1 See Georg H. von Wright, “The Wittgenstein Papers,” in: Wittgenstein, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982 (1969), pp. 35–62; Georg H. von Wright, “The Origin and Composition of the Philosophical Investigations,” in: Wittgenstein, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982 (1979), pp. 101–136; and Maurice O’Connor Drury, “Some Notes on Conversations with Wittgenstein,” in: Rush Rhees (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein: Personal Recollections, Totowa: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981, pp. 90–111, here p. 107. 2 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M.  Anscombe, New York: Macmillan, 2001 (1953) § 133. Further references to the Investigations will be given in the text by section number or, in the case of references to part II, page number. I have sometimes silently modified translations.

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stopping doing philosophy when I want”—not once and for all, as if my stopping were like my hitting the end of a dead-end street, where I simply have to stop, and not because Wittgenstein or anyone else has demonstrated that I ought to stop, but wann ich will.3 (Why and when and how I will, and whether my will responds in any adequate way to the material on which I am working, is left open.) Wittgenstein indicates his own answers concerning different problems at various points throughout the Investigations, beginning with § 1’s blithe “Explanations come to an end somewhere.” It is no coincidence that § 133 is also where we find Wittgenstein’s comparison of philosophy to therapy: “Problems are solved (difficulties eliminated), not a single problem. / There is not a philosophical method, though there are indeed methods, as it were [gleichsam] different therapies.” In contemporary life, philosophy is properly a (quasi-)therapeutic practice that gives the philosopher the capacity to do what she will, about philosophy and all that philosophy involves.4 Philosophy is suited to and designed for those who lack this capacity, whose incompetent (un-fähig), compulsive activity is not truly or properly willed, not their own. Philosophy is thus the pursuit of autonomy, carried out, of necessity, by those who lack it, but also by those who are disposed to go too far in questioning

3 While I think it is important to bring out the connotations of Wittgenstein’s Ruhe, he also speaks of philosophy aiming at Friede, as when in 1944 he writes, “Friede in den Gedanken. Das ist das ersehnte Ziel dessen, der philosophieren.” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, trans. by Peter Winch, ed. by Georg H. von Wright, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980 (1977), p. 43. Here too there is no suggestion that thinking should cease for once and for all— as if what we sought was freedom from thinking rather than freedom in thinking—or for any given meta-philosophical reasons. Compare Zettel: “Some philosophers (or whatever you like to call them) suffer from what may be called ‘loss of problems’ [in English]. Then everything seems quite simple to them, no deep problems seem to exist any more, the world becomes broad and flat and loses all depth, and what they write becomes immeasurably shallow and trivial. Russell and H.G.  Wells suffer from this.” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Zettel, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe, ed. by G.E.M. Anscombe / Georg H. von Wright, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967, § 456. On Zettel’s relevance, see von Wright’s suggestion that “Zettel belongs between the two disconnected members of the chef d’oeuvre of Wittgenstein’s ‘late’ philosophy [the two parts of the Investigations] and thus constitutes the middle part of what could also be thought of as a trilogy.” Georg H. von Wright, “The Origin and Composition of the Philosophical Investigations,” p. 136. 4 For Wittgenstein’s understanding of the historically situated and conditioned nature of his philosophy see Georg H. von Wright, “Wittgenstein in Relation to His Times,” in: Wittgenstein, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982, pp. 201–216; cf. Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, p. 43: “At present we are combatting a trend. But this trend will die out, superseded by others, and then the way we are arguing against it will no longer be understood: people will not see why all this needed saying.”

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their autonomy or the chosen means to it, “bringing philosophy itself into question,” and making it impossible for philosophy to do anything.5 If we take Wittgenstein at his word here, we will conclude that, for him, the fundamental block to philosophical enlightenment in our time is not so much the conceptual complexity of the problems we confront, but us: our desire or need or drive to understand things wrongly, to abandon our actual, ordinary lives and to condemn them in favor of an illusory metaphysical fantasy. The problem is that of our incapacity to do what we will, an incapacity that is not foreign to the will, like a fetter or a locked door, but internal to it. In the following chapter I try to shed light upon Wittgenstein’s understanding of this volitional incapacity. I do by considering § 133 in three different contexts: first, that of the Investigations, in particular the meta-philosophical remarks that lead up to it; second, that of the chapters on Philosophy in the section of that title in the so-called Big Typescript, the source of much of the Investigations’ remarks on this topic; and, third, that of Wittgenstein’s philosophical predecessors and influences, especially St. Augustine, whose Confessions Wittgenstein’s companion O’Drury says he described as “possibly ‘the most serious book ever written.’”6 *** As has been widely noted, Augustine is cited more than any other author in the Investigations, including Frege. In this context it is doubly striking that Wittgenstein’s meta-philosophical remarks, like his book as a whole, begin with a reflection on Augustine. In § 89, Wittgenstein remarks, “it is […] of the essence of our investigation that we do not seek to learn anything new by it. We want to understand something that is already in plain view, [something that] we seem in some sense not to understand.” This is “something that we need to remind ourselves of. (And it is obviously something of which for some reason it is difficult to remind oneself)” (§ 89; cf. § 127). The example Wittgenstein gives of this is not something from the Tractatus, or from the work of Russell or Frege or James, but Augustine’s famous comment on time in the Confessions: “What then is time? Provided that no one asks me, I know. If I want to explain to an inquirer, I do not know.”7 As Wittgenstein notes, this could never be said about 5 A therapist who endlessly ponders how therapy is best conducted will never practice therapy, or remove any difficulty that is not entirely methodological in nature. 6 Drury, “Conversations with Wittgenstein,” p. 105. 7 Augustine, Confessions, trans. by Henry Chadwick, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, XI.xiv.16. Further references to Augustine’s Confessions will be given in the text by chapter and section.

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a question of natural science like “What is the specific gravity of hydrogen?” (Though Wittgenstein does not mention it, in the Confessions Augustine never succeeds in explaining what time is. I take this to be related to Wittgenstein saying that it is in some sense that we do not understand the things we consider in philosophy. The understanding that we might achieve does not produce knowledge or explanations comparable to those produced by the natural sciences.8 Augustine does achieve an understanding of the relation between an eternal, atemporal Creator and a temporal creature, one that is borne out in the practice of his own life.) In his next remark, § 90, Wittgenstein notes that such an investigation is a “grammatical” investigation of “the ‘possibilities’ of phenomena” (as time is the condition of possibility for, say, regret and hope and lunchtime meetings) one that proceeds by calling to mind, as he notes Augustine does of time, the kinds of things we say in day-to-day life about the phenomena under consideration (XI.xxiii.28, cited in  § 436). This turn to language exposes us to various fundamental misunderstandings which Wittgenstein then reviews, misunderstandings that take the general form of subliming the logic of our language (§ 89,  § 94; cf.  § 38). We think that the essence of language and logic and reason and time that we seek is something obscure and hidden, “not something that already lies open to view” (§ 92). Contrary to our expectations, “the aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something—because it is always before one’s eyes)” (§ 129). “Since everything lies open to view, there is nothing to explain, either. For what is hidden, for example, is of no interest to us. One might also give the name ‘philosophy’ to what is present before all new discoveries [neuen Entdeckungen] and inventions” (§ 126). To see what already lies open to view requires abandoning inappropriate ideals of sublime, “crystalline purity”; and this in turn requires a conversion: “One might say: the axis of reference of our examination must be rotated, but about the fixed point of our real need” (§ 108).9 8 “Augustine: ‘When do I measure a length of time?’ Similar to my question, When am I able to play chess.” Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Big Typescript: TS 213, trans. and ed. by C. Grant Luckhardt / Maximilian A.E. Aue, Oxford: Blackwell, 2005, p. 114. 9 Richard Raatzsch observes that Wittgenstein sometimes uses eigentlich as an ironic term of criticism, as when he writes in § 39 of the eigentlich Einfaches name “this” that supposedly undergirds actual names. Richard Raatzsch, “Wittgensteins Philosophieren über das Philosophieren: Die Paragraphen 89 bis 133…” in: Eike von Savigny (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophische Untersuchungen, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1998, pp. 71–96, here p. 77. But there is no evidence of such irony when Wittgenstein writes here of unser eigentliches Bedürfnis, or when he writes in § 133 of the eigentliche Entdeckung we require. Indeed, these “actuals” seem to be directly opposed to that of § 39.

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Most of these familiar remarks from the Investigations have their roots in the section on “Philosophy” in the Big Typescript;10 and the lines from  § 133 with which we began that speak of the “real discovery” that brings Ruhe are found there almost word for word in the chapter entitled—significantly— “Method in Philosophy. The Possibility of Quiet [ruhigen] Progress.”11 The section on Philosophy begins with Chapter 86, “Difficulty of Philosophy not the Intellectual Difficulty of the Sciences, but the Difficulty of a Change of Attitude. Resistances of the Will Must be Overcome.”12 This is an important text for our understanding of the volitional incapacity with which Wittgenstein associates his philosophy in § 133.13 Wittgenstein begins the chapter by writing, “As I have often said, philosophy does not lead me to any renunciation, since I do not abstain from saying anything, but rather abandon a certain combination of words as senseless. In another sense, however, philosophy requires a resignation, but one of feeling and not of intellect.”14 He goes on to compare this nonintellectual resignation or renunciation to the holding back of tears or rage. As resignation and renunciation are apparently equated, so is the resistance of the will a matter of feeling. What makes a subject difficult to understand—if it is significant, important—is not that it would take some special instruction about abstruse things to understand it. Rather, it is the antithesis between understanding the subject and what most people want to see. Because of this the very things that are most obvious can become the most difficult to understand. What has to be overcome is not a difficulty of the understanding, but of the will.15

10 11 12 13

14 15

Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, pp. 306, 308, and 309. Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 316. See as well the reference to the way establishing a rule “calms us [uns beruhigt]” at p. 307. Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 300 (emphasis his). Rupert Read rightly says of interpretations of the Investigations that base themselves upon unpublished material, “the hard question that nachlass-based [sic] interpretations can never answer satisfactorily is why the passage in the nachlass that is allegedly so wonderful and allegedly decisively settles the interpretive issue was not included in PI.” Rupert Read, Wittgenstein’s Liberatory Philosophy, New York: Routledge, 2021, p. 196. I do not see Chapter 86 of the Big Typescript as this sort of silver bullet, nor do I think that significant interpretive debates about the Investigations can be decisively settled with proofs or evidence of any kind. Numerous quotations from Wittgenstein’s writings cited in this chapter suggest that Wittgenstein shared this general view, as I believe does Read. Chapter 86’s discussion is helpful first and foremost for its echoes of features of § 133 that are easily overlooked. Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 300. Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 300 (emphasis his).

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In the next short remark, he makes the oft-cited comment, “work on philosophy is actually closer to working on oneself. On one’s own understanding [Auffassung]. On the way one sees things. (And on what one demands of them.)” (What appear to be problems in theoretical philosophy are problems of practical philosophy, of practice). And in the closing paragraph he distinguishes between the old conception (Auffassung) of philosophy and “our” conception. According to “the (great) western philosophers,” there are two kinds of “intellectual problems” “the essential, great, universals ones, and the nonessential, quasi-accidental problems. We, on the other hand, hold that there is no such thing as a great, essential problem in the scientific sense [im Sinne der Wissenschaft].”16 The repetition of Auffassung here suggests that when one is working on one’s conception of philosophy one is also working on oneself, and (perhaps) vice versa. Such Auffassungen are both functions of deep historical change and deeply personal matters, ones that concern the self and its mode of experience and its reflection on that experience. Wittgenstein is careful to say that in his conception, there is no great, essential problem in the scientific sense, quietly implying that there may well be a great, essential problem of the other sort. How might such a problem be best addressed? By changing oneself or by facing facts? I wrote at the start of this chapter that the peace of which Wittgenstein writes in § 133 is achieved if I can become capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want, and not once and for all, as if my stopping were like my hitting the end of a dead-end street. This may look like a bad misreading. For Wittgenstein writes repeatedly of the “limits of language,” and these may seem to be precisely the kind of objective fact that would correspond to a dead-end street. In the “Lecture of Ethics,” for instance, Wittgenstein writes, I see now that these nonsensical expressions [regarding ethics] were not nonsensical because I had not yet found the correct expressions, but that their nonsensicality was their very essence. For all I wanted to do with them was just to go beyond the world and that is to say beyond significant language. My whole tendency and I believe the tendency of all men who ever tried to write or talk Ethics or Religion was to run against the boundaries of language. This running against the walls of our cage is perfectly absolutely hopeless.17

16 17

Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 301. Ludwig Wittgenstein, “Lecture on Ethics,” in: Ludwig Wittgenstein. Philosophical Occasions, 1912–1951, ed. James  C.  Klagge / Alfred Nordmann, Indianapolis: Hackett, pp. 1993, pp. 36–44, here p. 44; cf. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. and ed. by Charles K. Ogden, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982 (1921), 5.6.

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The boundaries of language here, however, are quite specific, expressing Wittgenstein’s distaste for ethical rationalism as a theory. Friedrich Waismann reports Wittgenstein saying in 1930 of Schlick’s rehearsal of the Socratic distinction (in Plato’s Euthyphro, 10a) between an ethics which bases the good upon the command of God and a (for Schlick) “deeper interpretation” in which God commands the good because it is good, “Ich meine, daß die erste Auffassung die tiefere ist: gut ist, was Gott befiehlt.”18 There is no justification or reason to be given or explored why something is ethically wrong, and hence there is nothing that can be said. However, Waismann also reports Wittgenstein as emphasizing that the appeal to “the walls of our cage” is true for him. Ich habe in meinem Vortrag über Ethik zum Schluß in der ersten Person gesprochen: Ich glaube, daß das etwas ganz Wesentliches ist. Hier läßt sich nichts mehr konstatieren; ich kann nur als Persönlichkeit hervortreten und in der ersten Person sprechen. Für mich hat die Theorie keinen Wert.19

There is no such topical specificity, though, to the invocation of the limits of language in  § 119 of the Investigations: “The results of philosophy are the uncovering of one or another piece of plain nonsense and of bumps that the understanding has got by running [its head] up against the limits of language. These bumps allow us to recognize [erkennen] the value of the discovery.” This is an ambiguous passage: on the one hand, the limits of language seem to be objective things in the world; but, on the other, Wittgenstein takes pains not to speak of them directly (e.g., “Please note that the limits emerge here, under these conditions, and they are marked by the following features […]”) but only indirectly, as the cause of the bumps or Beulen on the understanding. To what do these metaphoric bumps correspond? What injuries do we bear after our attempts to say something we cannot, and why would those injuries be plainer than the limits themselves such that Wittgenstein refers directly to them but only indirectly to the limits? The injuries themselves are not objective ones that others might identify, like a bleeding head or a swollen ankle. They are, as it were, (radically) internal injuries. This is borne out by the fact that one of the references to the limits of language in the Big Typescript is found in Chapter 88, “Whence the Feeling [Gefühl] that our Grammatical Investigations

18 19

Freidrich Waismann, Wittgenstein und der Wiener Kreis, ed. by Brian McGuinness, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967, p. 115. Waismann, Wittgenstein und der Wiener Kreis, p. 117 (emphasis his).

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are Fundamental?”20 Here the emphasis is on what the philosopher feels, what she experiences: Questions of different kinds occupy us. For instance, “What is the specific weight of this body?”, “Will the weather stay nice today?”, “Who will come through the door next?”, etc. But among our questions there are those of a special kind. Here we have a different experience [Erlebnis]. These questions seem to be more fundamental than the others. And now I say: When we have this experience, we have arrived at the limits of language.21

Moreover, the limits of language themselves cannot be identified in the sense that we see the two areas they delimit—this side and that side. They are not, in other words, objects in the world or objective features of the world.22 Nor are they fixed, a priori features of rational thought, as in Kant.23 They are thus not grounds for a proof that might compel acceptance. Instead, they require the active acknowledgment of the one who is tempted to violate them: “we can,” Wittgenstein writes, “only prove that someone has made a mistake if he (really) acknowledges [anerkannt] this expression as the correct expression of his feeling. For only if he acknowledges it as such, is it the correct expression. (Psychoanalysis).”24 (And if he does acknowledge it, there will, as Wittgenstein puts it in Chapter 86 of the Big Typescript, not be any renunciation, since he would not abstain from saying anything, but rather himself freely abandon a certain combination of words as senseless.) As in psychoanalysis, “the liberating word” is the one that the individual concerned acknowledges as such; and without that acknowledgment it has no force. It is in fact not the liberating 20 21

22

23

24

Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 304; § 119 found at p. 312. Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 304. See in this regard § 109. Though the section ends with the famous claim, “Philosophy is the bewitchment of our intelligence by means [durch die Mittel] of our language,” this is proceeded by the claim that philosophical problems are solved “by looking into the workings of our language, and this in such a way as to make us recognize [erkannt] those workings: in despite of an urge to misunderstand them” (emphasis his). The bewitchment of language is only a means by which we block ourselves. The crucial matter is the urge or Trieb to do so. In the Big Typescript, Wittgenstein writes of “a longing for the transcendental” that some feel: “for in believing that that they see the ‘limit of human understanding’ they of course believe they can see beyond it.” Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p.  312; cf. Wittgenstein, Tractatus, 5.61. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. by Paul Guyer / Allen Wood, ed. by Paul Guyer / Allen Wood, Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, 1998 (1781), B 311 and 307; and Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, trans. and ed. by Lewis W. Beck, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1950 (1783), 354 and 360. Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 303 (emphasis his).

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word at all.25 And, as in psychoanalysis, some struggle in vain with their problems. “A talent for philosophy,” we read later in the Big Typescript, “consists in receptiveness, the ability to receive a strong and lasting impression from a grammatical fact.”26 That I might lack this receptiveness in no way implies that my problem could be solved without my acknowledgment. Is this appeal to psychoanalysis consistent with the Investigations? I wrote at the start that Wittgenstein’s philosophy is a kind of (quasi-)therapeutic practice. It has often been said that § 133 does not quite say this, but only compares the two.27 John Wisdom, one of the first to take this question seriously, writes that “the new philosophical technique [is not] merely a therapy. There’s a difference. Philosophers reason for and against their doctrines and in doing so show us not new things but old things anew.” If the difference is the latter point, it is no difference at all: what else does a therapist help one do if not to understand one’s (old) family and life and one’s responses to them anew? If the difference is that philosophers reason, Wisdom’s own concluding remarks set this reasoning in the right light: often, when the reasoning is done we find that besides the latent linguistic sources there are others non-linguistic and much more hidden which subtly co-operate with the features of language to produce philosophies. […]. [I]n consequence, a purely linguistic treatment of philosophical conflicts is often inadequate.28

It is not “often” that a talking cure alone is successful. But this is true of both philosophy and psychotherapy. What is needed in both is a change in how one lives. Talk alone is only that: talk.29 But, even granted this, is this something Wittgenstein thinks his philosophical work can assist or support or become? That Wittgenstein writes in § 133 25 26 27 28 29

Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 302. Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 311. For a fine account of the limitations of the therapeutic model, see Read, Wittgenstein’s Liberatory Philosophy, p. 7 f. John Wisdom, “Philosophy and Psycho-Analysis,” in: Philosophy and Psycho-Analysis, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969, pp. 169–181, here p. 181. Cf. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations § 19: “to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life,” Rush Rhees writes of Wittgenstein’s response to reading Freud: “‘I happened to read something by Freud, and I sat up in surprise. Here was someone who had something to say.’ I think this was soon after 1919. And for the rest of his life Freud was one of the few authors he thought worth reading. He would speak of himself—at the period of these discussions [the early 1940s]—as a disciple of Freud’ and ‘a follower of Freud.’” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief, ed. by Cyril Barrett, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967, p. 41.

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of the eigentliche Entdeckung while denying in § 126 the possibility of neuen Entdeckungen might be taken as evidence that he thought a “real discovery” impossible, and his reference to it is in some sense deeply ironic. But it can also be taken as a version of § 133’s own distinction between the real discovery (in the singular) that brings peace and the solution of discrete problems (in the plural).30 In philosophy we struggle with a variety of different problems, and as we do we discover various things about those problems and the areas of our life in which they arise.31 But the real discovery is the one in which we learn the proper disposition towards philosophy and the lives that evoke it: an autonomous and competent one free from compulsion. (The difficulty I have determining, say, the conditions of real doubt [e.g., § 213 and § 303] is not the same as the difficulty I have achieving a proper disposition towards that question and others like it.) The real discovery is not of a substantive truth, but of a better way.32 (Not a way as in a philosophical method, but a way of being with oneself.) If it were the former, it would be senseless to write, as Wittgenstein does, of stopping doing philosophy when I want. Our dilemma is that we feel caught between two unattractive options: submitting to the objective facts of the matter or acting for no good reason. As  I understand him, Wittgenstein hopes to help us avoid both. To stop when I will is not to stop stubbornly, like a mule, or randomly, like an angry adolescent. If the real discovery I seek will allow me to obey my will, to do what I want, that will and that desire must be worthy of respect, of care. The Investigations as I read them are driven by that respect and care. This focus on individual volition may seem hard to square with the opening lines of § 133: 30 31 32

Cf. Wittgenstein, Philosophische Untersuchungen,  § 133 “Die eigentliche Entdeckung ist die, die mich fähig macht, das Philosophieren abzubrechen, wann ich will. […] Es werden Probleme gelöst (Schwierigkeiten beseitigt), nicht ein Problem.” Cf. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 132: “We want to establish an order in our knowledge of the use of language: an order with a particular end in view, one out of many possible orders; not the order.” It is because he assumes otherwise that Lugg writes of the “real discovery,” “a discovery of this kind is out of the question.” Andrew Lugg, Wittgenstein’s Investigations 1–133: A Guide and Interpretation, New York: Routledge, p. 199. In a book made up of (helpful) readings and interpretations of remarks 1–133 of the Investigations, Lugg does not go on to explain why, if he is right, Wittgenstein does not say what Lugg says, nor, more fundamentally, why Wittgenstein writes of such a discovery at all. Rupert Read, who also dismisses the possibility of “any candidates for ‘the real philosophical discovery’ that Wittgenstein did not repudiate,” likewise emphasizes content, substance, and flesh that might be put on an interpretation’s bones in his discussion of § 133. Read, Wittgenstein’s Liberatory Philosophy, pp. 195–197.

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We don’t want to refine or complete the system of rules for the use of our words in unheard-of ways. For the clarity that we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear.

This certainly sounds like a substantive, objective end quite unrelated to my will or my desires or, really, me altogether. I can take a break whenever I like, but the job is done when the problem has disappeared. But things can disappear in any number of ways. One of these is that it is no longer objectively present: the car has been towed, or blown up, or stolen again; another is that I cease seeing it as a problem, or stop seeing it as a problem in the way that I did.33 Consider in this regard § 524: Don’t take it as a matter of course, but as a remarkable fact, that pictures and fictitious narratives give us pleasure, occupy our minds. (“Don’t take it as a matter of course” means: find it surprising, as you do some things which disturb you. Then the puzzling aspect of the latter will disappear by your accepting this fact as you do the other.)

