Philosophical Anthropology: Wittgenstein’s Perspective 9783110321821, 9783110321555

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Jesús Padilla Gálvez (Ed.) Philosophical Anthropology Wittgenstein’s Perspective

APORIA Apori/a HRSG. VON / EDITED BY Jesús Padilla Gálvez (University of Castilla-La Mancha) Alejandro Tomasini Bassols (National Autonomous University of Mexico) ADVISORY BOARD Pavo Barišić (University of Split) Michel Le Du (Université de Strasbourg) Guillermo Hurtado (National Autonomous University of Mexico) Lorenzo Peña (Spanish National Research Council) Nuno Venturinha (New University of Lisbon) Nicanor Ursua Lezaun (University of the Basque Country) Pablo Quintanilla (Pontifical Catholic University of Peru)

Aporia is a new series devoted to studies in the field of philosophy. Aporia (Aπορία) means philosophical puzzle and the aim of the series is to present contributions by authors who systematically investigate current problems. Aporia (Aπορία) puts special emphasis on the publication of concise arguments on the topics studied. The publication has to contribute to the explanation of current philosophical problem, using a systematic or a historic approach. Contributions should concern relevant philosophical topics and should reflect the ongoing progress of scientific development.

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Jesús Padilla Gálvez (Ed.)

Philosophical Anthropology Wittgenstein’s Perspective

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CONTENTS

JESÚS PADILLA GÁLVEZ Philosophical Anthropology. An Introduction

7

P. M. S. HACKER Wittgenstein’s Anthropological and Ethnological Approach

15

ROBERT J. FOGELIN Hume and Wittgenstein’s on Human Nature

33

ALEJANDRO TOMASINI BASSOLS Meaning and Action

47

ANTÓNIO MARQUES Anthropological Representations and Forms of Life in Wittgenstein

61

JESÚS PADILLA GÁLVEZ Ich und Andere

73

NUNO VENTURINHA Wittgenstein and the Natural History of Human Beings

91

CHRISTIAN KANZIAN Is there a Mind-Body Problem?

111

MANUEL GARCÍA-CARPINTERO Norms and Conventions

127

LARS HERTZBERG The Psychology of Volition: “Problem and Method Pass One Another By”

139

OLLI LAGERSPETZ ‘Dirty’ and ‘Clean’ Between Ontology and Anthropology

153

NICANOR URSUA Konvergenztechnologien und die “technische Verbesserung des Menschen” Überlegungen zur philosophischen Anthropologie

163

Abbreviations

179

Philosophical Anthropology An Introduction JESÚS PADILLA GÁLVEZ If we read Ludwig Wittgenstein’s works and take his scientific formation in mathematical logic into account, it comes as a surprise that he ever developed a particular interest in anthropological questions. The following questions immediately arise: What role does anthropology play in Wittgenstein’s work? How do problems concerning mankind as a whole relate to his philosophy? How does his approach relate to philosophical anthropology? How does he view classical issues about Man’s affairs and actions1? I think that in order to find the answers to these questions we should first consider the framework within which they are raised. Let’s begin with a definition of philosophical anthropology.2 There are currently two broad conceptions. First, it is considered a sort of branch of anthropology; secondly, it points to a specific philosophical perspective. Here I am mainly interested in the first sense of the expression, whereby it is basically understood as a philosophical reflection on some basic problems of mankind. It is worth mentioning that both meanings had their origin in the philosophical crisis of the 19th century rational paradigm. Representatives of philosophical anthropology just had ceased considering rationality as the ultimate explanation for human thinking and action. Rationality is rather determined by the biological and social conditions in which the lives of human beings are embedded. In other words: the autonomy of reason is not situated within the rules of rationality but is 1

Sive: “IJ IJ Ȟ ȜȜȦȞ Ȟșȡ ʌȦȞ ʌȡȐȖȝĮIJĮ” Plato, Leges, 951a5-b4 and Hanna Arendt, The Human Condition. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, London, 1998, 25. 2 Philosophical anthropology is a scientific field that deals with different ways of understanding human behaviour as interface between the social environment and the creation of values. The movement of philosophical anthropology has been associated with German philosophers, such as Max Scheler, Helmuth Plessner, Arnold Gehlen and Ernst Cassirer. For instance, Max Scheler addresses the following questions in his work Man’s Place in Nature, “What is man?” and “What is man’s place in the nature of things?” These two questions had defined the frame for the development of philosophical anthropology over the following decades. Philosophical Anthropology. Wittgenstein’s Perspective, (Ed. Jesús Padilla Gálvez), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2010, 7-14.

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rather determined by the conditions of biological life. In fact, the analysis of biological life is a pre-condition for an effective analysis of the rules of rationality. Philosophical anthropological research starts with the analysis of the biological conditions of life and continues to investigate the human mind. Philosophical anthropology is based on the following presuppositions: first, the analysis of the subject-object relation is carried out by taking up the position of the object; secondly, in order to identify the position of the object we need to focus on life in general with its sociobiological conditions. Third, life is perceived as a point of intersection in which the biological conditions of life intertwine with the characteristics of a particular environment. However, all these assumptions imply a primacy of the natural sciences over the human sciences (e.g. cultural studies, history or social philosophy) and lead us away from a purely philosophical approach. We may therefore characterize this view of philosophical anthropology as the eccentric position in which at least part of its assumptions are based on natural sciences.3 In his remarks about anthropology, L. Wittgenstein seems to have been inspired by Frazer’s works and uses the anthropologist’s considerations to define his own position. Indeed, Wittgenstein does not take into account biological or social considerations as elements of the framework within which anthropological questions should be treated. Neither does he have recourse to the traditional approach to anthropology, since he wasn’t an anthropologist himself. Since he comes from a different area he approaches the field from a different standpoint. His interest always centred around language. In fact, he castigates the way the usual anthropologist works for using a particular language in order to describe unknown phenomena. Given this lack of knowledge of the other, of “the primitive”, the anthropologist’s language appears all too simple to enable us to understand the phenomena we are interested in. He explains this as follows: “Alles was Frazer tut ist (sie) Menschen, die so ähnlich denken wie er, Plausibel zu machen. Es ist sehr merkwürdig daß alle diese Gebräuche endlich sozusagen als Dummheiten dargestellt werde.

3

Helmuth Plessner, Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch. In: Gesammelten Schriften, Vol. IV. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M., 2003.

Philosophical Anthropology. An Introduction

9

Nie wird es aber plausibel daß die Menschen aus purer Dummheit alle diese Dinge «all das» tun.”4

Wittgenstein’s anthropological approach cannot be discussed without mentioning James G. Frazer, who is considered as the antecedent of modern social anthropology. In his works, Frazer deals with numerous facts but he was particularly interested in religion, myths and the meaning of rituals. He carried out comparative studies on religious belief and symbolic meaning and described the role of myth in society.5 Now according to Wittgenstein, the aim of anthropology should rather be to describe how other men can act meaningfully in an environment that is essentially different from ours. The anthropologist should create a framework in which the unknown other can be understood but not as someone strange, foreign or alien. To attain this aim, he would have to uncover incommensurable structures in order to establish a link with us. Wittgenstein quotes from a book of anthropology, which in his view exemplifies the mistaken approach in this field: “...man könnte ein Buch über [A]nthropologie so anfangen: Wenn man das Leben & Benehmen der Menschen auf der Erde betrachtet so sieht man daß sie außer den Handlungen die man tierische nennen könnte der Nahrungsaufnahme etc etc etc. auch solche ausführen die einen ganz anderen «eigentümlichen» Charakter tragen & die man rituelle Handlungen nennen könnte.”6

Clearly, Wittgenstein points out that one could write an anthropological book and describe the life and peculiar behaviour of other people as instinctive and ritual. According to his view a book like that would result in nonsense (Unsinn). This is because the anthropologist would interpret the peculiarities he is concerned with as a kind of “wrong physics” pursuant to his background knowledge. Consequently, the anthropologist would never become aware of the fact that the unknown culture he is concerned with has just developed strategies to assimilate to their environment.7 He illustrates his argument by pointing to Frazer’s anthropological approach which describes magic as a kind of mistaken

4

Wittgenstein, 2000, Vol. VI, PB, Item 110, 178. See: James George Frazer, The golden bough: a study in magic and religion. Macmillan & Co., London, 1922. 6 Wittgenstein, 2000, Vol. VI, PB, item 110, p. 198; Wittgenstein, 2000, Typoskript basierend auf 109, 110, 111, 112, 113 und dem Anfang von 114, item 211, 319 f. 7 The original text says: “...fehlerhafte Anschauung über die Physik der Dinge.” Wittgenstein, 2000, Vol. VI, PB, item 110, 198. 5

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physics.8 Wittgenstein rejects this attitude. He even sees a danger in this perspective, because by making use of our symbolic structures we merely reproduce our own representation of the other’s. For instance, in anthropology we use our own language which unavoidably allows us only a restricted or distorted description of other cultures. But we are not normally aware of the fact that our lexicon and grammatical structures that we use for descriptive purposes have already constituted a framework which delimits our perception. Thus, rather than impartially or objectively approaching the other, our views are shaped by prejudice. It is due to our prejudice that we tend to perceive the members of other, more primitive cultures as irrational and in a sense impossible to understand. Hence Wittgenstein raises the issue whether we describe other cultures as they really are. He assumes that it is actually the other way round and that our language makes us attribute irrationality to others when as a matter of fact we behave and live in strikingly similar ways. But we do feel justified in our lack of understanding of the other. He explains this situation as follows: “Frazer ist viel mehr savage, als die meisten seine savages, denn diese werden nicht so weit vom Verständnis einer geistigen Angelegenheit entfernt sein, wie ein Engländer des 20sten Jahrhunderts. S e i n e Erklärungen der primitiven Gebräuche sind viel roher, als der Sinn dieser Gebräuche selbst.”9

Wittgenstein frequently carries out thought experiments (Gedankenexperimente) in order to clarify and illustrate his points. He suggests the following scenario: we find an unknown native culture whose members, unlike us, carry out mathematical calculations not to make wellfounded predictions, but in order to make prophecies. But why do we ascribe two different purposes to one and the same phenomenon? He invites us to view mathematical propositions from an anthropological standpoint; in particular, he notices an analogy in the representation of anthropology and mathematics. However, most researchers would consider this analogy as rather unusual because anthropologists would never admit mathematical methods in the description and explanation of anthropological questions. Most likely, they would reject the view that anthropological facts could be understood in mathematical terms. Moreover, if we used mathematical logic to describe anthropological 8

See: Frazer, 1922 and Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on Frazer’s ‘Golden Bough’. Edited by Rush Rhees. Brynmill, Retford, 1979. 9 Wittgenstein, 2000, Typoskript der zweiten Hälfte der Vorkriegsfassung der Untersuchung, item 221, 321.

Philosophical Anthropology. An Introduction

11

phenomena we would never be able to verify or falsify our mathematical propositions. On the other hand, if mathematical calculation is completely avoided, how could an anthropologist actually describe and explain mathematical phenomena? We shall take up the notion of introducing mathematics in anthropology and show its implications by means of an example: let’s assume that a group of anthropologists investigates another culture and plans to write a book about the mathematics that the people of this culture have developed.10 But what is the researchers’ approach when they study the peculiarities of the other culture’s mathematics? Wittgenstein mentions two contrasting stands, one in which the anthropologist describes the mathematical symbols and the other whereby the anthropologist keeps a record of the mathematical stage the other culture is in. He says: “Es ist doch klar, daß wir ein «Ļmathematisches» Werk zum Studium der Anthropologie verwenden können. Aber eines ist dann nicht klar: - ob wir sagen sollen: “diese Schrift zeigt uns wie bei diesem Volk mit Zeichen operiert wurde”, oder ob wir sagen sollen: “dieser Schrift zeigt uns, welche Teile «welchen Teil» der Mathematik dieses Volk beherrscht hat.”.”11

Here he points to a paradox that usually occurs in the study of anthropological phenomena. In the first case the researcher is an outsider that describes a set of symbols; in the second case, the anthropologist compares the unknown way of carrying out computations to the standard and methods used in his own culture. The latter uses his own mathematical system as a frame of reference. However, this second position parts from the implicit assumption that our system is not only more complex, but better than theirs. The system under consideration is seen as a subset of ours and therefore less developed and refined. Wittgenstein criticises the second position for having only little cognitive utility in anthropology. We shall try to make clear Wittgenstein’s criticism through another example. Let’s consider simple arithmetic according to which 25×25=625. Let’s also assume that an anthropologist is confronted with the question whether 625 is a prophecy or a rather a prediction. Wittgenstein seems to think that Frazer would have regarded the calculus as a religious prophecy, as is shown in the following quotation:

10 11

Wittgenstein, 2000, Vol. XIII, PB, item 117, 172. Wittgenstein, 2000, Vol. XIII, PB, item 117, 186.

12

Philosophical Anthropology. Wittgenstein’s Perspective “Man könnte die Prophezeihung auch so fassen: - daß Übereinstimmung bezüglich des Resultates «Ļder Rechnung» erzielt werden wird, wenn Übereinstimmung bezüglich der richtigen Anwendung der Regel erzielt wird. Oder: daß es unser aller Meinung nach der gleiche Schritt sein wird «werde», wenn er unser aller Meinung nach dieser eindeutigen Regel folgt gemäß ist. Oder wir sind überzeugt, daß ich eine Rechung so «dadurch» kopieren kann, daß ich sie wieder‚ der Regeln gemäß’ ausführe«en» «wir» «können» «wir». // Rechnung kopieren können, indem wir sie ...”12

If a particular calculus adopted within a particular primitive culture serves to make prophecies, then the calculus would have the following form: the prediction of future events originates from pure intuition. There is no mathematical rule underlying the calculus. If we take this view as a starting point it appears nevertheless incredible that such “prophecy” sometimes be true. The same applies to anthropological research. Traditional anthropology generally views other cultures as less developed, rudimentary and inferior to the culture to which the researcher belongs. For instance, if we analyse the pyramids of Chichen Itza, the pre-Columbian archaeological site built by the Maya civilization, we come across details on the Maya’s religious rituals and the symbolic meaning of their buildings. Still we have only little knowledge about the mathematical foundations and the geometry that enabled the Mayas to construct their polyhedron formed pyramids. Anthropologists tend to proceed in almost the same manner: they concentrate on the symbolic meaning of cultural objects, but tend to disregard the mathematical knowledge that this culture has developed. Such view of anthropology appears rather peculiar because it excludes all the basic knowledge that the other culture has. The aim of this book is to investigate the anthropological questions that Wittgenstein raised in his works. The answers to the questions raised in this introduction may be found on the intersection between forms of life and radical translation from another culture into ours. The book presents an extensive analysis of anthropological issues with emphasis on language and social elements. The papers included in this collection assess Wittgenstein’s philosophy from the point of view of anthropology. Thus, P.M.S. Hacker thinks that Wittgenstein’s ethnological approach helps to distance us from the phenomena that puzzle us in philosophy. This approach helps to understand that anthropological facts free us from philosophical myths and makes us understand that grammar and 12

Wittgenstein, 2000, Vol. XIII, PB, item 117, 174.

Philosophical Anthropology. An Introduction

13

grammatical propositions are not to be explained by reference to facts. Many philosophical myths just break down when we adopt the ethnological approach. Robert J. Fogelin argues that Hume’s and Wittgenstein perspectives share a number of features, since many of Hume’s central themes are independent of what the author calls the First Principle. He also discusses Hume’ skeptical argument concerning induction. Alejandro Tomasini Bassols argues that in last analysis Wittgenstein’s philosophical meditation on language could be seen as a research about a particular kind of action carried out by men, that is, the speaking of a language. From this point of view, it is easy to understand to what extent Wittgenstein’s way of doing philosophy is different from what standard philosophers do. Lars Hertzberg discusses issues concerning responsibility and authority as an expression of will. He raises the issue of whether what the words or actions express are the result of a person’s will or whether and to what extent they were produced by someone else. This subject has to do with the autonomy of the will. Christian Kanzian discusses the mind-body problem. J. Padilla Gálvez asks how one can recognize and understand another person and he links this question with the problem of representation. His point is that in order to recognize another person one has to avoid an egocentric position. In his contribution Nuno Venturinha applies examines Wittgenstein’s notion of a “natural history of human beings”, a notion which plays an important role in the Philosophische Untersuchungen. Manuel García-Carpintero discusses the normative character of meaning and therefore illocutionary force. His discussion centers round the existence of a specific conventional procedure as a constitutive feature of linguistic forces. Olli Lagerspetz analyses the concepts of the dirty and the clean as anthropological ones. Judgments about the clean and the dirty imply ideas about what it is to care for the item that is soiled or might be soiled. The question whether dirt objectively exists cannot be answered in this general form. The meanings of our critical concepts are themselves determined in the context of the inquiries in which they are used. So the word ‘reality’ should not be taken as a metaphysical term, but rather as a tool for solving problems. António Marques argues that in Wittgenstein’s writings it is possible to find two conceptions of “form of life”. The first one is tied to an ethnological approach, by which Wittgenstein wishes to enlarge the scope of our understanding of what a human life is. In his view, ethnological representations must give up the idea of purely rational explanations of primitive behaviour, since this embodies an oversimplistic reductionism

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concerning other forms of life. The second use of “anthropological” representations consists in the design of fictitious societies which then can be studied as in a laboratory. Nicanor Ursúa deals with the so-called converging technologies and its role for human enhancement. He discusses the implications of these technologies for a philosophical anthropology. This volume is a collection of papers which were read at the International Congress held at the University of Castilla-La Mancha in Toledo (Spain), in September 2009, under the general subject of anthropology. The congress was attended by specialists of different countries. We were delighted to attend lectures by outstanding philosophers as Prof. P.M.S Hacker, R. Fogelin or Lars Hertzberg. What we offer here is the outcome of a careful selection of essays. We were interested above all in editing a book characterized by its unity of subject matter and originality of contributions. The congress was devoted in the first place to Wittgenstein’s thoughts concerning philosophical anthropology. To be sure, one of the aims of the congress was to consider and carefully examine the importance of anthropology for philosophical discussion and speculation. So I would like to thank all the colleagues who accepted the invitation to participate in the congress and thereby contribute to the book. Secondly, I am indebted to the public institutions that have financially supported the congress. Financial support was provided by the MICINN, Spanish Government, (FFI2009-05510-E). On this occasion, we benefited not only from the continued and generous support of the Departments of Research and Development of the Government of Castilla-La Mancha (AEB-1501/09), but also from the Diputación of Toledo and the Obra Social de la Caja de Castilla-La Mancha, the City Council of Toledo, as well as from the University of Castilla-La Mancha and the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences in Toledo.

Wittgenstein’s Anthropological and Ethnological Approach P. M. S. HACKER 1.

The ethnological method

In July, 1940 Wittgenstein wrote ‘If we use the ethnological approach, does that mean we are saying that philosophy is ethnology? No, it only means that we are taking up our position far outside, in order to see things more objectively’1. This remark, written at a time when Wittgenstein’s later views were largely formed, is of considerable interest and worth reflecting on. In his first masterwork, the Tractatus, Wittgenstein had conceived of philosophy as an investigation into the essence of the world and the nature of things. Logic, he later wrote in the Investigations, …seemed to have a peculiar depth – a universal significance. Logic lay, it seemed, at the foundation of all the sciences. – For logical investigation explores the essence of all things. It seeks to see to the foundation of things, and shouldn’t concern itself whether things actually happen in this or that way. — It arises neither from an interest in the facts of nature, nor from a need to grasp causal connections, but from an urge to understand the foundations, or essence, of everything empirical. 2

He had thought that logic showed the scaffolding of the world, and that the essential nature of things had to be reflected in the forms of analysed propositions with a sense. It was only in the 1930s that he gradually came to realize that what had appeared to be the scaffolding of the world was actually the scaffolding from which we describe the world. Again, as he wrote in the Investigations, We feel as if we had to see right into phenomena: yet our investigation is directed not towards phenomena, but rather, as one might say, towards the ‘possibilities’ of phenomena. What that means is that we call to mind the kinds of statement that we make about phenomena…

1 2

Wittgenstein, MS, 162b, 67v; CV 2.7.1940. Wittgenstein, PI, § 89.

Philosophical Anthropology. Wittgenstein’s Perspective, (Ed. Jesús Padilla Gálvez), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2010, 15-32.