The puzzling aspect of linguistic representation disappears when we allow ourselves to find it surprising and remarkable. (“Man needs to awaken to wonder—and so perhaps do peoples. Science is a way of putting him to sleep again”).34 That we might wish later to reconsider the remarkable surprise is in no way ruled out. Wittgenstein was deeply sensitive to the complexities of our desire to make our problems disappear. In 1937, he writes, The way to solve the problem of life you see in life is to live in such a way that will make what is problematic disappear. The fact that life is problematic shows that the shape of your life does not fit life’s mould. So, once your life does fit into the mould, what is problematic will disappear.35 33

34 35

Cf. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 304: “We have only rejected the grammar which tries to force itself on us here. The paradox disappears only if we make a radical break with the idea that language always functions in one way, always serves the same purpose.” Cf. Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, p. 5. Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, p.  27. A passage from Wittgenstein’s Notebooks 1914–1916 connects this thought to the resistance to ethical rationalism discussed above and to the question of the status of the world, referred to more obliquely below: “In order to live happily I must be in agreement with the world. And that is what ‘being happy’ means. / I am, then, so to speak, in agreement with that alien will on which I depend. That is to say: I am doing the will of God.’” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Notebooks 1914–1916, Second Edition, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe, ed. by Georg H. von Wright / G.E.M. Anscombe, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979 (1960), p. 75.

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He immediately adds, however, “But don’t we have the feeling that someone who sees no problem in life is blind to something important, even to the most important thing of all?” He concludes with the thought, wholly of a piece with the above acceptance of the remarkable, “[o]r shouldn’t I say rather: a man who lives rightly won’t experience the problem as sorrow, so for him it won’t be a problem, but a joy rather; in other words, for him it will be a bright halo round his life, not a dubious background.”36 The fact that we aim at making our problems wholly disappear, as opposed to making their solutions part of a new Encyclopédie, in no way implies that we are left out, that the method and the goal lie there awaiting and demanding our participation. I take the distinction between the real discovery in the singular and the solution of discrete problems in the plural to be related to a distinction Wittgenstein makes in the foreword to his posthumously published Philosophical Remarks regarding the spirit in which (philosophical) work might be undertaken in our age: This book is written for such as are in sympathy with its spirit. This spirit is different from the one which informs the vast stream of European and American civilization in which all of us stand. That spirit expresses itself in an onwards movement, in building ever larger and more complicated structures; the other in striving after clarity and perspicuity in no matter what structure. The first tries to grasp the world by way of its periphery—in its variety; the second at its center— in its essence. And so the first adds one construction to another, moving on and up, as it were, from one stage [Stufe] to the next, while the other remains where it is and what it tries to grasp is always the same.37

(Compare the Big Typescript: “our answers [to philosophical questions], if they are correct, must be ordinary and trivial. But one must look at them in the proper spirit”).38 Wittgenstein’s evident contempt for the spirit of inquiry that seeks progress is echoed in the Investigation’s epigraph from Nestroy (“Überhaupt hat der Fortschritt das an sich, daß er viel größer ausschaut, als er wirklich ist”) and it evokes Max Weber’s account in “Science as a Vocation” of the nihilistic implications of modern science’s commitment to endless progress. On Weber’s account, it is integral to “the very meaning of scientific work [that] every scientific ‘fulfillment’ gives birth to new ‘questions’ and cries out 36 37

38

Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, p. 27. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Remarks, trans. by Raymond Hargreaves / Roger White, ed. by Rush Rhees, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975 (1964), p. 7. The foreword continues “I would like to say ‘This book is written to the glory of God,’ but nowadays that would be chicanery, that is, it would not be rightly understood.” Wittgenstein, Big Typescript, p. 304.

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to be surpassed and rendered obsolete.”39 The meaning of a contribution is precisely to be forgotten. In contrast, the spirit of Wittgenstein’s works remains where it is, and what it tries to grasp is always the same. What it tries to grasp is peace, Ruhe. But this effort is never completed once and for all. The effort to remember, to recall ourselves to ourselves, is never done once and for all. I have found personally that there is a strong temptation to evade the full force of this characterization of philosophy as a therapeutic practice comparable, as Wittgenstein puts it in § 255, to “the treatment of an illness.” Ironically enough, this temptation speaks to those most inclined to accept this characterization. The temptation is that of assuming that, because one finds such remarks compelling, one is oneself already cured, or perhaps was never ill at all. The appreciation itself is evidence of the fact that one does not need the therapy. Put this baldly, the assumption is plainly wrong. Indeed, given the moralism characteristic of so much ethical philosophy, one might expect the opposite to be the rule. When I read the famous final line of § 116 of the Investigations—“What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use”—I find it almost impossible not to nod knowingly: I am one of us, and as such I already know what metaphysical use and everyday use look like, and how to move confidently from the one to the other. I’m in the know. But this assumes that, as an admirer of Wittgenstein’s later work, I don’t need that later work. I am better thought of as a disciple or prophet, helping the benighted find their way to a goal I have already reached; or as what David Macarthur has described as a “language policeman,” confidently telling other philosophers what they may and may not say.40 It is striking that, after the Tractatus, Wittgenstein never sounds this confident or this arrogant. Instead, he is always found in the midst of a real struggle—a struggle that continued unabated until days before his death, when he wrote the last of the openly exploratory remarks collected in On Certainty.41 “The dogmatism into which we fall so easily in doing philosophy” (§ 131) is not confined to those who demand crystalline purity. It is not only they who need to “look and see” (§ 66).

39 40 41

Max Weber, “Science as a Vocation,” in: The Vocation Lectures, trans. by R. Livingstone, ed. by David Owen / Tracy Strong, Indianapolis: Hackett, 2004 (1904), p. 11. Peter Hacker is of the best example of this kind of “Wittgensteinian.” Lugg takes it as evidence that Wittgenstein saw “the real discovery” as being “out of the question” that he is reported to have said, “In my book I say that I am able to leave off with a problem in philosophy when I want to. But that is quite a lie; I can’t.” Lugg, Wittgenstein’s Investigations 1–133, p. 199. But that is not what Wittgenstein writes in § 133; and, moreover, the fact that a spiritual advance is not achieved completely, once and for all, in no way implies that it is unreal or that the one seeking it is not doing just that.

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*** A central feature of Wittgenstein’s practice is, as we’ve established, coming to see what already lies open to view. The idea that what we most need to see is what is already most obvious is a recurring motif in Western philosophy from Plato to Hegel and Heidegger. In Book IV of the Republic, after defining and locating civic courage, wisdom, and moderation, Socrates and Glaucon are initially stumped as to their initial and primary quarry, justice. Socrates then discovers that it’s been rolling around at our feet from the beginning and we couldn’t see it after all, but were quite ridiculous. As men holding something in their hand sometimes seek what they’re holding, we too didn’t look at it but turned our gaze somewhere far off, which is also perhaps just the reason it escaped our notice.42

The image of looking in the wrong direction and needing to turn one’s gaze anticipates Book VII’s account of true education as philosophical conversion, the turning of the soul from becoming to being, a turning that is compared to the turning of the body and hence the turning of the eyes (518c). In the parable of the cave, this conversion requires compulsion (515c–e): something in us resists living in the light, seeing the world as it is—though perhaps not the same thing that led Socrates and Glaucon to turn away from the truth they held in their hands all along, that justice is “the minding of one’s own business” (433a), the division of labor that makes possible civic live and political rule. On the level of the individual, this principle also makes possible the rule of reason over the appetites. Here enlightenment and discipline are all but correlative concepts. Much of this is, however, only hinted at. In his description of how they missed seeing what was right before them the whole time, Socrates says that they were in a “stupid state,” acting like idiots (432d). There is no internal resistance here, no hint of some (peculiar) reason that it might be difficult for them to recall the first, founding law of the city in speech, “‘One person, one art’” (370b). In keeping with Socratic intellectualism, the problem is one of the understanding, not the will. Indeed, there is no role here for the will at all: the Socratic soul has a tripartite structure, of desire, fighting spirit (thymos), and reason. If a conversion to reality is needed, the conversion is one that turns against the forces of fighting spirit, desire, ignorance, or some combination of the three. Such a conversion could hardly turn against the drive to sublime the

42

Plato, Republic, trans. and ed. by Allan Bloom, New York: Basic Books, 1968, 432c–e.

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logic of our language. The required turn here is towards the sublime heavens, not towards our practices on the earth. As has been widely noted, Augustine marks the end of such classical intellectualism: wrongdoing and spiritual confusion are results of a bad will, not a failed insight.43 Augustine has his own version of the idea that what we most need to see is what is already most obvious. “Where was I,” he asks the Lord in the Confessions, “when I was seeking for you? You were there before me, but I had departed from myself. I could not even find myself, much less you” (V.ii.7). “Your omnipotence is never far from us, even when we are far from you” (II. ii.3; cf. IV.xii.18). “You never go away from us. Yet we have difficulty in returning to you” (VIII.iii.8). “I was seeking for you outside myself, and I failed to find ‘the God of my heart’” (VI.i.1; cf. X.xvi.25). Our fallen state leaves us unable to see what is nearest and most fully present and leaves us alienated from and unknown to ourselves. This is the result of a “perversity of the will” whereby we turn away from the infinite goodness and existence of God the creator towards lesser, changeable goods (and hence less fully existent things) that he has created (VII.xvi.22, VII.xii.18). This movement is a nihilistic one, both in the sense that it chooses the less real (and hence chooses in so far as possible to “will nothingness”) and in the sense that it is itself quite unreal, lying as it does outside the realm of creation.44 For if that movement, that turning away from the Lord God, is undoubtedly sin, surely one cannot say that God is the cause of sin. So that movement is not from God [not created or caused by God]. But then where does it come from? If I told you that I don’t know, you might be disappointed; but that would be the truth. For one cannot know that which is nothing.45 43 44

45

Christoph Horn, Augustinus, München: C.H.  Beck  Verlag, 2014, p.  133; cf. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo, New Edition with an Epilogue, Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 369 f. Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. by Walter Kaufmann / R.J. Hollingdale, New York: Vintage, 1989 (1887), p. 163. For Augustine, as God is omnipotent and perfect, His creation and creatures are without exception themselves good, if imperfect. Hence evil cannot be an existent object of His creation. Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will, trans. by Thomas Williams, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993, p. 69; cf. VI.xii.18 and XII.xi.11. According to Norman Malcolm, “Wittgenstein did once say that he thought he could understand the conception of God, in so far as it is involved in one’s own awareness of one’s own sin and guilt. He added that he could not understand the conception of a Creator.” Norman Malcolm, Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir, London: Oxford University Press, 1958, pp. 70–71. But since sin for Augustine is the turning of the soul from the good of the creator to the lesser goods of his creation, Wittgenstein’s sin must be understood quite differently—if, that is, it can be understood at all, and is not a brute fact, like the good in his discussions with Waismann.

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Evil occurs, and what is near and obvious remains obscure and unseen, because of “the free choice of the will,” a spiritual movement which is both of supreme importance and, at the same time, nothing at all (VII.iii.5). The introduction of the will that marks Augustine’s break with classical rationalism is spurred in large part by his reading of St. Paul.46 Two passages are of particular significance, Romans 7:18–19 (“For I know that in me [that is, in my flesh,] dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. / For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do”) and Galatians 5:17 (“The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit lusteth against the flesh; for these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would”).47 Augustine’s problem is not that he lacks knowledge of an essential virtue, as does Socrates, but that something within him keeps him from acting on the basis of the knowledge he possesses and committing himself to Christ. The issue is an existential one, not a cognitive one. (As Stanley Cavell would put it, Augustine experiences and exemplifies “the human disappointment with human knowledge”).48 After breaking with Manicheanism, Augustine eventually becomes confident that he knows the truth of Christian doctrine. But this knowledge is not enough: I supposed that the reason for my postponing “from day to day” the moment when I would despise worldly ambition and follow you was that I had not seen any certainty by which to direct my course. But the day had now come when I stood naked to myself, and my conscience complained against me, “Where is your tongue? You were saying that, because the truth is uncertain, you do not want to abandon the burden of futility. But look, it is certain now, and the burden still presses on you” (VIII.vii.18).

In Wittgenstein’s words, it is a resistance of the will that needs to be overcome. Resistance, because Augustine cannot wholeheartedly will either the right or the wrong, but is internally divided. “I still thought [with the Manichees] that it is not we who sin but some alien nature which sins in us … I liked to excuse myself and to accuse some unidentifiable power which was with me and yet not I. But the whole was myself and what divided me against myself was my impiety” (V.x.18).

46 47 48

Brown, Augustine of Hippo, p. 144 f. I cite the King James Edition of 1611. Stanley Cavell, The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979, p. 44.

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The one necessary condition, which meant not only going but at once arriving there, was to have the will to go—provided that the will was strong and unqualified, not the turning and twisting first this way, then that, of a will half wounded, struggling with one part rising up and the other part falling down (VIII.viii.19).

And, as in Wittgenstein, to overcome that internal division is to achieve peace, if only for a time.49 The centrality of peace to the Confessions is marked by the fact that the book both opens and closes with its evocation. After four biblical citations, Augustine’s own opening words are, “to praise you is the desire of man, a little piece of your creation. You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you” (I.i.1). And the book closes with Augustine’s hope to understand and hence receive how it is that God, the only true and complete good, is “ever at rest since you yourself are your own rest” (XIII.xxxviii.53). In The City of God, Augustine writes of peace, “nothing is desired with greater longing.” As “it is not possible to find anything better, peace is rightly said to be our ‘Final Good.’”50 This good is one of order and proportion: “the peace of all things lies in the tranquility of order, and order is the disposition of equal and unequal things in such a way as to give to each its proper place.” This is true of the peace of the irrational soul (“the rightly ordered disposition of the appetites”), the peace of rational soul (“the rightly ordered relationship of cognition and action”), and the peace of both the earthly and the heavenly cities.51 Augustine accordingly singles out for discussion sôphrosunê or moderation, “the virtue which bridles the lusts of the flesh and prevents them from securing the consent of the mind and dragging it into every kind of wickedness.”52 In the Republic, this is the cardinal virtue displayed by those whose desires and fighting spirit submit to be ruled by reason (442c–d). The term in general has connotations of self-knowledge and self-control, connotations that are emphasized in Plato’s

49

50 51 52

Augustine is not the only antecedent of this concern with peace. Most obviously, it was the central concern of the Hellenistic philosophers; more surprisingly, it was, as I have noted elsewhere, also a significant concern of Kant’s, who promises that his critique will allow Reason to find Ruhe. Andrew Norris, “Doubt in Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough,” in: Wittgenstein-Studien 6.1 (2015), pp. 1–18, here p. 12 and Immanuel Kant, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, in: Werkausgabe, ed. by Wilhelm Weischedel, 12 vols., Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1974, vol. 7, p. 33. Augustine, The City of God Against the Pagans, trans. by Robert W. Dyson, Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, 2021, p. 933 and p. 932. Augustine, The City of God, p. 938. Augustine, The City of God, p. 920.

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Charmides;53 but, as Socrates suggests in the Republic, one cannot, strictly speaking, be stronger than oneself; hence he concludes that self-control is best understood as the control of a better part of the self over a weaker and worse side.54 The hope is that this control will not be a despotic one imposed by violence, but rather a willing concord of friends. However, in the Republic at least, it is far from clear that this hope can be realized; for, given their natures and their categorical contrast with reason, neither desire nor fighting spirit could acquire more than the level of rationality held by Aristotle’s slave by nature: they could only hope to be just rational enough to accept reason’s dictates, but never rational enough to understand the justification for those commands (and hence able to issue those commands themselves). In line with this, Augustine, again citing Galatians  5:17, argues that sôphrosunê requires the presence of “the Flesh” against which it struggles, and thus cannot be true peace, but only “internal warfare.”55 Augustine cites the same lines in Book X of the Confessions in the course of arguing that, though all want to be happy, some perversely do not want the only true “authentic happy life” available to us, that grounded in and caused by God. It is uncertain […] that all want to be happy since there are those who do not want to find in you their source of joy. That is the sole happy life, but they do not really want it. But perhaps everyone does have a desire for it and yet, because “the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh so that they do not do what they wish,” they relapse into whatever they have the strength to do, and acquiesce in that, because in that for which they lack the strength their will is insufficient to give them strength (X.xxii.33).

We ourselves turn (ourselves) away from the peace that we seek.56 53 54

55 56

Plato, Charmides, trans. by Benjamin Jowett, in: The Collected Dialogues of Plato, ed. by Edith Hamilton / Huntington Cairns, Princeton: Bolligen, 1980 (1961), p. 167. Plato, Republic, 430e–431a and Julia Annas, An Introduction to Plato’s Republic, Oxford: Clarendon, p. 115 f. This is Kant’s solution to the apparent antimony regarding one’s duties to oneself. As in Plato, Kant’s solution is that duties are owed to “the humanity in one’s person.” Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. by Mary Gregor, Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, 1996, 6:417–418. Augustine, The City of God, pp. 920–921. At times this may seem wholly gratuitous, as when the young Augustine steals the pears and then throws them away: “I became evil for no reason. I had no motive for the wickedness except wickedness itself” (II.iv.9). But even here there is a love of wickedness and of the self-assertion it promises that draws the will on. One wills what one loves, what brings delight. But one cannot choose what one loves or what will bring delight. Brown, Augustine of Hippo, pp. 148–149 and p. 375. Hence classical perfectionism (and the Pelagian version thereof) with its ideal of the happy sage slips beyond our reach.

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In a fine piece on this subject, David Egan also notes the deep agreement here between Augustine and Wittgenstein. As he puts it “both [authors] seek rest from their disquiet through an experience of conversion that consists not in a change of beliefs but a shift in aspect. What changes is not the set of propositions they take to be true, but rather their apprehension of the world as a whole.”57 And for both, what is sought is peace.58 Egan, however, does not develop these insights in quite the way that I would. Though he, like myself, builds upon the work of Cavell, Egan does not relate the first point concerning the irrelevance of knowledge acquisition to conversion to Cavell’s distinction between knowledge and acknowledgment, but instead to the discussion of aspect-dawning in Part II of the Investigations.59 This does not allow him to develop his claim that what is at stake in Augustine (and possibly Wittgenstein) is, as Egan puts it, “the world as a whole.” Discrete objects like the duck-rabbit have aspects, while what is at stake in Augustine’s conversion is not a discrete worldly thing, but God. What are the aspects or faces of God? His wrath and His love? In Augustine’s conversion it is His reality that is at stake.60 Wittgenstein’s case is obviously quite different, though it is striking that what is at stake in the Foreword to the Philosophical Remarks is a spirit which tries “to grasp the world,” and the real discovery he seeks is one that will be a moment in all philosophical investigations of our world. More significantly, though Egan notes the relevance of Chapter 86 of the Big Typescript, his focus on aspects and pictures does not allow him to pursue this very far. There is no resistance of the will in one’s initial failure to see the duck-rabbit as a duck.61 It is thus odd when Egan writes, “The captivation by pictures that Wittgenstein speaks of […] has

57 58 59 60

61

David Egan, “Wittgenstein’s Confessions: Reading Philosophical Investigations with St. Augustine,” in: Heythrop Journal LXII (2021), pp. 25–38, here p. 26. Egan, “Wittgenstein’s Confessions,” pp. 31 and 33. On knowledge and acknowledgement in Wittgenstein, see note 11 above. As I have argued elsewhere, Cavell’s acknowledgment is first and foremost addressed to the question of the existence of the world, and not any discrete worldly thing; and Cavell himself notes that this is related to, perhaps even a version of, the reality of God in the life of the believer. Stanley Cavell “The Avoidance of Love: A Reading of King Lear,” in: Must We Mean What We Say?, Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, pp. 246–325, here p. 324; Andrew Norris, “Cavell’s Inheritance of Luther,” in: European Journal of Philosophy (forthcoming); on conversion in Cavell, see the first chapter of Andrew Norris, Becoming Who We Are: Politics and Practical Philosophy in the Work of Stanley Cavell, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. But see note 21, above. When Wittgenstein writes that “a picture held us captive” (§ 115), he does not mean to suggest that it does so on its own, as if we were wholly passive victims of its malevolence.

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an analogue in Augustine’s theological idiom: he calls it sin.”62 There is no sin or anything like it in being held captive wholly against one’s will. But perhaps this emphasis on the role of the will in Wittgenstein is itself misplaced. In a discussion of the role of the will in bodily action towards the end of the Part I of the Investigations, Wittgenstein writes, “One imagines the willing subject here as something without any mass (without any inertia); as a motor which has no inertia in itself to overcome. And so it is only mover, not moved. That is: One can say ‘I will, but my body does not obey me’—but not: ‘My will does not obey me’ (Augustine)” (§ 618). This certainly looks bad for the reading I have presented thus far. It looks as if Wittgenstein has gone out of his way to cite Augustine as someone who held and propagated false views about the will, among them the idea that the will might be in conflict with the self. This would seem to entirely rule out the idea, which I have ascribed to Wittgenstein, that philosophy is in its heart a struggle with the will that aims at peace. However, the passage to which Wittgenstein alludes needs to be read with some care. Wittgenstein’s reference has to be to Book VIII of the Confessions, where Augustine compares cases where the body cannot “obey” the will to cases where the will does not obey itself. The context is one that could not be more important to Augustine, or to Wittgenstein. Augustine has just gone into the garden in Milan where he experiences his agonizing conversion to Christianity, and the discussion to which Wittgenstein alludes is his attempt to explain why he found this conversion so difficult.63 Augustine already knew that he ought to be a Christian, but he could not on his own directly will to act 62 63

Egan, “Wittgenstein’s Confessions,” p. 31. Surprisingly, in a thoughtful discussion of § 618, Duncan Richter does even mention this crucial context. In part because of this, he oversimplifies, I think, VIII.ix.21. On Richter’s reading, though Augustine refers three times to the monstrosity of his inability to do what he wants (wills), he concludes that it is not monstrous at all. It is certainly true that Augustine writes, “Therefore there is no monstrous split between willing and not willing. We are dealing with a morbid condition of the mind which, when it is lifted up by the truth, does not unreservedly rise to it but is weighted down by habit. So there are two wills.” But does it follow from this that the situation is not monstrous? Augustine longs to convert, to turn to God he is convinced is real. But he cannot do this, and he cannot do this because he holds himself back. He is the reason he is unable to realize his own proper end. Though there may be no monstrous split between willing and not willing, a being characterized by such a split is itself a monstrous and unnatural prodigy. That is why Augustine says that it on these terms that we are sinful, and hence unnatural. That said, Richter is surely right that Augustine “does not violate the rule of § 618.” Duncan Richter, “Augustine and Wittgenstein on the Will,” in: John Doody et al. (eds.), Augustine and Wittgenstein, London: Lexington Books, 2018, pp. 169–184, here p. 171.

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on that knowledge. This situation, which Augustine describes as “monstrous” (VIII.ix.21), is quite different from cases where the will commands or fails to command the body. In the garden, in his agony of indecision, Augustine made many physical gestures of the kind men make when they want to achieve something and lack the strength, either because they lack the actual limbs or because their limbs are fettered with chains or weak with sickness or in some way hindered. If I tore my hair, if I struck my forehead, if I intertwined my fingers and clasped my knee. I did that because to do so was my will. But I could have willed this and then not done it if my limbs had not possessed the power to obey (VIII.viii.20).

Augustine’s anguish is expressed directly in his compulsive fidgeting and his anguished striking of his own body. But the body can be restrained or injured, and then such expression is not possible. Is the situation that same with the will? Is Augustine’s inability to convert analogous to a man with a paralyzed or bound or amputated limb? Certainly, the will fails to express itself. But it fails to express itself in Augustine’s becoming a Christian, a spiritual act he is assured is right and in accordance with what is true. So, in a sense, the will did not obey itself (VIII.viii.20). “The mind orders the mind to will. The recipient of the order is itself, yet it does not perform it” (VIII.ix.21). This looks like a failure of autonomy. The view that is being criticized in § 618 is one in which the will “has no inertia in itself to overcome” and is thus “only mover, not moved.” As anyone who has read the Confessions as closely as Wittgenstein would know, this is not Augustine’s view there. Something like this was indeed his view in the earlier text, On the Freedom of the Will. But, by the time of the Confessions, he had come to see things quite differently, and to accord a new role to habit, consuetudo. To adopt a custom or fall into a habit is to construct or generate a will that is at once one’s own and not one’s own. This is always dangerous: “every habit is a fetter adverse even to the mind that is not fed upon deceit” (IX.vvi.32). But it is much more dangerous when the initial volition is impure: “The consequence of a distorted will is passion. By servitude to passion, habit is formed, and habit to which there is not resistance becomes necessity.” This necessity is not external, as with the constraint of one’s limbs, but internal. The new will, which was beginning to be within me a will to serve you freely and enjoy you, God, the only sure source of pleasure, was not yet strong enough to conquer my old will, which had the strength of old habit. So my two wills, one old, the other new, one carnal, the other spiritual, were in conflict with one another, and their discord robbed my soul of all concentration (VIII.v.10).

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Augustine compares the result to a man sleepwalking through his life, unable to fully wake himself to his own life (VIII.v.12). Augustine’s view, then, is not that (as Wittgenstein puts it in § 618), “My will does not obey me,” as if my will were a bodily member or (to vary the metaphor) a servant or employee, but that I am out of harmony with myself, and that within my breast there are multiple wills, all of which are mine, but some of which I experience as foreign and oppressive. (“If there are as many contrary natures as there are wills in someone beset by indecision, there will not be two wills but many” (VIII.ix.23)). It thus no surprise to see that Augustine describes the situation as one in which the soul does not obey itself: In my own case, as I deliberated about serving my Lord God which I had long been disposed to do, the self which willed to serve was identical with the self which was unwilling. It was I. I was neither wholly willing nor wholly unwilling. So  I was in conflict with myself and disassociated from myself (VIII.x.22 and ix.21).

The question of the will’s relationship to the body is categorically distinct from its relationship to itself—a fact that Augustine recognized as well as Wittgenstein did. I conclude then, that Wittgenstein cites Augustine in § 618 not as an example of an error that Wittgenstein identifies, as it initially seemed, but as a predecessor who correctly saw the nonsensicality of a particular misdescription of a very real problem: the recalcitrance of the will. Wittgenstein’s central problem is precisely the same as Augustine’s, and not that of Schlick or Russell and the other rationalists who were so eager to appropriate his work. *** It is a common observation, particularly among readers of Cavell, that the Investigations proposes a counter-conversion to that of the Confessions, a turn to earthly practice and not towards the sublimity of the Lord.64 And this is not where the contrasts end. Augustine famously wishes to become a slave to God, as he sees his own will as hopelessly compromised. “Grant what you command, and command what you will [for] it is by your gift that your command is kept” (X.xxxi.45). In Wittgenstein there is no hint of so radical a turn against the self. 64

E.g., Egan, “Wittgenstein’s Confessions”; Richard Eldridge, Leading a Human Life: Wittgenstein, Intentionality, and Romanticism, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1997, and Steven Affeldt, “Being Lost and Finding Home: Philosophy, Confession, Recollection, and Conversion in Augustine’s Confessions and Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations,” in: Sascha Bru et al. (eds.), Wittgenstein Reading, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013, pp. 5–22.

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But neither is there any suggestion of the robust perfectionism Augustine’s turn to the will cuts off. Though I have argued that Wittgenstein means it when he writes of the real discovery that brings peace, and that this is the single goal that runs through all of his engagement with discrete philosophical problems, I do not think that he thought this discovery could be made once and for all, or even sustained indefinitely in its incompletion.65 Like Augustine, he rejected the Socratic model of the moderate soul. This might seem deeply pessimistic: peace and a sustained, ordered life of integrity is impossible. But it also has another side: the goal for Wittgenstein is not a kind of rule or domination. One may prepare for peace, and attempt to quiet that part of one’s will that resists it, but one cannot impose it, only receive it. If, as Drury reports, Wittgenstein thought that there was a sense in which he was a Christian, perhaps it is this, that his work is pursued in hope.66 References Affeldt, Steven, “Being Lost and Finding Home: Philosophy, Confession, Recollection, and Conversion in Augustine’s Confessions and Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations,” in: Sascha Bru et al. (eds.), Wittgenstein Reading, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013, pp. 5–22. Annas, Julia, An Introduction to Plato’s Republic, Oxford: Clarendon, 1981. Augustine, Confessions, trans. by Henry Chadwick, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will, trans. by Thomas Williams, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993. Augustine, The City of God Against the Pagans, trans. by Robert W. Dyson, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. The Holy Bible: 1611 Edition, Peabody MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2010. Brown, Peter, Augustine of Hippo, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Cavell, Stanley, “The Avoidance of Love: A Reading of King Lear,” in: Must We Mean What We Say?, Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, 1969, pp. 246–325. Cavell, Stanley, The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.

65 66

As Brown notes, what was most distinctive about Augustine’s account of his conversion when it appeared was that it was not the be-all and end-all of his struggle. Brown, Augustine of Hippo, p. 171. Drury, “Conversations with Wittgenstein,” p. 130.

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Drury, Maurice O’Connor, “Some Notes on Conversations with Wittgenstein,” in: Rush Rhees (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein: Personal Recollections, Totowa: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981, pp. 90–111. Egan, David, “Wittgenstein’s Confessions: Reading Philosophical Investigations with St. Augustine,” in: Heythrop Journal LXII (2021), pp. 25–38. Eldridge, Richard, Leading a Human Life: Wittgenstein, Intentionality, and Romanticism, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1997. Horn, Christoph, Augustinus, München: C.H. Beck Verlag, 2014. Kant, Immanuel, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, trans. and ed. by Lewis W. Beck, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1950 (1783). Kant, Immanuel, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, in: Werkausgabe, ed. by Wilhelm Weischedel, 12 vols., Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1974, vol. 7. Kant, Immanuel, The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. by Mary Gregor, Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, 1996 (1797). Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. by Paul Guyer / Allen Wood, ed. by Paul Guyer / Allen Wood, Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, 1998 (1781). Lugg, Andrew, Wittgenstein’s Investigations 1–133: A Guide and Interpretation, New York: Routledge, 2000. Malcolm, Norman, Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir, London: Oxford University Press, 1958. Nietzsche, Friedrich, On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. by Walter Kaufmann / R.J. Hollingdale, New York: Vintage, 1989 (1887). Norris, Andrew, “Doubt in Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough,” in: Wittgenstein-Studien 6.1 (2015), pp. 1–18. Norris, Andrew, Becoming Who We Are: Politics and Practical Philosophy in the Work of Stanley Cavell, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Norris, Andrew, “Cavell’s Inheritance of Luther,” in: European Journal of Philosophy forthcoming. Plato, Republic, trans. and ed. by Allan Bloom, New York: Basic Books, 1968. Plato, Charmides, in: The Collected Dialogues of Plato, trans. by Benjamin Jowett, ed. by Edith Hamilton / Huntington Cairns, Princeton: Bolligen, 1980. Raatzsch, Richard, “Wittgensteins Philosophieren über das Philosophieren: Die Paragraphen  89 bis 133…,” in: Eike von Savigny (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophische Untersuchungen, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1998. Read, Rupert, Wittgenstein’s Liberatory Philosophy, New York: Routledge, 2021. Richter, Duncan, “Augustine and Wittgenstein on the Will,” in: John Doody et al. (eds.), Augustine and Wittgenstein, London: Lexington Books, 2018, pp. 169–184. Von Wright, Georg  H., “The Wittgenstein Papers,” in: Wittgenstein, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982 (1969), pp. 35–62.

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Von Wright, Georg H., “The Origin and Composition of the Philosophical Investigations Papers,” in: Wittgenstein, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982 (1979), pp. 101–136. Von Wright, Georg H, “Wittgenstein in Relation to His Times,” in: Wittgenstein, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982, pp. 201–216. Waismann, Freidrich, Wittgenstein und der Wiener Kreis, ed. by Brian McGuiness, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967. Weber, Max, “Science as a Vocation,” in: The Vocation Lectures, trans. by Rodney Livingstone, ed. by David Owen / Tracy Strong, Indianapolis: Hackett, 2004 (1904). Wisdom, John, “Philosophy and Psycho-Analysis,” in: Philosophy and Psycho-Analysis, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophische Bemerkungen, ed. by Rush Rhees, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1964. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Zettel, trans. by G.E.M.  Anscombe, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief, ed. by Cyril Barrett, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, On Certainty, trans. by Denis Paul / G.E.M. Anscombe, ed. by G.E.M. Anscombe / Georg H. von Wright, New York: Harper, 1969. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Remarks, trans. by Raymond Hargreaves / Roger White, ed. by Rush Rhees, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975 (1964). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Notebooks 1914–1916, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe, ed. by Georg H. von Wright / G.E.M. Anscombe, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979 (1960). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Culture and Value, trans. by Peter Winch, ed. by Georg  H. von Wright, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980 (1977). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. and ed. by Charles  K. Ogden, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982 (1921). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, “Lecture on Ethics,” in: Ludwig Wittgenstein. Philosophical Occasions, 1912–1951, ed. by James  C.  Klagge / Alfred Nordmann, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993, pp. 36–44. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M.  Anscombe, New York: Macmillan, 2001 (1953). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, The Big Typescript: TS 213, trans. and ed. by C. Grant Luckhardt / Maximilian A.E. Aue, Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.

section III Practicing Philosophy in a Wittgensteinian Spirit

“Slab, I shouted, slab!”

Gender Identities, Language, and Possibilities of Limitation and Liberation Anne-Marie Søndergaard Christensen Abstract In this chapter, I focus on the question of whether to consider language a medium of limitation or liberation in discussions of gender identities, aiming to show that this opposition is misleading, but also that it is often difficult to avoid when engaging with issues of gender. I engage with two examples which may help us understand the appeal of the opposition, Maggie Nelson’s novel The Argonauts (2015) and the discussion surrounding the interpretation of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s first major work Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921). After these exercises, I turn to Wittgenstein’s later philosophy to develop three critical points. First, that there is a general misunderstanding involved in the discussion of what language can and cannot do. Second, that we should critically challenge prevailing assumptions about what is involved in attempts to classify identities. Finally, that we should develop our linguistic resources for discussing gender beyond those tied to gender classification.

1.

Porridge, Apples, Gender Identities, Early and Later Wittgenstein1

This chapter is motivated by an interest in the way that contemporary discussions about gender identities often develop into discussions about what we can say—what we can say about ourselves or each other. In these discussions, we seem to struggle to get language to do what we want it to do or think it should be able to do. Or maybe, and this is part of my suggestion, we rather struggle to find out what it is we want to do in language. A telling example of this can be 1 I have presented three earlier versions of this chapter, first at the Danish conference “Identitetspolitik, litteratur & kunstens autonomi” (“Politics of Identity, Literature and the Autonomy of Art”), at the international workshop “Wittgenstein’s Exercises. Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations,” and finally at the Research Unit for Ethics, Legal, and Political Philosophy. I thank the organizers, Adam Paulsen og Leander Gøttcke at University of Southern Denmark; Lucilla Guidi, University of Hildesheim, and Katrine Krause-Jensen, University of Aarhus, for inviting me to give a presentation, and I thank audiences at all these events for constructive comments and discussion. I especially thank Duncan Richter for helpful and insightful comments on why we may come to feel that we have reached the limit of language and Hans Fink for a thorough and thought-provoking reading of an earlier version of my text.

© Brill Fink, 2023 | doi:10.30965/9783846767450_012

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found in the Danish writer Luka Holmegaard’s partly autobiographical work Look. Læsninger (Look. Readings, 2020): Words must open the mind. Normally, I like to find the right expression—my trust in language is great, if there is not a word, there is always a picture, a day may have the texture of porridge or a crispy apple—and yet still this hypocrisy when it comes to myself, that I fumble with it, cannot or will not figure it out, woman, no, man, non-binary, maybe […].2

I return to Holmegaard’s considerations below, but for now the quote is meant to help me pinpoint my current aim, to examine the role of language in questions of gender identities. I will focus on the discussion of whether to consider language a medium of limitation or liberation, and to anticipate my conclusion, my aim is to show that this opposition is misleading. Even though language may be used both to limit and to liberate, it ‘does’ neither one nor the other. Despite this, it is often very difficult to avoid the views that language is tied either to oppression, the limiting of our world, or to liberation, the opening of possibilities, in discussions of gender identities, and part of my aim is to investigate why this is. In the article, I will develop two examples which may help us to understand the appeal of this opposition, Maggie Nelson’s novel The Argonauts (2015) and the discussion surrounding the interpretation of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s first major work Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921). After these exercises, I turn to Wittgenstein’s later philosophy to develop three critical points. First, that there is a general misunderstanding involved in the discussion of what language can and cannot do. Second, that we should critically challenge our presumptions of what is involved in attempts to classify identities—here I draw on a recent example offered by Sophie Grace Chappell. Finally, I argue that we should also develop our linguistic resources for discussing gender beyond those tied to gender classification. 2.

First Exercise: The Argonauts

In this and the next section, I will present what I see as two philosophical exercises in Pierre Hadot’s sense of philosophical explorations that are situated “in the lived experience of the concrete, living, and perceiving subject.”3 Furthermore, I will try to engage in philosophical exercises as “exercises in 2 Luka Holmegaard, Look. Læsninger, Copenhagen: Rosinante, 2020, p. 45 (my translation). 3 Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, trans. by Michal Chase, ed. by Arnold I. Davidson, Oxford: Blackwell, 1995 (1981), p. 273.

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language,” as phrased by Sandra Laugier, and encouraged by Hadot’s idea that philosophical change can be accomplished by an engagement with the everyday because “ordinary language, as in Thoreau and Wittgenstein, is the new space of transformation-conversion demanded by philosophy.”4 In line with Hadot’s view of philosophical exercises, my point in engaging in these two examples is not to develop a comprehensive argument for or against a specific understanding of the role of language in questions of gender identities, but rather to explore the attractions of different, sometimes opposing views of the possibilities offered by language when exploring such questions. The first of these exercises takes as its starting point American author Maggie Nelson’s novel The Argonauts, a work overflowing with reflections on gender. The work is an example of autofiction or perhaps rather “performative biographism,”5 as Nelson clearly draws on biographical material, but also presents it in a distinct literary form, drawing attention to the fact that biographical precision is not her main purpose (if a purpose at all) in her writing of the book. Furthermore, the book is quite unusual in mixing fiction with academic quotes and references, essayistic considerations, and political views, challenging convention of genre on several different parameters. Central in The Argonauts is the protagonist’s relation to her partner going through changes of gender identity, as well as the story of the protagonist’s own identity changes through pregnancy, birth, and motherhood. In general, the work is perhaps best understood as a work about transformations, not from one state to another, but about the transformative process itself. It is continuously highlighted how the changes happening in the lives of the characters does not get their main significance from the need to achieve specific goals, for example changing sex or having a child, rather, the changes are primarily seen as part of the character’s ongoing struggles to create lives that they can actually inhabit. In this way, the book is “not about being part of a club, but about being in a kind of infinite creation, where we all actually are,”6 as Nelson points out in an interview. Central to the book is the exploration of language’s contribution to these transformative processes and the question of whether this contribution is constructive. This theme is introduced at the very beginning of the book through 4 Sandra Laugier, “Pierre Hadot as a Reader of Wittgenstein,” in: Paragraph 34.3 (2011), pp. 322–327, here p. 325. 5 Jon Helt Haader, Performativ biografisme: En hovedstrømning i det senmodernes skandinaviske litteratur, Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2014, p. 9 (my translation). 6 Carsten Andersen, “Køn handler ikke om at være med i en klub,” in Politiken (09.02.2019) (my translation).

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an exchange between the main character and her partner, and I will present their opposing views on the contribution of language in two longer quotations: Before we met, I had spent a lifetime devoted to Wittgenstein’s idea that the inexpressible is contained—inexpressibly!—in the expressed. The idea gets less airtime than his more reverential Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent, but it is, I think, the deeper idea. Its paradox is, quite literally, why I write, or how I feel able to keep writing. For it doesn’t feed or exalt any angst one may feel about the incapacity to express, in words, that which eludes them. It doesn’t punish what can be said for what, by definition, it cannot be. […] Words are good enough.7

The protagonist here highlights a credo according to which everything that can be said can be said, expressed, articulated, as it is, and everything else is not out of reach, because it can be captured—without loss—in what we can say. Wittgenstein presents this inclusive and all-encompassing view of language in a letter that he writes to his friend Paul Engelmann, thanking him for a poem that Engelmann has sent him. Wittgenstein notes that “if only you do not try to utter what is unutterable then nothing gets lost. But the unutterable will be— unutterably—contained in what has been uttered!”8 For the early Wittgenstein, poetry shows us how everything that is, everything that reality is, can be taken in by language, in what is said. Poetry can thus serve an elucidating role similar to that of philosophy (or perhaps rather the other way around, that philosophy serves a role similar to that of poetry because “Philosophie dürfte man eigentlich nur dichten”9). What Nelson finds in Wittgenstein’s remark, and what becomes a guide for her own practice of writing, is the point that there is no ‘something’ that cannot be captured in language, instead language is a medium which, in a very fundamental sense, can accommodate everything. Words really are good enough!10 Or are they? This very point turns out to be a source of conflict between Nelson’s stand-in “I” in the novel and her partner, who has a very different and rather more critical attitude to what happens when we attempt to say 7 8 9

10

Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts, London: Melville House UK, 2015, p. 3. Paul Engelmann, Letters from Ludwig Wittgenstein—With a Memoir, Oxford: Blackwell, 1967, p. 6. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, trans. by Peter Winch, ed. by Georg H. von Wright / Heikki Nyman, Oxford: Blackwell, 1998 (1977), p. 28. The remark is almost impossible to translate into English because of the lack of an English equivalent to the German verb ‘dichten.’ The translation given in Culture and Value is: “really one should write philosophy only as one writes a poem” (p. 28e). Below, I return to the tension between Wittgenstein’s point that everything can be contained in what is said and Nelson’s more specific maxim that words are good enough.

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something about changes and transformations in language. The main character writes: Before long I learned that you had spent a lifetime equally devoted to the conviction that words are not good enough. Not only not good enough, but corrosive to all that is good, all that is real, all that is flow. We argued and argued on this account, full of fewer, not malice. Once we name something, you said, we can never see it this way again. All that is unnamable falls away, gets lost, is murdered. […] I argued […] for plethora, for kaleidoscopic shifting, for excess. I insisted that words did more than nominate. I read aloud to you the opening of Philosophical Investigations. Slab, I shouted, slab!11

We will return to the slab later; it offers, in my eyes, one way to go beyond the discussion about what language can and cannot accommodate. Here, however, the protagonist’s partner insists that words just name, categorize, classify, and that they thereby reduce and distort everything that does not fit into the available categories. In The Argonauts, the discussion continues, and the positions of both parties change with the development of their relation to each other and to the rest of reality. The protagonist’s partner goes so far as to admit that human beings, despite their use of words and their pathological and restrictive naming and classification of everything, may still not be a completely corrupt species. And the attention of the protagonist is drawn to all that does not seem to have a name, but appears in processes, in transformations and changes, outside of categorizations. As a work, The Argonauts thus places itself between the view that words can contain all of reality, and the doubt whether words undermine “all that is good, all that is real, all that is flow.” But the work also shows another aspect of the role of language in relation to gender identities, that the challenges involved in the attempt to say what one needs to say are also often practical challenges. In some situations, the main character cannot find anything constructive to say with the words available to her; for example, she often has a hard time making other people understand and talk about her partner in a way that has any connection to the partner’s process characterizable more or less along the lines of ‘moving away from being lesbian woman to also being man, but mainly just in-between.’ In such situations, the protagonist’s belief that words are good enough is challenged and give way to a series of questions. As she writes, “to this day it remains almost impossible for me to make an airline reservation or negotiate with my human resource department on our behalf without flashes of shame and befuddlement” (p. 8). The shame or befuddlement is not really 11

Nelson, The Argonauts, p. 4.

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Nelson’s own, rather, she is “ashamed for (or simply pissed at) the person who keeps making all the wrong assumption and has to be corrected, but who cannot be corrected because the words are not good enough. How can the words not be good enough?” (p. 8). In this way, The Argonauts traces a development away from the initial dichotomy between the positions that ‘words are good enough’ and that ‘words erode all the good,’ towards a practical question: How is it that words sometimes—in practice, in lived life—are not good enough? I return to this question below, but first I present what I see as another exercise concerned with an opposition between limiting and liberating views of the possibilities of language. 3.