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Philosophical Anthropology. Wittgenstein’s Perspective Our inquiry is therefore a grammatical one. And this inquiry sheds light on our problem by clearing misunderstandings away. Misunderstandings concerning the use of words, brought about, among other things, by certain analogies between the forms of expression in different regions of our language.3

What had seemed to be the logico-metaphysical forms of things that had to be mirrored in the logical syntax of any possible language were no more than the shadow cast by grammar upon the world. What seemed to be metalogical4 connections between language and reality, that pinned names to the objects that are their meanings, and ensured a pre-established harmony between thought, language and reality, were actually no more than instruments of language, and connections within grammar. For what appeared to be sempiternal objects constituting the substance of the world are actually samples, employed in ostensive definitions as explanations of word-meaning and standards for the correct application of words. And what had looked like a metalogical agreement between the proposition that p and the fact that p that makes it true, is no more than an intragrammatical rule that allows one to replace the phrase ‘the proposition that p’ by the phrase ‘the proposition that is made true by the fact that p’. So too, the metaphysical statement that the world consists of facts not things, correctly understood, amounts to no more than the grammatical proposition that a true description of (some features of) the world consists of a statement of facts, not of a list of things. And this grammatical proposition is itself a statement of a linguistic rule concerning the use of the phrases ‘true description’, ‘list of things’, and ‘statement of facts’. This transformation of philosophical vision that occurred between 1929 and 1931 was, of course, accompanied by a complete reorientation in Wittgenstein’s vision of philosophy itself. He had thought that philosophy must investigate …the a priori order of the wo rld, that is, the order of possibilities, which the world and thinking must have in common. But this order, it seems, must be utterly simple. It is prior to all experience, must run through all experience; no empirical cloudiness or uncertainty may attach to it. — It must rather be of the purest crystal. But this crystal does not appear as an abstraction, but as something concrete, indeed, as the most concrete, as it were the hardest thing there is (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 5.5563).5

3

Wittgenstein, PI, § 90. This is Wittgenstein’s idiosyncratic use of the expression ‘metalogical’. 5 Wittgenstein, PI, § 97. 4

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This, he now saw, was an illusion. This change in his conception of the method of doing philosophy was perhaps what he referred to in 1929 as ‘my way of philosophizing’ and characterized it as being ‘still new for me’. He described it thus: ‘This method is essentially the transition from the question of truth to the question of sense’6. What he meant by this remark is unclear and contentious. But the change in his general conception is surely what he referred to in his lectures in 1930-31 as ‘a new method’ that had been found. It was a method that made it possible for the first time for there to be skilful philosophers, rather than great ones, as in the past7. Great philosophers have achieved a sublime vision of the world and of man’s place in it, have erected grand systems to articulate their vision. And each such grand system, tormented by questions that brought itself in question8, collapsed under its own weight. Skilful philosophers are local cartographers, not meta-physicists or meta-physical cosmologists. They have the journeyman’s skill to map the terrain where people lose their way, to track their footsteps and to identify the place where they took the wrong turning, and to explain why they ended in bogs and quicksands. This is why Wittgenstein said that philosophy had lost its nimbus. For the Pathos of the sublime is cast back upon the illusions to which we are subject. Far from investigating language-independent essences of things, the task of philosophy is to investigate the uses of words that are the source of conceptual problems and confusions. It sketches the logical geography of those parts of the conceptual landscape in which we are prone to lose our way, not for its own sake, but in order that we should know our way around. It is not a metaphysical investigation (there are none such), but a conceptual or grammatical one. It reminds us how we use the words of our language, invites us to bring to mind features of usage in order to get us to realise the way in which we are inadvertently misusing words, crossing different uses of words, drawing inferences from one use that can actually be drawn only from another. It draws our attention to conceptual differences, where we were misled by conceptual similarities. These differences are ones which we may well not have noted, since the mastery of the use of a word does not require mastery of comparative use. (How many competent English speakers could, off the cuff, spell out the differences in use between ‘nearly’ and ‘almost’? – Yet no one would ever 6

Wittgenstein, MS, 106, 46. Wittgenstein, M, 113. 8 Wittgenstein, PI, § 133. 7

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say ‘There is not almost enough sugar in the pudding’ as opposed to ‘There isn’t nearly enough sugar in the pudding’). But when the differences are carefully pointed out, we recognise them.9 And when we recognise them, the philosophical knots we have tied in our understanding start to disentangle. So, for example, when we are reminded that one can speak quickly or slowly, but cannot mean something quickly or slowly, that one may speak better than one writes, but cannot mean something better than one writes, that one may begin to say something but cannot begin to mean something by what one says, and so forth, it may dawn on us that meaning something by one’s words is not an activity of the mind. Philosophy, then, is a conceptual investigation the twofold purposes of which are the dissolution of philosophical problems and the disentangling of conceptual confusions, on the one hand, and the description of the logical geography of our concepts, on the other. That human beings use language, engage in language-games, perform acts of speech in the context of their activities – these are anthropological facts about the natural history of man. What warrants using the epithets ‘ethnological approach’ or ‘anthropological approach’ in describing Wittgenstein’s later philosophy is the perspective from which he views conceptual matters. Unlike Frege, Wittgenstein treats concepts not as entities to be discovered, but as techniques of using words. To have mastered a certain concept is to have mastered the technique of the use of a certain word in some language or other. To possess a concept is to be able to use a word or phrase correctly, to explain what one means by it in a given context, and to respond with understanding to its use. Concepts are human creations, made not found. They are comparable to instruments made for human purposes, and their acquisition is comparable to the mastery of the technique of using an instrument. They are rule-governed techniques of word use. They are given by explanations of word meaning, and their techniques of application are exhibited in the use of words in practice. The use of words is integrated into the activities of human beings in the stream of life. These activities are part of human natural history. Wittgenstein found it fruitful to view them anthropologically or ethnologically. This comes out in two aspects of his approach to the 9

This is not a case of tacit as opposed to explicit knowledge, as these notions have been deployed in recent decades by philosophical theorists of meaning. It is rather a matter of explicit knowledge of correct use (meaning) but lack of a synoptic comparative view.

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characterization of concepts and conceptual networks: first, the primacy of action and practice, and second, the historicism. Wittgenstein liked to quote Goethe’s remark in Faust: “Im Anfang war die Tat”10 – not ‘In the beginning was the Word’, but rather: ‘In the beginning was the Deed’. For, as he observed, ‘Words are deeds’. To learn to speak is to learn to act. ‘Ordering, questioning, recounting, chatting’, he wrote, ‘are as much a part of our natural history as walking, eating, drinking, playing11. What children learn is not how to translate their thoughts and wishes into words, but how to request, demand, beg, nag, ask and answer questions, call people and to respond to calls, tell people things and to listen to what others tell; in short, they learn to be human – not homo sapiens, but homo loquens. As the linguistic behavioural repertoire of the child grows, so too the horizon of possible thought, feeling and volition expands. The child becomes able to think things he could not conceivably have thought, to feel things he could not possibly have felt, and to want things that no non-language using animal could intelligibly be said to want. For the limits of thought, feeling and volition are the limits of the behavioural expression of thinking, feeling and volition. We are not inducted into a human community by learning, let alone by being taught, the depth grammar of our native tongue; nor even by being taught its ordinary (surface) grammar – but rather by being trained to imitate, drilled to repeat, and later: learning and being taught how to do things with words, how to engage in innumerable language-games in the human community of family and friends, and later strangers too. The words with which we learn to do things are, of course, rule-governed. Their rule-governed employment is manifest in a regularity that presupposes recognition of a uniformity.12 The normative practices of using words are surrounded by normative activities of correcting mistakes, explaining what is meant, appropriate responses to correct use, manifestations of understanding, misunderstanding, and not understanding. And it is the normative practices of the speech community that fix and hold firm the internal relations between a word and its application, between explanation of meaning and what counts, in the practice of using the word, as correct use, as well as what is determined as following from its use in an utterance. 10

Goethe, Faust, Vers 1237. Wittgenstein, PI, § 25. 12 Wittgenstein, RFM, 348. 11

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Side by side with the primacy of action and practice we find in Wittgenstein’s approach a powerful historicist point of view. But, in a sense that I shall explain, it is historicism without history. The concepts employed by different linguistic and social groups are the product of social interaction, responses to shared needs, inventiveness and discovery, common interests called forth by the varying circumstances of social life, that evolve in idiosyncratic ways in different societies at different times and places. It was not for nothing that Wittgenstein cited Spengler as one of the important influences on his thought. Chapter 2 of The Decline of the West is dedicated to a survey of the different mathematics of different cultures. For Spengler viewed mathematics as a historical phenomenon and historical creation – not as something that has been progressively discovered in the course of human history, but as a motley of techniques and concepts that have been progressively created, and one might add, progressively unified, throughout human history. This, it seems to me, is an important legacy which Wittgenstein seized. ‘Mathematics’, he wrote, ‘is after all an anthropological phenomenon’.13 Of course, mathematical propositions are not anthropological propositions describing how men infer and calculate, any more than a penal code is a work of anthropology describing how people in a given society deal with criminals.14 It is a system of norms that determine what is called ‘calculating’, ‘inferring’, ‘working out’ magnitudes and quantities of countables and measurables, just as the penal code is a system of norms of behaviour and of penalties for transgression of those norms. But that these norms determine these concepts and therefore these ways of doing things, is an anthropological phenomenon. The young Wittgenstein, when he wrote the Tractatus was virtually oblivious to the history of concepts – as oblivious as Frege and Russell. The conception he had of language and of our conceptual scheme was of a timeless logical structure. The essential forms of any possible scheme of representation must, he thought, mirror the essential forms, the logicometaphysical scaffolding, of any possible world. Only simple names can represent simple objects, only relations can represent relations and only facts can represent facts. And the representation of whatever is represented must be isomorphic with what it represents. That is a metalogical requirement for the possibility of true or false representation. This sublime, 13 14

Wittgenstein, RFM, 399. Wittgenstein, RFM, 192.

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static, picture collapsed (slowly) after 1929 – and was replaced by a thorough-going dynamic historicist conception of language and of conceptual forms. But it is a historicism without history. It is remarkable that someone who had arrived at such a historicist conception should have been so indifferent to the actual history of arithmetic and geometry, the history of our different concepts of the psuche, nephesh, anima, mind, Geist, l’esprit, the history of the varying geometries of colour in different societies and languages. This lack of interest is, biographically speaking, surprising.15 But philosophically speaking it need occasion no surprise. For instead of investigating empirical facts about Egyptian, Babylonian or Mayan arithmetical systems, or Chinese and Japanese colour grammar, Wittgenstein has no compunction about inventing different forms of representation. He made this point forcefully apropos the dependency of our concepts on general facts of nature – but his observations are readily applicable to particular facts of the history of human societies. This is what he wrote: If concept-formation can be explained by facts of nature, shouldn’t we be interested not in grammar, but rather in what is its basis in nature? — We are, indeed, also interested in the correspondence between concepts and very general facts of nature. (Such facts as mostly do not strike us because of their generality.) But our interest is not thereby thrown back onto these possible causes of concept-formation; we are not doing natural science; nor yet natural history – since we can also invent fictitious natural history for our purposes.16 In the same way, it is not necessary to describe Egyptian or Greek arithmetic in order to make it clear that different arithmetical concepts are perfectly intelligible – for one can invent different ways of counting, calculating distances, speeds, weights, lengths, heights, and volumes. In 1940 he wrote: ‘One of my most important methods is to imagine a historical development of our ideas different from what has actually occurred. If we do that the problem shows us a quite new side’.17 It is in

15

For a discussion of Wittgenstein’s attitude to history and to the history of philosophy, see H.-J. Glock, ‘Wittgenstein and History’, in: A. Pichler and S. Säätelä eds., Wittgenstein: the Philosopher and his Works. The Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen, Bergen, 2005. 16 Wittgenstein, PPF, § 335. 17 Wittgenstein, MS, 162b, 68v.

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this sense that Wittgenstein invokes a historicism without history for philosophical purposes. 2.

The autonomy of grammar

Given Wittgenstein’s anthropological approach to the nature of concepts and conceptual networks, it should not be very surprising to find him insisting upon the autonomy of grammar. There is no such thing as ‘absolutely correct’ concepts any more than there are ‘absolutely correct’ instruments – only more or less usefulones, and more or less important, or even indispensable, ones – indispensable ones given our natures and purposes, and given the nature of the world around us. It is a cardinal thought in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy that grammar owes no homage to reality. Grammar is not answerable to the facts for correctness – it is, in an important sense, arbitrary.18 The arbitrariness of the rules of grammar does not mean that they are capricious, discretionary, unimportant, a matter for individual choice, easily changed, or that other rules would do just as well. Rather, it means that they cannot be said to be right or wrong, correct or incorrect relative to how things are in reality. It means that they are constitutive rules, not means-ends rules. They determine meanings of words, and are not answerable to the meanings of words. Unlike meansends rules, they are not contingent on natural regularities, as rules of cooking are, and are not answerable to the laws of nature. They are not justified by reference to the facts, since they are neither justified nor unjustified. They are, it might be said, an ethnological phenomenon. Human beings, living together in communities, use signs in these-andthese ways, and exclude using these signs in those-and-those other ways. Using signs thus, they do such-and-such things – give orders, ask questions, describe things, reason. The signs, thus used, determine the way they conceive of things, determine the logical space within which their thought moves – and are an integralpart of their form of life. With what is this ethnological approach to be contrasted? Why should we conceive things thus? How will distancing ourselves in this way help us attain a greater degree of objectivity? Because this way of looking at things will help to rid us of a pervasive array of illusions that have 18

For detailed discussion, see P. M. S. Hacker, Wittgenstein: Mind and Will, vol. 4 of An Analytic Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations. Blackwell, Oxford, 1996, in the essay ‘The arbitrariness of grammar and the bounds of sense’.

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dogged philosophy since its beginnings. These are the illusions of metaphysics conceived as a description of the sempiternal and rigid scaffolding of the world. It seems that grammatical propositions such as ‘substances are bearers of properties’, ‘all events are temporally related to all other events’, or ‘causes cannot follow their effects’ are correct if they truly describe the nature of things. So, it is correct that nothing can be red all over and green all over simultaneously, since it lies in the nature of colour that one colour excludes any other colour. It is correct that red is darker than pink, because it is part of the essence of red to be darker than pink. That is not just how things are, it is how they necessarily are. These truths are not physical, but meta-physical. It is against this conception of meta-physical facts that Wittgenstein wars. The proposition that red is darker than pink is a grammatical one – it is a rule for the use of the colour words, ‘red’ and ‘pink’ and for the relational term ‘darker than’. This colour is red, and that colour is pink, and this colour does not count as that colour. So, if anything is this colour all over, it cannot also be described as being that colour all over. Moreover, any such ordered pair of colour samples serves us as a sample of the relation darker than. So, if any object A is red, we can infer without looking that it is darker than a pink object. The grammatical proposition is an inference license, not a description of a ‘necessary fact’. Does this ‘arbitrariness’ mean that we can change our grammar? That we can decide that henceforth red should be lighter than pink? Yes and No. No, as we use the words ‘red’, ‘pink’ and ‘lighter than’ it is nonsense (not false) to say that red is lighter than pink. The proposition that red is lighter than pink is neither an empirical truth or falsehood, nor the expression of a grammatical rule for the use of these words. Yes, we can change the rules for the use of our words. But were we to change our grammar thus, we would be changing the meanings of the terms ‘red’, ‘pink’, and ‘lighter than’. That is what is meant by saying that grammatical propositions are constitutive rules for the use of their constituent words. They determine meanings and are not answerable to them. 3.

Concept formation and shared concepts

Wittgenstein views conceptual forms and networks as the creation of human beings. Concept-formation is dependent in various ways upon the empirical nature of the world around us and upon our empirical nature.

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That dependence, however, is a dependence for use and for usefulness, not for truth or correctness. Human beings have, by and large, similar perceptual capacities. They have much the same discriminatory powers, comparable mnemonic abilities, similar natural reactive propensities, common basic needs and shared forms of natural behavioural disposition. They share natural forms of expressive behaviour – of pain, disgust, pleasure, amusement, fear and anger. To be sure, these forms of expression are duly moulded by acculturation. Nevertheless, they retain their roots in natural behaviour. Other forms of expressive behaviour are primarily linguistic, in as much as the form they take is linguistic and what they express is an attribute that can qualify only a language-using animal. The world in which human social groups form concepts, in which children acquire concepts and in which human beings use concepts is by and large a regular world of material objects distributed in space and time and subject to causal regularity, and of living creatures exhibiting regular patterns of teleological activity and life cycle. The persistence of such regularities is a condition for the usability and usefulness of the concepts we possess. These very general facts of nature are background conditions for concept-formation, concept-possession, concept-application and conceptutility. They could be otherwise. Were they to change, many of our common concepts would cease to be useful, and some would even cease to be usable. We would have to introduce different concepts, or be left without the conceptual apparatus that makes us human. Of course, that is an empirical hypothesis. As such, it is of little interest to Wittgenstein. The reason he draws our attention to such pervasive general facts about ourselves and the world we inhabit is that …if anyone believes that certain concepts are absolutely th e correct ones, and that having different ones would mean not realizing something that we realize – then let him imagine certain very general facts of nature to be different from what we are used to, and the formation of concepts different from the usual ones will become intelligible to him.19

Facts about human beings and human natural behaviour to which Wittgenstein draws our attention in the course of his grammatical clarifications of concept formation concern natural expressive and responsive behaviour. They also concern primitive linguistic behaviour and 19

Wittgenstein, PPF, 366.

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the more sophisticated forms of linguistic behaviour that grow out of these primitive roots. These are not recherché or arcane. On the contrary: What we are supplying are really remarks on the natural history of human beings; not curiosities, however, but facts that no one has doubted, which have escaped notice only because they are always before our eyes.20

So, for example, natural pain behaviour is the root onto which we graft acculturated linguistic pain behaviour. Without pain behaviour, there would be no pain-language, without common pain behaviour no shared pain-language. Looked at anthropologically, one might say, human animals injure themselves and cry out, they contort their faces thus, assuage the injured limb thus, favour the uninjured limb thus. Unlike other animals, they also use words and do things with the words they use. They exclaim, cry out, ask for help, describe their pain, point at the pain location – and other human beings help them. For others view such pain behaviour as a reason for assisting the injured and as a reason for commiseration. Why are such anthropological facts illuminating? Not because they resolve any philosophical questions. After all, no empirical discovery, let alone such empirical commonplaces, could resolve a philosophical question, any more than a discovery in physics, let alone commonplaces about the physical behaviour of things, could confirm or disconfirm a mathematical theorem. Rather they position us in such a manner that we can see the problem in a new light. In the case of problems pertaining to the concept of pain, or, more generally concepts of the ‘inner’, of subjective experience, this anthropological viewpoint helps to rid us of an obsessive preoccupation with introspection, privileged access, epistemic privacy and private ownership of experience. For that is the typical position from which philosophers, psychologists and cognitive neuroscientists view the phenomena and the concepts that bewilder us. And the change of viewpoint makes us more receptive to the idea, which Wittgenstein advances, that the possibility of groundless verbal expression and report of experience is grammatically bound up with the behavioural criteria, including verbal expression and report, in appropriate circumstances, for other-ascription of experience. Animals generally display conative behaviour. They have wants and felt needs and strive to get what they want or need. On such natural conative behaviour of infants, such as reaching for and crying out for a desired object, human beings graft the use of such words as ‘want’, ‘give 20

Wittgenstein, PI, § 415.

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me’, and in due course, ‘I want’, and even later ‘May I have’. And from these humble beginnings of conative language humans extend their conative behaviour to begging for, asking for, demanding the object of their desire, and, in the fullness of time, to describing the object of their desire as well as requesting it from others. This humdrum anthropological observation encourages us to look upon expressions and reports of wants not as descriptions of an inner phenomenon, accessible only to the subject, but rather as acculturated extensions of conative behaviour. And that in turn helps to shake the grip of the idea that desires and wants are inner states or objects perceived by the subject of desires and wants. Wanting something is no more a private experience than reaching for something. Saying that one wants something and specifying what it is that one wants is not a report of a private observation. Knowing what one wants is not a cognitive achievement consequent on peering into one’s breast and apprehending there a want or a state of wanting, but the upshot of a decision consequent on thinking about or examining the options available to one. Animals display not only conative behaviour, but more generally, teleological, goal-directed, behaviour. Wittgenstein goes so far as to identify the behaviour of a cat stalking a bird as a primitive manifestation of intention. That is perhaps questionable (and was questioned by Stuart Hampshire21). But his suggestion about the roots of the language-games human beings play with expressions of intention is illuminating. Here we do not graft a piece of linguistic behaviour onto natural expressive behaviour, rather we introduce a piece of linguistic behaviour that heralds an action. We say ‘I’m going to V (throw the ball, give you the ball)’ and immediately go on to V. The child’s initial use of ‘I’m going to’ is to herald an action. And from this primitive beginning, long term intentions and their expression grow, and the nexus with immediate performance weakens. Further examples could easily be added. But instead of doing so, I should like to expand the focus of this discussion a little. For one can discern a similarly anthropological strand in Wittgenstein’s reflections on the conditions for shared concepts, and hence for shared language-games. Here his emphasis is upon a shared form of life, common human discriminatory and mnemonic powers, agreement in definitions, or more generally explanations of word meaning, and broad consensus in 21

S. Hampshire, Thought and Action. Chatto and Windus, London, 1959, 97 f.

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judgements. A shared form of life is presupposed by logic, i.e. by what we call ‘inferring’, ‘concluding’, ‘affirming’, ‘denying’, ‘contradicting oneself’. This is not an agreement in opinions, let alone an agreement in opinions on questions of logic.22 Rather, it is an agreement in behaviour and response, in what counts as understanding, misunderstanding and not understanding. Common human discriminatory powers are presupposed for the possibility of shared concepts of perceptual qualities that are standardly explained, and sometimes applied, by reference to perceptible samples. For our concepts of colours, sounds, tastes, smells, as well as our concepts of thermal and tactile qualities are determined by the samples we use in explaining the meaning of predicates of perceptual qualities, and the ways in which we use them as standards of correct application. Unless we can see and discriminate colour samples in the same way, we shall not have a common colour grammar. The blind and the colour blind cannot master the use of our colour grammar precisely because they cannot use our colour samples – and they cannot use them because they cannot see them, or because they cannot distinguish them as we do. They cannot do something that we can. If general agreement in the samples we use to explain what ‘red’, ‘magneta’ or ‘Brunswick green’, etc. vanished, our colour language would disintegrate and confusion would supervene. As Wittgenstein noted, …The phenomenon of language is base d on regularity, on agreement in action. Here it is of the greatest importance that all, or the enormous majority of us agree in certain things. I can, for example, be quite sure that the colour of this object will be called ‘green’ by far the most of the human beings who see it … We say that, in order to communicate, people must agree with one another about the meanings of words. But the criterion for this agreement is not just agreement with reference to definitions, e.g. ostensive definitions – butalso an agreement in judgements. It is essential for communication that we agree in a large number of judgements.23

Definitions, explanations of the meanings of words, are rules. The understanding of a rule and hence too the common understanding of a shared rule, is exhibited in two ways: in formulating the rule, for example in giving an ostensive definition, and in applying the rule, for example in making empirical judgements. Whether different people understand a rule for the use of a word in the same way is manifest in their generally 22 23

Wittgenstein, RFM, 353. Wittgenstein, RFM, 342 f.