Second Exercise: Metaphysical and Resolute Approaches to the Tractatus

A focal point in Nelson’s exploration of language is, as I said, the thinking of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, and I will follow this line of inspiration by turning to the discussion between two opposing approaches to Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein’s first major philosophical work. Tractatus is a distinctive work in many respects. It presents almost no traditional philosophical argumentation, rather consisting of singular units, numbered by importance. In the preface Wittgenstein claims to be dealing with “the problems of philosophy,”12 and to have found “the final solution of these problems” (p. 5), but he also notes “how little is achieved when these problems are solved” (p. 5). However, the maybe most surprising aspect of the Tractatus is that interpreters still have not achieved any consensus about how the work should be interpreted, which means that there are still at least two distinct, but both widely accepted approaches to the work.13 This aspect is, however, what makes Tractatus useful in the present context, for these two approaches disagree precisely on what can be said in language, and the discussion between them thus offers an opportunity to engage in a second exercise revolving around the question of whether words ‘are good enough.’ The two interpretative approaches to the Tractatus can be understood as disagreeing about how to understand the enigmatic conclusion of that work,

12 13

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. by David F. Pears / Brian F. McGuiness, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961 (1921), p. 3. See e.g. Rupert Read / Matthew  A.  Lavery (eds.), Beyond the Tractatus Wars: The New Wittgenstein Debate, New York: Taylor & Francis Group, 2011.

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also mentioned in The Argonauts: “What we cannot speak about we must consign to silence.”14 Seen in this way, the approaches engage in a discussion about what “we cannot speak about” and what requires silence, especially about whether it makes sense at all to say that there is a “something” to be quiet about. Another way to approach the discussion is to see it as revolving around the question of what Wittgenstein means when he, again at the very end of the Tractatus, says that to understand him is to understand his propositions as elucidations that are “nonsensical” and should be transcended to “see the world aright” (6.54). The driving force in this second exercise is a central idea of the metaphysical approach that the Tractatus presents a theory according to which, what we can say in language is only what pictures facts (widely understood); language is made up by denoting words and depicting sentences. This mean that if one believes that there are insights that are not about facts, then these “insights” cannot be expressed in language. The metaphysical approach thus defends a view related to that of the partner in The Argonauts according to which words cannot express everything, cannot express, for example, “all that is good, all that is real, all that is flow.” The approach is called metaphysical because a central part of this approach is the claim that Wittgenstein is trying to draw attention to a type of “insights” different from insights depicting the world, what may be called metaphysical insights, and that his attempt to express these “insights” results in what can be called “metaphysical” or “substantial” nonsense. Thus, this approach implies a distinction between “ordinary” meaningless sentences, which are simply nonsensical, and a special type of meaningless sentences, which elucidates by “pointing” to something outside of the world and outside language. Metaphysical forms of nonsense are thus unsuccessful attempts to express “true” thoughts through illegitimate, sentence-like, but fundamentally meaningless linguistic constructions, and the metaphysical reading thus presents a form of inexpressibility or ineffability theory. Peter Hacker notes about metaphysical nonsense that “[w]hat one means when one tries to state these insights is perfectly correct, but the endeavor must unavoidably fail. For the ineffable manifests itself, and cannot be said. [Wittgenstein] was indeed, as Ramsey claimed, trying to whistle it.”15 The last line of the quote alludes to 14

15

Wittgenstein, Tractatus, p. 7. Note that in the original German version, Wittgenstein does not include an “it” about which we cannot talk, but simply notes that if there is something we cannot talk about, we will have to keep silent: “Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.” Peter M.S. Hacker, “Was He Trying to Whistle it?,” in: Alice Crary / Rupert Read (eds.), The New Wittgenstein, London: Routledge, 2000, pp. 353–388, here p. 382.

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the anecdote that Wittgenstein’s friend, the mathematician F.P. Ramsey, as an ironic reaction to Tractatus’ conclusion, remarked that “what we can’t say we can’t say, and we can’t whistle it either.”16 In a more recent defense of a metaphysical approach to the Tractatus, Roger M. White presents the Tractatus as being “concerned to specify precisely those features of reality that cannot be put into words and at the same time to bring out why they cannot be put into words.”17 Thus, according to the metaphysical approach, Wittgenstein must resort to metaphysical nonsense to make us aware of the insights that lie outside of language. Language is fundamentally not good enough because there are some insights, perhaps even the most fundamental insights, that language cannot express. The alternative, resolute approach is based on the objection that the metaphysical approach proves itself contradictory by claiming that the Tractatus is trying to alert us to metaphysical ‘insights’ while also showing that these cannot be said. Resolute approaches thus reject “the idea that the Tractatus seeks to convey an ineffable theory or doctrine,” and these approaches instead maintain “that the elucidatory sentences of the Tractatus must ultimately be recognized as simply nonsensical, i.e., as forms of words that neither say nor quasi-say anything.”18 The nonsensical sentences of the Tractatus has a point in offering the reader the possibility of a therapeutic journey, revealing to this reader the paradox involved in the metaphysical approach. In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein is not trying to make us whistle what we cannot say, but nevertheless claim is true; instead, he is trying to bring us to a point where we realize that our attempts to say something that cannot be expressed in language are really just empty gestures, are really nothing at all, and thus to make us give up the idea that we are trying to say a ‘something’ that is ‘outside’ of language. If we accept this rejection of the possibility of ‘metaphysical’ nonsense, it allows us to turn to a different question, namely why we so easily come to believe that there is a ‘something’ ‘outside’ of language. One possible answer is that we often find language restrictive because we ourselves are undecided about or waver in what we want to say, but that we nonetheless still hold on to 16 17

18

See e.g., Cora Diamond, “‘We Can’t Whistle It Either’: Legend and Reality,” in: European Journal of Philosophy 19.3 (2011), pp. 335–356. Roger M. White, “Throwing the Baby Out with the Ladder. On ‘Therapeutic’ Readings of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus,” in: Rupert Read / Matthew A. Lavery (eds.), Beyond the Tractatus Wars: The New Wittgenstein Debate, New York: Taylor & Francis Group, 2011, pp. 22–65, here p. 22. James Conant and Silver Bronzo, “Resolute Readings of the Tractatus,” in: Hans-Johann Glock / John Hyman (eds.), A Companion to Wittgenstein, Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2017, pp. 175–194, here p. 179 and p. 176.

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the idea that there is some insight hidden in our unsettled attempts to talk. Cora Diamond points to this tendency of projecting our own undecidedness onto the possibilities of language. As she writes: We are so convinced that we understand what we are trying to say that we see only the two possibilities: it is sayable, it is not sayable. But Wittgenstein’s aim is to allow us to see that there is no ‘it’ […]. There is not some meaning that you cannot give it; but no meaning, of those without limit which you can give it, will do, and so you see that there is no coherent understanding to be reached of what you wanted to say.19

The idea of ‘the ineffable’ or of meaningless nonsense becomes attractive because we cannot make up our mind about what we want to say, or reconcile ourselves with saying anything in particular. Nothing meaningful and available “will do,” and instead of saying something that is meaningful and clear, we rather stray into illusions of a ‘something,’ that we can only point to, but cannot express. It is our own doubts and undecidedness that raise difficulties for us, not language. For, as Wittgenstein also says in the Tractatus, “all the propositions of our everyday language are, just as they stand, in perfect logically order.”20 Language is fine as it is; it is really good enough. 4.

Changing Focus: What We Can Do in Language

In the two exercises, I examined the opposition between two positions; one position leading to a theory of ineffability, the view that there are insights that we can somehow point to, but that we cannot express in language, and another position showing that language is ‘good enough,’ that it can accommodate everything just as it is. In my view, the two exercises reveal how the first position is fundamentally unstable, because it involves the inconsistency of wanting to say, in fact, trying to say (in some form or other) something about something that it at the same time also holds to be unsayable. In my view, resolute approaches provide a convincing diagnose of why we can get ourselves into this conundrum, of wanting to say something about the unsayable. Furthermore, resolute approaches offer us a superior reading of the Tractatus, one that is better aligned with what Wittgenstein himself says about his way of doing philosophy, and that, like Wittgenstein, addresses language as something 19 20

Cora Diamond, “Throwing Away the Ladder: How to Read the Tractatus,” reprinted in The Realistic Spirit, Cambridge MA: The MIT Press, 1991 (1988), pp. 179–204, here p. 198. Wittgenstein, Tractatus, 5.5563.

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that we do. As Wittgenstein writes: “We picture facts,”21 not language. Looking forward, the resolute reading is also better equipped to account for the continuity of Wittgenstein’s philosophy, establishing a connection between some of Wittgenstein’s early remarks on philosophy as offering elucidations with later remarks on philosophy as offering perspicuous representations and reminders.22 I therefore place myself on the side of the resolute reading by developing the view that the limitations we experience in language are not absolute, but rather points to limitations of our own, uncertainties about what we want to say, for example, or a need to develop language in certain ways. Language can do all that, if only we work to make it so. (Importantly, this is a point about language, not about words, as the question of limitations may look rather different if we focus on isolated words. More on this below). For now, I want to explore a different point. In one specific sense, I think that the discussions about whether language is good enough or not, may lead us to focus on the wrong question of what language can and cannot do, making us miss the vital point that language in itself does nothing. Instead, people do things in language. The philosopher who more than anyone else has tried to change our unfortunate tendency to approach language as something independent of ourselves, and instead turn our attention to language as a dimension of our dealings with the world and each other, is again Wittgenstein, especially in his second major work, Philosophical Investigations (1953). One of the ways in which Wittgenstein works to bring about this shift of perspective is by introducing the ‘slab,’ also mentioned by the protagonist of The Argonauts: Let us imagine a language […] meant to serve for communication between a builder A and an assistant B. A is building with building stones: there are blocks, pillars, slabs and beams. B has to pass him the stones and to do so in the order in which A needs them. For this purpose they make use of a language consisting of the words ‘block,’ ‘pillar,’ ‘slab,’ ‘beam.’ A calls them out; B brings the stone which he has learnt to bring at such-and-such a call.—Conceive of this as a complete primitive language.23

Here, at the opening of the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein is investigating what it takes for us to recognize something as a language, and he does so—among other things—by introducing a language simplified to its basic constituents, but at the same time functioning as a whole, as a language in 21 22 23

Wittgenstein, Tractatus, 2.1 (emphasis added). Cf. Tractatus  4.112 and 6.54 and Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M.  Ascombe et  al., ed. by Peter  M.S.  Hacker / Joachim Schulte, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009 (1953), § 122 and § 127. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 2.

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which we can actually imagine ourselves participate. Wittgenstein calls such a primitive language, “the whole, consisting of language and the activities into which it is woven” (§ 7), a language-game. Furthermore, Wittgenstein constructs A and B’s language-game so that it appears as if the words here are used simply and exclusively to denote and have no other role than to refer to things outside themselves: blocks, pillars, slabs, and beams. But in fact, this is not an adequate description of the use of the word ‘slab’ in the language-game; here, ‘slab’ does not just work as an arrow pointing to a slab. When A shouts ‘slab,’ A does not just refer to a thing, as this use of words is connected to the specific practice of building and to specific expectations to B—all of this goes into B’s understanding of ‘slab.’ For A and B’s language-game to function as language, their use of words must be an integrated part of their actions and fill a role in the joint activity of building, and in order to participate in the language-game, children of A and B’s tribe must be “brought up to perform these actions, to use these words as they do, and to react in this way to the words of others” (§ 6). They must be introduced to what Wittgenstein also calls a practice (§ 7). If we want to understand language, we have to go beyond a model consisting of denoting words and depicting sentences and describe how language figures in human life, seeing how “the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life” (§ 23). We can then begin to see how language include specific activities, which are entangled with specific practices and integrated into specific life-forms, shaped by our common and individual goals, purposes and ideals, and ultimately embedded in and framed by the common human way of life. Importantly, this means that language itself ‘does’ nothing; instead, we do things in language. This is a recurring insight in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, and it may help us overcome the tempting, but in my view misunderstood, questions of whether language can or cannot do one thing or another, and of whether language is itself either limiting or liberating. If we return to the quote by Luka Holmegaard, presented at the beginning of this chapter, it exemplifies this precisely: That the limitations we may experience when trying to talk about gender identities, do not come from language, but rather have other sources, in this case, Holmegaard’s uncertainties about what Holmegaard wants to say.24 The quote opens with Holmegaard’s confidence in language and joy of finding the right expression, but it comes to a standstill with Holmegaard’s problems of talking about Holmegaard’s 24

Holmegaard now identifies as non-binary (see Iben Katrine Alminde, “Nonbinær forfatter: Andre steder i sproget har vi jo heller ikke kun to gensidigt udelukkende kategorier,” in: Information (12.03.2020)). In Danish, Holmegaard uses the gender-neutral pronoun ‘hen’ instead of the male ‘han’ or the female ‘hun,’ but as this is not a possibility in English, I will refer to Holmegaard by name only.

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own transformation and identity, writing “cannot or will not figure it out, woman, no, man, non-binary, maybe.”25 The concluding “maybe” could be sign of a temptation to go further and say that there is something here that language cannot quite capture, maybe even something that is outside language, but Holmegaard avoids this temptation, and instead acknowledges that the problems arise due to Holmegaard’s own refusal to settle on what to say. The silence, the ineffability, is Holmegaard’s own. The silence can, however, in turn be explored and dissolved in the language, something which Holmegaard later also comes to acknowledge: “I talk to my friend about it, about what word we can use, they26 say: I like queer because it means ‘none of your business.’ For once, I can like a broad collective term.”27 Once Holmegaard is freed from the idea of being forced to choose between categories—between woman, man, non-binary—it becomes clear that it is something different Holmegaard wants to say, namely something rather like “stay out of it!” The problems with language stem from Holmegaard’s initial failure to realize that the question about a suitable pronoun is not Holmegaard’s own, and that Holmegaard does not want to answer this question. What Holmegaard does want, and what the book goes on to explore, is the possibility to live through and figure out Holmegaard’s own process of transformation, freed from the pressure of having to fit into existing gender categories. As I see it, the quote by Holmegaard exemplifies the general point that once we have overcome our initial experience of an inability to say something specific, the experience of ineffability, we might say, we can return to language and examine what it is we want to say, for example, in Holmegaard’s case, that we do not want to say anything about our identity, but rather just ‘stay out of it!’28 This means that we should turn our focus away from the question of whether ‘language’ is helping us or not, whether it is limiting or liberating. The central questions concerning gender identities and language are different and concern what we want to use language for, for example whether we want to use it to limit or liberate, and whether we want to develop our language in a way that enable us—all of us—to figure out what we want to say.

25 26 27 28

Holmegaard, Look, p. 45. Holmegaard’s friend prefers the pronouns they/them/their. Holmegaard, Look, p. 45. Here, I should note a point, brought to my attention by Duncan Richter, that in some cases the experience of not being able to put something in words can be real in the sense that a person can feel that the right response to this experience is to keep silent. In this sense, we can experience something that we do not dare or want to attempt to capture in words, and where what we really want to say is that we are speechless. However, this is not an experience of some limit of language, but an attitude that we can have.

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Revisiting Questions of Limitation and Liberation, Words and Language

Even if we now move beyond the initial opposition between limiting and liberating views of language, we still face the question raised by the main character of The Argonauts: How is it that she (and that we all) sometimes experience that words or language are not good enough in practice? How is it that we can experience words and language as limiting when booking airline tickets, communicating with HR departments etc. The question is important because it is part of what fuels the (in my view mistaken) discussion about whether language is liberating or limiting, and we are now in a better position to answer it. My suggestion is that these difficulties arise in situations where at least some language users cannot find the necessary resources among the resources available in language to be able to say something that they themselves find would be adequate, precise, sufficient, relevant or at least just good enough. Or, if we look at these situations not from the perspective of the individual, but from that of the language community, then the difficulties arise in situations where we have not managed to establish the resources of language that will allow all people to get through a conversation with an airline company or their own HR department without language running out. In line with Wittgenstein, I earlier emphasized how language is an embedded part of our practices, that is, language is one element of our dealings with the world and each other, and as such, we can develop language as these dealings change. This also mean that it is a real possibility that someone may find themselves in situations where they feel unable to find the right language to voice their experiences because we have (collectively) failed to develop or have not as of yet developed language sufficiently in the relevant area. A well-known example of this is the difference made by the introduction of the word ‘sexual harassment.’ Before feminist began using the word ‘sexual harassment’ it was extremely difficult for women to understand and talk about the experiences involved in certain kinds of unwelcome sexual attention, because, as Alice Crary phrases it, “far from having been previously taken to amount to harassment, [unwelcome sexual attention] were generally seen as at best innocuous and at worst distasteful.”29 Importantly, it was not an introduction of an isolated word, the term ‘sexual harassment,’ that made the difference. The term ‘sexual harassment’ only came to be useful because it was introduced together with the development of practices of describing and identifying sexual harassment and later with the introduction of social and legal sanctions—and much 29

Alice Crary, Beyond Moral Judgment, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2007, p. 166.

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later with the language of MeToo. All in all, this change of language enabled women to make sense of experiences that had until then been hard for them to describe. What is important, is that women’s initial problems of voicing the character of some of their experiences of unwelcome sexual attention was not due to any general limitation of language but was due to our initial insufficient development of it. To put the point in a nutshell: If we experience our means of expression as limiting, only language can rescue us. These limitations can only be remedied by developing language, and here we return to the asymmetry between words and language. Words alone cannot help us in these situations, for two reasons. The first reason is that words only come to have a determinate meaning as used in the wider context of language. There is a line of thought going through Gottlob Frege’s introduction of the context principle, the central role this principle comes to play in the Tractatus and the way it is radicalized in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, which shows us that meaningful uses of language, not just words, is what is required for us to establish meaning. The term ‘sexual harassment’ only came to be useful because it came with a wider development of language and our practices. Or to put the same point differently, even if the word ‘slab’ in the language-game of A and B does much more than just denote, it does so in virtue of the role it plays in that language-game, not because of some intrinsic feature of the word. This alone should suffice to explain why it is better to think of language, not words, as good enough, but there is a second reason why we should broaden our focus from singular words to practices of language, and why the central claim promoted here is that language (not words) is good enough. Words come to have significance by being (more or less) determinate. They signify something and leave out something else. In this sense, it is a common experience that a particular word will not accommodate our attempt to assign it with a new significance if this significance is too remote or too unrelated to our previous uses of that word. However, these difficulties with particular words can be solved by turning to other words and other regions of language. This does not mean that we cannot creatively extend and change the significance of singular words, we can and do creative change and expand the use of specific words all the time.30 However, to put my point bluntly, while there are limits to what we can do with specific words, there are no limits to what we can do in language. 30

For a general discussion of this based on Wittgenstein’s later view of language, see e.g., Stephen Mulhall, “Ethics in the Light of Wittgenstein,’ in: Philosophical Papers 31.3 (2002), pp. 293–21. For a discussion of this point in relation to the question of gender identities, see e.g., Sophie Grace Chappell, “Gatekeepers, Engineers, and Welcomers,” in: Jonathan

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Gender Identities, Classifications, and Adoptive Parents

I suggest that if we, with Wittgenstein, see language as “an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses,”31 this can help us embrace the fact that we, the language users, can build and rebuild language, and that we constantly do so, changing the layout of language and establishing new neighborhoods in order for it to continue to provide us with a relevant and fulfilling place to inhabit. In relation to the discussion of gender identities, I think this is the essential question: How do we develop language so that everyone can do and say what they need to do and say? How do we develop our language so that it offers everyone a place to live? In the attempt to develop language adequately in order to talk about gender identities, there are, of course, traditional obstacles such as prejudices, conformity, fear, laziness, lack of imagination, etc., all of which has to be identified and challenged. However, in this case, I think we face an additional barrier in the form of the assumption that classifications of genders work in a specific way, that there are some things we can and cannot do with existing classifications. Of course, when we talk about gender identities, we talk about what we are and what we can be, and such questions of identities are often explored by using classifications. A person is a baker, a politician, an academic. A leftist, a right-wing, an anarchist. An introvert or an extrovert. A man, a woman, a nonbinary, a trans-person etc. Classifications are useful, also in relation to gender identities. However, to explore why we may face limitations when we try to use classification in relation to gender identities, I want to turn to an enlightening discussion presented by British philosopher Sophie-Grace Chappell.32 Chappell writes from her own experience as a trans-woman and explores how attempts to classify gender raises special challenges in the case of transpeople. Not because classification is irrelevant. For a trans-woman, the category “woman” is obviously important. To be a trans-woman is precisely to want to fall within the category of woman, but also—precisely by virtue of

31 32

Beale / Richard Rowland (eds.), Wittgenstein and Contemporary Moral Philosophy, London: Routledge, forthcoming. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 18. Interestingly, Chappell’s main advice for anyone wanting to support children and other trying to work out their gender identity is very similar to the point raised by Holmegaard, as Chappel points out, “what adults can and should do for transgender kids, indeed for all kids: allow them to find out what they are for themselves. Not indoctrination, but supportive noninterference,” see Sophie-Grace Chappell and Holly Lawford-Smith, “Transgender: a dialogue,” https://aeon.co/essays/transgender-identities-a-conversation-between-twophilosophers (accessed 28.06.2021).

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that desire—to be reminded that as a trans-woman, one does not always easily fall into this category, because if one did, there would be no need to the ‘trans’ prefix. Still, Chappell argues that we get into trouble because we forget that gender classifications are resources that we ourselves develop in the use of language, and that we are free to extend in certain ways, and she presents an analogy to show this point. Chappell suggests that we compare the relationship between being a transwoman and being a woman with the relationship between being an adoptive parent and being a parent.33 One point of this comparison is that we should act with the same common courtesy and respect for transgender people that we usually display in our interactions with adoptive parents, which is unfortunately not always the case in debates about gender today. As Cappell notes: If you’re an adoptive parent, you’re a parent—for most purposes—and no one sensible scratches their head over that, or decrees that you can’t sit on school parents’ councils, or sees it as somehow dangerous or threatening or undermining of ‘real parents’ or dishonest or deceptive or delusional or a symptom of mental illness or a piece of embarrassing and pathetic public make-believe. On the contrary, people just accept you as a parent, and value your commitment to parenthood as an important contribution to the well-being of our society that you could not have made if you didn’t have the psychological set-up that you do.34

In many circumstances, there is no reason to raise the question of whether a parent is an adoptive parent or not (even if there may of course be important exceptions such as medical cases), and, importantly, in these circumstances, we do not raise this question; for example, at meetings in parent councils, people do not demand to be informed whether a parent is an adoptive parent or a biological parent. Moreover, if we were to deny that an adoptive was in fact, a parent, this would be, in Chappell’s words, “importantly false: there is a perfectly good sense in which an adoptive parent most certainly is a real parent” (ibid.). So, as long as there are no special reasons to think otherwise an adoptive parent is simply a parent. We should take the same to go for transgender people, Chappell suggests, which means that as long as there are no special reasons to think otherwise a transgender woman is simply a woman.

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I acknowledge that adoption raises a series of moral problems; the focus here is, however, different. Sophie-Grace Chappell, “Trans Women / Men and Adoptive Parents: An Analogy,” https:// blog.apaonline.org/2018/07/20/trans-women-men-and-adoptive-parents-an-analogy/ (accessed 02.09.2020).

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Chappell’s analogy is also revealing if we turn to the question of classification. We do not find it reasonable to insist that the classification of a parent is settled exclusively by one frame of reference such as that of biology. Of course, we have systems of classifications that are settled in this way, such as the classification as a mammal, but the classification as parent refer to many factors, one of which is biology, but others include certain forms of commitment, history and actions such as engaging in the process of adoption etc. That is why it is not possible with reference to biology to claim that adoptive parent is not a ‘real’ parent. The same consideration applies to classifications of gender, they also refer to many factors, one of which is biology, but others include certain forms of commitment, history and actions such as legal and medical sex changes etc. If we accept that this is an adequate description of the framework of classification of gender, we will have to abandon the idea that we have a right to demand a validation of the classification of other people’s gender identities with reference to a specific frame of reference such as that of biology. In more general terms we should work to give up the ideas that forms of classification are always fixed by some external and exclusive frame of reference—that is, give up the idea that terms of classification are always established in the same way—and instead pay closer attention to the many different ways we actually establish and use different types of classification. In addition, I also want to suggest that discussions of gender identities would benefit if we stop focusing exclusively on issues of classification and instead turn our attention to the development of new forms of descriptions of gender identities. Fiction may help us find ways forward here, as shown by Nelson and Holmegaard’s nuanced descriptions of the complex and unfinished processes of exploring and coming to live with a gender identity. And philosophy may help us here, for example the work of philosopher Cora Diamond, showing that are many forms of descriptions beyond that of classification. One can describe gender in many ways, by using metaphors or analogies like Chappell, by developing ways of speaking that are gender neutral, or by developing new models of understanding. Such developments of our resources of descriptions are ways to develop language such that it allows us to say and do what we need to say and do. However, these developments need to be an integrated part of a process of developing new practices and ways of living, because, as Diamond phrases it, “mastering a concept […] is not just a matter of knowing how to arrange things under that concept; it is to be able to participate in life-withthis-concept. What types of descriptive concepts exist is a question of the different forms that life-with-this-concept can take.”35 To develop new forms of 35

Cora Diamond, “Losing Your Concepts,” in: Ethics 98.2 (1988b), pp. 255–277, here p. 266.

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description, is also to develop new ways of living—as we have always done anyway. The point is that language does not in itself lead to objectification and colonization or threatens to undermine “all that is good, all that is real, all that is flow,” as the partner in The Argonauts claim. Instead, it is our own understanding of what we want to do with classifications and descriptions in relation to gender identities as well as our confusions and hesitations about this issue that may limit us. Speaking about transformations, including transformations of gender identities, does not take us to ‘the limits of language,’ instead, it raises questions about what we want to be able to do in language. Do we want to stick to existing practices, even if they make it difficult for some people to do something as simple as book airline tickets? Or do we try to develop language in such a way that we can all say and do what we need to say and do? There is, of course, limits to what we can do individually. We are each responsible for the ways we talk about gender and for the way we react to others’ ways of talking as well as for exploring the creative potential of language in this area. However, wider changes of language are not something that we can bring about as individuals; such changes are collective and political processes, often happening behind our backs. Still, such processes may be promoted and brought to light if we engage in the conversation about how we want to be able to talk about gender. In this sense, the question of whether language is limiting or liberating in relation to gender issues is our question. References Alminde, Iben Katrine, “Nonbinær forfatter: Andre steder i sproget har vi jo heller ikke kun to gensidigt udelukkende kategorier,” in: Information (12.03.2020). Andersen, Carsten, “Køn handler ikke om at være med i en klub,” in: Politiken (09.02.2019). Chappell, Sophie-Grace, “Trans Women / Men and Adoptive Parents: An Analogy,” https://blog.apaonline.org/2018/07/20/trans-women-men-and-adoptive-parentsan-analogy/, 2018 (accessed 02.09.2020). Chappell, Sophie-Grace, “Gatekeepers, Engineers, and Welcomers,” in: Jonathan Beale / Richard Rowland (eds.), Wittgenstein and Contemporary Moral Philosophy, London: Routledge, forthcoming. Chappell, Sophie-Grace and Holly Lawford-Smith, “Transgender: a Dialogue,” https:// aeon.co/essays/transgender-identities-a-conversation-between-two-philosophers (accessed 28.06.2021).

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Conant, James and Silver Bronzo, “Resolute Readings of the Tractatus,” in: Hans-Johann Glock / John Hyman (eds.), A Companion to Wittgenstein, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2017, pp. 175–194. Crary, Alice, Beyond Moral Judgment, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2007. Diamond, Cora, “Throwing Away the Ladder: How to Read the Tractatus,” reprinted in The Realistic Spirit, Cambridge MA: The MIT Press, 1991 (1988), pp. 179–204. Diamond, Cora, “Losing Your Concepts,” in: Ethics 98.2 (1988), pp. 255–277. Diamond, Cora, “‘We Can’t Whistle It Either’: Legend and Reality,” in: European Journal of Philosophy 19.3 (2011), pp. 335–356. Engelmann, Paul, Letters from Ludwig Wittgenstein—With a Memoir, Oxford: Blackwell, 1967. Haarder, Jon Helt, Performativ biografisme: En hovedstrømning i det senmodernes skandinaviske litteratur, Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2014. Hadot, Pierre, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, trans. by Michal Chase, ed. by Arnold I. Davidson, Oxford: Blackwell, 1995 (1981). Hacker, Peter M.S., “Was He Trying to Whistle it?,” in: Alice Crary / Rupert Read (eds.), The New Wittgenstein, London: Routledge 2000, pp. 353–388. Holmegaard, Luka, Look. Læsninger, Copenhagen: Rosinante, 2020. Laugier, Sandra, “Pierre Hadot as a Reader of Wittgenstein,” in: Paragraph 34.3 (2011), pp. 322–327. Mulhall, Stephen, “Ethics in the Light of Wittgenstein,” in: Philosophical Papers 31.3 (2002), pp. 293–321. Nelson, Maggie, The Argonauts, London: Melville House UK, 2015. Read, Rupert / Matthew  A.  Lavery (eds.), Beyond the Tractatus Wars: The New Witt­ genstein Debate, New York: Taylor & Francis Group, 2011. White, Roger M, “Throwing the Baby Out with the Ladder. On ‘Therapeutic’ Readings of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus,” in: Rupert Read / Matthew A. Lavery (eds.), Beyond the Tractatus Wars: The New Wittgenstein Debate, New York: Taylor & Francis Group 2011, pp. 22–65. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. by David F. Pears / Brian F. McGuiness, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961 (1921). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Culture and Value, trans. by Peter. Winch, ed. by Georg  H. von Wright / Heikki Nyman, Oxford: Blackwell, 1998 (1977). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M. Ascombe et al., ed. by Peter M.S. Hacker / Joachim Schulte, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009 (1953).

Að hugsa á íslensku og útlensku Thinking in Icelandic and Foreign Tongues Auf Isländisch und in Fremdsprachen denken Logi Gunnarsson Abstract This chapter is part of an introduction to a book I will write in three different languages: Icelandic, English and German. The writing of the book will be a performative experiment. In a sense, one never knows the outcome of a book until one has finished writing it. However, the writing of this book will be an experiment in a stronger sense: By writing it in three languages, I want to surrender to the languages to find out what happens. The outcome is not simply unknown because I do not know where my pursuit of truth will lead me. It is unknown because I do not know what happens if I give up control in this way. This experiment is performative: In letting the languages lead me, I am also doing something. And nobody can do it for me. In this chapter, I discuss the reasons for undertaking such a performative experiment.

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I 1. Hvers vegna er þessi bók skrifuð á íslensku, þýsku og ensku? Þessari spurningu vil ég svara hér á eftir. (Athugasemd um eftirfarandi texta í safnritinu Wittgensteinian Exercises: Ég er að vinna að bók sem skrifuð verður á þessum þremur tungumálum. Textinn sem hér birtist sem grein í þessu safnriti er uppkast að fyrri hluta inngangs þessarar bókar.) 1. This introduction answers the question why I have chosen to write this book in Icelandic, German and English. (A remark on the following text in the volume Wittgensteinian Exercises: I am working on a book that will be written in these three languages. The text published here as a contribution to this volume is a draft of the first part of the introduction to the book.) 1. Warum habe ich dieses Buch auf Isländisch, Deutsch und Englisch geschrieben? Diese Frage wird im Folgenden beantwortet. (Anmerkung zum folgenden Text im Sammelband Wittgensteinian Exercises: Ich arbeite zurzeit an einem Buch, das in diesen drei Sprachen verfasst werden wird. Der vorliegende Beitrag zu diesem Band ist ein Entwurf des ersten Teils der Einführung zum geplanten Buch.)

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2. Í grein sinni „Að hugsa á íslenzku“ skrifar Þorsteinn Gylfason: Í fæstum orðum virðist mér eina vonin til þess að Íslendingur geti hugsað og skrifað yfirleitt vera sú að hann geti hugsað og skrifað á íslenzku. („Að hugsa á íslenzku“, bls. 39.) […] lítil von [er] til að Íslendingur, sem getur ekki hugsað og skrifað á móðurmálinu, geti nokkurn tíma tamið sér að hugsa og skrifa á útlendu máli svo að mynd sé á. (Sama rit, bls. 42.)

Ritgerð Þorsteins var birt 1973. Ég las hana ekki fyrr en 2018. Fyrstu viðbrögð mín voru að Þorsteinn hefði rétt fyrir sér. Hann fjallar hér um alla hugsun, en einnig sem heimspekingur sérstaklega um heimspekilega hugsun. Ég sannfærðist strax að þetta væru algild sannindi um heimspekileg skrif og hugsun: Maður verður að geta hugsað og skrifað á móðurmálinu til að geta hugsað og skrifað yfirleitt. 2. In his paper “Að hugsa á íslenzku” (Thinking in Icelandic), the Icelandic philosopher Þorsteinn Gylfason writes: Put briefly, it seems to me that an Icelander may only hope to be able to think and write at all if he can think and write in Icelandic. (“Að hugsa á íslenzku,” p. 39.) […] [T]here is not much hope that an Icelander who cannot think and write in his mother tongue will ever acquire the ability to think and write decently in a foreign tongue. (Ibid., p. 42.)

Gylfason’s article was first published in 1973. I first read it in 2018. My first reaction was that Gylfason is right. He is talking about the ability to think as such. As a philosopher, he is particularly concerned with philosophical thinking. I became immediately convinced that Gylfason’s claims were true of all philosophical writing and thought: One cannot think and write at all, unless one can think and write in one’s mother tongue. 2. Der isländische Philosoph Þorsteinn Gylfason schreibt im Aufsatz „Að hugsa á íslenzku“ (Auf Isländisch denken): Ich bin kurz gesagt der Meinung, dass ein Isländer nur dann hoffen darf, überhaupt denken und schreiben zu können, wenn er auf Isländisch denken und schreiben kann. („Að hugsa á íslenzku“, S. 39.) […] [E]s besteht wenig Hoffnung, dass ein Isländer, der auf der Muttersprache weder denken noch schreiben kann, sich jemals die Fertigkeit aneignen wird, in einer Fremdsprache ordentlich zu denken und schreiben. (Ibid., S. 42.)

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Gylfasons Aufsatz ist ursprünglich 1973 erschienen. Ich habe ihn 2018 zum ersten Mal gelesen. Meine erste Reaktion war, dass Gylfason schlicht Recht hat. Sein Thema ist zwar das Denken im Allgemeinen, aber als Philosoph hat er insbesondere philosophisches Denken im Blick. Ich war gleich überzeugt, dass dies allgemein für philosophisches Schreiben und Denken gilt: Um überhaupt denken und schreiben zu können, muss man es in der Muttersprache können.

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3. En ég varð líka órólegur og hugsi við lesturinn. Árið 2018 hafði ég ekki skrifað á íslensku um heimspeki í fimmtán ár. Ég er Íslendingur sem hefur of lengi ekki hugsað og skrifað á íslensku. Ég get það ekki lengur. Ég hef glatað tungumálinu. Ef Þorsteinn hefur rétt fyrir sér, get ég því ekki hugsað og skrifað „yfirleitt“ eða „svo að mynd sé á“. Þessi algildu sannindi varða mig og af þeim verður að draga þá ályktun að ég geti ekki hugsað og skrifað. 3. I also became uneasy and pensive. In 2018, it had been fifteen years since I wrote about philosophy in Icelandic. I am an Icelander and I have not thought and wrote in Icelandic for much too long. I am no longer able to do it. I have lost my language. If Gylfason is right, I can therefore not think and write “at all”—or at least not “decently.” The universal truth applies to me and it forces me to conclude that I cannot think or write. 3. Die Lektüre hat mich aber auch beunruhigt und nachdenklich gestimmt. Im Jahr 2018 hatte ich bereits seit fünfzehn Jahren nicht mehr auf Isländisch philosophiert. Ich bin ein Isländer, der zu lange nicht auf Isländisch gedacht und geschrieben hat. Ich kann es nicht mehr. Ich habe die Sprache verloren. Deswegen kann ich „überhaupt“ nicht denken oder schreiben (oder mindestens nicht „ordentlich“), wenn Gylfason Recht hat. Die allgemeingültige Wahrheit, die er formuliert, betrifft mich. Es folgt daraus, dass ich weder denken noch schreiben kann.

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4. En ég var auðvitað ekki alveg tilbúinn til að fallast á þetta. Kannski get ég hugsað og skrifað „svo að mynd sé á“! Ef svo er, hver er ástæðan? Eru þetta ekki algild sannindi? Eða get ég þrátt fyrir allt hugsað á íslensku? Ég ákvað að spyrja mig fyrst hvort Þorsteinn hefði rétt fyrir sér: Verður Íslendingur að geta skrifað og hugsað á íslensku til að geta hugsað og skrifað yfirleitt eða svo að mynd sé á? 4. Of course, I was not quite prepared to draw this conclusion. Perhaps I am able to think and write “decently”! If so, why is that so? Is this not a universal truth after all? Or am I perhaps able to think in Icelandic? I decided to start by asking whether Gylfason is right: Does an Icelander have to be able to think and write in Icelandic, to be able to think and write “decently” or “at all”? 4. Aber ich war natürlich nicht ganz bereit, diese Schlussfolgerung zu ziehen. Vielleicht kann ich doch „ordentlich“ denken und schreiben! Wenn ich es kann, warum ist es so? Ist Gylfasons Behauptung doch nicht allgemeingültig? Oder kann ich trotz ihrer Allgemeingültigkeit auf Isländisch denken? Ich beschloss, zunächst danach zu fragen, ob Gylfason Recht hat: Muss ein Isländer auf Isländisch schreiben und denken können, um „ordentlich“ oder „überhaupt“ denken und schreiben zu können? (Bemerkung zur genderrelevanten Sprachverwendung: Um auf Menschen unabhängig von ihrem Geschlecht zu verweisen, verwende ich das generische Maskulinum. Beispielsweise fallen unter den Terminus „Isländer“ Menschen jedes Genders.)

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5. Hér á eftir mun ég glíma við þessa spurningu. Ég leyfi mér að kalla hana „Íslendingaspurninguna“. Með umfjöllun minni um Íslendingaspurninguna vonast ég til að geta skýrt að hluta til hvers vegna þessi bók er skrifuð á ís­lensku, þýsku og ensku. 5. This question will be one of my topics. Let me call it the “Icelander question.” By answering the Icelander question, I hope to be able to explain in part why this book is written in Icelandic, German and English. 5. Im Folgenden werde ich mich mit dieser Frage befassen, die ich die „Isländerfrage“ nenne. Dadurch hoffe ich, teilweise erklären zu können, warum dieses Buch auf Isländisch, Deutsch und Englisch verfasst wurde.

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6. En ég verð einnig að snúa mér að öðru efni til að geta skýrt þetta. Ég hef í áratugi verið að predika í samtölum við aðra heimspekinga hversu mikilvægt það væri fyrir heimspekinga að hugsa og skrifa um heimspeki ekki einungis á ensku. Tungumál opna fyrir manni veruleikann. Til að geta skilið veruleikann er ekki nóg að beita einungis einu tungumáli. Það þarf mörg ólík tungumál til að koma orðum að hinum ýmsu hliðum veruleikans. 6. In order to explain it, I must also address another issue. For decades, I have been preaching to other philosophers how important it is to think and write about philosophy (also) in languages other than English. Language reveals reality. Reality cannot be grasped by means of one language only. To put the various aspects of reality in words, many different languages are necessary. 6. Um dies erklären zu können, muss ich mich aber auch einem anderen Thema zuwenden. Seit Jahrzehnten predige ich in Gesprächen mit anderen Philosophen, wie wichtig es ist, nicht nur auf Englisch zu philosophieren. Sprachen erschließen die Wirklichkeit. Eine Sprache reicht nicht, um die Wirklichkeit verständlich zu machen. Es sind mehrere Sprachen nötig, um die verschiedenen Aspekte der Realität in Worte zu fassen.

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7. Árið 2018 byrjaði ég að efast um þessar eigin predikanir. Er þetta ekki bara kjaftæði sem mér hafði þótt töff að halda fram? Heimspekileg sannindi eru algild sannindi. Hvers vegna skyldi þurfa fleiri en eitt tungumál til að tjá þessi sannindi? Voru ekki gríska í fornöld og latína á miðöldum nóg til að koma orðum að algildum heimspekilegum sannindum? Það má taka þessar spurningar sjálfar sem dæmi til að sýna fram á að eitt tungumál er nóg. Þetta eru heimspekilegar spurningar sem má orða á hvaða tungumáli sem er. Hvert er rétta svarið við þessum spurningum er óháð því á hvaða máli þær eru orðaðar. Það er eitt algilt og satt svar við þeim og það nægir að hafa eitt tungumál til að orða það. 7. In 2018, I started having doubts about my own preachings. Were they not just something I liked to say to look cool and unconventional? After all, philosophical truths have universal validity. Why should there be more than one language necessary to express these truths? Did Ancient Greek not adequately express universal truths? Or Latin as the only scholarly language in Europe for many centuries? One can even use these questions themselves to demonstrate that one language suffices. The questions can be phrased in any language. And it does not depend on the language which answer to them is correct. There is one universally true answer to these questions and there is no need for more than one language to formulate this truth. 7. Im Jahr 2018 begannen die Zweifel an den eigenen Predigten. Waren sie nicht bloß eitles Geschwätz, mit dem ich mich als jemanden darstellen wollte, der dem Mainstream widerspricht? Philosophische Wahrheiten sind allgemeingültige Wahrheiten. Warum sollte mehr als eine Sprache für den Ausdruck dieser Wahrheiten nötig sein? Wurden in der Antike im Altgriechischen und im Mittelalter auf Lateinisch nicht universalgültige Wahrheiten erfasst? Diese zwei Fragen zeigen sogar selbst, dass eine Sprache ausreichend ist. Es sind philosophische Fragen, die sich in jeder Sprache formulieren lassen. Welche Antworten richtig sind, ist davon unabhängig, auf welcher Sprache die Fragen in Worte gefasst werden. Es gibt jeweils eine wahre und universalgültige Antwort und für die Formulierung wird nur eine Sprache gebraucht.

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8. Hér á eftir mun ég ræða hvort mínar fyrri predikanir eða þessar nýlegu efasemdir eigi við betri rök að styðjast. Nánar tiltekið mun ég glíma við eftir­ farandi fjölbreytnisspurningu: Er heimspekilega mikilvægt að skrifað sé um heimspeki á ólíkum tungumálum? Ég vonast til að geta skýrt hvers vegna þessi bók er skrifuð á íslensku, þýsku og ensku með því að ræða hvernig svara beri Íslendingaspurningunni og fjölbreytnisspurningunni. (Önnur athugasemd um þessa grein í safnritinu Wittgensteinian Exercises: Þar eð eftirfarandi texti sem birtist í þessu safnriti er uppkast að fyrri hluta inngangs þessarar bókar, verður hér einungis síðari spurningunni svarað.) 8. In the following, I discuss whether my earlier preachings or my more recent doubts are correct. More precisely, I shall be engaging with the following plurality question: Is it of philosophical significance that people write about philosophy in different languages? By answering the Icelander question and the plurality question, I hope to be able to explain why this book is written in Icelandic, English and German. (An additional remark on this text as a contribution to the volume Wittgensteinian Exercises: As already mentioned, the text published in this volume is a draft of the first part of the introduction to my book. Therefore, in the following I will only address the plurality question.) 8. Im Folgenden wird erörtert, ob diese neuen Zweifel oder schließlich doch meine früheren Predigten richtig sind. Insbesondere wird es um diese Plurali­ tätsfrage gehen: Ist es von großer philosophischer Bedeutung, dass auf unterschiedlichen Sprachen in Schrift philosophiert wird? Mit der Beantwortung der Isländerfrage und der Pluralitätsfrage will ich erklären, warum dieses Buch auf Isländisch, Deutsch und Englisch verfasst wird. (Weitere Anmerkung zu diesem Beitrag zum Sammelband Wittgensteinian Exercises: Da der vorliegende Text in diesem Sammelband ein Einwurf des ersten Teils der Einleitung zum Buch ist, wird im Folgenden nur die letztere Frage beantwortet.)

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II 9. Ég sný mér fyrst að fjölbreytnisspurningunni. Í heimspeki hefur verið skrifað mikið um þýðingar, túlkun og skilning. Er alltaf hægt að orða allar hugsanir á fleiri en einu tungumáli eða breytist hugsunin eftir því hvaða mál er notað? Ég byrja á að fjalla aðeins um þessa spurningu og tengd efni. 9. I start with the plurality question. In philosophy, much has been written about translation, interpretation and understanding. Can all thoughts be expressed in different languages or do thoughts change with the language used? I begin by addressing this question and related topics. 9. Ich wende mich zuerst der Pluralitätsfrage zu. Viel ist in Philosophie über Übersetzung, Interpretation und Verstehen geschrieben worden. Kann jeder Gedanke in mehr als einer Sprache in Worte gefasst werden oder ändern sich Gedanken je nach Sprache? Ich beginne mit der Diskussion dieser Frage und verwandter Themen.