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reaching the same verdict on its application. Agreement in judgements is not independent of agreement in definitions, for agreement in applying a definition in judgement is a criterion of shared understanding. This does not mean that the truth of our empirical judgements depends upon the agreement of other speakers. Rather the meaningfulness of our judgements, and hence the possibility of their being either true or false, depends on widespread agreement. 4.

A comparison with alternative methods and conceptions

To conclude this discussion, I should like briefly to compare Wittgenstein’s ethnological approach with three other currently common approaches, rooted in different conceptions of the subject, which he rejected or would surely have rejected. First, one might cite Platonism – a perennially tempting conception that cleaves to apriori essentialism regarding concepts and real definitions, and realism regarding logical possibility. Accordingly, philosophy is conceived to be a cognitive discipline the task of which is to reveal the nature of things and the objective language-independent structure of all possible worlds. For things of different kinds are conceived to have an essential nature, which is given by a real definition specifying the necessary and sufficient conditions for being a thing of the kind in question. Logical possibility is conceived to be language independent – circumscribing the limits of all possible worlds. And the propositions of logic are held to be boundary stones set in eternal foundations, which our thought may overflow but never displace (Frege). Clearly Wittgenstein set his face against this conception of philosophy and philosophical investigation. It is a misconception to suppose that all words are defined, or indeed are definable in terms of a set of necessary and sufficient conditions of application. Numerous terms are quite differently explained, e.g. by ostensive definition in terms of a sample, by a series of examples together with a similarity rider, by paraphrase or contrastive paraphrase, and so on. Furthermore, it is misguided to suppose, as Frege did, that all concepts must be sharply defined. Numerous expressions in our language are vague, and they are none the worse for that. If this undermines our Platonist conception of logic, then it is high time it was undermined. We must look and see how we use words and how we explain our concepts. Not only are most of our concepts not sharply defined, we very often do

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not want sharply defined concepts. As Wittgenstein remarked, ‘I asked him for a bread knife, and he gives me a razor blade because it is sharper’. Far from logical possibility constituting the language-independent limits of all possible worlds, it is merely the limits of language, as determined by our conventions for the uses of words. We labour under an illusion if we think that logical possibility corresponds to something in reality – as if a logical possibility were more real than a logical impossibility. But nothing corresponds to a logical possibility – and there cannot be less than nothing to correspond to a logical impossibility. A logical impossibility is not a possibility that is impossible, and a logical possibility is not a shadow of an actuality. For if something is merely logically possible then it does not exist – and how can something that does not exist cast a shadow. If a logical possibility is a shadow, then it is a shadow of any form of words that makes sense. A second, quite different approach that enjoys current popularity is a posteriori essentialism – with roots in Aristotle and Locke, and flowering branches today in Putnam and Kripke. On such a view there are a posteriori necessary truths to be discovered. So, for example, it is an empirical truth, but a ‘metaphysically necessary’ one, that water is H2O, or that lightening is electrical discharge. Of course, the discovery of such truths is not the task of philosophy. The task of philosophy, it seems, is to demonstrate that they are necessary, and then to employ them in resolving certain philosophical problems. It is obvious that Wittgenstein would hold this to be confused. For he showed that what we deem to be necessary truths are, with the exception of the tautologies of logic, norms of representation. And there is no such thing as discovering norms of representation in reality. For something is a rule only in so far as it used as a rule. Nature is the realm of phusis not of nomos. Rules are human creations, and their existence is exhibited in human practices. Rules for the use of words are exhibited in human discourse, in explanations of meaning, in corrections of errors, in what counts as accepted usage. It was a chemical discovery that pure water consists of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen in chemical combination. If chemists since then have transformed this discovery into a rule for the use of the expression ‘pure water’, that is a decision, namely to deny the epithet ‘pure water’ of anything that does not consist of H2O. They did not find an unused and hitherto unknown rule in nature and they did not discover a language-independent metaphysical necessity. They

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simply hardened what was an empirical discovery into a rule for the use of the phrase ‘pure water’. The very idea that there might be a posteriori necessities would, I believe, have struck Wittgenstein as utterly misguided. For to say that a proposition is a necessary truth is to say something about its role in inferences and in the rule-governed transformation of propositions. But to present chemical and physical discoveries as necessary truths is to say nothing at all about their role or function, and explains nothing concerning the differences in role between such propositions and those propositions of natural science that are contingently true. A third current strategy that would not have found favour with Wittgenstein is Quinean and neo-Quinean naturalism. This eschews all distinctions between analytic and synthetic propositions, a priori and a posteriori ones, and necessary and contingent ones. The only acceptable distinctions are between logical and non-logical sentences, and between sentences that are deeply embedded in our total theory of the world, those that are less deeply embedded and can therefore be relinquished at less cost, and observation sentences that lie on the periphery of the web of our beliefs. This homogeneity, Wittgenstein might have argued, is purchased at the cost of obscuring and indeed obliterating differences, in particular differences in role and function of sentences of our language. In particular, it conflates the normative net of grammar with the empirical fish that we catch with it. Wittgenstein eschewed the terminology of analytic/synthetic, invoking instead his own quite different distinction between grammatical and empirical propositions – grammatical propositions being norms of representation. He thought that our distinction between necessary and contingent propositions was not a useful classificatory instrument, but a knot that needed unravelling. He unravelled it not in terms of deeply embedded truths, but in terms of deeply entrenched norms for description. He thought that the traditional conception of the a priori rested on profound misconceptions24 – which he strove to undermine in his elucidations of the various kinds of so called necessary propositions. 24

“It was characteristic of theorists of the past cultural period to want to find the a priori where it isn’t. Or should I say a characteristic of the past cultural era was to form//to create// the concept of the “a priori”. For it would never have created the

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Quinean naturalism certainly has an anthropological methodology. But the conception of human nature, and of explanation and understanding of human thought, feeling and behaviour is sorely defective. In Quine’s case, it is wedded to crude Skinnerian behaviourism, and in the case of his followers, it is committed to reduction of reasons to causes, and the analysis of teleological explanation as a form of nomological explanation or as replaceable by nomological explanation. Wittgenstein by contrast held explanation in terms of reasons and motives to be irreducible, and altogether distinct from nomological explanation. Wittgenstein’s ethnological point of view is not a commitment to construing philosophy as a branch of anthropology. Although mathematics is an anthropological phenomenon, propositions of mathematics are not anthropological propositions saying how men calculate and infer25 – they are expressions of rules, not statements to the effect that certain rules exist. Although it is an anthropological phenomenon that human beings have chromatic vision, and an ethnological fact that they construct different colour grammars and describe visibilia in terms of their colours, the propositions of colour grammar, such as ‘red is darker than pink’, ‘red is more like orange than like yellow’, ‘nothing can be white and transparent’, are not anthropological propositions. They are norms of representation. The problems of philosophy arise primarily (but not only) as a result of entanglements in the net of grammar. The ethnological approach helps to distance one from the phenomena that bewilder us in our philosophical reflections and confusions. It helps one to view the normative grammatical structures that inform a language as a net, to see it as a human artefact that could have been woven differently, to realise its normative role in the natural history of a human language-using community, to understand that its purpose is to catch fish, and to avoid confusing the net with the fish. But the philosophical task is to disentangle the knots we have tied in the net. For that purpose, we have to describe the net and its reticulations – and that is not an ethnological task. It is a logico-grammatical one, in which familiar rules of the uses of expressions have to be carefully selected and properly marshalled in order to exhibit the sources of confusion and

concept if, from the start, it had seen things// the situation// as we do. (Then the world would have lost a great – I mean significant – error.” Wittgenstein,MS, 183, 81. 25 Wittgenstein, RFM, 192.

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misunderstanding. For that we require, as it were, an ‘internal point of view’, not an ethnological or anthropological one.26 St John’s College, Oxford

26

I am grateful to Hanjo Glock for his helpful comments on this paper.

Hume and Wittgenstein’s on Human Nature ROBERT J. FOGELIN In 1946 Wittgenstein remarked to Karl Britton that “he could not sit down and read Hume—he knew far too much about the subject of Hume’s writings to find this anything but torture”.1 We can imagine Wittgenstein opening Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature and coming upon the following passage eight paragraphs into Book 1: All our simple ideas in their first appearance, are derived from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them, and which they exactly represent.2

Later Hume says that this “is the first principle I establish in the science of human nature.”3 Wittgenstein would find virtually every substantive term in Hume’s First Principle problematic—or rather , he would find Hume’s use of them problematic. This includes not only Hume’s references to impressions and ideas, but also to his use of the notions of simplicity, correspondence and representation. All these terms have common unproblematic uses that Wittgenstein would not challenge. He does, however, claim—or attempt to show—that philosophers often misuse them in ways that generate deep conceptual misunderstandings. To cite one example, the contrast between simple and complex has many unproblematic uses, but, for Wittgenstein, a philosopher’s context-free use of this contrast is the source of conceptual confusion. His critique in Philosophical Investigation4 of the philosophical employment of this contrast seems primarily aimed at his own attempt to establish the existence of ultimate simples in the Tractatus 2.02-20271, but it applies equally well to Hume’s First Principle. I will not, however, present a detailed study of the ways in which Wittgenstein would find Hume’s First Principle objectionable. I will instead try to show that, despite their profound differences, the standpoints 1

Britton, 1967, p. 61. Hume, THN, 1.1.1.7. 3 Hume, THN, 1.1.1.12. 4 In: Wittgenstein, PI, § § 46-53. 2

Philosophical Anthropology. Wittgenstein’s Perspective, (Ed. Jesús Padilla Gálvez), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2010, 33-45.

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of Hume and Wittgenstein have a number of central features in common. How is this possible? Part of the answer is that many of Hume’s central themes are independent of what I have called his First Principle. Consider his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.5 In its most famous section—4, “Of sceptical doubts concerning the operations of the understanding.”—Hume presents what is commonly called his skeptical argument concerning induction. The word “impression” appears nowhere in it. Similarly, in Hume’s technical sense of the word, it is completely absent from ten of the twelve sections of the Enquiry. Hume’s First Principle gets more play in the Treatise, but even there it is often employed simply as the “official language” for presenting his views. Though I cannot show this here, the heavy work in Hume’s theory is not done by his theory of the origin of ideas (sketched with unseemly haste in both the Treatise and the Enquiry); instead, his theory of belief-formation is the driving force of much of his position. In their accounts of belief-formation, Hume and Wittgenstein’s views are often striking similar. I will concentrate chiefly on these shared commitments. I will comment briefly on the basic differences in their standpoints at the close of this paper. Both the Treatise and the Enquiry contain a section titled “Of Reason in Animals.” These sections are not intended to elevate the standing of animals by attributing to them higher rational faculties, but rather to show that their seemingly cognitive activities can be accounted for by the mechanical operations of the laws of association. Human beings, Hume argues, are essentially in the same boat: Our higher cogitative faculties are grounded in the associational mechanism we share with animals. In various places, Wittgenstein says things strikingly similar. I want to regard man here as an animal; as a primitive being to which one grants instinct but not ratiocination. As a creature in a primitive state. Any logic good enough for a primitive means of communication needs no apology from us. Language did not emerge from some kind of ratiocination.6

More specifically, Hume and Wittgenstein hold parallel views on inductive reasoning. Hume famously argued that no reasoning, either a priori or empirical, could justify projecting past regularities beyond immediate experience, for example, into the future. Where, then, do such beliefs come from? Hume held that it is simply a fact of human nature that the associative mechanisms that shape our views concerning the future are 5 6

Hereafter Enquiry. Wittgenstein, OC, 475.

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the result of experiencing patterns of regularity in the past. Wittgenstein expresses a similar view in the Philosophical Grammar: Nothing could induce me to put my hand into a flame—although after all it is only in the past that I have burnt myself. The belief that fire will burn me is of the same nature as the fear that it will burn me.7

Wittgenstein enlarges on this example in Philosophical Investigations: What does this mean?—”The certainty th at the fire will burn me is based on induction.” Does that mean that I argue to myself: “Fire has always burned me, so it will happen now too?” Or is the previous experience the cause of my certainty, not its ground? Whether the earlier experience is the cause of the certainty depends on the system of hypotheses, of natural laws, in which we are considering the phenomenon of certainty. Is our confidence justified?--What people accept as a justification--is shewn by how they think and live.8 We expect this, and are surprised at that. But the chain of reasons has an end.9

Wittgenstein might have added: “And the end is always near.” In a recent work I have introduced the (intentionally) ugly word “defactoism” to characterize positions that ground human belief and understanding, not in some higher rational faculty, but on contingent facts concerning the kind of creatures we are and on contingent facts concerning the kind of world we inhabit.10 Hume and Wittgenstein tell their stories with different emphases. Hume gives prominence to the way regularities in nature operate directly on our associative machinery, thereby bringing our beliefs about nature in line with the course of nature itself: Here, then, is a kind of pre-established harmony between the course of nature and the succession of our ideas; and though the powers and forces, by which the former is governed, be wholly unknown to us; yet our thoughts and conceptions have still, we find, gone on in the same train with the other works of nature. Custom is that principle, by which this correspondence has been effected; so necessary to the subsistence of our species, and the regulation of our conduct, in every circumstance and occurrence of human life.11

7

Wittgenstein, PG, 1.5.67. Wittgenstein, PI, § 325. 9 Wittgenstein, PI, § 326. 10 Taking Wittgenstein at his Word 11 Hume, EHU, 5.2.21. 8

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We might put Hume’s point this way: In virtue of our associative capacities, we become accustomed to the regularities impressed on us by nature and automatically come to anticipate them. Hume thus reverses Kant’s Copernican revolution before it was around to reverse: For Kant, mind is the lawgiver to nature through imposing a necessary structure on it, thus making experience (i.e., empirical knowledge) possible. For Hume, nature becomes the lawgiver to mind by imprinting its regularities on it, and the mind, in its turn, projects the felt transitions among its ideas back upon nature as a fiction of necessary connectedness. For Hume, we do sometimes arrive at beliefs by seeking and weighing evidence, by carrying out experiments, and so on, but these activities themselves are grounded in automatic associative mechanisms. Wittgenstein tells a parallel story, but with a social emphasis. In a crucial passage, he carries on the following internal dialogue: Let me ask this: what has the expression of a rule—say a sign-post—got to do with my actions? What sort of connexion is there here? Well, perhaps this one: I have been trained to react to this sign in a particular way, and now I do so react to it.12

Wittgenstein considers an objection to this suggestion: But that is only to give a causal connexion; to tell how it has come about that we now go by the sign-post; not what this going-by-the-sign really consists in.

Wittgenstein responds: On the contrary; I have further indicated that a person goes by a sign-post only in so far as there exists a regular use of sign-posts, a custom.

By a custom, Wittgenstein has in mind a social practice. There is, then, a difference in emphasis in these passages from Hume and Wittgenstein. There is, however, no shortage of passages showing that Hume fully appreciated the importance of the influence of culture on the formation of belief, and Wittgenstein’s belief that touching a flame is painful is derived from a stern lesson taught by nature. There is a further and more striking similarity in their positions. In a surprising—and often ignored—passage, Hume adopts what might be called an associationalist account of necessity found in mathematics. Either we have no idea of necessity, or necessity is nothing but that determination of the thought to pass from causes to effects, and from effects to causes, according to their experienced union. 12

Wittgenstein, PI, § 198.

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Thus, as the necessity, which makes two times two equal to four, or three angles of a triangle equal to two right ones, lies only in the act of the understanding, by which we consider and compare these ideas; in like manner the necessity or power, which unites causes and effects, lies in the determination of the mind to pass from the one to the other.13

Wittgenstein’s commitment to a parallel view concerning necessity (the must) in mathematics comes out in a variety of ways, but perhaps most clearly in his dismissive attitude toward appeals to intuition. Intuitions are supposed to be unmediated conceptual insights into necessary connections. For Wittgenstein, appeals to intuition add nothing to the plain fact that, usually after suitable training, we act automatically in the application of a rule. There are a great many passage to this effect, none more vivid than this: Pay attention to the patter by means of which we convince someone of the truth of a mathematical proposition. It tells us something about the function of this conviction. I mean the patter by which intuition is awakened. By which, that is, the machine of a calculating technique is set in motion.14

I’ll turn next to a less obvious similarity between Hume and Wittgenstein: It concerns their attitudes toward the philosophical enterprise itself. Hume first. An important feature of Hume’s account of the formation of beliefs is its generality. He is interested not only in how human beings form well-founded beliefs, but also in how human beings come to form faulty, even ridiculous, beliefs. This is a fit topic for Hume’s science of human nature, for, if he is attempting to produce a general theory of how human beings actually think and act, then the causes that lead humans to think and act stupidly or irrationally fall under its purview. For this reason, the Treatise contains a section titled “Of unphilosophical probabilities,” where Hume tries to explain, among other things, how prejudiced or biased beliefs arise. In part 4 of book 1 of the Treatise, Hume extends his program to include an etiology of the emergence of philosophical views, producing what might be called a natural history of philosophy—including in it a natural history of philosophical error and confusion. It opens with a section titled “Of skepticism with regard to reason.” In it Hume attempts to show that reason, if unchecked in the employment of its own principles, will inevitably lead to total skepticism. It is his own critique of pure reason— 13 14

Hume, THN, 1.3.14.22-23. Wittgenstein, RFM, 4.27.

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one much shorter than Kant’s. This section is one of my old obsessions. The next five sections are my new obsession. Section 2. Of Scepticism with regard to the Senses Section 3. Of the Antient Philosophy Section 4. Of the Modern Philosophy Section 5. Of the Immateriality of the Soul Section 6. Of Personal Identity All five sections are concerned, in one way or another, with problems concerning identity over time. The text is often complex and challenging. Perhaps, because of this, Hume carried almost none of it over to the Enquiry. In section 2, “Of the skepticism with regard to the senses” Hume attempts to show how views concerning perception proceed through natural stages, all governed by the operations of the laws of association. Our natural standpoint is one of direct or naï ve realism. We think that we are directly aware of objects independent of our minds, and that others can be directly aware of them as well. However, using seemingly strong arguments, our modern philosophers claim to show that we are not directly aware of external objects, but only of inner perceptions. But our naï ve beliefs are stubborn and not easily overcome even by philosophers. So a compromise naturally arises between the naï ve and the philosophical standpoints that conserves central features of each. Hume calls it the double-existence theory of perception: representational realism is an example of such a theory. In its turn, the double-existence theory encounters intractable epistemological problems, sinking finally into unintelligibility. So the natural history of views concerning perception begins with naï ve confidence and inevitably spirals down into both a loss of commitment and a loss of content. Hume states the outcome of his investigations in these words: It is impossible, upon any system, to defend either our understanding or senses; and we but expose them further when we endeavour to justify them in that manner. As the sceptical doubt arises naturally from a profound and intense reflection on those subjects, it always encreases the further we carry our reflections, whether in opposition or conformity to it.15

15

Hume, THM, 1.4.2.57.