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10. Þorsteinn Gylfason ræðir á tveimur stöðum um vandann að þýða The Problems of Philosophy eftir Bertrand Russell yfir á íslensku. („Að hugsa“, bls. 46; „Ný orð handa gömlu tungumáli“, bls. 74.) Russell gerir á ensku greinarmun á „knowledge by description“ og „knowledge by acquaintance“. Russell segir sjálfur að þessi greinarmunur sé „nokkurn veginn“ sá á milli „savoir“ og „conn­ aître“ á frönsku og „wissen“ og „kennen“ á þýsku. (The Problems of Philosophy, bls. 44.) Þorsteinn bendir á að enska sögnin „know“ samsvari þremur íslenskum sögnum („vita“, „þekkja“ og „kunna“) og þremur þýskum („wissen“, „kennen“ og „können“), þó að ekki sé „nákvæm samsvörun“ milli íslensku og þýsku sagnanna. („Ný orð“, bls. 74.) 10. Þorsteinn Gylfason discusses in two places the difficulties of translating Bertrand Russell’s The Problems of Philosophy into Icelandic. (“Að hugsa,” p. 46; “Ný orð handa gömlu tungumáli,” p.  74 (“New Words for an Old Language,” pp.  27–28).) Russell distinguishes between “knowledge by description” and “knowledge by acquaintance.” Russell himself says that this distinction is “roughly” the one between “savoir” and “connaître” in French and “wissen” and “kennen” in German. (The Problems of Philosophy, p. 44.) Gylfason points out that the English verb “know” corresponds to three verbs in Icelandic (“vita,” “þekkja” and “kunna”) and three German ones (“wissen,” “kennen” and “können”), though there are differences between the Icelandic and German verbs. (“Ný orð,” p. 74 (“New Words,” p. 27).) 10. Gylfason beschreibt, welche Schwierigkeiten damit verbunden sind, Bertrand Russells The Problems of Philosophy ins Isländische zu übersetzen. („Að hugsa“, S. 46; „Ný orð handa gömlu tungumáli“, S. 74 („New Words for an Old Language“, S. 27–28).) Russell unterscheidet auf Englisch zwischen „knowledge by description“ und „knowledge by acquaintance“. Russell selbst schreibt, diese Unterscheidung sei „ungefähr“ dieselbe wie die zwischen „savoir“ und „connaître“ auf Französisch und „wissen“ und „kennen“ auf Deutsch. (The Problems of Philosophy, S. 44.) Gylfason macht darauf aufmerksam, dass das englische Verb „know“ drei isländischen Verben („vita“, „þekkja“ und „kunna“) und drei deutschen („wissen“, „kennen“ und „können“) entspreche, obwohl keine „genaue Entsprechung“ zwischen den isländischen und deutschen Verben bestehen würde. („Ný orð“, S. 74 („New Words“, S. 27).)

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11. Hvernig ætti að þýða Russell á íslensku? Þorsteinn ræðir um tvo möguleika. Annars vegar mætti búa til nýyrði fyrir ensku orðin, t.d. „kynnisvitneskja“ eða „kynnisvit“ sem þýðingar á „knowledge by acquaintance“ og „lýsivitneskja“ eða „lýsivit“ fyrir „knowledge by description“. Þorsteinn sjálfur telur greinilega annan kost betri, að nota íslensku sagnirnar þrjár fyrir „know“ eftir því sem er viðeigandi í hvert sinn. („Að hugsa“, bls. 46; „Ný orð“, bls. 74.) Þegar Þorsteinn skrifaði um þetta árið 1973 stefndi hann að því sem ritstjóri Lærdómsrita bók­ menntafélagsins að birta The Problems of Philosophy á íslensku í þessum bóka­ flokki. Í samræmi við síðari kostinn vildi Þorsteinn að „allur miðhluti“ bókar Russells yrði „alls ekki þýddur á íslenzku, heldur einungis umskrifaður og endursaminn handa íslenzkum lesendum“. („Að hugsa“, bls. 46; sjá „Inngangur“, bls. 17.) En það virðist ekki hafa orðið úr því að bók Russells hafi verið birt á íslensku. 11. How can The Problems of Philosophy be translated into Icelandic? Gylfason discusses two possibilities. One option would be to “coin Icelandic neologisms” for the English words, for example “kynnisvitneskja” or “kynnisvit” as translations of “knowledge by acquaintance” and “lýsivitneskja” or “lýsivit” for “knowledge by description.” Gylfason himself favors another possibility, namely to alternate between the three existing Icelandic verbs corresponding to “know” depending on which one fits best in a given case. (“Að hugsa,” p. 46; “Ný orð,” p. 74 (“New Words,” pp. 27–28).) When Gylfason first wrote about this issue in 1973 he was the editor of the book series Lærdómsrit bókmenntafélagsins and was planning to publish The Problems of Philosophy in Icelandic in this series. In accordance with the second option, Gylfason’s plan was that “the entire middle part” of Russell’s book would “not be translated at all into Icelandic, but simply rewritten and recomposed for Icelandic readers.” (“Að hugsa,” p. 46; see “Inngangur,” p. 17.) It seems, however, that Russell’s book never appeared in Icelandic. 11. Wie sollte man Russell ins Isländische übersetzen? Gylfason wirft zwei Möglichkeiten auf. Einerseits könnte man isländische Neologismen prägen, beispielsweise „kynnisvitneskja“ oder „kynnisvit“ als Übersetzungen von „knowledge by acquaintance“ und „lýsivitneskja“ oder „lýsivit“ für „knowledge by description“. Gylfason zieht eine andere Option vor, nämlich je nach Kontext jeweils eine der drei isländischen Verben für „know“ zu verwenden. („Að hugsa“, S. 46; „Ný orð“, S. 74 („New Words“, S. 27–28).) Als Gylfason dies 1973 schrieb, hatte er noch vor, The Problems of Philosophy auf Isländisch in der Schriftenreihe Lærdómsrit bókmenntafélagsins zu veröffentlichen, deren

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Herausgeber er damals war. Entsprechend der zweiten Möglichkeit wollte Gylfason, dass „der ganze mittlere Teil“ von Russells Buch „ins Isländische gar nicht übersetzt werden würde, sondern für isländische Leser nur umgeschrieben und neu verfasst“. („Að hugsa“, S. 46; siehe „Inngangur“, S. 17.) Offenbar wurde Russells Werk aber nie auf Isländisch publiziert.

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12. Áður en lengra er haldið er rétt að benda á að Þorsteinn talar hér um þrjár íslenskar sagnir. Í nýyrðunum sem hann stingur upp á notar Þorsteinn nafn­ orðin „vit“ og „vitneskja“ sem þýðingar á „knowledge“. Ef nafnorðin „þekking“ og „kunnátta“ samsvara sögnunum „þekkja“ og „kunna“, mætti spyrja hvort sögninni „vita“ samsvari tvö nafnorð, „vit“ og „vitneskja“. Þar sem „vit“ og „vitneskja“ eru ekki samheiti, vaknar einnig upp sú spurning hvort nota þyrfti fjög­ur íslensk nafnorð um efnivið Russells. Í framhaldinu mun ég einfaldlega gera ráð fyrir að svo sé án þess að taka endanlega afstöðu til þess. 12. Before proceeding further, let me point out that Gylfason speaks here of three Icelandic verbs. In the neologisms coined by Gylfason, he employs the nouns “vit” and “vitneskja” as translations of “knowledge.” Assuming that the substantives “þekking” and “kunnátta” correspond to the verbs “þekkja” and “kunna,” it must be asked whether the verb “vita” corresponds to two substantives—namely “vit” and “vitneskja.” Given that “vit” and “vitneskja” are not synonyms, the additional question arises whether four Icelandic nouns are needed to address Russell’s subject matter. In the following, I will simply assume that four nouns would be needed though I am not sure whether it is actually so. 12. Eine Zwischenanmerkung sei mir hier gestattet: Gylfason erwähnt drei isländische Verben als Entsprechungen von „know“. In den von ihm geprägten Neologismen kommen die Substantive „vit“ und „vitneskja“ als Übersetzungen von „knowledge“ vor. Wenn die isländischen Substantive „þekking“ und „kunnátta“ den isländischen Verben „þekkja“ und „kunna“ entsprechen, entsteht die Frage, ob dem Verb „vita“ zwei Substantive entsprechen, nämlich „vit“ und „vitneskja“. Da nun „vit“ und „vitneskja“ keine Synonyme sind, muss zudem gefragt werden, ob es vier isländische Substantive für Russells Thematik gibt. Im Folgenden werde ich einfach annehmen, dass es so ist, ohne mich darauf endgültig festzulegen.

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13. Ef Þorsteinn hefur rétt fyrir sér, er þessi hluti bókar Russells ekki þýðanlegur á íslensku. Hér mun því ekki svarað hvort þetta sé rétt. En hvort sem textann megi þýða eða ekki, má spyrja hvort gera megi málflutning Russells fullkomlega skiljanlegan á íslensku: Gæti maður skilið afstöðu Russells alveg ef maður læsi einungis annað hvort þýðingu á bókinni sem notast við nýyrði eða endursamningu eða „staðfærslu“ („Ný orð“, bls. 74) hennar eins og Þorsteinn stingur upp á? Þetta er áhugaverð spurning og tekist verður á við svipaðar spurningar seinna í þessu verki. Hér í innganginum er ég alveg tilbúinn til að gera ráð fyrir því að skoðun Russells megi skilja til fulls með því að lesa The Problems of Philosophy einungis á íslensku. 13. If Gylfason is right, this part of Russell’s text cannot be translated into Icelandic. Here it will not be decided whether this is right. Leaving this issue aside, it may be asked whether it is possible to say in Icelandic what Russell says in the book: Can one gain a perfect understanding of Russell’s position just by reading either a translation of the book which uses Icelandic neologisms or a rewrite (an “adaptation” (“New Words,” p. 28)) of the sort proposed by Gylfason? This is an interesting question and such questions will be addressed later in this work. For the purpose of this introduction, I am prepared to assume that it is possible to acquire a perfect grasp of Russell’s views by reading The Problems of Philosophy only in Icelandic. 13. Wenn Gylfason Recht hat, kann man diesen Teil von Russells Buch nicht ins Isländische übersetzen. Hier soll nicht entschieden werden, ob das stimmt. Aber abgesehen von der Übersetzbarkeit oder Unübersetzbarkeit des Textes, entsteht die Frage, ob Russells Überlegungen auf Isländisch vollkommen verständlich gemacht werden können: Kann man Russells Position restlos begreifen, wenn man nur eine Übersetzung seines Buches, die Neologismen verwendet, liest, oder eine isländische Neufassung (bzw. eine „Anpassung“ („Ný orð“, S.  74; „New Words“, S.  28)), wie von Gylfason vorgeschlagen? Im vorliegenden Werk wird diese Frage – oder jedenfalls verwandte Themen – besprochen werden. Hier in dieser Einführung werde ich einfach annehmen, dass man Russells Position vollständig verstehen kann, auch wenn man The Problems of Philosophy nur auf Isländisch liest.

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14. Ég vil vekja athygli á öðru atriði. Gera verður greinarmun á viðfangsefni Russells og skoðun hans um þetta viðfangsefni. Russell setur fram kenningu um knowledge. Hún er ekki um vit, vitneskju, þekkingu eða kunnáttu. Kenningin er sú að til séu ólíkar tegundir af knowledge. (The Problems, bls. 46.) Russell gengur sem sagt að því vísu að viðfangsefni hans sé eitthvað mjög almennt (knowledge). Hann heldur því svo fram um þetta almenna að af því séu til tvær tegundir (knowledge by description og knowledge by acquaintance). Hugsi maður á íslensku um vit, vitneskju, þekkingu og kunnáttu fylgir því ekki sá fordómur að hér sé um fjórar gerðir af einhverju almennu að ræða. Þar með er ekki sagt að betra sé að hugsa um þessi viðfangsefni á íslensku. Það má vel vera að maður komist að þeirri niðurstöðu á íslensku að best sé að skilja vit, vitneskju, þekkingu og kunnáttu sem fjórar tegundir af einhverju. En þetta væri niðurstaða um fjögur viðfangsefni: vit, vitneskju, þekkingu og kunnáttu. 14. I want to make a different point. It is important to distinguish between the topic or subject matter of Russell’s investigation and his view on this topic. Russell defends a theory of knowledge. It is not about the topics identified by the Icelandic words “vit,” “vitneskja,” “þekking,” and “kunnátta.” His theory is that there are different kinds of knowledge. (The Problems, p. 46.) Russell assumes that his topic is something quite general—namely, knowledge. His view of this general something is that it comes in two kinds: knowledge by description and knowledge by acquaintance. In contrast, thinking in Icelandic about vit, vitneskja, þekking and kunnátta does not necessarily come with the assumption that these are four kinds of something more general. This does not mean that it is better to think about these topics in Icelandic. It may also very well be that, in thinking about this in Icelandic, one would arrive at the conclusion that vit, vitneskja, þekking and kunnátta are best understood as four kinds of something more general. However, this would be a conclusion about four topics: vit, vitneskja, þekking and kunnátta. 14. Ich möchte auf etwas Anderes aufmerksam machen. Es muss zwischen Russells Untersuchungsgegenstand und seiner Auffassung dieses Gegenstands unterschieden werden. Russell legt eine Theorie über knowledge vor; nicht über vit, vitneskja, þekking oder kunnátta. Seine These ist, dass es unterschiedliche Arten von knowledge gibt. (The Problems, S. 46.) Russell geht von einem allgemeinen Gegenstand aus (knowledge). Über dieses Allgemeine stellt er die Behauptung auf, dass es davon zwei Arten gibt (knowledge by description und knowledge by acquaintance). Wenn man über vit, vitneskja, þekking und kunnátta auf Isländisch denkt, ist damit nicht die Vorannahme verbunden,

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es handle sich hier um vier Arten von etwas Allgemeinem. Damit soll nicht gesagt werden, man sollte über diese Themen lieber auf Isländisch denken. Es ist durchaus möglich, dass man auf Isländisch zum Ergebnis kommt, vit, vitneskja, þekking und kunnátta seien vier Sorten von Etwas. Dies wäre aber eine Meinung über vier Gegenstände: vit, vitneskja, þekking und kunnátta.

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15. Heimspekileg hugsun stefnir að betri skilningi. En heimspeki getur aldrei látið sér nægja að ganga að viðfangsefnum sínum vísum. Það má setja fram heimspekikenningar um vit, vitneskju, þekkingu og kunnáttu. Heimspekingurinn hefur ekki lokið sínu verkefni með því að verja skoðanir um hvert af þessum viðfangsefnum fyrir sig. Hann verður að spyrja sig hvort það séu einhver tengsl á milli vits, vitneskju, þekkingar og kunnáttu. Eru vit, vitneskja, þekking og kunnátta t.d. tegundir af einhverju? Þetta er sjálf heimspekileg spurning sem svara verður á einhverju ákveðnu tungumáli. Það er m.ö.o. heimspekileg spurning hver viðfangsefni heimspekinnar eru og þessari spurningu verður allt­af að svara á einhverri tungu. 15. In thinking philosophically, we are trying to understand something. But what are we trying to understand? In philosophy, we may never assume that we know what the subject matters of philosophy are. It is possible to defend theories about vit, vitneskja, þekking and kunnátta. However, the philosopher cannot assume that these four topics are entirely separate. She must ask whether there are any connections between them. In particular, she would ask whether vit, vitneskja, þekking and kunnátta are species of a more general genus. This is itself a philosophical question that must always be answered in some particular language. In other words, it is itself a philosophical question what the subject matters of philosophy are and this question must be answered in some language. (Remark on the use of gender relevant terms in this text: To refer to people irrespective of their gender, I use the feminine rather than the masculine form of the relevant term, e.g. “she” rather than “he.”) 15. Wenn wir philosophieren, wollen wir verstehen. Dabei können wir uns nicht damit begnügen, unsere Untersuchungsgegenstände als gegeben anzunehmen. Man kann philosophische Theorien über vit, vitneskja, þekking und kunnátta vorlegen. Die philosophische Arbeit ist aber mit jeweils begründeten Meinungen über diese Gegenstände nicht erledigt. Der Philosoph muss sich darüber hinaus fragen, ob es zwischen vit, vitneskja, þekking und kunnátta Verbindungen gibt. Sind vit, vitneskja, þekking und kunnátta beispielsweise Arten von Etwas? Dies ist selbst eine philosophische Frage, die in irgendeiner bestimmten Sprache beantwortet werden muss. Mit anderen Worten: Was die Untersuchungsgegenstände der Philosophie sind, ist eine philosophische Frage, die stets in einer bestimmten Sprache beantwortet werden muss.

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16. Grein í Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy frá árinu 2020 með titlinum „Epistemology“ gerir tilraun til að segja hvað Platón, Locke, Kant, Russell og formlegar og femínískar kenningar samtímans í þekkingarfræði eru allar að fjalla um: „cognitive success“. (Steup / Neta, „Epistemology“.) Það er nú heimspekileg spurning hvort höfundum þessarar greinar hefur þar með tekist að koma orðum að því hvað við erum að reyna að skilja betur í heimspeki: Eru vit, vitneskja, þekking og kunnátta allar tegundir af cognitive success? 16. The authors of the article “Epistemology” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy in 2020 assume that Plato, Locke, Kant, Russell as well as formal and feminist theories in contemporary epistemology all seek “to understand one or another kind of cognitive success.” (Steup / Neta, “Epistemology.”) It is a philosophical question whether the authors have succeeded in formulating what we are trying to understand in our philosophical efforts. For example, are vit, vitneskja, þekking and kunnátta best understood as kinds of cognitive success? 16. In einem Artikel in der Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy aus dem Jahr 2020 mit dem Titel „Epistemology“ wird der Versuch unternommen, den gemeinsamen Gegenstand von Platon, Locke, Kant, Russell sowie feministischen und formalen Erkenntnistheorien der Gegenwart zu bestimmen: Alle würden anstreben, „cognitive success“ zu verstehen. (Steup / Neta, „Epistemology“.) Es ist nun eine philosophische Frage, ob es den Autoren zu formulieren gelungen ist, was hier philosophisch zu verstehen versucht wird: Sind vit, vit­ neskja, þekking und kunnátta alle Arten von cognitive success?

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17. Í bók sinni Transnationale Philosophie: Hannah Arendt und die Zirkulation des Politischen setur Stefania Maffeis fram nokkrar hugmyndir sem eru hjálp­ legar í þessu samhengi. Hún notar orðin „þverþjóðleg hugmyndahringrás“ („transnationale Ideenzirkulation“) til að lýsa ákveðnu ferli. Í þessu ferli verða „þekkingarviðföng“ („Erkenntnisobjekte“) heimspekinnar til. Það er hugsað um heimspeki á mörgum stöðum, á hinum ýmsu tungumálum heimsins, á ólíkum tímum og í margvíslegu samfélagslegu og pólitísku samhengi. En ástundun heimspekinnar felur einnig oft í sér ákveðið „þverþjóðlegt“ ferli: Hér berast og breytast heimspekilegar „hugmyndir“ á milli tungumála, tíma, staða og samhengis. Í þessu ferli verður til ákveðinn „kjarni“ sem allir heimspekingar á hinum ýmsu stöðum og tungumálum geta talað um. (Transnationale Philosophie, bls. 25–27.) Svona verða þekkingarviðföng heimspekinnar til og um þessi viðföng eru til algild heimspekileg sannindi. (Transnationale Philosophie, bls. 26–27, 42–43.) 17. In her book Transnationale Philosophie: Hannah Arendt und die Zirkulation des Politischen, Stefania Maffeis develops some ideas that are helpful in this context. She uses the term “transnational circulation of ideas” to depict a certain process. This process brings forth “objects of knowledge” (“Erkenntnisobjekte”) in philosophy. Philosophy is practiced in many places, in various languages, at different times and in multifarious social and political contexts. But the practice of philosophy also often involves a certain “transnational” process: Here philosophical “ideas” move and change from one language, time, place and context to another. In this process, a certain “core” is “isolated” that philosophers in different places and languages can discourse about. (Transnationale Philosophie, pp.  25–27.) In this way, the objects of knowledge in philosophy get formed and about these objects there are universal philosophical truths. (Transnationale Philosophie, pp. 26–27, 42–43.) 17. In ihrem Buch Transnationale Philosophie: Hannah Arendt und die Zirku­ lation des Politischen entwickelt Stefania Maffeis einige für unsere Erörterung hilfreiche Ideen. Sie verwendet die Formulierung „transnationale Ideenzirkulation“, um einen Prozess zu beschreiben, in dem die „Erkenntnisobjekte“ der Philosophie entstehen. Philosophiert wird an unterschiedlichen Orten, auf den vielen Sprachen der Welt, zu verschiedenen Zeiten und in einer Vielfalt von gesellschaftlichen und politischen Kontexten. Das Philosophieren beinhaltet oft einen „transnationalen“ Prozess: Philosophische „Ideen“ verbreiten und ändern sich zwischen Sprachen, Zeiten, Orten und Kontexten. In diesem Prozess entsteht ein „Kern“, worüber Philosophen an verschiedenen

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Orten und in unterschiedlichen Sprachen alle reden können. (Transnationale Philosophie, S. 25–27.) Auf diese Weise bilden sich die Erkenntnisobjekte der Philosophie, worüber es dann universelle Wahrheiten gibt. (Transnationale Philosophie, S. 26–27, 42–43.)

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18. Alfræðibækur í heimspeki eru oft tilraunir til að koma orðum að slíkum kjarna. Þegar þetta er skrifað á árinu 2021 er Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy kannski mikilvægasti staðurinn þar sem samfélag heimspekinga reynir að skilgreina svona kjarna um ýmis efni. Höfundar greinarinnar sem ég nefndi, Matthias Steup og Ram Neta, hafa gert sitt besta til að skilgreina hér almenn­ asta viðfangsefni þekkingarfræðinnar og hafa komist að þeirri niðurstöðu að það sé cognitive success. Ég er sammála Maffeis að það sé hægt að setja fram algild sannindi um viðfangsefni heimspekinnar. Cognitive success er eitt slíkt viðfangsefni. 18. Encyclopedias in philosophy are often attempts to isolate such cores. As this is being written in the year of 2021, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy may be the most important place where the philosophical community attempts to define such cores in various fields. The authors of the article I mentioned, Matthias Steup and Ram Neta, aim to do this for epistemology and identify cognitive success as the most general topic of this field of philosophy. I agree with Maffeis that it is possible to formulate universal truths about the subject matters of philosophy. Cognitive success is one such subject matter. 18. Einträge in philosophischen Enzyklopädien sind oft Versuche, einen solchen Kern in Worte zu fassen. Beim Verfassen dieses Textes im Jahr 2021 ist Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy sicher das wichtigste Forum, in dem sich die philosophische Gemeinschaft um die Formulierung eines solchen Kerns für jeweils verschiedene Themen bemüht. Die Autoren des oben erwähnten Artikels, Matthias Steup und Ram Neta, sind beim Versuch einer Definition des allgemeinsten Themas der Epistemologie zum Ergebnis gekommen, dieser Kern sei cognitive success. Ich stimme mit Maffeis überein, dass es über die Untersuchungsgegenstände der Philosophie universelle Wahrheiten gibt. Cognitive success ist ein solcher Gegenstand.

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19. En heimspekin stefnir ekki einungis að heimspekilegum sannleika um tiltekin viðfangsefni. Markmið hennar er að hugsa rétt um hlutina. Ég nota hér óljósa orðalagið „um hlutina“ til að komast hjá því að skilgreina viðfangsefnið nánar. Heimspekileg sannindi verða alltaf að vera um eitthvað viðfangsefni: t.d. cognitive success, vit, vitneskju, þekkingu eða kunnáttu. En við hugsum ekki rétt um hlutina nema við notum rétt hugtök. Hugtakið cognitive success gerir okkur mögulegt að setja fram algild sannindi um þetta hugtak, en markmið heimspekinnar er að hugsa rétt um hlutina og það má vel vera að það takist betur ef við hugsum um vit, vitneskju, þekkingu og kunnáttu. 19. But philosophy does not only aim at philosophical truths about specific subject matters. The goal of philosophy is to think correctly about things. In order to avoid mentioning any subject matter, I use the vague formulation “about things” here. Philosophical truths always have to be about a certain topic: for example, cognitive success, vit, vitneskja, þekking or kunnátta. But we cannot think correctly about things unless we use the right concepts. The concept cog­ nitive success enables us to state universal truths about this concept. However, the aim of philosophy is to think correctly about things and it is quite possible that we are better at it if, instead, we think in terms of vit, vitneskja, þekking and kunnátta. 19. Die Philosophie zielt aber nicht nur auf philosophische Wahrheiten über bestimmte Untersuchungsgegenstände ab. In der Philosophie geht es darum, zu einer treffenden Denkweise über die Sachen zu kommen. Ich verwende hier den uneindeutigen Ausdruck „die Sachen“, um den Untersuchungsgegenstand nicht genauer formulieren zu müssen. Philosophische Wahrheiten sind immer Wahrheiten über jeweils einen bestimmten Gegenstand: beispielsweise cog­ nitive success, vit, vitneskja, þekking und kunnátta. Unsere Denkweise über die Sachen kann aber nur treffend sein, wenn wir in treffenden Begrifflichkeiten denken. Der Begriff cognitive success mag uns sehr wohl ermöglichen, universalgültige Wahrheiten über diesen Begriff zu formulieren. Der Zweck der Philosophie ist aber eine treffende Denkweise über die Sachen, und es mag sein, dass wir die Sache besser treffen, wenn wir von den Begriffen vit, vitneskja, þekking und kunnátta ausgehen.

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20. Greinin í Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy gengur út frá þeim verkum heimspekinnar í rás tímans sem venjulega teljast til þekkingarfræði. Í grein­ inni er sett fram sú kenning að þessi verk fjalli öll um cognitive success. En heimspeki­leg hugsun snýst ekki einungis um slík viðfangsefni. Hvað maður er eiginlega að hugsa um er mikilvægur hluti af heimspekilegum umhugsunarefnum. Og heimspekileg hugsun þarf alltaf á orðum að halda. Viðfangsefni heimspekinnar er því alltaf tvennt: Hið eiginlega viðfangsefni eru „hlutirnir“. En það þarf alltaf að koma orðum að hlutunum og þar með verður til annað viðfangsefni, t.d. vit, vitneskja, þekking og kunnátta. Þess vegna er svo mikilvægt að hugsa um heimspekileg viðfangsefni á fleiri en einu tungumáli. 20. The reference points of the entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy are those philosophical works, historical and contemporary, that are usually classified as being in epistemology. The authors set forth the thesis that these works all have cognitive success as their topic. However, philosophy is not just about such given subject matters. One of the most important issues of philosophy is the question of what we are really thinking about—what our subject matter is or should be. And we need words to answer this question. The subject matter of philosophy is thus always two-fold: The real subject matter is “the things.” However, because we need to put the things into words, another subject matter comes into being: for example, cognitive success or vit, vitneskja, þekking and kunnátta. Therefore, it is so crucial that we use different languages to express these subject matters of the latter kind. 20. Der Bezugsrahmen für den Artikel in der Stanford Encyclopedia of Philoso­ phy sind die Werke in der Geschichte der Philosophie, die normalerweise zur Erkenntnistheorie gezählt werden. Im Eintrag wird die These vertreten, dass all diese Werke von cognitive success handeln. Philosophisches Denken dreht sich aber nicht nur um solche Untersuchungsgegenstände. Worüber wir eigentlich denken, ist ein bedeutender Teil unserer philosophischen Denkaufgaben. Zudem ist philosophisches Denken auf Worte angewiesen. Daher hat die Philosophie zwei unterschiedliche Untersuchungsgegenstände: „Die Sachen“ sind der eigentliche Untersuchungsgegenstand. Wir müssen die Sachen aber in Worte fassen. Dadurch entsteht eine andere Art von Untersuchungsgegenstand, beispielsweise vit, vitneskja, þekking und kunnátta. Deshalb ist es so entscheidend, dass über philosophische Themen in mehreren Sprachen gedacht wird.

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21. Tungumál móta hugsun manns um hlutina. Ef samfélag heimspekinga hætti að hugsa um heimspeki á öðrum málum en ensku, væri það sambærilegt við að listamenn byrjuðu að snúa sér eingöngu að málaralist. Hugsum okkur kennara í listum sem bendir út í loftið og segir við nemendur: „Gerið listaverk um þetta, en það verður að vera málverk.“ Hvað var hann að benda á? Var hann að benda? Málverk af „þessu“ gætu verið mjög áhugaverð og sagt okkur ýmislegt um „þetta“. En þau móta einnig og takmarka hvernig við nálgumst „þetta“. Við gætum líka lært ýmislegt um málaralist og takmörk hennar af þessum málverkum. En það liggur í augum uppi að listrænn skilningur okkar á „þessu“ verður takmarkaður. Sama vandamálið kæmi upp ef heimspekikennari bæði nemendur sínar að skrifa ritgerð um það hvað væri viðfangsefni þekkingarfræði: „Skrifið um þetta, en þið verðið að gera það á ensku.“ Það má vel vera að þýða mætti þessar ritgerðir nemendanna fullkomlega á önnur tungumál. En hvað „þetta“ er, hefði mótast af hugsuninni á ensku um „þetta“. Þýðingin væri á einhverju ensku orðalagi eins og „cognitive success“ sem hefði mótað skilning okkar á „þessu“. Þetta gerist á heimsmælikvarða ef samfélag heimspekinga hættir að hugsa um heimspeki á öðrum tungumálum en ensku. 21. Languages shape people’s thinking about things. If the philosophical community were to stop thinking in languages other than English, this would be comparable to the disappearance in the arts of all forms of expression other than, say, painting. Imagine an art teacher who points her finger in the air and says to her students: “Please make an art piece of that. It must be a painting.” What was she pointing to? Was she pointing? Paintings of “that” can be illuminating and can tell us something about “that.” But they also shape and limit how we approach “that.” We might also learn something about the art of painting and its limits from these paintings. But our (artistic) understanding of “that” will obviously be quite limited if we just paint “that.” The same problem would arise if a philosophy teacher were to ask her students to write an essay explaining what the subject matter of epistemology is: “Please write about that. You must do so in English.” It may very well be that it would be possible to translate the student papers perfectly into other languages. However, what “that” is taken to be would have been shaped by thinking about “that” in English. These translations would be translations of English phrases such as “cognitive success” which would have shaped our understanding of “that.” This would happen on a global scale if the philosophical community were to stop thinking about philosophy in any language other than English.

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21. Sprache prägt das Denken über die Sachen. Sollte die philosophische Gemeinschaft aufhören, in anderen Sprachen als Englisch zu philosophieren, wäre es damit vergleichbar, in den Künsten würde man sich ausschließlich der Malerei widmen. Stellen wir uns einen Kunstlehrer vor, der eine deutende Handbewegung macht und gleichzeitig zu seinen Studierenden sagt: „Schaffen Sie bitte ein Kunstwerk. Es muss sich auf das beziehen und es muss eine Zeichnung sein.“ Worauf hat er gezeigt? War seine Bewegung überhaupt ein Zeigen oder Deuten? Eine Zeichnung, die sich auf „das“ bezieht, kann aufschlussreich sein und uns einiges über „das“ sagen. Zeichnungen prägen und begrenzen aber auch unseren Zugang zu „dem“. Wir mögen einiges über die Zeichenkunst und ihre Grenzen von den Zeichnungen der Studierenden lernen. Wir verstehen „das“ durch die Zeichnungen (künstlerisch) besser. Das Medium der Zeichnung setzt unserem Verständnis aber auch Grenzen. Dasselbe Problem entsteht, wenn ein Philosophielehrer seine Studierenden darum bittet, ein Essay über den Untersuchungsgegenstand der Epistemologie zu schreiben: „Schreiben Sie bitte über das, aber Sie müssen es auf Englisch tun.“ Vielleicht können perfekte Übersetzungen der Texte der Studierenden in andere Sprachen angefertigt werden. Die Gedanken in den Essays dazu, was „das“ ist, werden aber davon geprägt sein, dass diese Gedanken auf Englisch vollzogen wurden. Man würde also Formulierungen wie „cognitive success“ übersetzen, die die Ansichten über „das“ in diesen Essays prägen. Wenn die philosophische Gemeinschaft nur noch auf Englisch philosophieren würde, wäre die ganze Welt in der Situation dieser Studierenden.

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22. Þar með hef ég komið orðum að einum rökum fyrir jákvæðu svari við fjölbreytnisspurningunni, fyrir þeirri niðurstöðu að heimspekilega mikilvægt sé að skrifað verði áfram um heimspeki á ólíkum tungumálum. 22. I have thereby completed one argument for a positive answer to the plurality question—an argument for the conclusion that it is philosophically important that people continue to write about philosophy in different languages. 22. Diese Überlegungen bilden ein erstes Argument für eine positive Antwort auf die Pluralitätsfrage. Sie sind also ein Argument dafür, dass es philosophisch wichtig ist, dass das Philosophieren in Schrift weiterhin in mehreren Sprachen vollzogen wird.

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III 23. Af þessum málflutningi má draga þá ályktun að mikilvægt sé að hinir ýmsu heimspekingar skrifi um heimspeki á ólíkum tungumálum. Og ekki skiptir minna máli að heimspekingum sem skrifa á ólíkum málum takist að les verk hvors annars og ræða um þau. Það þýðir ekki að höfundar eigi allir að birta sjálfir verk sín á fleiri en einu tungumáli eins og ég geri hér. Nú skal bætt við þennan málflutning til að sýna hver sé heimspekilegi ávinningurinn við að ég skrifi þessa bók á íslensku, þýsku og ensku. 23. If successful, my argumentation has shown that it is important that different philosophers write about philosophy in different languages. It is surely no less important that philosophers writing in different languages are able to read each other’s works and discuss them. None of this implies that it is important that authors write their own works in several languages as I do here. Now I want to expand my previous argumentation in order to explain why it is of philosophical significance that I write this book in Icelandic, English and German. 23. Es ist also von großer Wichtigkeit, dass sich die schriftliche philosophische Tätigkeit auf der Welt in unterschiedlichen Sprachen vollzieht. Außerdem ist es von entscheidender Bedeutung, dass Philosophen, die in unterschiedlichen Sprachen schreiben, die Werke der jeweils anderen lesen und sich darüber austauschen. Dies alles heißt aber nicht, dass Autoren die eigenen Werke in mehr als einer Sprache verfassen sollten, so wie ich es hier getan habe. Die folgenden Ergänzungen meiner bisherigen Überlegungen sollen zeigen, warum es philosophisch bedeutsam ist, dass ich dieses Buch auf Isländisch, Deutsch und Englisch schreibe.

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24. Kaflarnir í þessari bók voru fyrst skrifaðir á einu þessara tungumála. Þessi inngangur var t.d. fyrst skrifaður á íslensku. Ég endurskrifaði textann á íslensku þangað til að ég var ánægður með hann á þessu tungumáli. Svo skrifaði ég innganginn aftur á þýsku og ensku. En tilgangurinn var ekki að þýða orð mín. Auðvitað er það öðruvísi að þýða eigin ritsmíðar en verk annarra. Maður getur alltaf spurt sjálfan sig hvort þýðingin nái því sem maður telur sig hafa sagt á frummálinu. Það var ekki tilgangurinn. Það sem ég gerði mætti fremur bera saman við beitingu á ólíkum listum. Eftir að hafa málað eitthvað gerði ég af því teikningu og styttu. Þessi samlíking passar samt ekki alveg. Ég sneri mér ekki einfaldlega aftur að viðfangsefninu til að skrifa um það á þýsku og ensku. Markmiðið var að segja það sem ég hafði viljað segja á íslensku núna á tveimur öðrum tungumálum. Athygli mín beindist því að íslenska textanum. En tilgang­urinn var ekki að þýða textann—að segja á öðrum málum það sem ég taldi mig hafa sagt á íslensku—heldur að segja á þýsku og ensku það sem ég hafði viljað segja á íslensku. Án þess að skipta um skoðun á viðfangsefninu vildi ég segja á þýsku og ensku það sem ég hafði viljað segja um það á íslensku. (Í þessu ferli skipti ég auðvitað stundum um skoðun og þarf að breyta upprunalega málflutningnum, en það er annað efni sem ég kem að seinna.) 24. The chapters in this book were first written in one of these languages only. For example, this introduction was originally written in Icelandic. I revised it in Icelandic until I was content with it in this language. After that, I wrote it in English and German. My aim was not to translate my own text. Of course, there is a difference between translating one’s own writings and other people’s works. In the first case, one can always ask oneself whether the translation captures what one considers oneself to have said in the original language. However, my goal was not to translate anything. What I did may be compared with the employment of different artistic procedures: I did, as it were, first use the art of painting, and then produced a drawing and a statue. The analogy, however, is imperfect. I did not return to the same subject matter again to write about it in English and German. Rather, my aim was to say in two other languages what I had wanted to say in Icelandic. My focus was on the Icelandic text. The goal was not to translate it—to say in other languages what I considered myself to have said in Icelandic—but to say in English and German what I had wanted to say in Icelandic. Without changing my position on the topic, I aimed to say in English and German what I had wanted to say in Icelandic. (In this process, I naturally sometimes change my mind and have to revise my original views. I will talk about that later.)

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24. Die Kapitel dieses Buches wurden zuerst in einer diesen Sprachen verfasst. Diese Einleitung wurde beispielsweise ursprünglich auf Isländisch geschrieben. Ich habe den Text auf Isländisch überarbeitet, bis ich mit dieser isländischen Fassung zufrieden war. Danach habe ich die Einführung erneut auf Englisch und Deutsch abgefasst. Dabei wollte ich nicht meinen eigenen Text übersetzen. Man kann sich immer bei einer Eigenübersetzung fragen, ob die Übersetzung das trifft, was man meint, in der Originalsprache geschrieben zu haben. Ich wollte aber überhaupt nicht übersetzen. Mein Vorgehen kann man mit der Verwendung unterschiedlicher künstlerischer Verfahren vergleichen. Zuerst habe ich ein Bild von etwas gemalt, danach habe ich davon eine Zeichnung und eine Statue angefertigt. Der Vergleich passt aber nicht ganz. Ich habe mich nicht einfach dem Thema wieder zugewandt, um darüber auf Deutsch und Englisch zu schreiben. Mein Ziel war stattdessen, in zwei anderen Sprachen auszudrücken, was ich auf Isländisch hatte sagen wollen. Meine Aufmerksamkeit galt dem isländischen Text, nicht dem Thema. Das Ziel war aber keine Übersetzung des Textes – ich wollte nicht in einer anderen Sprache ausdrücken, was ich meinte, auf Isländisch gesagt zu haben. Stattdessen strebte ich an, auf Deutsch und Englisch zum Ausdruck zu bringen, was ich auf Isländisch hatte sagen wollen. Ohne meine Meinung zum Untersuchungsgegenstand zu ändern, wollte ich auf Englisch und Deutsch sagen, was ich auf Isländisch hatte sagen wollen. (Während dieses Prozesses ändere ich meine Meinung doch manchmal und muss meine ursprünglichen Ausführungen überarbeiten. Darauf werde ich später zu sprechen kommen.)

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25. Í grein sinni „Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers“ neitar Walter Benjamin því að þýðingar þjóni lesandanum. Þýðingar þjóna verkinu sjálfu, þær eru annað „form“ textans. Verkinu er ekki lokið eftir að hafa verið skrifað á frummálinu. Verkið er lífvera sem þroskast með þýðingunni. Í frumverkinu felst „ákveðin merking“. Þessi merking gerir það mögulegt að þýða verkið. Verkið lifir áfram í þýðingunni eins og lífvera lifir með því að þroskast. Í þýðingunni birtist „líf frumverksins“ í sínu þroskuðu formi. („Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers“, bls. 9–11.) 25. In his text, “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers,” Walter Benjamin denies that translations are for the readers. Translations serve the work itself, they are another “form” of the text. The work is not completed after having been written in the original language. The work is a living being that develops by being translated. The original work has a “certain meaning.” It is on account of this meaning that the work is translatable. The work lives on in the translation like a living being continues its life by developing. In the translation, “the life of the original” appears in its mature form. (“Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers,” pp. 9–11; cf. “The Translator’s Task,” pp. 151–154.) 25. In „Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers“ bestreitet Walter Benjamin, dass Übersetzungen dem Leser „dienen“ oder gelten. Übersetzungen dienen dem Werk selbst, sie sind eine andere „Form“ des Textes. Das Werk ist mit der Fassung in der Originalsprache nicht abgeschlossen. Ein Werk ist ein Lebewesen, das sich mit der Übersetzung entfaltet. Dem Original wohnt „eine bestimmte Bedeutung“ inne, die die Übersetzung ermöglicht. Wie ein Lebewesen, das sich in seinem Leben weiterentwickelt, lebt das Werk in der Übersetzung fort. In der Übersetzung „erreicht das Leben des Originals“ seine „umfassendeste Entfaltung“. („Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers“, S. 9–11.)

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26. Benjamin hefur í huga þýðingar sem verða til í öðru sögulegu samhengi en frumverkið. („Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers“, bls. 10–11.) Ég þýði ekki textana mína, ég umorða þá og geri það stuttu eftir frumsamninguna. Samt held ég að svipað megi segja um umorðanir mínar. Málflutningur minn er hér ugglaust ekki alveg hinn sami og Benjamins. Ég vil nú fara nokkrum orðum um mín eigin rök. 26. Benjamin has translations in mind that were prepared in another historical context than the original. (“Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers,” pp. 10–11; “The Translator’s Task,” pp 153–154.) I do not translate my texts, I rephrase them and do so shortly after the completion of the original text. Nevertheless, much the same can be said about my rephrased texts as about translations. I do probably not argue for this conclusion in exactly the same way as Benjamin. Let me elaborate on my own argumentation. 26. Benjamin denkt dabei an Übersetzungen, die in einem anderen „Zeitalter“ als das Original entstehen. („Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers“, S. 10–11.) Ich übersetze meine Texte nicht, ich formuliere sie neu, und dies sogar kurz nach dem Erstellen der Originalfassung. Benjamins Gedanken zu Übersetzungen können dennoch auf meine Neufassungen übertragen werden. Meine Überlegungen, die ich im Folgenden erläutern möchte, unterscheiden sich aber hier sicherlich etwas von seinen.

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27. Það er dásamlegt að lesa Gottlob Frege. Fáir heimspekingar skrifa svona tæra texta. Þegar ég les hann hef ég alltaf á tilfinningunni að hafa sloppið úr helli Platóns í sólskinið. Með því að segja að textar hans séu tærir vil ég lýsa því hvað geri þá fagra. Um leið á ég við að þeir séu bæði skírir og skýrir. Þar með er ég kominn að mikilvægum greinarmuni. Annars vegar eru skrif Freges skýr og skilmerkileg. Hins vegar eru þau ekki einræð. Það er ekki einungis ein leið til að skilja verk hans. Skýrleiki verka Freges greinir hann frá mörgum öðrum heimspekingum. Skrif hans eiga það samt sameiginlegt með öðrum heimspeki­ verkum að þau eru ekki einræð. Til marks um það eru hinar margvíslegu túlk­ anir verka hans. 27. It is wonderful to read Gottlob Frege’s works. Few philosophers write such lucid texts as he does. In reading him, I always have the feeling of just having escaped Plato’s cave into the sunshine. By describing his texts as lucid, I am at the same time explaining what makes them beautiful. Also, I am expressing their purity and clarity. This brings me to an important distinction. On the one hand, Frege’s writings are clear and distinct. On the other hand, they are not unambiguous. His works can legitimately be understood in more than one way. The clarity of Frege’s works distinguishes him from many other philosophers. What his writings share with the texts of all other philosophers is that they are not unambiguous. The different existing interpretations of his works make this apparent. 27. Die Lektüre der Werke Gottlob Freges sind der reinste Genuss. Die Texte nur weniger Philosophen sind so klar wir seine. Wenn ich ihn lese, fühle ich mich immer so, als ob ich mich gerade aus Platons Höhle befreit habe und die von der Sonne beleuchtete Landschaft genieße. Indem ich seine Texte als klar bezeichne, will ich ihre Schönheit herausstellen. Dabei geht es mir auch um ihre Reinheit und Deutlichkeit. Dies bringt mich zu einer wichtigen Unterscheidung. Einerseits sind Freges Werke in deutlicher und verständlicher Sprache geschrieben. Andererseits sind sie nicht eindeutig. Seine Werke lassen mehr als eine Lesart zu. Die Deutlichkeit der Sprache Freges unterscheidet sie von der vieler Philosophen. Seinen Schriften und den anderer Philosophen ist die fehlende Eindeutigkeit gemeinsam, die von den verschiedenen Auslegungen von Freges Werken bezeugt wird.