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This negative dialectic—if I may call it that—is fascinating, and exhibits further deep parallels with Wittgenstein’s reflections on the fate of an unconstrained search for foundations. The section is also a monster, one that cannot be dealt with in detail here.16 Because it is much more accessible, I will concentrate on section 3, “Of the ancient philosophy”, where Hume presents a critique of the peripatetic notion of substance. Hume holds that the ancient doctrines concerning substance are not just false, but actually unintelligible. How people can come to embrace claims with no intelligible content is another attractive topic for Hume’s science of human nature. What, he asks, are the mechanisms that bring this about? Because the notion of identity lies at the heart of Hume’s discussion of the ancient notion of substance, we have to look at it first. The vulgar (all of us most of the time) have strongly entrenched beliefs that objects can preserve identity through significant change. How are we to account for the emergence of this belief? Hume’s answer is that it is based on a fiction that naturally arises from the operations of the imagination. Suppose that we are contemplating two identically patterned disks that are entirely alike except that one is stationary, the other is spinning slowly. (This is my example, not Hume’s). According to Hume, if there are no other changes taking place, the stationary disk will exhibit no temporal features, for there is no time without change. We will have identity, but only self-identity, not identity over time. The second disk, since it is moving, does exhibit temporality, but not, for Hume, identity. On his strict understanding, a single alteration, however slight, is incompatible with identity.17 It seems, then, that the notion of identity over time is incoherent, yet we all have deeply entrenched beliefs that an object undergoing change can preserve its identity. Given its absurdity, how, Hume asks, can we explain the emergence of this belief? Hume’s answer involves the notion of considering something from competing perspectives. From the perspective of the stationary disk, in virtue of strong resemblances to the changing disk, we project the identity of the stationary disk onto the changing disk. Conversely, from the 16

I discuss the skepticism with regard to the senses in detail in chapter 4 of Hume’s Skeptical Crisis. 17 I do not think that Hume was inspired by Leibniz’s treatment of identity. His strict understanding of identity is based on his belief that there is no non-arbitrary way of establishing what degree of resemblance is sufficient to preserve identity.

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perspective of the changing disk, again in virtue of a strong resemblance, we project temporality onto the unchanging disk. Now by crossing these two pictures, or by using each as a foil for the other, the fiction of identity over time emerges. Hume’s exact wording is important: Here then is an idea, which is a medium betwixt unity and number; or, more properly speaking, is either of them, according to the view in which we take it: and this idea we call that of identity.18

In this passage Hume says something quite remarkable: Speaking properly he is not offering an account of how a fictitious idea of identity emerges; instead, he is offering an account of how the fiction that we have such an idea arises. To put the matter another way, he has not offered an account of how a fictitious complex idea—like that of a griffin—is formed. Hume is saying something stronger and more interesting: We think that we have an idea of identity, but are wrong in this. We are conceptually addled. We suffer from what I will call an illusion of intelligibility. In the section of the ancient philosophy, Hume tries to show how the illusion of intelligibility with respect to identity generates the further illusion with respect to the ancient notion of substance. Section 3, “Of the Antient Philosophy,” opens with this remarkable passage: I am perswaded, there might be several useful discoveries made from a criticism of the fictions of the antient philosophy, concerning substances, and substantial forms, and accidents, and occult qualities; which, however unreasonable and capricious, have a very intimate connexion with the principles of human nature.19

As we saw, on Hume’s strict understanding of identity, it makes no sense to speak of an object preserving its identity while undergoing change. In fact, however, if, along the way, the changes are gradual and proportionally small, the mind will treat a sequence of qualitatively differing perceptions in the same way that it treats a sequence of qualitatively unchanging perceptions. Hume puts it like this: The smooth and uninterrupted progress of the thought, being alike in both cases readily deceives the mind, and makes us ascribe an identity to the changeable succession of connected qualities.20

18

Hume, THN, 1.4.2.29, emphasis added. Hume, THN, 1.4.3.1. 20 Hume, THN, 1.4.3.3. 19

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But if we change our perspective and compare, say, the starting point of a series of changes with the endpoint, the recognition of radical change will destroy the illusion of identity. But when we alter our method of considering the succession, and instead of tracing it gradually thro’ the successive points of time, survey at once any two distinct periods of its duration, and compare the different conditions of the successive qualities; in that case the variations, which were insensible when they arose gradually, do now appear of consequence, and seem entirely to destroy the identity.21

The scholastic rule was: When one encounters a contradiction, draw a distinction. The imagination, according to Hume, follows a different rule: When one encounters a contradiction, create a fiction. In order to reconcile which contradictions the imagination is apt to feign something unknown and invisible, which it supposes to continue the same under all these variations; and this unintelligible something it calls a substance, or original and first matter.22

Notice that Hume again is not saying that imagination assembles a fictitious idea out of other ideas, but, instead, creates the fiction that we have such an idea. Once more we are dealing with an illusion of intelligibility. Hume’s summary conclusion is that “the whole [peripatetic] system, therefore, is entirely incomprehensible, and yet is deriv’d from principles as natural as any of those above-explain’d”.23 But how can discourse that is entirely incomprehensible be of any service to anyone? Hume’s answer, though ironic, is important: But as nature seems to have observ’d a kind of justice and compensation in every thing, she has not neglected philosophers more than the rest of the creation; but has reserv’d them a consolation amid all their disappointments and afflictions. This consolation principally consists in their invention of the words faculty and occult quality. For it being usual, after the frequent use of terms, which are really significant and intelligible, to omit the idea, which we wou’d express by them, and to preserve only the custom, by which we recall the idea at pleasure; so it naturally happens, that after the frequent use of terms, which are wholly insignificant and unintelligible, we fancy them to be on the same

21

Hume, THN, 1.4.3.4. Hume, THN, 1.4.3.4. 23 Hume, THN, 1.4.3.8. 22

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Philosophical Anthropology. Wittgenstein’s Perspective footing with the precedent, and to have a secret meaning, which we might discover by reflection.24

Hume’s exposure of the emptiness of various philosophical systems is only one part of his overall program of developing a science of human nature. I am inclined to think that Wittgenstein took philosophizing as his primary subject matter. His Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics should not be read as an attempt to provide a proper foundation for mathematics—one that would compete directly with those of Frege, Russell, and others. It is, instead, an examination of the program of trying to provide a foundation for mathematics, which, if Wittgenstein is right, is misconceived from the start. Similarly, his Philosophical Investigations is best understood as an investigation of philosophical activity, just as a criminal investigation is an investigation of criminal activity. Here then we have a second similarity between the standpoints of Hume and Wittgenstein: They do not simply criticize this or that philosophical position; they both, in their own ways, produce general pathologies of philosophical misunderstandings. In the process they often uncover what I have call the tendency of philosophy to produce fictions of intelligibility. For Hume, the peripatetic philosophers did not have a false idea of substance; they had no idea of it at all. Hence Hume is not denying what they said. Similarly, Wittgenstein, as he repeatedly tells us, does not deny the philosophical claims he is interrogating, for denying something presupposes its intelligibility—which is the very thing at issue. Here is an example of Wittgenstein acting out the error of denying a philosophical claim, then chiding himself for doing so: Thinking is not an incorporeal process which lends life and sense to speaking, and which it would be possible to detach from speaking…But how “not an incorporeal process”? Am I acquainted with incorporeal processes, then, only thinking is not one of them? No; I called the expression “an incorporeal process” to my aid in my embarrassment when I was trying to explain the meaning of the word “thinking” in a primitive way. One might say “Thinking is an incorporeal process”, however, if one were using this to distinguish the grammar of the word “think” from that of, say, the word “eat”. Only that makes the difference between the meanings look too slight. … An unsuitable type of expression is a sure means of remaining in a state of confusion. It as it were bars the way out.25

24 25

Hume, THN, 1.4.3.10. Wittgenstein, PI, § 339.

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In line with this, in Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein rejects, but does not deny, the Tractarian assertion that “objects make up the substance of the world. That is why they cannot be composite”.26 In examining Cantor’s concept of transfinite cardinal numbers, he never denies their existence. He is not defending finitism. Similarly, Wittgenstein nowhere denies the claim that a private language is possible. If the private language argument is understood as a proof of the claim that a private language is not possible, then no such argument is found in the text. What we find instead is a complex series of reflections intended to show that we have no adequate notion of what a private language would be, though we may think we do. Notice how Wittgenstein poses the problem of the private diary in PI: We could … imagine human beings who spoke only in monologue; who accompanied their activities by talking to themselves … But could we also imagine a language in which the individual words of this language are to refer to what can only be known to the person speaking; to his immediate private sensations. So another person cannot understand the language.27

Here Wittgenstein is questioning the imaginability of such a language, and by that, I take it, he means its intelligibility. Wittgenstein produces no direct argument intended to show that a private language28 is unimaginable; instead, he examines a series of attempts to specify just how such a language would function. All attempts prove unsatisfactory because they invariably smuggle in aspects of the public language to make things work. We thus arrive at a passage we all know: What reason have we for calling “S” the sign for a sensation? For “sensation” is a word of our common language, not of one intelligible to me alone. So the use of this word stands in need of a justification which everybody understands.-And it would not help either to say that it need not be a sensation; that when he writes “S”, he has something--and that is all that can be said. “Has” and “something” also belong to our common language.--So in the end when one is doing philosophy one gets to the point where one would like just to emit an inarticulate sound.—But such a sound is an expression only as it occurs in a particular language-game, which should now be described.29

This passage does not exactly parallel Hume’s treatment of the ancient notion of substance, but it comes close. 26

Wittgenstein, TLP, 2.021. Wittgenstein, PI, § 243. 28 As described in Wittgenstein, PI, § 243. 29 Wittgenstein, PI, § 261. 27

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I have tried to show two ways in which Hume and Wittgenstein’s standpoints are significantly similar: Both have a strong defactoist component, and both involve exposing what I have called illusions of intelligibility. I know from experience that this claim is likely to call forth a reply along the following lines: “Even if their positions are somewhat similar in these two ways, these similarities are outweighed by more significant differences.” I do not deny this, and (tentatively) I will end by suggesting where the most fundamental difference lies. Wittgenstein’s Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics contains this terse entry: The limit of the empirical—is concept-formation. 30

The specific context concerns mathematical propositions, and Wittgenstein is almost certainly alluding to Russell’s essay, “The Limits of Empiricism.”31 The scope of the claim can, I think, be taken to be entirely general: Empiricism of the kind, for example, that Hume championed, provides no adequate account of concept-formation. Hume’s notion of an idea cannot do the job. For Wittgenstein, the possession of a concept involves the command of the rules for the application of some expression. In another terse entry—this one from Philosophical Investigations — Wittgenstein remarks: You learned the concept ‘pain’ when you learned language.32

Having a pain does not, of itself, provide one with the concept of a pain. The deep trouble with Hume’s First Principle is that it provides no account of how a simple idea can represent a simple impression—that is, how it can take on a representational role. For that matter, Hume gives no account—or no satisfactory account—of how anything can represent anything else. Resemblance is not a necessary condition for representation. The idea that it does drives the picture theory of the Tractatus. Resemblance is not a sufficient condition for representation either. Hume’s First Principle seems to take it for granted that it is. On matters of representation (and of meaning in general) Hume and Wittgenstein are toto caelo apart.

30

Wittgenstein, RFM, 4. 29. Russell, Bertrand. 1935-36. “The Limits of Empiricism.” 32 Wittgenstein, PI, § 384. 31

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References Fogelin, Robert J., 2009: Hume’s Skeptical Crisis. New York: Oxford University Press. ______

2010: Taking Wittgenstein at His Word. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Hume, David, 1999: An Enquiry conrerning Human Understanding. Edited by T. L. Beauchamp. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (EHU Section, Part, Paragraph). _______

2007: A Treatise of Human Nature: A Critical Edition. Edited by D. F. Norton and M. J. Norton. 2 vols. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (THN Book, Part, Section, Paragraph).

Russell, Bertrand, 1935-36: The Limits of Empricism. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 36:131-150. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, ed., 1967: Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics. Edited by G. H. von Wright, R. Rhees and G. E. M. Anscombe. 2nd. ed. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. (RFM Part, Section). _______

1958: Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. 3rd ed. Oxford: Basil Blackwell and Mott. (PI Section).

_______

1961: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. (TLP Entry Number).

_______

1969: On Certainty. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Edited by G. E. M. A. a. R. Rhees. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. (OC Section).

_______

1974: Philosophical Grammar. Translated by A. Kenny. Edited by R. Rhees. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. (PG Part, Section). Dartmouth College

Meaning and Action ALEJANDRO TOMASINI BASSOLS There is a fact, both curious and important, concerning Ludwig Wittgenstein’s work, which deserves to be pointed out, namely, that having been studied in a systematic way for more than half a century it has given rise to two completely different attitudes: on the one hand, it is universally respected – except for some misguidedprofessional philosophers, who feel that they have to put publicly into question one or another of Wittgenstein’s dicta not to pass completely unperceived – but on the other hand it is basically ignored. As always when we deal with general or rough assessments like this one, we can point to exceptions, to special cases that it would be silly to deny. It is obvious, however, that my remark is supposed to have a larger scope, a so to speak “cultural” one. It is indeed a fact that, in spite of the efforts deployed by some important philosophers, contemporary philosophical culture is not only alien but openly hostile to the Wittgensteinian way of thinking. Now instead of trying to show at all costs that this is not so, what we should ask ourselves is rather why this is the case and try to explain its being so. The advantage of such suggestion is that, were we to follow it, we would be in a better position to investigate deeply into Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy and into the consequences it brings with it. Perhaps we could then understand that there is an important sense in which, particularly soon after 1929, Wittgenstein simply stopped being concerned with philosophy, as usually understood and practiced. This may sound as utterly false or openly silly. In my view it is neither and what has to be understood is that Wittgenstein invented a new kind of intellectual activity, an activity which has two defining features: 1) it is different both in goals and methods from conventional philosophy, but 2) it is crucially relevant for the problems of traditional philosophy. As a matter of fact, the genuine Wittgensteinian philosopher may, if he wants to, ignore standard philosophical products, since at least in principle he should be able to practice philosophy on his own the way Philosophical Anthropology. Wittgenstein’s Perspective, (Ed. Jesús Padilla Gálvez), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2010, 47-59.

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Wittgenstein taught; par contre, the conventional philosopher just can’t ignore the results Wittgenstein arrived at or the results practitioners of Wittgensteinian philosophy may get at if they do know how to employ Wittgenstein’s conceptual apparatus and if they properly apply the research methods that he elaborated and used to dismantle a whole range of inherited philosophical problems. Among the allegedly “eternal” problems which were actually dissolved by Wittgenstein we could easily mention at least the following ones: the problem of universals, the mind-body problem, the problem of the foundations of mathematics, the problem of the self and the problem of scepticism, to mention only the most representative ones. Since the Wittgensteinian way of thinking cannot be accommodated within the framework of traditional philosophy, it becomes terribly uncomfortable for “normal” philosophers. That’s why neither Kripke nor Quine nor Dennett nor any other first rate conventional philosopher knows what to do with Wittgenstein. I think it is high time to make a serious collective effort to understand the present situation and it seems to me that one way of making progress in this direction is by way of contrast, actually seeing that we do two completely different things when we do philosophy the old way than if we do (or try to do) Wittgensteinian philosophy. I’m inclined to think that when developed until its last consequences, the idea that analytical philosophy is the philosophy which formulates or reformulates the inherited philosophical problems from the perspective of language, implies something very important, namely, that philosophical problems are complications that have their source in the complexities of language (or, more generally, of symbolism) and in our misunderstanding of such complexities. Wittgenstein, the analytical philosopher par excellence, was perfectly aware of how difficult it is to get out of any grammatical swamp, but his Ariadne’s thread not to get lost in the labyrinth of language was just precisely the idea that he was dealing with nothing but puzzles, with real pseudo-problems. Thus a decisive difference between Wittgenstein and other philosophers who have dealt with exactly the same subjects or themes, for instance the theory of meaning, is that Wittgenstein never lost sight of that aspect of language – or of the sign system he would examine – that could be called its ‘practicality’. Already in the Tractatus for Wittgenstein, in contrast with what Frege and Russell used to think, logic, for instance, always was the logic of language. For him it was clear that logic has always to be in touch with its application, for as he says “if this were not so, how could we apply logic? We might

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put it in this way: if there would be a logic even if there were no world, how then could there be a logic given that there is a world?”.1 In the same way, logic is the logic of the world, which it pervades: “Logic is prior to every experience – that somethingis so. It is prior to the question ‘How’?, not prior to the question ‘What’?.2 Whether or not the feature of Wittgenstein’s philosophical meditation I called its ‘practicality’ is due to a healthy engineer’s mentality is unimportant, but what does matter is that thanks to that feature Wittgenstein was able to neutralize abstract philosophical speculations, no doubt intellectually exciting but always cut off from the utility of signs. This is a difference of which Wittgenstein knew how to take advantage. What I’ve been saying adopts a clear manifestation as soon as we philosophically consider language itself. It is relatively easy to see how Wittgenstein proceeds and then to contrast what he does with what the conventional philosopher would do. To put it in a crude way, what the latter aims at is to develop a “semantics”, to construe a “systematic theory of meaning”, a theory of meaning “for a whole language”, etc. For Wittgenstein, on the other hand, the theory of meaning could only be a description of the concrete usefulness a particular expression lends within a given linguistic community. In this sense, Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language neither is nor aims at being a sort of “semantics”, a mere abstract theory, not even a doctrine of speech acts, whose categories ultimately are purely formal, but is rather a reflection on a special activity carried out by human beings, characterized in a particular way, that is, as speakers. The Wittgensteinian sort of meditation is therefore a reflection whose goal is to point to a disfunction of an aspect in the life of human beings, an aspect which may easily be distorted, viz., the philosophical use of language. In this sense, his work certainly possesses an anthropological flavour. However, since Wittgenstein occupies himself neither with stones nor with bones nor with dressing rules or economic exchange rules and so on, it would be an oversimplification to classify his work as “anthropological”, without adding nuances of some sort. That’s why I think that a non controversial way of referring to the kind of research he envisages, to distinguish it among other things from the common philosophical kind of speculation, is to refer to it as “grammatical anthropology”. I must say I’m not totally satisfied with the label (after all we already have Wittgenstein’s 1 2

Wittgenstein, TLP, 5.5521. Wittgenstein, TLP, 5.552 (b).

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own expression, viz., ‘grammatical investigation’) and therefore I don’t cling to it. I just believe that it is a useful one at least for the particular goals I have in mind here. As I already suggested, probably the best way to bring out the peculiarities and the virtues of the Wittgensteinian approach is by contrasting it with alternative explanations of the same phenomena. It’s obviously not one of my goals in this paper to offer a detailed reconstruction of any of the standard theories of language that can be found in the literature and which were or are in fashion, “en vogue”, be it Davidson’s, Dummett’s, Chomsky’s, Lewis’ or Quine’s, to mention just some of the most representative leaders of the conventional way of doing conventional philosophy of language. So I’ll limit myself to enumerate some of its most prominent features to compare them afterwards with those of the Wittgensteinian approach. Broadly speaking, in spite of being extremely abstract, conventional theories of language supposedly incorporate, one way or another, some apparently empirical hypothesis, like the Chomskian one about innateness or Dummett’s view about the prerequisites for the understanding of the language. Here Wittgenstein’s dictum to the effect that “The essential thing about metaphysics: it obliterates the distinction between factual and conceptual investigations”3 is totally corroborated. But apart from being put forward almost always as grandiose proposals though purely speculative ones, it is also the case that they lack concrete outlines for the specification of meaning, while giving time and again the same kind of explanation for the same linguistic phenomena, like the utterance of sentences (assertion). From this point of view, sentences like ‘Anastasia was murdered on Lenin’s orders’ and ‘the wolf ate Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother’ are explained in exactly the same way. Language is conceived as a self-contained structure (which can even be axiomatized) and its functioning explained in terms of one or another kind of objects and of individual, mental faculties. I won’t go into the details, but I do hold that regardless of how well structured they might be, what standard theories of meaning, language and so on, in one way or another exemplify is the Augustinian conception of language. This perhaps explains their inevitably circular character. With Dummett, for instance, who surely represents an improvement with respect to Davidson, we pass from “meaning” to “truth-conditions”, from “truth-conditions” to “understanding” and from “understanding” we are back to “meaning”. 3

Wittgenstein, Z, sec. 458.