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28. En skildi Frege sig sjálfan ekki fullkomlega? Hefur túlkendum ekki bara mistekist að skilja hvað hann átti við? Ég tel svo ekki vera. Enginn heimspek­ ingur getur skilið eigin verk fullkomlega. Verkin geta verið skýr, en þau eru ekki einræð. Verk Freges eru eins og tært vatn. Ef vatn er ekki of djúpt getur maður séð á botninn sé það tært. En um leið sér maður vatnið. Vatnið er ekki gegnsætt í þeim skilningi að maður sjái beint á botninn án þess að sjá vatnið. Textar Freges eru tærir, en þeir eru ekki gegnsæir í þeim skilningi að þeir geri okkur kleift að horfa beint á hugtök. (Þetta er auðvitað einungis samanburður. Skilningur á hugtökum felst ekki í að horfa á eitthvað. Og samanband botns, vatns og áhorfanda er allt annað en tengsl hugtaka, tungumáls og þess sem skilur þau.) Þegar maður les Frege er maður að reyna að skilja ákveðna texta sem settir eru saman úr orðum, setningum, málsgreinum og efnisgreinum. Það sama gildir um Frege sjálfan. Skilningur hans á hugtökum sínum felst í skiln­ ingi hans á eigin texta og þessi textaskilningur er alltaf takmarkaður. 28. But did Frege not understand himself perfectly? Have interpreters not simply failed to understand what he meant? I do not think so. No philosopher can understand her own works perfectly. The works may be clear, but they are not unambiguous. Frege’s works are like pure water. If water is pure and not too deep, one can see to the bottom of it. At the same time, one sees the water itself. Pure water is not transparent in the sense that one can see to the bottom of it without seeing the water itself. Frege’s text are clear, but they are not transparent in the sense of enabling us to look straight at the concepts. (Of course, this is only a comparison. Understanding a concept does not consist in looking at anything. And the relationship between water, the bottom of the water and the observer is not the same as the connection between language, concepts and the person who understands them.) In reading Frege, one is trying to understand certain texts composed of words, sentences and paragraphs. The same holds for Frege himself. His grasp of his own concepts rests on his understanding of his own text. And textual understanding has its limits. 28. Aber hat Frege sich selbst nicht vollständig verstanden? Begreifen seine Interpreten bloß nicht, was er meint? So ist es nicht. Kein Philosoph kann das eigene Werk vollkommen erfassen. Es mag deutlich sein, eindeutig ist es nie. Die Werke Freges sind wie klares Wasser. Wenn das Gewässer nicht zu tief ist, kann man durch klares Wasser den Boden sehen. Gleichzeitig sieht man das Wasser selbst. Wasser ist nicht in dem Sinn durchsichtig, dass man den Boden sieht, ohne das Wasser selbst wahrzunehmen. Freges Texte sind klar. Sie sind aber nicht in dem Sinn durchsichtig, dass man durch sie die Begriffe

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direkt betrachten kann. (Dies ist natürlich nur ein Vergleich. Das Begreifen von Begriffen kann nicht mit der Betrachtung eines Gegenstands gleichgesetzt werden. Zudem ist das Verhältnis zwischen Boden, Wasser und Betrachter ein ganz anderes als das zwischen Begriff, Sprache und der Person, die sie versteht.) Beim Lesen von Frege versucht man, einen bestimmten Text zu verstehen, der aus Wörtern, Sätzen und Abschnitten besteht. Das gilt auch für Frege selbst. Auch er ist für das Begreifen der von ihm verwendeten Begriffe auf das Verständnis seiner eigenen sprachlichen Formulierungen angewiesen. Und Sprache ist nie eindeutig.

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29. Þess vegna umorða ég þennan inngang á þýsku og ensku eftir að hafa skrifað hann fyrst á íslensku. Þó að mér takist vonandi að setja mál mitt fram með skýrum hætti á íslensku, hef ég ekki fullkominn skilning á mínum eigin texta. Með því að umorða hann á þýsku og ensku er ég að gera það sem Benjamin lýsir. Ég er ekki að þýða. Ég er að reyna að segja á öðru máli það sem ég vildi segja á íslensku. Þá getur það gerst sem Benjamin lýsir: Í tjáningu þessarar hugsunar minnar á öðru máli en íslensku kemur eitthvað um þessa hugsun í ljós sem var mér og öðrum á íslensku falið. Að þessu leyti getur hugsunin þroskast með því að vera umorðuð á öðru tungumáli. Þetta er sama hugsunin í öðru birtingarformi, hér birtist eitthvað sem áður var falið. 29. These are the reasons why I have rephrased this introduction in English and German after having originally written it in Icelandic. Although  I may have managed to state my case clearly in Icelandic, I do not have a perfect understanding of my own text. By rephrasing it in English and German, I am doing what Benjamin describes. I am not translating. I am trying to say in different languages what I wanted to say in Icelandic. In this process, the very thing Benjamin is talking about may materialize: In expressing my thoughts in another language than Icelandic, something about them that was hidden to me and others unfolds itself. In this sense, thoughts develop by being rephrased in another language. These are the same thoughts in a different manifestation; here, something shows itself that was previously hidden. 29. Deshalb formuliere ich diese Einführung auf Deutsch und Englisch neu, nachdem ich sie auf Isländisch geschrieben habe. Auch wenn mir eine deutliche Sprache auf Isländisch gelingen sollte, habe ich nur ein unvollständiges Verständnis meines eigenen Textes. Bei der Neuformulierung auf Englisch und Deutsch tue ich, was Benjamin beschreibt. Ich übersetze den Text nicht. Ich versuche, in einer anderen Sprache auszudrücken, was ich auf Isländisch sagen wollte. Dabei kann das geschehen, worüber Benjamin spricht: Beim Ausdruck meines Gedankens in einer anderen Sprache als Isländisch zeigt sich etwas, was mir und anderen in der isländischen Formulierung verborgen war. Durch die Neuformulierung in einer anderen Sprache entfaltet sich der Gedanke. Es ist derselbe Gedanke in einer anderen Erscheinungsform. Hier zeigt sich etwas vorher Verschüttetes.

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30. Að umorða textana á þeim tveimur öðrum tungumálum sem ég kann er tilraun og gjörningur. Þegar ég skrifa fyrsta textann—t.d. þennan inngang á íslensku—reyni ég sjálfur að stjórna hugsuninni. Ég reyni að komast að sannleikanum og breyti um stefnu ef ég tel mig vera á villigötum. Þegar ég umorða frumtextann á öðrum tungumálum læt ég af stjórn. Spurningin er sú hvernig maður segir það sem ég vildi segja á frummálinu á öðru tungumáli. Ég læt tungumálið hér hugsa fyrir mig. Ég geri hér eitthvað—umorða texta mína á öðrum tungumálum—án þess að vita hvað kemur út úr því. Ég gef mig þessu ferli á vald og bíð spenntur eftir því hvort á endanum komi eitthvað í ljós sem á frummálinu var falið. 30. By rephrasing the texts in two other languages, I am making an experiment and engaging in performative writing. In writing the original text—for example, in writing this introduction in Icelandic—I try to be in control of my thoughts. I aim to find truth and I change course if I think that I am on the wrong track. In rephrasing the original text in other languages, I give up control. The question at stake is how to say in other languages what I wanted to say in Icelandic. Here, I let language think for me. I do something—rephrase my texts in other languages—without knowing what will come out of it. I give myself up to this process and wait to see whether something unravels itself that was hidden in the original language. 30. Die Neuformulierung des Textes auf den beiden anderen von mir gesprochenen Sprachen ist gleichzeitig Experiment und performatives Schreiben. Beim Schreiben des Originaltextes – beispielsweise dieser Einleitung – bin ich um die Steuerung meiner Gedanken bemüht. Ich will die Wahrheit entdecken und ändere die Richtung meiner Gedanken, sobald ich meine, mich auf Irrwegen zu befinden. Bei der Neuformulierung meiner Gedanken in anderen Sprachen gebe ich die Kontrolle ab. Dabei beschäftigt mich die Frage, wie man in einer anderen Sprache zum Ausdruck bringt, was ich in der ersten Sprache sagen wollte. Ich lasse die Sprache für mich denken. Ich tue etwas – ich formuliere meine Texte in einer anderen Sprache neu –, ohne zu wissen, was dabei geschehen wird. Ich überlasse mich selbst diesem Prozess und warte gespannt darauf, ob sich etwas zeigt, was in der ersten Sprache verborgen war.

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31. Þetta getur enginn annar gert fyrir mig. Ég gef mig tungumálinu á vald. En ég verð að gera það sjálfur. Enginn annar veit hvað ég vildi segja á frummálinu. Ég veit það kannski ekki sjálfur, en enginn annar getur spurt sig þessarar spurn­ ingar með sama hætti: Hvað var ég að reyna að segja? Þessi aðferð er einstök. Ég læt eitthvað gerast með hugsun mína með því að gefa mig tungumálinu á vald. Ég þróa mína eigin hugsun með því að láta tungumálið þróa hana fyrir mig. 31. This is something that nobody else can do for me. I hand over control to language. But I must be the one doing it. Nobody else knows what I wanted to say in the original language. I may not even know it myself, but nobody else can deal with the question “what was I trying to say?” in the same way. This method is unique. I let something happen to my thoughts by handing control over to language. I develop my own thoughts by letting language develop them for me. 31. Dies kann niemand für mich tun. Ich gebe die Kontrolle an die Sprache ab. Aber ich bin derjenige, der es tun muss. Sonst niemand weiß, was ich in der ersten Sprache sagen wollte. Vielleicht weiß ich es selbst nicht, aber niemand außer mir kann sich folgende Frage auf die gleiche Weise wie ich stellen: Was wollte ich sagen? Diese Methode ist einzigartig. Ich lasse etwas mit meinen Gedanken geschehen, indem ich die Kontrolle an die Sprache abgebe. Ich lasse meine Gedanken sich entfalten, indem ich die Sprache sie für mich entwickeln lasse.

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32. Snúum okkur nú aftur að viðfangsefni efnisgreinar II. Í þessari efnisgrein færði ég rök fyrir því að mikilvægt væri að hugsa um heimspeki á ólíkum tungu­málum til að geta hugsað heimspekilega rétt um hlutina. Nú hef ég fært rök fyrir því að minni eigin hugsun um hlutina sé ekki lokið eftir að hún var orðuð á frummálinu. Með því að umorða hugsun mína á öðrum málum er ég enn að reyna að hugsa rétt um hlutina. En ég hef breytt um aðferð. Ég beini athygli minni ekki lengur beint að hlutunum, heldur læt hugsun mína um þá þroskast með því að gefa mig tungumálinu á vald. Ef það er rétt að það þurfi fleiri enn eitt tungumál til að nálgast heimspekileg sannindi, er nauðsynlegt að beita þessari nýju aðferð. Mín fyrsta aðferð hafði einfaldlega falist í því að hugsa um hlutina með því að beina athygli minni að þeim. Þetta er sú aðferð sem heimspekingar venjulega beita. Þýðingar á verkum beinast að því hvað einhver sagði—ekki að því hvað hann vildi segja. Túlkanir á því hvað einhver annar heimspekingur vildi segja felast ekki í ákvörðun heimspekingsins sjálfs að orða hugsun sína með ákveðnum hætti á öðru máli. Umorðun eigin hugsana á öðru tungumáli felur því í sér einstaka aðferð til að reyna að hugsa rétt um hlutina. Ég hafði með fyrstu aðferðinni reynt að hugsa rétt um hlutina. Með umorðunaraðferðinni nota ég tungumálið til að finna út hvort mér hafi tekist eða mistekist að hugsa rétt um hlutina, þar sem einungis umorðun eigin hugsana á öðru máli getur leitt í ljós hvort hugsun mín um veruleikann felst í einhverju sem ekki er sýnilegt á frummálinu. 32. Let me return to the topic of § II. In that section, I argued that we will not get things (philosophically) right unless philosophy is practiced in different languages. Now I have argued that I have not completed my thoughts about things after having phrased them in one language. By rephrasing my thoughts in other languages, I am still trying to get things right. But I have changed my method. I no longer focus directly on things. Rather, I let my thoughts about them develop by giving myself up to language. If it is right that we need more than one language to gain philosophical truth, it is imperative to use this method. Other philosophers employ my first method: To focus on things and try to get them right in some language. Translations of works are concerned with what somebody said—not what they wanted to say. Interpretations of what other philosophers wanted to say do not amount to decisions on the part of the philosopher herself as to how to phrase her thoughts in a different language. Rephrasing one’s own thoughts in a different language amounts to a unique method in efforts to try to get things right. With the help of the first method, I had tried to get things right. With the second method—the method of rephrasing—I use language to find out whether I have succeeded in getting

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things right: Only by rephrasing my own thoughts in a different language am I able to determine whether my thoughts about reality involved something important hidden by the original language. 32. Kehren wir nun zurück zum Thema von Abschnitt II. In diesem Abschnitt wurde argumentiert, dass es für das Bemühen der philosophischen Gemeinschaft um eine treffende Denkweise über die Sachen wichtig ist, dass auf unterschiedlichen Sprachen philosophiert wird. Nun habe ich dafür argumentiert, dass mit der Formulierung meiner Gedanken in einer Sprache mein eigenes Denken über die Sachen nicht abgeschlossen ist. Indem ich meine Gedanken in einer anderen Sprache neu formuliere, setzte ich meine Suche nach der treffenden Denkweise über die Sachen fort. Aber ich verwende eine zusätzliche Methode. Meine Aufmerksamkeit gilt nicht mehr direkt den Sachen selbst, sondern ich lasse meine Gedanken darüber sich selbst entfalten, indem ich die Kontrolle an die Sprache abgebe. Wenn für die Annäherung an philosophische Wahrheiten der Gebrauch mehrerer Sprachen notwendig ist, dann ist die Verwendung dieser zweiten Methode von entscheidender Bedeutung. Meine erste Methode besteht einfach darin, in einer Sprache über etwas nachzudenken – dies ist schlicht die übliche und grundlegende Vorgehensweise der Philosophie. Übersetzungen sollen in eine andere Sprache übertragen, was jemand gesagt hat – nicht, was er sagen wollte. Man kann natürlich Thesen darüber äußern, was ein anderer Philosoph sagen wollte. Dies unterscheidet sich aber von der Tätigkeit des Philosophen selbst, wenn er darüber entscheidet, wie in einer anderen Sprache zu formulieren ist, was er selbst in der ersten Sprache sagen wollte. Die Neuformulierung der eigenen Gedanken in einer neuen Sprache ist also eine einzigartige Methode bei der Suche nach der treffenden Denkweise über die Sachen. Beim ursprünglichen Verfassen meiner Texte in einer Sprache verwende ich bei dieser Suche die erste Methode. Mit der zweiten Methode – der Methode der Neuformulierung – verwende ich die Sprache, um zu prüfen, ob es mir gelungen ist, die Sache richtig zu treffen: Nur die Neuformulierung der eigenen Gedanken in einer anderen Sprache kann zeigen, ob die eigenen Gedanken über die Wirklichkeit etwas Wichtiges beinhalten, das in der ersten Sprache verborgen ist.

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33. Ég dreg því þá ályktun að það sé heimspekilega mikilvægt að ég umorði hugsanir mínar á þeim tveimur öðrum tungumálum sem ég kann. 33. I conclude that it is philosophically important that I rephrase my thoughts in the two other languages I know. 33. Aus diesen Überlegungen folgt: Es ist philosophisch wichtig, dass ich meine eigenen Gedanken in den beiden anderen von mir gesprochenen Sprachen neu formuliere.

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Þakkarorð

Róbert Haraldsson fær innilegar þakkir fyrir skarpar athugasemdir við íslenska textann. Einnig þakka ég kærlega þátttakendum á ráðstefnunni Wittgenstein’s Exercises: Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations (15.–16. júlí 2021) fyrir gagnlegar ábendingar við fyrirlestur sem byggður var á ensku gerðinni. Acknowledgements I am grateful to Róbert Haraldsson for his acute comments on the Icelandic text. I thank the participants at the conference Wittgenstein’s Exercises: Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations (July 15–16, 2021) for their helpful remarks on a talk based on the English version. Also, I am thankful to Gizem Kaya for her thorough editorial work on the English and German texts. Danksagung Ich danke Róbert Haraldsson für seine scharfsinnigen Bemerkungen zum isländischen Text. Mein Dank geht außerdem an die Teilnehmer der Tagung Wittgenstein’s Exercises: Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations (15.–16. Juli 2021) für ihre hilfreichen Anmerkungen zum Vortrag, der auf der englischen Textversion basierte. Gizem Kaya bin ich für das sorgfältige Lektorieren der deutschen und englischen Texte dankbar. References Benjamin, Walter, “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers,” in: Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. IV–1, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1972, pp.  9–21. Translated as “The Translator’s Task,” by Steven Rendall, in: TTR: traduction, terminologie, rédaction 10, (1997), pp. 151–165. Gylfason, Þorsteinn, “New Words for an Old Language,” in: Diogenes 33 (1985), pp. 17–33. Gylfason, Þorsteinn, “Inngangur,” in: Gylfason, Að hugsa á íslenzku, Reykjavík: Heimskringla, 1996, pp. 13–27. Gylfason, Þorsteinn, “Að hugsa á íslenzku,” in: Að hugsa á íslenzku, pp. 31–58. Gylfason, Þorsteinn, “Ný orð handa gömlu tungumáli,” in: Að hugsa á íslenzku, pp. 59–80.

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Maffeis, Stefania, Transnationale Philosophie: Hannah Arendt und die Zirkulation des Politischen, Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 2019. Russell, Bertrand, The Problems of Philosophy, London: Oxford University Press, 1959 (1912). Steup, Matthias / Neta, Ram, “Epistemology,” in: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fall Edition, ed. by Edward  N.  Zalta, 2020, URL = .

List of Contributors Anna Boncompagni is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine. Her work focuses on Wittgenstein, pragmatism, and social epistemology. Among her publications are the monographs Wittgenstein and Pragmatism: On Certainty in the Light of Peirce and James (Palgrave, 2016) and Wittgenstein on Forms of Life (Cambridge University Press, 2022), and the article “Prejudice in Testimonial Justification: A Hinge Account” (Episteme, 2021). Anne-Marie Søndergaard Christensen is Professor of Ethics at the Department for the Study of Culture at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU). Her main research interests are Wittgensteinian ethics, forms of contextual and applied ethics, and the status of moral philosophy, and she is the author of Moral Philosophy and Moral Life (Oxford University Press, 2020). Currently, she is working on a project related to contextual ethics and is the chair of the Center for Philosophy of Health, also at SDU. Logi Gunnarsson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Potsdam. His most recent larger publication is Vernunft und Temperament. Eine Philosophie der Philosophie (Mentis / Brill, 2020). It is the work of two fictional authors, Headstrong and Kornblum, who are convinced that William James was a good philosopher because he was a real human being. They set out to write a book about the true meaning of philosophy, but it becomes clear that they have very different interpretations of their shared beliefs. Vernunft und Temperament consists in their heated correspondence and their respective chapters in the book. Andreas Hetzel is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hildesheim. His research topics include social philosophy, political philosophy, and philosophy of language. He is the spokesperson of the DFG Research Training Group 2477 “Aesthetic Practice,” and is co-editor of the Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie and of Rhetorik. Ein internationales Jahrbuch. He is the author of Zwischen Poiesis und Praxis. Elemente einer kritischen Theorie der Kultur (Königshausen & Neumann, 2001), Die Wirksamkeit der Rede. Die Aktualität klassischer Rhetorik

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für die moderne Sprachphilosophie (transcript, 2011), and co-editor of Handbuch Rhetorik und Philosophie (De Gruyter, 2017). Oskari Kuusela is Senior Lecturer at the University of East Anglia, United Kingdom. After completing his PhD at Oxford University in 2003, he was Visiting Researcher at the Wittgenstein Archives in Bergen, a Fulbright Junior Scholar at the University of Chicago, and a Fellow at the Academy of Finland. His research interests include philosophical methodology, the philosophy of logic and language, moral philosophy, and the history of analytic philosophy, especially Wittgenstein. He is the author of, among other books, Wittgenstein on Logic as the Method of Philosophy: Re-examining the Roots and Development of Analytic Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2019). Lars Leeten PD Dr. is Researcher and Lecturer at the University of Hildesheim’s Department of Philosophy. He was Visiting Professor in Belém, Brazil, a Visiting Researcher in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and at the University of Oslo, as well as a Fellow at the Hannover Institute for Philosophical Research. He works on ancient Greek and modern European philosophy, particularly in the fields of ethics and the philosophy of language and discourse. He is the author of, among other books, Redepraxis als Lebenspraxis: Die discursive Kultur der antiken Ethik (Karl Alber, 2019). Andrew Norris is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of Becoming Who We Are: Politics and Practical Philosophy in the Work of Stanley Cavell (Oxford, 2017) and is the editor of three books, including Truth and Democracy (University of Pennsylvania, 2012). His main philosophical interest is post-Kantian existential philosophy, very broadly conceived, but he has also written on Hegel, neo-liberalism, film, rhetoric, and other topics. Beth Savickey is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Winnipeg, Canada. Recent publications include Wittgenstein’s Investigations: Awakening the Imagination (Springer, 2018), as well as several articles exploring Wittgenstein’s practices within the field of Performance Philosophy.

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Eva Schürmann is Professor of Philosophical Anthropology and the Philosophy of Culture at the Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg. Since January  2015 she has been co-editor of the Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie. In 2014 she was awarded the Aby Warburg Prize for notable contributions to art, culture, and the humanities. During 2009–2011 she was Professor of Philosophy of Aesthetics at the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg. In 2004 she was Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago. Her publications include Seeing as Practice (Palgrave, 2020) and Vorstellen und Darstellen (Fink, 2018). Davide Sparti has a PhD from the European University Institute and is a fellow of the Humboldt Stiftung and of the Collegium Budapest. He has written extensively on the epistemology of the social sciences, on matters of identity, and on improvised action, as well as on Wittgenstein, Cavell, and Foucault. After having taught at the universities of Milan and Bologna, he is currently Professor at the University of Siena. He is the author of, among other books, Sul tango. L’improvvisazione intima (Il Mulino, 2015). Jörg Volbers PD Dr. is currently Visiting Professor at the Folkwang University of Arts, Essen. Drawing on pragmatism and the philosophy of language, his works reflect on such topics as modern rationality and its criticism, focusing in particular on the self and the status of morality. He has published numerous books and articles on Wittgenstein, Cavell, Foucault, and Dewey, as well as on topics such as performativity and experience. His last book was Die Vernunft der Erfahrung (Meiner, 2018). Katrin Wille Apl. Professor at the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Hildesheim, Germany, works on the concept of distinguishing the relations between experience and concepts on the one side and feminist critique on the other, with particular reference to Spinoza, Hegel, American pragmatism, and Wittgenstein. Among numerous other publications, she is the author of the monograph Die Praxis des Unterscheidens (Karl Alber, 2018), and of the essays “Becoming Concrete: Spinoza’s Third Kind of Knowledge” (Parrhesia, 2020) and “Unease as a Feminist-Pragmatist Concept” (European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, 2020).

Acknowledgments This volume is based on the international conference “Wittgenstein’s Exercises: Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations,” which was held in July  2021 under the auspices of the DFG Research Training Group 2477, “Aesthetic Practice,” hosted by the University of Hildesheim. I would like to thank the DFG Research Training Group 2477 for supporting and making possible both the conference and the present volume. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all the members of the Research Group. The discussions and exercises we held together over the last three years were of pivotal importance for conceiving this book. Our work together first opened up the possibility of reading Wittgenstein’s language-games in the way presented here. I would also like to thank the students of the seminars held in 2020 and 2021 at the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Hildesheim for their impulses, questions, passion, and courage during our confrontation with Wittgenstein’s texts and with this book’s core idea. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Jan Schönfelder for this book’s cover—the collage he created embodies an aesthetic practice of ‘reframing’ which captures this book’s spirit. I likewise sincerely express my appreciation to all the contributors for their discussions regarding this book’s themes and their passionate engagement with them in their writings. Last but not least, I offer a warm thanks to my dear friends, both old and new, as well as my family for their encouragement, not to mention the fun times we spent together. Berlin, August 2022