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Circularity and similar defects infect any standard theory of language, however famous it may be. The Wittgensteinian approach is radically different. The goal in this case is not just to theorize, in some pejorative sense of the term, but to describe the human activity carried out through or in connection with the employment of signs. Given that language is seen as a tool, or rather a box of tools, we immediately become aware of the fact that we practically never do exactly the same thing with them, just as we don’t always do the same thing with, say, a hammer. Of course, linguistic activities are normally uniformized by surface grammar. That’s precisely where the danger lies, for a huge variety of different sort of applications associated with signs, applications intimately related to human activities, become covered up by what is one and the same linguistic disguise. Grammatical analysis aims at uncovering the real meaning of what we say, understanding by ‘meaning’ the linguistic counterpart of the act actually carried out. Obviously, for this kind of analysis the only conceptual apparatus which could possibly be useful is the one constituted by notions like language-game, form of life, family ressemblance, seeing as, depth grammar, and so on. Wittgenstein’s approaches actually forces us to carry out concrete analyses of concrete linguistic moves, avoiding the all too easy generalizations, the abstract dicta, the kind of theories that in this age of globalization could fairly be labeled ‘global theories of language’. Naturally, for this kind of analysis surface grammar, just as all its offsprings, like quantification theory or, more generally, any kind of formalism, is not only useless, but harmful. This is important, for lots of criticisms of the Wittgenstienian mode of thinking arise from ignoring this simple but profound difference. Based on a view of language as a collection of tools, what Wittgenstien carries out is a special kind of investigation. I would say that the Philosphical Investigations, Zettel, the Remarks of the Foundations of Mathematics and On Certainty are the paradigmatic manuals of the still new way of doing philosophy. What, for instance, in the Investigations Wittgenstein does is to introduce his new conceptual apparatus as well as a set of research methods so that afterwards we, the pupils of this new kind of investigation, shall be in a position to emulate the teacher, who already showed the way, to do in our turn the same kind of thing with respect to the philosophical puzzles we choose to face. It is evident that we don’t do things with words. What we do is to act through or by means of or in connection with words. So what traditional philosophers do boils down to a

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misunderstanding and a distortion of what we do when we act linguistically. It is obvious that if what we want is to understand what we do when we speak (not necessarily through well formed sentences. Sometimes one asks things like ‘Oh really?’ and the other speakers understand perfectly well what is being conveyed), we shall obviously have to consider something more than mere words or mere signs, just as we are unconcerned with what happens inside the speaker. What matters to us are the actual moves in the language-games and these just can’t be understood if we don’t reconstruct the forms of life in which those move fit, to which they belong. Now with this in mind, I’ll try to illustrate what Wittgenstein does by means of a few simple examples of my own. It is evident that if what we are interested in is the Wittgensteinian way of thinking, so to speak, in action, what we have to do rather than quoting from here and there what he actually said is to try to emulate him, just as a pupil of primary school does when he imitates in a rudimentary way what his teacher does well. So let me begin with an example of Wittgenstien’s himself. In the Investigations, as we all know, he makes it explicit that although we don’t have any direct access to “other person’s mind”, whatever that means, we nonetheless refuse to believe that he is a robot. So we say that he has a mind or a soul. Now this expression enables us to indicate not that the person in question has something special inside, or that he is made out of a very special stuff, or things like that. To say that we believe that someone “has a mind” or a soul is a description neither of the other person’s “inner state” nor of a state of mind (since we are speaking of what we believe). It’s rather what one would normally say if, for instance, we were forced to treat someone in an outrageous way. Let’s suppose that we are visiting a racist country and for some reason someone wants us to beat a child of the alienated ethnic group and that we refuse to do it. A way of manifesting our rejection of such a proposal would be to say: “But look, I can’t do that: he also feels, he has a mind or a soul, just as you do”. What would be we saying? In other words: what would be the meaning of our saying that? Would we by chance be trying to state something that, taken as a factual pronouncement, could in principle surprise someone, could tell someone something new? Of course not. If that is what I am taken to mean with that expression, I’m afraid I would be wasting my time and making others waste theirs. What I want to make explicit is something different, namely, my attitude towards the person referred to. As Wittgenstein famously puts it: “My attitude towards him is

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an attitude towards a soul. I am not of the opinion that he has a soul”.4 It is pretty obvious, I suppose, that this clarification is neither reducible nor equivalent to something like “‘he has a soul is true” if and only if he has a soul’. This is just the logical condition for the statement to be accepted, but such condition, which unsurprisingly reappears in exactly the same way in any other case, does not amount to a clarification of meaning, since ‘logical’ in this sense just means ‘trivially necessary’. It would be like saying that because we know that in ‘the rabbit ate all the carrots’, we can ascribe something to the rabbit because we know that ‘rabbit’ is the subject of the sentence. That might be considered by more than one a great discovery, but surely it is philosophically worthless. One of the morals of Wittgenstein’s attack on the Augustinian conception of language, a conception which one way or another comprehends or embraces practically all theories of language, from Plato to Dummett, is that language just can’t be understood independently of its usefulness, that is, of its application. To understand a language is nothing but to understand the linguistic exchanges in which as a matter of fact people take part. The proper understanding therefore requires the knowledge of both the linguistic contexts in which they take place as well as the goals speakers set for themselves. Otherwise the meaning can’t be determined. From this perspective really clarifying explanations of what we do when we speak can be generated. Let’s consider a simple case. Let’s suppose that someone rightly asserts that 3 is a prime number. This is something that can only be said in the appropriate context. Nobody wakes up in the morning and asserts it just for its own sake, say, having breakfast. To say something like that requires the appropriate context: it may be a class of arithmetic, to explain something to someone who makes some kind of mistake, and so forth. Let’s suppose that we ask for a clarification of the meaning of our sentence. Once more, it’s tautological (and therefore trivially true, even if necessary) to say that “‘3 is a prime number” is true if and only if 3 is a prime number’, but the issue is: what would we gain by this reminder? From the perspective of surface grammar what is being said can only be understood if we ascribe to the speaker the idea that “there is” an abstract entity, that is, the number 3, which has an essential property, namely, that of being prime. But is that really what the speaker wanted to say? Was it to say that that he said what he said? Do normal speakers wish to speak of abstract entities and strange properties? Not at all! That is 4

Wittgenstein, PI, Part II, sec. iv, 178.

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nothing but philosophical interpretation, which is not equivalent to the kind of benefice that speakers expect to obtain from their using the expression. It seems to me that, depending upon the particular linguistic context in which one finds oneself, the speaker may be meaning something different. It might be something like ‘that that we call “number three” and which is represented by the sign “3” is used in such a way that with it you just can carry out certain operations, but not others. Such number, for instance, can’t be divided by 2 and give as a result a whole number’. That is the kind of information that the speaker might be interested in conveying and, therefore, that is what he could mean. The assertion’s meaning has to do with practical arithmetic, not with any sort of imagery concerning ethereal entities. Let’s quickly review one more case. Let’s examine a simple expression like ‘I remember now that my father used to wear boots when he went out for a ride’. Once again: nobody abruptly, with no communicative sort of justification, says something like that, out of the blue, just for the pleasure of stating it, even if it is true. Such an expression has to be employed within the context of a particular, concrete conversation, and so it presupposes a concrete, conversational, communicative background. It is only out of this context of linguistic exchange that someone may mean something by it. And now our question is: what could I possibly mean by that? What could possibly be my meaning? That it is true if and only if what is stated is the case? What could I possibly be pursuing by means of this linguistic tool? Was it my goal to induce the listener to depict for himself a particular picture (about which I haven’t got the least idea myself), as if he were a kind of Leonardo or Michelangelo who immediately proceeds to obey the received order? If the listener didn’t even know my father: how could he ever represent the situation for himself? But if we agree that that sort of explanation just leads nowhere, then what’s the point to appeal to the notion of truth-conditions if the latter just doesn’t help to clarify the meaning of any expression whatsoever? If (trivially) to state such conditions were the goal of using expressions like the mentioned one, then we would be dealing with a completely failed linguistic action: I could never know whether or not what the listener represented “in his mind” does correspond to what I wanted him to reproduce. I infer that that just can’t be the kind of explanation we are looking for. So let’s rephrase our question concerning the meaning of my sentence: what could I possibly wish to do with such an assertion? If the

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question concerns an atomic sentence, that is, an expression used totally out of context, my answer is: I haven’t got the least idea. To provide an answer, therefore, we have to assume or presuppose a particular discourse context, whether real or imaginary, for the sentence may mean different things even it its truth conditions are always exactly the same. I might be, for instance, talking to someone about myself, about my past, etc., and that I could be sharing with a friend a certain state of mind, a certain mood. In such a case, I might be willing to arise in my friend a feeling of nostalgia similar to mine, I might feel like sharing with him certain personal truths concerning my life, my past, etc. Paraphrasing the Tractatus, the linguistic tool just can’t anticipate its application. This tool, like any other, may be used for a variety of ends and these just can’t be fixed up a priori. But if this is true, then theories like the Davidson/Dummett one are just a philosophical fiasco: they just clarify no meaning at all. I’d like to give one more simple example. Let’s suppose that I affirm ‘I see a red patch’. According to the traditional view, I know the meaning of ‘I see a red patch’ if and only if I’m actually seeing a red patch. But how does this reminder make me advance in understanding? I just don’t know. There’s a whole range of questions which could be raised in connection with that assertion. Questions which are relevant here for the clarification of its meaning are questions like ‘what did you use this linguistic tool for? What did you want to achieve? What are the communication benefices that the use of this tool in this particular occasion reported to you? Obviously, it would be absolutely pointless to re-state its “truth-conditions”. Accordingly, our answer has to be different. So let’s ask first: which could be our context? Well, if I’m speaking seriously with a colleague about, say, elephants, and suddenly in the middle of the conversation I say to him that I see a red patch, he would be entitled to think that I’m just making fun of him or he could think that there’s something wrong with my sight and therefore that I’m complaining. I can imagine that I’m at the oculist’s cabinet and that he’s making me pass a test. In that case, my linguistic move would be a kind of report and its point would be to call attention upon some part of my eyeball or upon some of my eye’s functions. At any rate, it should be clear that the meaning, what we are interested in, can only emerge as the last link of a chain of presuppositions. Incidentally, what is beyond doubt, I think, is that nobody would say ‘I see a red patch’ in order to describe, say, a red car. If what I’ve been saying is reasonable, then it follows that the kind of clarification that is usually offered in the standard philosophy of language

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is radically different from the kind of explanation that springs from the Wittgensteinian way of doing philosophy and indeed is quite useless. The former corresponds to the usual game in philosophy in which surface grammar dictates the issues. This is a well known fact, whose consequences are equally well known and therefore I don’t think I should go here and now into the details. What I’m interested in is to determine, assuming that what I’ve said really is in effect related to the kind of analysis we find in Wittgenstein’s works, what kind of clarification are we given when what is at stake is the Wittgensteinian way of doing philosophy? On the one hand, it is evident that it is relevant for the kind of discussion and speculation that normally takes place in traditional philosophy, since if the Wittgensteinian kind of remarks are right, then the involved philosophical theories are just absurd (not false), but on the other hand it is also evident that something more than purely clarification of meaning is being achieved. This “something more” comes out from the peculiar class of clarifications that Wittgenstein carries out. Now what could that be? In my view, what Wittgenstein teaches is to describe a particular facet of human life. This kind of description is available only upon the basis of an understanding of language not as self-contained or selfsubsistent machinery, but as a very complex machinery which functions only in connection with human beings’ needs and activities, activities which in turn language contribute to conform, to conceptualize. But then what Wittgenstein does is really a kind of anthropology, what as I suggested above could be called ‘grammatical anthropology’. It is in this that the invention of a new way of thinking consists. What Wittgenstein does is anthropology, for in the last analysis his is a reflection not upon signs (it’s not semiotics), but upon Man or upon human beings or, if you prefer, upon the linguistizised and therefore socialized and acting Man. It is difficult, if we see Wittgenstein’s work as a whole, not to see it in this way or at least in a very similar way. I’ll try rather quickly to illustrate what I’m saying. Let’s consider the language of neurophysiology. Let’s imagine a scientist speaking freely about neurons, synapses, neural networks, hypothalamus, cortex and so on. What we want to know is what his assertions, made by mean of this lexicon, mean. Now once again to determine such thing is not tantamount with giving us their “truthconditions”. To say something like “‘pleasant sensations are produced when the hypothalamus is stimulated or excited’ is true if and only if

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pleasant sensations are produced when the hypothalamus is stimulated or excited’ takes us nowhere, elucidates nothing. It is equally useless to have a grasp of what should happen inside the scientist’s head in order for him to utter such sentence. Language doesn’t belong to him and therefore, what is being said just can’t be about his inner processes or states, whether physical or mental. It therefore has to be about something which others can share, something public or of public access. Accordingly, it has to be about actions, about behaviour. Let me paraphrase the Tractatus in this connection: what has to be clarified is what is done when we use a propositional sign in its projective relation to the world. If we don’t put upon ‘projective relation’ any kind of subjective or idealistic or mentalistic meaning, the only thing that could be meant is something like ‘the propositional sign in its practical application upon that sector of the world in relation to which it is employed’. That is human activity. Thus, the meaning of each linguistic move, of each move of the language-game, emerges as a socialized and coordinated activity, that is, out of a previously existing form of life which was not configured once and for all, but which is modifiable, or perfectible depending upon what speakers do. Even if our subject matter are not the activities themselves but only the special activity realized by means of the tool we employ in connection with them and required by them, nevertheless that kind of study surely is anthropological in character; given that such activity is carried out by using signs, in accordance with rules that we have taught each other how to follow, etc., then the activity is linguistic. And given that the approach of this peculiar activity is “grammatical”, in the Wittgenstienian sense of course, then what we do when we do or try to do Wittgensteinian philosophy is what could be called ‘grammatical anthropology’. The distinction between the two kinds of philosophy of language carry with them different notions of meaning and the absurd. For instance, for the conventional philosophy of language, the absurd has to do first of all with syntactic rules and the usual grammatical and semantic conventions; for the Wittgensteinian philosophy of language the absurd appears rather with what totally lacks practical application, with the impossibility of doing anything whatever with our linguistic tools. In his brilliant essay, ‘Language Game # 2’, Prof. Malcolm describes very accurately the reactions associated with the lack of sense, with the absurd or the Unsinn. Of course that what is absurd for traditional philosophy (a formal contradiction, for instance) is in general absurd for Wittgensteinian philosophy too, but it is obvious that their respective notions don’t

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necessarily coincide. Actually, standard philosophical discourse is for normal philosophers perfectly meaningful, while for Wittgensteinians it’s just nonsensical. It’s important not to lose sight of this dichotomy, if we want to avoid rather rough mistakes of understanding and to utter unfair and worthless criticisms of Wittgenstein’s thought and teaching. Grammatical investigation can be carried out at any time on any symbolism whatever: natural language, musical notation, mathematical symbolism, neurophysiological expressions, etc. In all these cases, the normal users of the sign system in question, trained as they are in order to be their users, can easily distinguish between meaningful and meaningless expressions, even if they are unable to make explicit the rules that govern their use. Nonsense is public and notorious, as lawyers say. No normal speaker makes mistakes about it. What becomes difficult to determine, however, is the peculiar nonsense which arises when different symbolisms are mixed up, as happens, for instance, when the language of neurophysiology is incorporated by natural language and interpreted by it. Inside neurophysiology, as inside mathematics, any scientist knows perfectly well which formula, which assertion, etc., is absurd and which isn’t. But what he certainly is unable to do is to determine whether or not what a philosopher says about the contents of his science is or is not meaningful. He is completely defenseless against him, for anything the conventional philosopher affirms is asserted in accordance with the rules of surface grammar and therefore anything he says is at first sight at least perfectly correct and meaningful. He explains the scientist that what he does is to speak about certain entities and certain properties and relations between them. A tacit agreement easily grows up between classical philosophers and scientists, for what the standard philosopher says is what the scientist wishes to hear, the only thing he’s spontaneously prepared to accept. The Wittgensteinian philosopher, on the other hand, is rather a wet blanket. His message is much more difficult to convey and to grasp. He teaches the scientist that what he wants to say shows itself in his work, that his assertions fulfil a definite practical function that he, more than any other, is in a position to retrieve, as long as he doesn’t allow the surface order of sentences to speak for themselves. References Wittgenstein, L., 1967: Zettel, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

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Wittgenstein, L., 1974: Philosophical Investigations, Basil Blackwell, Oxford. Wittgenstein, L., 1978: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.

Universidad Autónoma de México

Anthropological Representations and Forms of Life in Wittgenstein ANTÓNIO MARQUES “If we look at things from an ethnological point of view, does that mean we are saying that philosophy is ethnology? No, it only means that we are taking up a position right outside so as to be able to see things more objectively” Wittgenstein, Philosophical Occasions 19121951 “Nothing is more important for teaching us to understand the concepts we have than constructing fictitious ones” Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, 1948

What kind of anthropological representations is it possible to find in Wittgenstein’s writings, and what role do these representations play? In fact, what can be designed as anthropological representations is a meaningful tool in the context of certain argumentations related to the understanding of human forms of life. Anticipating what will be seen, anthropological representations are essentially representations of forms of life, either real forms, like for example those which are commented on in Wittgenstein’s remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough, or unreal or fictitious forms, which are designed mainly in texts of the so-called philosophy of psychology of the later Wittgenstein. As we will see, anthropological or ethnological representations are designed either in order to enlarge the scope of our understanding of a human form of life or to fix its boundaries. I would suggest that in Wittgenstein there is not such a thing as a philosophical anthropology and what is adequate is to say that several times he makes use of anthropological representations because he is interested in the deepest possible understanding of what is a human life. In this sense, his anthropological descriptions and designs must not be

Philosophical Anthropology. Wittgenstein’s Perspective, (Ed. Jesús Padilla Gálvez), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2010, 61-72.

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separated from a broad concept of form of life, which one must consider from now on. If one takes into consideration the frequency with which Wittgenstein uses the notion of “form of life” (Lebensform) it would seem that it plays only a minor role in his philosophy. It is well-known that in the Philosophical Investigations it occurs but five times. Anyway, the infrequent occurrence of the notion does not seem to correspond to its real importance: either it means a last, not constructed level of life, a “given” that one must accept,1 or it means what makes agreement in language possible, particularly in relation to our judgments.2 In this sense, “form of life” would always be a fairly broad and general concept, which can be understood as what lies at the deepest level of the limitless set of human activities. Certainly this meaning of “form of life” exists in Wittgenstein, given that our simplest and most primitive language-games lie in these particular forms in which we participate from birth and in which we learn to express our own experiences. Besides this, it is plausible to associate another meaning to it: form of life is par excellence a holistic communicative concept. It is enough to think that a being situated far enough from our form of life would not be understood even though it could speak our language; it would not be able to communicate with us. With the famous phrase, “If a lion could talk, we could not understand him”,3 Wittgenstein means that to hear someone and understand him is more than just to hear him speaking the same language with words that are wellknown to us. Speaking is an activity that only acquires, so to say, a physiognomy when it is connected to processes that also present a physiognomy of a specific form of life and it is relatively easy to identify the two most fundamental processes at the heart of such a form: behaviour (corresponding to the German word “Benehmen”) and training (corresponding to “Abrichtung”). It is well-known how Wittgenstein is always inviting us to understand language as a holistic system, where language and actions are interwoven. These holistic elements are called language-games: “I shall also call the whole, consisting of language and the actions into which it is woven, the ‘language-game’”.4 Interestingly, these are characteristics 1

Wittgenstein, 1958, PI, II, xi, 226. Wittgenstein, 1958, PI, § § 241-242. 3 Wittgenstein, 1958, PI, II, xi, 223. 4 Wittgenstein, 1958, PI, § 7. 2

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which practically fulfil what the very concept of form of life requires and Wittgenstein notes that “to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life”.5 Thus if forms of life and language-games are to be seen as human forms and human language-games, the following question is a relevant one: how far are language-games sustainable; how do they reproduce themselves? The answer can be that “children are brought up to perform these actions, to use these words as they do so, and to react in this way to the words of others”.6 One can represent holistic systems corresponding to specific forms of life either in a classroom or on a building site or in the ritual actions of a tribe. Often Wittgenstein designs these systems by representing a sort of primitive form of life as if they were thought experiments. Thought experiment must be understood here in a rather classical sense, particularly that already promoted by Kant when he speaks about the advantage of looking at an object from two different points of view.7 In general, one of these points is a distorted or even an unreal or impossible one and it serves to fix the clear boundaries of the real concept or representation. In the Critique of Judgment, one also finds interesting examples of these experiments, like the famous distinction between a human “intellectus ectypus” and a non-human “intellectus archetypus”.8 In fact, they work as tools designed to prove that forms of life are communication systems which demand learning and teaching and are a sort of embodiment of reactions, training language-games and associated praxis. I will not go more in this direction but only leave the idea that these unreal, micro systems of communication show that there is no meaning which is not sustainable in a form of life. Also it is important to retain that getting a “clear view of the aim and functioning of the words”9 requires not only a representation of a language system, but a representation of micro forms of life. In this sense, one must see the concept of “form of life” in the first sections of the PI as a tool (representation, thought experiment) by which it is possible to understand how language, meaning, communication and action work in human holistic systems. Taken in this sense, “form of life” does not have the meaning of an anthropological or ethnological 5

Wittgenstein, 1958, PI, § 19. Wittgenstein, 1958, PI, § 6. 7 See: I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Preface, B, XVIII. 8 See: I. Kant, Critique of Judgment, § 77. 9 Wittgenstein, 1958, PI, § 5. 6

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concept and with it Wittgenstein does not aim at the description of forms of life of people far from our “civilized” human people. Now I want to explore what can be called the ethnological point of view of the concept of form of life and begin by formulating the following guidelines. Firstly, ethnological representations of forms of life are just representations. That means they are just (as Wittgenstein puts it) a set of actions, behaviours that one “piece together without adding anything”.10 In a representation of a form of life from an ethnological point of view “it is just as possible to see the data in their relation to one another and to embrace them in a general picture without putting it in the form of an hypothesis about temporal development”.11 Secondly, with ethnological representations it is possible to affirm that Wittgenstein wishes to enlarge the scope of our understanding of what is a human form of life by describing singular behaviours and rituals. In his view, ethnological representations must give up explanations, or at least consider explanations as simple hypotheses. They “can only describe and say: this is what human life is like”.12 In Wittgenstein’s commentaries on Frazer’s book, as in other anthropological representations designed by him, what is at stake is comprehension of the peculiarities of human life and the behaviour of men. “That is, one could begin a book on anthropology by saying: When one examines the life and behaviour of mankind throughout the world, one sees that, except for what might be called animal activities, such as ingestion, etc., etc, men also perform actions which bear a characteristic peculiar to themselves, and these could be called ritualistic actions”.13 Describing what human life is like, as opposed to the pseudo explanations of Frazer – who wants, soto speak, to find a justification for the “irrationality” of primitive rituals – is the central point of Wittgenstein’s commentaries. Instead of historical explanations, Wittgenstein prefers the synoptic view in order to understand ritual behaviour: the reason for this and that behaviour must be found in the peculiar connections of a whole form of life. Even if there is an evolutionary hypothesis about some events, it must be included in the whole of what Wittgenstein calls a “perspicuous representation”. The methodology of this “übersichtliche Darstellung” is also presented as the 10

Wittgenstein, 1993, PO, 121. Wittgenstein, 1993, PO, 131. 12 Wittgenstein, 1993, PO, 121. 13 Wittgenstein, 1993, PO, 129. 11

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right method to study language. It typically means a holistic representation that permits us to see connections as Wittgenstein puts it. “The perspicuous representation brings about the understanding which consists precisely in the fact that we ‘see the connections’. Hence the importance of finding connecting links”.14 Using “perspicuous representations” in order to find the connecting links is the right method to understand communication systems where language and actions are interwoven in a whole. In PI, § 122, there is the same remark: Wittgenstein remembers that our grammar lacks in this sort of perspicuity and the central task of that method consists of “seeing the connections” in the interior of one “übersichtliche Darstellung”. In the same vein as his method of describing and not explaining the primitive forms of life of the Golden Bough, he adds in PI, that “Philosophy may not interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only describe it”.15 If ethnological representations are designed with the aim of widening the scope of our understanding of the very concept of human form of life, then I wish to suggest that a reader of Wittgenstein can find two main kinds of anthropological representation: 1. Representations/descriptions that Wittgenstein uses in the commentaries on Frazer’s book in order to show that human forms of life include a multiplicity of rituals that are much more complex than Frazer’s approach could guess at; 2. Another kind of anthropological representation, mostly designed in the so-called writings on philosophy of psychology, in which he seeks to establish the borders of human life through the description of fictitious patterns. These forms are not so much anthropological commentaries or descriptions in the strict sense (as is the case throughout the commentaries on Frazer’s book) but essentially they correspond to unreal designed forms whose aim is to stress some main and fundamental characteristics for what one must consider a human form of life. In any case they are tools whose function aims at enlarging the scope of our understanding of what a pattern of life is, if one refers to a human one. At this stage let us consider some points about the status of representing and representation in the present context. As we have already mentioned, ethnological representations such as those mentioned above are 14 15

Wittgenstein, 1993, PO, 133. Wittgenstein, 1958, PI, § 124.

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representations. Representing a language on the battle field where people communicate with orders and a report, or a language consisting only of questions and expressions for answering yes or no,16 is of course a kind of distorted representation of the kind one can refer to as a form of life. These are examples (given by Wittgenstein himself) which stress the elementary nature of a possible grammar and the corresponding form of life. In another sense, it shows that in order to represent a form of life it is enough that a certain way of using language can be taken as part of an activity. The important point here is that one can either expand or reduce ad libitum any system one refers to as a form of life: from the very simple communication system of the builder and his assistant17 to the most complicated systems of language-games (as in fact our natural human languages are). There is limitless space precisely to create thought experiments such as these communication systems one can find in the first sections of the PI. In fact it will be instructive to see how Wittgenstein operates with these communication systems in the first sections of the PI. There, one can remark how the concept has a status that is very near to a thought experiment, although without the purposes one finds in the remarks on psychological philosophy. As we have seen above, in those sections of the PI his aim is to show that there is no language without or outside of a communication system and it is most meaningful to understand that since one takes something as a human communication system, then it must simultaneously be seen as a form of life. Again, in other words, it would not be sustainable if one did not represent it as a form of life. When Augustine tries to explain how the meaning of words is generated and how that meaning must be conceived on the basis of their particular relation with the world, when he presents such and such a theory of learning and teaching, it is always (even implicitly) a more or less complicated communication system that is at stake. A communication system as a human form of life is always a representation that one produces under certain circumstances. In fact, as has already been referred to above, communication systems integrating language and action are a kind of “distorted” representation. Indeed, it is always a sort of minimal holistic representation of communication systems that is exhibited by Wittgenstein and it is perfectly possible to imagine these most simple systems as independent although, of course, integrated in the stream of life. 16 17

Wittgenstein, 1958, PI, § 19. Wittgenstein, 1958, PI, § 2.

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The reader of the PI should remark that Wittgenstein, after inviting us to imagine such an elementary language as that of the builder and the assistant (in fact the whole language of A and B), still adds that it could be “even the whole language of a lineage (tribe)”.18 One should retain that this is a primitive or oversimplified language. Namely in the case of this example of a micro system of communication shared only by the builder and his assistant, it is reasonable to ask oneself whether it can even be considered a language. Peter Hacker notes how controversial it is to name as “language” this micro system that Wittgenstein presents in § § 2 and 6 of the PI. “Is W. right to call this a ‘language’? One might think that syntax is essential to language, since it is a prerequisite for the creative powers of language that distinguish arbitrary signs from symbols in a language. Equally, truth and falsehood are often supposed to be essential to anything that can be deemed a language, but are absent here”.19 Other fundamental features of a natural language are lacking in this imagined micro system, such as assertoric speech-functions. It is indeed, as Hacker notes, a “rudimentary system of communication”, but it “must be remembered that this scenario is an expository device constructed for a specific purpose. It is not a piece of armchair anthropology”.20 In conclusion, the concept of form of life as a micro holistic system of communication is not in the adequate sense a language and so it does not correspond to the concept of a real human form of life. At this point it is useful to stress that Wittgenstein’s argumentation from the very first remarks of the PI makes huge use of these experiments. In fact they are not exactly a kind of ethnological point of view whose role would be to fix the particular (non-universal) value of our rational practices. I have already mentioned that the importance of the ethnological view of forms of life (in fact all the ritual behaviours that Wittgenstein describes in his commentaries on Frazer) is mirrored in the criticism of the conception of a form of life without mythology or, in other words, the criticism of a human form of life that is against any mythology whatsoever. What he questions is the very possibility of a pure rationalized form of life, where nobody would burn an effigy or kiss the picture of their beloved (Wittgenstein’s own examples). Is such a rationalized life possible even if one can represent it only as a kind of unreachable telos? No, it is not, because if one takes these behaviours or rituals they are “obviously not 18

Wittgenstein, 1958, PI, § 6. Baker and Hacker, 2005, 56. 20 Baker and Hacker, 2005, 56. 19

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based on the belief that it will have some specific effect on the object which the picture represents. It aims at satisfaction and achieves it. Or rather: it aims at nothing at all; we just behave this way and then we feel satisfied”.21 Wittgenstein is not aiming here at imaging unreal forms of life in order to fix our essential human form and in this sense what the ethnological perspective allows is much more the breaking of the limits of our particular form. Through exercising the ethnological point of view, it will be easier to reach a place exterior to our form of life: comparing and contrasting it with others (as primitive and far from ours as they can be) one just enlarges the scope of the concept. One could even claim that the ethnological representation is closer to the meaning of form of life as something “given” if one remembers the well-known remark: “What has to be accepted, the given, is – so one could say –forms of life”.22 But one can also see the usefulness of describing certain forms of life, namely some patterns very far from our human life (in fact non-human forms), by the fact that, through their contrast or their total asymmetry, one can easily design the physiognomy of our own form. So the movement can be, so to speak, the inverse one: it is not a real human form of life (either our “civilized” form or a primitive one) that serves as the reference pattern to understand or interpret what a human pattern must be, but on the contrary, it is by representing other fictitious, unlikely or even unreal forms that it is possible to reconstruct our specific human way of life. Let us start from this point in order to explore the very peculiar use of thought experiments in the late philosophy of Wittgenstein, particularly in his socalled philosophy of psychology. Representations of forms which work as thought experiments are used frequently in the late writings, namely in the so-called writings of philosophical psychology, where there are to my mind the most interesting cases, not only because they show so nicely the amazing philosophical imagination of Wittgenstein, but also because through them he just goes beyond the boundaries of our real human life in order to trace them. They are not simply unreal designs like those referred to in the first sections of the PI. Now these experiments do not fulfil any conditions of communication between humans. I would say that now what is at stake are the first conditions that make any human form of life possible. (As already mentioned, one can not be sure that the communication systems of the first 21 22

Wittgenstein, 1993, PO, 123. Wittgenstein, 1958, PI, II, xi, 226.

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sections of the PI are to be considered real designs of truly human forms of life since they were explicitly primitive, oversimplified forms far away from the “complicated forms” that Wittgenstein’s dog cannot experience.)23 In what follows. Let us choose some unreal designs that I like to call pseudo-ethnological representations, which must be seen as tools used to clearly fix the first conditions for a human form of life. Anticipating a little bit, I suggest that now his deep motivation can be formulated by the following questions: 1.

What does it mean for a human being to have a soul?

2.

In what sense is having a soul a real burden?

In order to understand in what sense human beings have souls is practically the same problem as tracing the boundaries of a human form of life. These limits are traced by the asymmetry of first and third person, by the status of an interior and what could be knowledge of that interior. In brief, Wittgenstein’s aim is to explore the boundaries of a form of life for beings with a soul. It is certainly worth exploring the boundaries of a form of life if it is possible to clarify the following problem: “The inner is hidden from us means that it is hidden from us in a sense in which it is not hidden from him. And it is not hidden from the owner in this sense: he utters (äussert) it and we believe the utterance under certain conditions and there is no such thing as his making a mistake here. And this asymmetry of the game is brought out by saying that the inner is hidden from someone else”.24

These lines indicate much of the meaning of having a soul: the mentioned asymmetry between persons, the relative closure of each mind, and the expression of the inner (in the specific sense of Ausdruck or Äusserung used by Wittgenstein). It is interesting to observe that referring to the behaviour of apes, Wittgenstein remarks that the meaning of the soul’s activity is only fulfilled through the special use of the first person.25

23

See: Wittgenstein, 1958, PI, II, i: “A dog believes his master is at the door. But can he also believe that his master will come the day after tomorrow? – Andwhat can he not do here? – How do I do it? – What answeram I supposed to give to this? Can only those hope who can talk? Only those who have mastered the use of a language. That is to say, the manifestations of hope are modifications of this complicated form of life.” 24 Wittgenstein, 1992, LWPP, 36. 25 Wittgenstein, 1980, RPP, 230.

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The problem of beings without a soul but whose behaviour and some skills appear as perfectly human is a problem that pervades the late Wittgenstein’s writings, particularly those related to what can be designated philosophical psychology. The fiction of beings or lineages that do not know the use of the first person, that can not dissimulate and so on, are just thought experiments whose aim consists of fixing the limits of our human life. It is now easy to understand how the function of these representations which I called pseudo-ethnological designs is a different one to the ethnological description. Let us look at, for example, the following example that speaks about an unlikely lineage that never or seldom dissimulates. “A tribe (Stamm) in which no one ever dissimulates, or if they do, then as seldom as we see someone walking on all fours in the street. Indeed if one were to recommend dissimulation to one of them, he might behave like one of us to whom one recommends walking on all fours. But what follows? So there is also no distrust there. And life in its entirety now looks completely different, but not on that account necessarily more beautiful as a whole. It doesn’t yet follow from a lack of dissimulation that each person knows how someone else feels. But this too is imaginable. - If he looks like this, then he is sad. But that does not mean: “If he looks like this, then that is going on within him,” but rather something like: “If he looks like this, then we can draw with certainty those conclusions which we frequently only can draw without certainty; if he does not look like that, we know that these conclusions are not to be drawn. One can say that our life would be very different if people said all of those things aloud that they now say to themselves, or if this could be read externally”.26

For these people pretending is as strange as walking on all fours in the street is for us. Of course it is possible that someone might walk on all fours but such bizarre behaviour could only occur under particular circumstances, for example, an order, an imitation gesture and so on. It is interesting to remark that the example Wittgenstein uses here remembers the walk of a baby, which is the human being at a stage when he can not pretend. In a lineage like this there is no place for distrust and each one would be completely transparent to each other. In addition, the asymmetry between first and third person does not exist. In such a form of life it would 26

Wittgenstein, 1992, LWPP, 27.

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make no sense to talk about the difference between interior and exterior and the difference between expressing ourselves and describing ourselves. Then “life in its entirety now looks completely different” but, Wittgenstein adds, “not necessarily more beautiful as a whole”. Also it is meaningful, although at first sight it seems to be a paradox, that that sort of radical sincerity does not mean a more adequate or interesting knowledge of the other. Here one could say that too much sincerity is an epistemological obstacle. If he looks sad or depressed or whatever, one can draw some conclusions with certainty but this transparency is, all in all, false just because there is only transparency. People of this lineage can be “recognized with certainty from appearances (we are not using the picture of the inner and the outer). But wouldn’t that be similar to coming from a country where many masks are worn into one where no, or fewer, masks are worn? (Thus perhaps from England to Ireland.) Life is just different there”.27 In other remarks Wittgenstein deepens the characteristics of this sort of unreal lineage (although nothing to do with the primitives, whose different “rationality” he defends against Frazer). One of the most striking features of these lineages is the fact that they correspond to forms of life where training and reaction can be induced by humans only interested in utility and manipulation.28 With his designs of forms of life as thought experiments, Wittgenstein is also claiming that one proof of humanity when one looks at this or that way of life is the absence of mechanisms avoiding any possible ambiguity. In a particular and relevant way, human life necessarily contains ambiguity and irregularity. In other words, there is univocal use of words as well as ambiguous use, depending on contexts of communication. Only the isolation of words from a pattern of life could give them a sort of perfect (and impossible) univocal meaning. But this abstraction is only an ens mentis, which is a topic that pervades all of Wittgenstein’s philosophy. The following remark is only an example but it synthesises much of what I have tried to show in the above lines: “If a pattern of life is the basis for the use of a word then the word must contain some amount of indefiniteness. The pattern of life, after all, is not of exact regularity”.29

27

Wittgenstein, 1992, LWPP, 28. See Wittgenstein,1980, RPP, § § 97-98. 29 Wittgenstein, 1992, LWPP, 31. 28

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References Baker, G. P. and P.M.S. Hacker, 2005: Wittgenstein Understanding and Meaning – vol. 1. An Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations, Part II – Exegesis §§ 1-184, Blackwell, Oxford. Wittgenstein, L., 1958: Philosophical Investigations, ed. G.E.M. Anscombe and R. Rhees, tr. G.E.M Anscombe, 2nd ed., Blackwell, Oxford. Wittgenstein, L., 1980: Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, vol. I, ed. G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright, Blackwell, Oxford. Wittgenstein, L., 1980: Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, vol. II, ed. G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright, Blackwell, Oxford. Wittgenstein, L., 1982: Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology, vol. I, ed. G.H. von Wright and H. Nyman, Blackwell, Oxford. Wittgenstein, L., 1992: Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology, vol. II, ed. G. H. von Wright and H. Nyman, Blackwell, Oxford. Wittgenstein, L., 1993: Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951, ed. James Carl Klagge, and Alfred Nordmann, Hackett, Indianapolis and Cambridge. FCSH/ New University of Lisbon. Portugal

Ich und Andere JESÚS PADILLA GÁLVEZ Einleitung Wie kann ich wissen, was der Andere denkt oder fühlt? Diese Frage ist falsch gestellt, weil sie scheinbar in einen falschen Antagonismus mündet. Bei dieser Frage wirkt es so, als ob sich das eigene Subjekt in der ersten Person einer anderen Person gegenübergestellt. Wie kann ich das Andere als Anderes erkennen und verstehen? Das Andere steht mir immer gegenüber. In diesem Vortrag werde ich der Frage nachgehen, wie der Einzelne den jeweils Anderen verstehen kann. Ich werde dafür plädieren, dass dieses Verstehen nicht aus dem Ich heraus erfolgen kann. Bevor ich auf inhaltliche Aspekte eingehe, werde ich mich dem Rahmen zuwenden, innerhalb dessen sich dieses Verstehen vollziehen kann. Dabei werde ich die egozentrische Einstellung dem Anderen gegenüber untersuchen und diese Haltung einer eingehenden Kritik unterziehen. Wenn ich mich mit dem Anderen befasse, so bin ich darauf angewiesen, dass mir der Andere Auskunft gibt über sein “Denken”, “Fühlen” oder andere intern ablaufende Prozesse. Bei dieser Auseinandersetzung stelle ich unweigerlich Identitäten zwischen meinen eigenen internen mentalen Prozessen und denen des Anderen her. Dabei bilden meine eigenen Prozesse den Bezugsrahmen für das, was mir der Andere berichtet. Tut der Andere aber nicht das, was ich von ihm erwarte, so ist der Andere nicht dasselbe wie ich, so erscheint mir der Andere als unbekannt oder fremd. Diese Auffassung beruht auf dem juristischen Verständnis früherer Zeiten, konkret in einer überholten Prozessordnung, in der es kaum Garantien gab für denjenigen, der vor Gericht stand. Wurde eine Person angeklagt, so musste sie sich gegen den Vorwurf verteidigen, Rechenschaft ablegen. Hatte der Angeklagte die Tat gar nicht begangen, so musste er zuerst einmal den Schock überwinden angeklagt zu sein und im nächsten Schritt Beweise für seine Unschuld liefern. Während der Beweisprüfung konnte es vorkommen, dass sich der Angeklagte immer mehr in Widersprüche verstrickte, ging es doch um zwei Versionen, die seines Philosophical Anthropology. Wittgenstein’s Perspective, (Ed. Jesús Padilla Gálvez), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2010, 73-89.

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Anklägers und seine eigene. Der Kläger war dabei oft im Vorteil: er hatte mit der Klage schon einen entscheidenden Schritt gemacht und wurde oft zum Nutznießer der Verstrickungen des Angeklagten. Fehler im Verfahren gab es nicht und Garantien wurden nicht vorausgesetzt. Es gibt Parallelen zwischen dieser Verfahrensweise und derjenigen, die in den heutigen Wissenschaften üblich ist. Das erkenntnistheoretische Problem ist für den Anthropologen oder den Gehirnforscher jeweils ein ähnliches. Lassen Sie mich diesen Gedanken weiter verfolgen. Nehmen wir das Beispiel eines Anthropologen, der daran interessiert ist, inwieweit auch Tiere über menschliche Züge verfügen. Zu diesem Zweck holt sich der Forscher einen Affen aus dem Tierpark und versetzt ihn unter Laborbedingungen. Dadurch beschränkt er nicht nur den Bewegungsradius des Tieres, sondern beraubt ihn auch seiner natürlichen Rückzugsmöglichkeit. Zu Untersuchungszwecken entwirft der Anthropologe ein experimentelles Setting, in dem das Tier den Nachweis erbringen soll, dass es “ähnliche” kognitive oder gar emotionale Fähigkeiten habe wie der Mensch. Das Tier wird dabei von seinen Beobachtern kontrolliert. Wenn es nicht die erwarteten Verhaltensweisen zeigt, so wird das Untersuchungssetting unter Umständen geändert und das Tier noch mehr isoliert. Anderseits könnte man die Situation auch umgekehrt betrachten: Ist der “Verhaltensforscher” müde, krank oder schlechter Laune, so muss sich der Affe mit einem Tier wie dem Menschen auseinandersetzen. Dabei wird das Rückzugsbedürfnis des Affen ausgeblendet und das Augenmerk auf seine Gefühlswelt gerichtet. So wird auch erwartet, dass er mit fremden Artgenossen Kontakt aufnimmt und Sozialverhalten zeigt. Der Grund für das bekannte Phänomen, dass sich Tiere im Zoo so selten vermehren, liegt wahrscheinlich an diesen Rahmenbedingungen. Es gilt dagegen eher die Frage zu stellen, wieso sich Tiere unter Laborbedingungen reproduzieren sollten? Man muss sich vielmehr fragen, wieso man von einem Lebewesen in einem gläsernen Käfig exhibitionistische Eigenschaften erwartet. In dieser Arbeit werde ich mich im Sinne dieser Beispiele mit der egozentrischen Einstellung dem Anderen gegenüber auseinandersetzen. 1.

Historischer Exkurs

Dem deutschen Idealismus zufolge gelangt das Ich durch den komplexen Prozeß der Bildung zu Selbsterkenntnis und findet auf diese Weise zu einer Einheit zurück, die zuvor verlorengegangen war. Diesem einerseits

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destruktiven aber gleichzeitig auch konstruktiven Prozess war Ludwig Wittgenstein aufgrund der politischen und sozioökonomischen Umstände während seiner jungen Lebensjahren ausgesetzt gewesen. Der Mythos, dass selbstreferentielle Erkenntnis die Entstehung einer Ganzheitlichkeit bewirken würde, die in einer Spaltung von Subjekt und Objekt, von Betrachter und Betrachtetem, liegt, hat ihn als Motiv begleitet. Sein ganzes Leben hat er sich mit der modernen Subjektkonstitution auseinandergesetzt. Dies zeigt sich einerseits durch wiederholte Bezugnahmen und Anmerkungen1 auf seine fiktive Autobiographie2. Anderseits behandelt er solche Fragen immer wieder in Zusammenhang mit Themen wie Individualität, Gesellschaft und Natur. L. Wittgensteins Werk enthält eine tiefgreifende Auseinandersetzung mit der modernen Subjektkonstitution, insofern er deren zentrale Topoi in Frage stellt. Die Topoi der modernen Subjektkonstitution sind seit R. Descartes mehrmals aufgegriffen worden. An erster Stelle steht dabei eine Krisenerfahrung des Subjekts; zum zweiten werden die Konzepte von Körper und Leiblichkeit thematisiert, und, drittens, wird die Frage nach gesellschaftlicher Integration und Desintegration von Individuen aufgeworfen. All diese Topoi waren für Wittgenstein mit Schwierigkeiten und Irritationen verbunden, da er die Probleme der Subjektivität aus einer anderen Perspektive betrachtete, als es in der damaligen philosophischen Tradition üblich war. Das zeigt sich beispielsweise darin, wie er sich der Frage nach der Rolle der Krankheit widmet. Der Idealismus hatte zur Untersuchung der Subjektivität ein Muster festgelegt, das deren Erforschung eher hinderlich als hilfreich war. So erfahren wir in der modernen Psychologie S. Freuds, dass eine Enttäuschung oder Kränkung zu einer Krise führen kann, die das empfindsame Subjekt nicht nur psychich sondern auch physisch beeinträchtigt.3 Seit der Moderne besteht eine enge Beziehung zwischen psychischen und physischen Phänomenen. Die Auflösung dieser paradoxen Beziehung zwischen Kränkung und Symptom sah man in der Rückführung des betroffenen Kranken in seine 1

Siehe: Wittgenstein, 2000, WN. “Fiktiv” nenne ich seine Autobiographie, weil sie zum Teil aus fragmentarisch unkoordinierten Elementen aufgebaut ist. So ist es verwunderlich, dass er als katholisch getaufter und erzogener Jugendlicher sich eher mit seiner “jüdischen” Herkunft auseinandersetzt, ohne sich dabei mit dem religiösen Hintergrund des Judentums zu beschäftigen. Seine Autobiographie wird also von gesellschaftlichen Aspekten motiviert. 3 Freud, 2000, 45 ff. 2

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Erinnerung an jenes bekannte Milieu, in dem diese Kränkung ursprünglich stattfand. Der Patient – oder viel öfter die Patientin – konnte ihr emotionales Gleichgewicht wiedererlangen, wenn sie die Situation nochmals kathartisch durchlebte und die Krise auf diese Weise überwand. Erst die Rückkehr der Patientin in die sozialen Bande ihres gewohnten Umfeldes brachte die vollständige Heilung. Beim Problem der egozentrischen Einstellung stellt sich die Frage, wie bei dem Zusammentreffen von auf sich selbst bezogenen Individuen Erkenntnis über den Anderen überhaupt stattfinden kann. Ein sich selbst stabilisierendes und sich selbst reflektierendes Subjekt müsste dann aus der kognitiven Abstimmung zwischen der eigenen Perspektive und der des Anderen erklärt werden. In der rein epistemischen Version stellt sich das egozentrische Problem aber noch vehementer, weil die Egozentrik der aufeinandertreffenden Perspektiven nicht mehr nur durch eigene Präferenzen und Wertorientierungen bestimmt werden kann. Es geht nämlich vor allem auch um gemeinsame Grammatiken der Weltdeutung, denn die egozentrischen Subjekte teilen nicht nur eine gemeinsame Sprache sondern stehen auch derselben Welt gegenüber. Dieser subtile Logozentrismus ist die Grundlage für die Egozentrizität. Sogar unter Philosophen ist der Logozentrismus gang und gäbe. Wir neigen im Gegensatz zu Tieren dazu, nur uns selbst Handlungen zuzuschreiben, während wir dem Anderen lediglich Verhalten unterstellen. Zur Veranschaulichung dieser Haltung lassen Sie mich ein literarisches Beispiel bringen. Es geht um das Motiv des Eingeschlossenseins auf einer Insel, das Daniel Defoe so treffend in seinem fiktiven Roman “Robinson Crusoe” beschrieben hat. Darin schreibt der Autor seinem Protagonisten einen höheren kulturellen Entwicklungsstand zu als dessen Gefährten Freitag. Und das, obwohl eigentlich “Freitag” derjenige ist, der eine Fremdsprache erlernt und sich zugleich die kognitiven Fähigkeiten einer fremden Kultur aneignet. “Freitag” erbringt sogar die kulturelle Leistung, das Wohl seines Gefährten über sein eigenes zu stellen, indem er ihn am Ende zu seinem Stamm und der rettenden Medizin zurückführt, obwohl das für ihn selbst zu gefährlich war. Solche und ähnliche Beispiele sollen zeigen, dass unsere kognitiven Strukturen sowohl in der Realität als auch in der Fiktion egozentrisch sind und dadurch das Fremde, das Andere degradieren. Diesem Aspekt soll im Folgenden genauer nachgegangen werden.

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2.

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Das moderne Ich

Das Dasein des modernen bewussten Subjekts begann mit einer inszenierten Krise. Der Moment der Ich-Werdung und das Entstehen des Selbstbewusstseins fand vor dem Hintergrund des sinnlich wahrnehmenden, denkenden, intellektuellen, sich selbst entwerfenden Subjekts statt. Dieses Subjekt konstituiert sich aber nach seiner eigenen Vorstellung und entzieht sich der Fremdbestimmung. Typische Diskussionsinhalte für dieses Subjekt sind Themen wie Krankheit, Schmerz oder Leiden, da sich die Innerlichkeit des Ichs anhand dieser Phänomene detailliert beschreiben lässt. Dadurch verfolgt es einen egozentrischen Plan, der den zentralen Impuls für die Ich-Konstitution des Subjekts bildet. Dieses Ich befindet sich in einem Spannungsfeld des ständigen Austarierens zwischen Innen und Außen, zwischen der inneren Welt des Subjekts und den Ansprüchen der Gesellschaft. Seinem Bedürfnis nach Selbstentwicklung steht die Gesellschaft entgegen. Bei der Konstitution des Subjekts als Individuum kann es zwischen gesellschaftlicher Integration oder Isolation wählen. L. Wittgenstein selbst ist ein Paradebeispiel seiner Zeit, indem er für sich selbst zuerst die Isolation und dann einen Mittelweg suchte. L. Wittgenstein durchläuft dieses Programm in seiner frühen Phase. Durch extensives Fragen sucht er inneren Frieden zu erlangen. Er hatte sogar vor ins Kloster zu gehen, um sich von der Welt zu verabschieden. Er sucht ein Weg, bei dem er seine eigenen Ansprüche mit denen der Gesellschaft vereinbaren kann. Offenbar scheitert dieses Programm aber an Problemen der Kommunikation im Gefühlsbereich. Der Anspruch nach Authentizität führt ihn unweigerlich zu einer Konfrontation mit den Anderen, dem Fremden, das er sich aber erst durch intellektuelle Bildung, Lektüre und Erfahrung zu eigen “gemacht” hat. In der Auseinandersetzung mit dem Idealismus verstrickt er sich in folgende Paradoxie: das sich selbst erkennende Ich muss seine Ganzheit verlieren und muss sich selbst zum Objekt werden. Durch diesen “Trick” oder “Kunstgriff” könnte das Subjekt seine Autonomie wiedererlangen. Mit der bewussten Körperwahrnehmung und der Repräsentation des Selbst rückt auch die Erkenntnis über das Eigene wieder ins Bewusstsein. Leider bringt dieses idealistische Programm auch Widersprüche hervor und kann daher nicht verwirklicht werden. Zum Widerspruch kommt es nämlich in der Dialektik zwischen Sein und Schein, also dort, wo das Individuum den

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Wunsch nach Subjektivität am Ende nicht mehr von der Realität unterscheiden kann. 3.

Denkfigur

Seit I. Kant sehen wir uns genötigt zu klären, dass die Subjektivität gekoppelt war an das Denken des Ich. Dieses denkende Subjekt wurde von “seiner” Vorstellung begleitet. So fasst er seine Position durch die bekannte Passage aus der Kritik der reinen Vernunft folgendermaßen zusammen: “Das: Ich denke, muß alle meine Vorstellungen begleiten können; denn sonst würde etwas in mir vorgestellt werden, was gar nicht gedacht werden könnte, welches ebensoviel heißt, als die Vorstellung würde entweder unmöglich, oder wenigstens für mich nichts sein.”4

Gemäß dem Zitat sind also die inneren Prozesse, die das Subjekt vollzieht, untrennbar mit einer Vorstellung verbunden. Diese Vorstellung war die Garantie dafür, dass die Subjektivität im epistemischen Sinne nicht auf Abwege geraten würde. Solche Irrtümer benennt I. Kant als Vorstellung der Modalität der “Unmöglichkeit” oder als irreales Dativum (für mich nicht sein). Eine Vorstellung ist aber zweideutig. Einerseits referiert sie nämlich auf den Vorgang des Vorstellens (das Auftreten eines Vorstellungsinhalts im Bewusstsein, der als psychischer Prozess stattfindet), als auch auf den Vorstellungsinhalt als solchen, einen in der Abstraktion vom Vorstellungsvorgang unterschiedenen Erlebniskomplex. Andererseits muss das “Vorgestellte” als Vorstellungsgegenstand unterschieden werden, d.i. als das Objekt, welches durch die Vorstellung vertreten wird. Es ist bemerkenswert, dass man bei der modernen Konstruktion von Subjektivität das Hauptaugenmerk auf die Vorstellung richtet. Dementsprechend lautet die Frage nach dem Anderen: Welche Vorstellung habe ich vom Anderen? Oder etwa: Was kann man vom Anderen nicht wissen? Was kann über ihn nicht gedacht werden? Weitere Fragen könnten dann lauten: Wieso soll das, was nicht gewusst oder gedacht werden kann aber gänzlich unmöglich sein oder gar keine Existenzberechtigung haben? Dieser Aspekt soll durch folgendes Gedankenexperiment verdeutlicht werden: Was spricht dagegen, dass ein Affe kognitive Fähigkeiten hat, dass diese aber anders geartet sind als die des Menschen? Sie könnten 4

Kant, 1973, KdrV, § 16.

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vielleicht andere Sprachstrukturen haben, die auf anderen Regeln basieren als unsere. Sie könnten z.B. andere Elemente einbeziehen, die beim Menschen entwicklungsgeschichtlich abhanden gekommen sind oder die unter Umständen nie erlernt wurden. Was spricht beispielsweise gegen die Vorstellung, ein Affe könne etwa durch die in seiner Umwelt vorkommenden Lichtschatten oder Farbempfindungen relevante Informationen gewinnen, an denen er sein Leben ausrichtet. Für dieses Andere wäre die vom Menschen verursachte Zerstörung der Umwelt eine äußerst primitive Art, seiner Umwelt mit Unverständnis zu begegnen. In der Tat ist der Mensch fähig, unzählige Reichtümer und Informationen des Urwalds zur zerstören, nur um ein Nebenprodukt wie etwa Holz zu gewinnen. Man könnte fast so weit gehen und den Menschen als primitives und einfallsloses Subjekt beschreiben, vernichtet er doch Tiere, Pflanzen und ökologisch hoch komplexe Gleichgewichte, nur um eine Tonne Holz mit einem gewissen Geldwert im Gegenzug dafür zu erhalten. Mit der kantischen Auffassung stoßen wir anhand solch eines Vorgehens schnell an die Grenze epistemischer Erkenntnis und beginnen unsere Umwelt blind zu vernichten. 4.

Subjektivität und Vorstellung

Die Parallelität von Subjektivität und Vorstellung reicht bis ins letzte Jahrhundert hinein. Die rückbezüglichen Prozesse über Subjektivität waren durch Vorstellungen bestimmt. Der zentrale Einwand gegen die idealistische Korrelation zwischen Subjektivität und Vorstellung geht auf G. Frege zurück, der folgende These aufstellte: “Wir sind nicht Träger der Gedanken, wie wir Träger unserer Vorstellungen sind.”5

Dieses Zitat weist auf die Unterscheidung zwischen den Bereichen der Subjektivität und Vorstellung einerseits und dem propositionalen Gehalt (Gedanken) andererseits hin. Ausdrucksmittel für propositionalen Gehalt sind Sätze. Die Vorstellung kann deshalb kein propositionaler Gehalt eines Satzes werden, weil der Wahrheitswert einer Vorstellung nicht ermittelt werden kann. Der propositionale Gehalt (Gedanken) kann nicht durch einen Bezug auf ein Subjekt aufgebaut werden. Wenn wir Subjektivität an die Vorstellung binden, so sehen wir uns genötigt je “meine” von den “deinen” und den Vorstellungen Anderer zu 5

Frege, 1966, 49.

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unterscheiden. Diese Vorstellungen müssen einem in Raum und Zeit identifizierbaren vorstellenden Subjekt zugeschrieben werden. Im Gegensatz hierzu überschreitet der propositionale Gehalt (Gedanken) die Grenzen eines individuellen Bewusstseins. So bleiben zum Beispiel die Fregeschen Gedanken (propositionaler Gehalt) erhalten, auch wenn sie von verschiedenen Subjekten an jeweils verschiedenen Orten zu jeweils anderen Zeiten erfasst werden. Ihrem Inhalt nach bleiben sie aber im strikten Sinne dieselben Gedanken. G. Frege zeigt, dass schon bei einfachen prädikativen Sätzen die Gedanken (Propositionen) eine komplexere Struktur haben als die Objekte des vorstellenden Denkens. Mithilfe von singulären Termini wie Namen, definiten Beschreibungen oder indexikalischen Ausdrücken beziehen wir uns auf einzelne Gegenstände wie “Jesús”, “der Mann der gerade vorträgt” oder “Ich”. Im Gegensatz dazu drücken Sätze wie “Jesús hält einen Vortrag” oder “Ich halte einen Vortrag”, in denen solche singulären Termini anstelle des Subjektausdrucks stehen, eine Proposition aus oder geben einen Sachverhalt wieder. Wenn diese Sätze wahr sind, so können sie auch als objektiv angesehen werden. Aus diesen Gedanken leitet sich die Kritik an der klassischen Auffassung des Denkens als vorstellendem Bewusstsein ab. In der Vorstellung werden nur Gegenstände wiedergegeben. Im Gegensatz dazu werden Sachverhalte oder Tatsachen in Gedanken (Propositionen) erfasst. Nach G. Frege können Gedanken (Propositionen) nicht unvermittelt/ unmittelbar in der Welt vorstellbarer Gegenstände angesiedelt werden. Gedanken (Propositionen) sind nur als dargestellte, also durch in Sätzen ausgedrückte Sachverhalte zugänglich. Hier finden sich zwei Sichtweisen von Subjektivität, eine wird über die Vorstellung konzipiert und eine andere durch das, was über den dargestellten propositionalen Gehalt eines Satzes zum Ausdruck kommt. Durch die Beziehung auf Objekte des vorstellenden Denkens ist erstere daran interessiert, eine Trennung zwischen die “meine” und die “deine” Vorstellung als Grenze zu setzen. Diese Sichtweise stellt zudem identifizierbare Kriterien in den Vordergrund um meine von anderen Gedanken zu trennen. Dadurch können überhaupt erst Unterschiede zwischen Subjektivitäten gezogen werden. Auf diese Weise werden auch nationalspezifische Kulturbestimmungen und sprachimmanente Unterscheidungen ausfindig und erkennbar gemacht. Die Anthropologie kann einem raum-zeitlich identifizierbaren Subjekt Eigenschaften zuschreiben. Eine solche “Subjektivität” überschreitet allerdings nicht die Grenze individuellen Bewusstseins, da sie niemals über den Bereich der

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Vorstellung hinausgeht. Die moderne Subjektivitätstheorie kann demgemäß keine Gedanken (Propositionen) äussern, sondern höchstens egozentrische Perspektiven ausprechen. Die in der Vorstellung angesiedelte Subjektivität bleibt somit egozentrisch. Sie versteht die Welt nur aus ihrer (eigenen) Vorstellung heraus. Eine auf diese Weise agierende Person untersucht die Welt des Anderen immer vor dem Hintergrund seiner eigenen Vorstellungen und sie wird dadurch zum Ankläger, Verteidiger und Richter über den Anderen. Das kommt dem Anderen nur selten zugute. Der Andere wird nur dann akzeptiert, wenn er sich in die notwendigerweise eingeschränkte Vorstellungswelt des eigenen egozentrischen Ich fügt. In dieser egozentrischen Welt spielt die objektive Realität nur eine untergeordnete Rolle. Der Andere wird nur durch den Vorstellungsinhalt eines IchBewusstseins bestimmt. Der Andere wird zum Objekt von “meiner” Vorstellung, da er darin repräsentiert ist und darin verhaftet bleibt. Dieses Raster bildet den Rahmen, innerhalb dessen sich eine Person die Realität vorstellt. 5.

Überwindung des Egozentrismus

Der Gedanke von der Kluft zwischen psychologischer Vorstellung und objetiv sinnvoller Betrachtung wird von L. Wittgenstein aufgegriffen und erweitert. Er bedient sich dabei einer umfassenden Strategie. Unserer Auffassung folgend werden wir hier zeigen, dass sein Vorhaben jedoch unvollendet geblieben ist und einiger Verbesserungen bedarf. L. Wittgenstein vollzieht drei Schritte. Zuerst fragt er nach dem Träger, dem Substrat von Vorstellungen: “‘Ich weiß, daß ich die Vorstellung ... habe’ – Soll das heißen: daß ich diese und nicht andre habe, oder soll es heißen: ich weiß daß ich diese Vorstellung habe? Keines von beiden heißt etwas.”6

Aus dem Zitat geht hervor, dass L. Wittgenstein zwei Möglichkeiten verwirft, indem er Gegenargumente anführt. Im ersten geht er von einer kontrafaktischen Bedingung aus und fragt wie es wäre, wenn der Träger der Vorstellung ein Anderer oder überhaupt niemand wäre und jeder sich die Vorstellung nur einbilden würde. Ausgehend von der zweiten Argumentation kann man die kontrafaktische Frage stellen, wie es wäre wenn diese Vorstellung ein Anderer hätte. Diese Überlegung führt dann zu 6

Wittgenstein, 2000, WN, Item 120, 36v.

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einer falschen Prämisse, nämlich dass es absurd wäre zu behaupten, nicht sagen zu können, dass man nicht weiß, dass man die Vorstellung X gar nicht habe – um daraus abzuleiten, dass ich dann wissen muss, dass ich die Vorstellung X habe. Wenn jemand sagt: “Ich habe Zahnschmerzen” dann sagen wir, dass derjenige, der es sagt, Zahnschmerzen hat. Also hat die Person, die dies so ausgedrückt hat, Zahnschmerzen. Es könnte natürlich auch sein, dass sie diesen Satz nur gesagt hat, um Aufmerksamkeit zu erhalten. Das Problem dabei ist, dass die Vorstellung X fälschlicherweise zum Gegenstand eines Subjekts gemacht wird.7 L. Wittgenstein beschreibt diese Situation noch etwas pointierter: “Wenn ich sage ‘A hat Zahnschmerzen’ so gebrauche ich die Vorstellung des Schmerzgefühls in derselben Weise wie etwa den Begriff des Fließens, wenn ich vom Fließen des elektrischen Stromes rede. Wenn wir plötzlich vom Nebenzimmer in einer uns unbekannten Stimme den Satz ‘Ich habe Zahnschmerzen’ hören, so verstehen wir ihn nicht. Ich sammle gleichsam sinnvolle Sätze über Zahnschmerzen. Das ist der charakteristische Vorgang einer grammatischen Untersuchung.”8

In diesem Zitat weist der Autor auf den Unterschied zwischen dem Wortgebrauch an sich und der blossen Vorstellung dazu hin. Innerhalb der klassischen Theorie wurde dieser unmittelbar ein Inhalt zugesprochen. Verstehen kann etwa auf der Grundlage einer Vorstellung entstehen: wenn meiner Vorstellung zum Beispiel ein Wahrnehmungsimpuls vorausgeht, dann sehe ich eine Farbe. Auf diese Weise können wir das Verstehen einer Vorstellung wie ein Zeichen analysieren.9 Diese Spaltung zwischen Vorstellung und tatsächlicher Erfahrung entsteht im Beispiel der Zahnschmerzen deswegen, weil die Erfahrung des Zahnschmerzes nicht von derselben Art ist wie bei der betroffenen Person, die in der Ich-Form ihre Schmerzen kundtut. Der Fehler liegt in der subjektiven Betrachtungsweise und der Annahme, dass die Bedeutung eine das Wort begleitende Vorstellung sei.10 Um diesen Unterschied noch stärker hervorzuheben, konkretisiert Wittgenstein das Problem einmal mehr indem er sagt:

7

Sehr prägnant sagt es Wittgenstein durch die Formel: “… aber die Vorstellung ist nicht Objekt eines Subjekts” Wittgenstein, 2000, WN, Item 120, 45r. 8 Wittgenstein, 2000, WN, Item 107, 285. 9 Wittgenstein, 2000, WN, Item 109, 167. 10 Wittgenstein, 2000, WN, Item 110, 230.

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“Vorstellung ist Erfahrung.”11

Durch diese Feststellung trennt er die Vorstellung vom psychischen Prozeß. Unsere Vorstellungswelt gehört nicht ins Reich des Psychischen, sondern hat ihren Ursprung in der Erfahrung. L. Wittgenstein ist weder am Prozess des Vorstellens12 noch an Vorstellungsinhalten13 interessiert, noch an Vorgestelltem als Vorstellungsgegenstand.14 Sein Interesse gilt eher der Erinnerung und den Phantasievorstellungen, da sie als reproduzierte Vorstellungen angesehen werden. Diese Wahrnehmungsvorstellungen sind Komplexe von Empfindungen. Nach dieser Auffassung können Vorstellungen allerdings nichts über die Außenwelt aussagen, da sie weder als richtig noch falsch ermittelt werden können. “Während Ich einen Gegenstand sehe, kann ich ihn nicht vorstellen”15

Vielmehr ist die Vorstellung dem Willen unterworfen. Sie ist zwar kein Bild, aber man kann von Vorstellungsbildern auf den tatsächlichen Gegenstand schliessen. Vorstellung beruht immer auf Erinnerung und ist damit ein reproduzierter Prozess. Beim Abrufen von Erinnerungen kommt es aber fast immer zu Ungenauigkeiten. Der Reproduktionsprozess von Vorstellungen unterliegt bestimmten bewussten und unbewussten Mechanismen, die ihren Einfluss ausüben. Das kommt beispielseweise auch dann vor, wenn wir uns auf Andere beziehen: “‘Wenn ich diese Vorstellung haben kann, kann sie der Andre auch haben. Sowie ich sie haben kann, kann sie der Andre haben.’ – Aber dieses ‘Argument’ ist einfach eine Bewegung, ein Rundgang, innerhalb der uns geläufigen Wortsprache”16

Das Problem liegt darin, dass das Individuum in einer egozentrischen Reflexionsspirale gefangen ist, bei der es aus dem Zirkel von je eigener Selbstbeobachtung und Fremdbeobachtung nicht herauskommt. Um diesen 11

Wittgenstein, 2000, WN, Item 134, 42. Beim Vorgang des Vorstellens interessiert man sich für das Auftreten eines Vorstellungsinhalt in einem Bewußtsein. In diesen Programm untersucht man das Zustandekommen eines solchen Vorgangs durch einen psychischen Prozeß, in dem eine Verbindung elementarer Bewußtseinsvorgänge geschieht. 13 Beim Vorstellungsinhalt geht es um die Abstraktion von Vorstellungsvorgängen, die von real getrennten Erlebniskomplexen unterschieden werden. 14 Hier analysiert man das Objekt, das durch die Vorstellung repräsentiert und verzerrt ist. Es ist die Einheit des Denkens die jeweils wechselnde, subjektiv variierende Vorstellung. 15 Wittgenstein, 2000, WN, Item 136, 4a. 16 Wittgenstein, 2000, WN, Item 116, 158. 12

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Mechanismus der Selbstreferenz des jeweils Anderen zu verstehen, müßten die beteiligten Egos wenigstens partiell über eine gemeinsame Sprache verfügen. Diese kann es aber unter diesen Voraussetzungen nicht geben, da der Egozentriker immer dazu tendiert, sich vom Anderen ein Bild nach seinem eigenen “Code” anzufertigen. Der Andere soll dasselbe von “mir selbst voraussetzen wie ich von ihm. In diesem “Krieg der Bilder” verliert sich die Subjektivität. In diesem Kampf ist es relevant zu wissen, welche Funktion das Bild von meinem privaten Objekt für eine Funktion des jeweils Anderen hat. So hat L. Wittgenstein selbst an anderer Stelle auf diese Schwierigkeit hingewiesen, wenn er sagt: “Wir gebrauchen das Bild vom ‘privaten Objekt’, welches nur er und kein Andrer sehen kann. Es ist ein Bild – werde Dir klar darüber! Und nun liegt es im Wesen dieses Bildes, daß wir noch weitere Annahmen über dies Objekt, und was er damit tut, machen; es genügt uns nicht zu sagen: Es hat ein privates Etwas und tut etwas damit.”17

Der Egozentrismus ist deswegen zum Scheitern verurteilt, da von ihm dasjenige negiert wird, worauf er eigentlich aufbaut: die Kommunikation. Erfolgreiche Kommunikation setzt voraus, dass die Kommunizierenden wechselseitig füreinander relevante objektive Informationen so darstellen, dass sie “gelesen” und verstanden werden können. In diesem Sinne wäre die Sprache die höchstmögliche Kompatibilität zwischen unterschiedlichen Sprachspielen. Die Kommunikation ist an die Grammatik von verstehbarer Information gebunden. Eine solche Grammatik ist aber nur innerhalb des Rahmens von Regeln möglich. Oder anders gesagt: die Regeln sind in einem Rahmen verankert. Das Problem ist nur, dass die Vorstellung dieser Regel keine Objektivität zulässt. 6.

Skeptische Anmerkungen

Nun soll die ursprüngliche These G. Freges nochmals aufgegriffen werden. Nach ihm gibt es zwischen dem Träger von Gedanken und dem Träger von Vorstellungen keine Parallelität. Die heutige Diskussion um die Egozentrizität scheint dieser Unterscheidung nicht berücksichtigt zu haben. Um dies zu unterstreichen, soll kurz auf die Diskussion über Tiere eingegangen werden. Das sogenannte linguistische Argument wird durch die folgende syllogistische aristotelische Barbara-Struktur wie folgt zusammengefasst: 17

Wittgenstein, 2000, WN, Item 116, 206.

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Thinking requires concept-possession Concept-possession requires language Thinking requires language Animals cannot think”18

In den ersten beiden Annahmen wird der Begriff “Conceptpossesion” eingeführt.19 Diese assertorischen Sätze (P1 und P2) haben den Charakter eines apophantischen Satzes und werden als Behauptungssätze angesehen. Die erste Konklusio (C1) lässt sich durch eine einfache Substitution ableiten. Leider ist dem Autor der typische Fehler des nicht distribuierten Mittelbegriffs unterlaufen, der auch als Sophismus des kollektiven Mittelbegriffs bezeichnet wird. Dadurch werden Subjekt und Prädikat invers dargestellt. Problematisch wird die Argumentation dadurch, dass die zweite Konklusion aus keiner der Prämissen abgeleitet werden kann, da die Negation nicht näher eingeführt wird. Wir stehen hier eher vor einer Hypothese, die diskutiert werden müsste. Die Struktur der Argumentation erinnert an die Amphibolien der Antike, auf die schon Sextus Empiricus aufmerksam machte.20 Dort hieß es, da Tiere irrational seien besäßen sie keine Vernunft. Mit Recht hatte Sextus Empiricus auf die Zirkularität der Argumentationsfigur hingewiesen und sie als “aufgeblasen” und “selbstgefällig” zurückgewiesen.21 Da Hunde nicht sprechen können wie wir Menschen, so können sie keine Begriffe zum Ausdruck bringen. Da sie keine Begriffe ausdrücken können, so verfügten sie über keine Sprache. Da Sprache für das Denken unerlässlich ist, so können Tiere nicht denken. Inhaltliches Denken benötigt Sprache, also können Tiere nicht inhaltlich denken. Nach meiner Auffassung ist diese Argumentation ein Fehlschluss. Die Konklusion enthält keine zusätzliche Erkenntnis, sondern nur eine weitere Annahme. Man könnte auch mit der Konklusion beginnen und danach zu den Prämissen kommen, ohne dass wir unseren Erkenntnisstand verbessert hätten, da alle Annahmen sind. Die Frage bleibt also etwa die: Könnte das Bellen eines Hundes als eine Art kodifizierte Sprache angesehen werden? Was spricht dagegen das Bellen als ein Kommunikationsmittel zu betrachten, das wir nur noch nicht 18

Siehe: H.-J. Glock, La mente de los animales: problemas conceptuales. KRK, Oviedo, 2009, Postscript I (2008), 147. 19 Die Struktur der Argumentation ist sehr ähnlich der 1. Figur des Syllogismus, die durch folgende Schemata dargestellt werden kann: P M, M S, P S. 20 Sextus Empiricus, 1912-1954, I, 62 ff. 21 Sextus Empiricus, 1912-1954, I, 62.

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dekodifiziert haben? Wieso sollten solche Kommunikationsmittel keine Inhalte haben? Nutzen wir die Sprache nicht als ein Mittel um eindeutige Bestimmungen zu erarbeiten? Wenn das der Fall wäre, dann hätte Sextus Empiricus mit seiner sarkastischen Kritik gegen den übertriebenen Egonzentrismus Recht gehabt. Nun soll der Frage nachgegangen werden, ob diese Kritik auch systematisch gegen eine auf Vorstellung basierende Subjektivität angewendet werden kann. Dazu werden die Argumente von Sextus Empiricus genauer rekonstruiert. In seinem Grundriß der pyrrhonischen Skepsis versucht er die Irrationalität der Tiere durch Übertreibung22 einer grundlegenden Kritik zu unterziehen. Er wendet sich der Vernunft zu, indem er sowohl das “innere Denken” als auch die “äußere Sprache” untersucht.23 Dabei verweist er auf ein Epos von Homer um zu zeigen, dass selbst Odysseus von allen vertrauten Menschen – seine Ehefrau Helena eingeschlossen – nicht erkannt wurde, von seinem Hund Argos allerdings schon. Argos wurde also weder durch die körperlichen Veränderungen des Protagonisten noch von einer erkennenden Vorstellung getäuscht. Er muss aber über Fähigkeiten verfügt haben, die ihm das Erkennen seines Herrn Odysseus ermöglichten.24 Damit wies Sextus Empiricus ironisch darauf hin, dass Hunde das fünfte mehrgliedrige unbewiesene Argument anwendeten. All dies wären Argumente, die seit der Antike die Anwendung von korrekten Argumentationsfiguren durch Hunde belegen. Es stellt sich die Frage, ob sich Propositionen (Gedanken) ausschließlich auf der Grundlage menschlicher Sprache nachweisen lassen. Wäre also für die Bestimmung anderer Kommunikationsformen ein Bezugssystem denkbar, das von der menschlichen Sprache verschieden ist? Genau an diesem Punkt erscheint es angebracht, sich mit der Frage des Rahmens auseinanderzusetzen. 7.

Das Problem des egozentrischen Rahmens

Der egozentrische Rahmen ist der Grund für die ungenügende Information, die wir über den Anderen haben. Mit diesem Problem überspringen wir z.T. Wittgensteins Argumentation. Es stellt sich die Frage ob eine Überwindung des Egozentrismus zu größerer Effektivität führt. Um diese 22

Im Griechischen “İț ʌİȢȚȠȣıȓĮȢ” Sextus Empiricus, 1912-1954, I, 62. Sextus Empiricus, 1912-1954, I, 65. 24 Sextus Empiricus, 1912-1954, I, 68. 23

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Frage zu beantworten, sollen die im Egozentrismus angewendeten Begriffe rekonstruiert werden. Dadurch zeigt sich, dass die Erwartung den cartesianischen Egozentrismus überwinden zu können auf eine Überschätzung der Wittgensteinschen Argumente zurückgeht. Die cartesianische Stellung kann nicht allein durch die bloße Darstellung der egozentrischen Struktur überwunden werden, ohne den Begriffsapparat einer grundlegenden Kritik zu unterziehen. Der Fehler besteht darin, dass ein epistemisch fragwürdiges, aber im Rahmen der geltenden Theorie mögliches Argument nur eine Argumentationsstruktur besitzt, weil es sämtliche Eigenschaften hat, die eine korrekte Argumentation auch besitzt – von seinen internen Widersprüchen einmal abgesehen. Wie kann man dieses Problem lösen? Meiner Ansicht nach liegt das Problem darin, dass sich Wittgenstein zwar mit der Struktur des Egozentrismus auseinandergesetzt hat, dessen Rahmen aber außer Acht gelassen hat. Daher werde ich kurz auf das Problem des egozentrischen Rahmens eingehen. Ich bin der Meinung, dass der Zugang zum Egozentrismusproblem erst durch eine Auseinandersetzung mit dem Rahmen möglich ist. Zwar sind bisher inhaltliche Aspekte des Egozentrismus behandelt worden, aber der egozentrische Rahmen ist bisher unbeachtet geblieben. Das ist auch der Grund dafür, dass das Problem der Egozentrizität bei anthropologischen Fragestellungen immer wieder auftaucht. Gehen wir zunächst auf das Privatsprachenargument ein, bei dem L. Wittgenstein von einer Art Empfindungssprache ausgeht und ein regelrechtes Vokabular der privaten Sprache entwickelt. So heißt es etwa an einer Stelle seiner Philosophischen Untersuchungen: “Die Wörter dieser Sprache sollen sich auf das beziehen, wovon nur der Sprechende wissen kann; auf seine unmittelbaren, privaten Empfindungen.”25

Mit dem Privatsprachenargument zeigt er, dass das Vokabular der Privatsprache auf die unmittelbaren privaten Empfindungen beschränkt bleibt. Die Verwendung dieses Vokabulars im allgemeinen Sinne wäre daher sinnlos. Indem sich Wittgenstein gegen die Möglichkeit einer solchen Sprache wendet,26 wendet er sich gleichzeitig auch gegen die These, dass in unserer eigenen Sprache Begriffe für Psychisches, wie z.B. das Wort “Schmerz”, auf solche privaten Episoden Bezug nehmen. Nach 25 26

Wittgenstein, 1980, PU, § 243. Wittgenstein, 1980, PU, § 258.

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Wittgensteins Bedeutungstheorie lernen wir dieses Vokabular durch Sprachspiele. Zwar kann ein privates Erlebnis nicht durch Kommunikation vermittelt werden, wohl aber der Umgang mit ihm. Diese These kommt in dem berühmten Käfer-Gleichnis zum Ausdruck: “Angenommen, es hätte jeder eine Schachtel, darin wäre etwas, was wir “Käfer” nennen. Niemand kann je in die Schachtel des Anderen schauen, und jeder sagt, er wisse nur vom Anblick seines Käfers, was ein Käfer ist. [...] Das Ding in der Schachtel gehört überhaupt nicht zum Sprachspiel, auch nicht einmal als ein Etwas, denn die Schachtel könnte auch leer sein.”27

Ohne eine eindeutige Antwort kann das Problem der Subjektivität nicht erklärt werden. Es müsste dafür eindeutige Begriffe geben, durch die der Andere untersucht werden kann, ohne dabei auf egozentrische Begrifflichkeiten zurückzugreifen. Das Privatsprachenargument lässt sich deswegen so eindeutig erklären, weil Inhalt und Rahmen zusammenfallen. Was verstehen wir unter einem “egozentrischen Rahmen” genau? Ein egozentrischer Rahmen ist die Menge von Regeln, die vermutlich den Gebrauch einer Gruppe von Bezeichnungen und Prädikaten bestimmen, die wir beispielsweise beim Sprechen über Tiere oder beim Sprechen über Menschen gebrauchen. Diese Rahmen sind aber für die Untersuchung von Menschen und Tieren grundlegend verschieden. Die Annahme des Rahmens oder einer Art und Weise wie wir uns ausdrücken, geht mit typischen ontologischen Fragestellungen und Methoden einher. Das sind aber Fragen, die innerhalb dises Rahmens entstehen und ihre Art und Weise hängt vom Rahmen ab. Sie können empirischer Art sein, wie in der Naturwissenschaft oder aber logischer Art sein, wie in der Mathematik. Jedoch beinhalten diese internen Fragestellungen nicht die von Philosophen normalerweise gestellten Fragen. So sind zum Beispiel externe Fragen wie: “Gibt es einen geistigen Zustand “bei den Anderen”?” inkorrekt gestellt, weil sie im falschen Rahmen gestellt sind. Die einzig gerechtfertigten Fragen von außen sind pragmatischer Natur, wie etwa ob es sinnvoll ist diesen Rahmen anzunehmen. Würde das nützlich für unsere Untersuchung sein?

27

Wittgenstein, 1980, PU, § 293.

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Schluss Wenn der Hund Argos seinen Herren Odysseus als Einziger erkennt, hat er dann ein objektives Bild von seinem Herrn28? Ist Argos höher entwickelt als etwa Helena, die ihren eigenen Gatten nicht wiedererkennen kann? Diese Frage ist falsch gestellt. Einerseits steht die erste Person im Zentrum der Frage und verlangt wie ein Richter nach Auskunft. Der angeblich Antwortende ist der Andere. Der Andere ist das mir Fremde. Bibliographie Frege, Gottlob, 1966: Logische Untersuchungen. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen. Freud, Sigmund, 2000: Die Traumdeutung, Bd. 2. Studienausgabe in zehn Bänden mit einem Ergänzungsband. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main. Kant, Immanuel, 1973: Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Nachdruck der 2. Auflage 1787), Band 3; Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Nachdruck der 1. Auflage 1781), Band 4: u. a., Gruyter Verlag, Berlin. Sextus Empiricus, 1912-1954: ȆȣȡȡȦȞİȓĮȚ ùʌȠIJȣʌȫıİȚȢ (pyrrhoneíai hypotypôseis). In: Sexti Empirici opera recensuit Hermannus Mutschmann (3 Bde.), (Lipsiae), Teubner, Leipzig. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1980: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921). Tagebücher 1914-1916. Philosophische Untersuchungen (1958). Schriften 1. Suhrkamp. Frankfurt a. M. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1980a: Briefwechsel. (Hrsg. von B. F. McGuinness und G. H. von Wright). Briefe. Suhrkamp. Frankfurt a. M. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1982: Das Blaue Buch (1958). Eine philosophische Betrachtung (Das braune Buch) (1969) Zettel (1967). Schriften 5. Suhrkamp. Frankfurt a. M. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 2000: Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. The Bergen Electronic Edition. Oxford University Press. Oxford. University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain) 28

Sextus Empiricus hat sich über die platonische Epistemologie lächerlich gemacht, indem er das Beispiel von Argos darstellte. Sextus Empiricus, 1912-1954, Kap I, 68.

Wittgenstein and the Natural History of Human Beings NUNO VENTURINHA Philologie und Philosophie sind eins. Novalis, Fragmente

1.

Introduction

In a recent paper, “La variación como procedimiento de investigación. Una nueva aproximación a las obras de L. Wittgenstein”, Jesús Padilla Gálvez argues rightly that we can make better sense of Wittgenstein’s views if we analyse the different contexts and formulations of each of his remarks. My aim in this paper is to apply this “research procedure” to Wittgenstein’s notion of a “natural history of human beings”. This plays an important role in the Philosophische Untersuchungen, posthumously published in 1953, where Wittgenstein writes: Was wir liefern, sind eigentlich Bemerkungen zur Naturgeschichte des Menschen; aber nicht kuriose Beiträge, sondern Feststellungen, an denen niemand gezweifelt hat, und die dem Bemerktwerden nur entgehen, weil sie ständig vor unsern Augen sind.1

There are various versions of this remark in the Nachlass. The first draft occurs at the end of MS 157b. It reads as follows: Was wir liefern sind eigentlich Bemerkunken zur Naturgeschichte des Menschen; aber nicht kuriose Beiträge, sondern solche die Feststellungen an denen Niemand [sic] gezweifelt hat ? vor allen Augen liegen & nur darum die Augen nie auf sich ziehen. Wie ein Dieb der sich der Aufmerksamkeit entzieht nicht dadurch daß indem durch indem er sich versteckt sondern dadurch indem daß er vor aller Augen /allen sichtbar / handelt /etwas einsteckt/ , als könnte es nicht anders sein. & die nur darum dem Bemerktwerden Augen sind nicht dadurch daß er versteckt etwas einsteckt /mitnimmt/. 1

heimlich

nur

entgehen weil sie uns ständig vor

, sondern /aber/

dadurch daß er

den

vor aller Augen

Wittgenstein, PU, §415.

Philosophical Anthropology. Wittgenstein’s Perspective (Ed. Jesús Padilla Gálvez), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2010, 91-110.

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The only dated entry in this pocket notebook, 27 February 1937, is to found on the very first page. But there are reasons to believe that its final pages were written in September 1937. In fact, MS 119, the fifteenth of a series of “volumes” initiated after 1929, opens with the following remark dated 24 September 1937: Was wir liefern sind eigentlich Bemerkungen zur Naturgeschichte des Menschen; aber nicht kuriose Beiträge, sondern solche Feststellungen, an denen niemand gezweifelt hat, & die dem Bemerktwerden nur entgehen, weil sie ständig vor unsern Augen sind. /weil sie sich ständig vor unsern Augen herumtreiben./3

Like the year before, Wittgenstein had moved to Norway in August continuing the preparation of what came to be known as the “Frühfassung” or “Frühversion” of the Untersuchungen.4 At this time, he was writing down material that would be selected for the second part of his new book. It is thus not surprising that the aforementioned remark had made its way into TS 221. There it runs as follows: Was wir liefern, sind eigentlich Bemerkungen zur Naturgeschichte des Menschen; aber nicht kuriose Beiträge, sondern solche Feststellungen, an denen niemand gezweifelt hat, und die dem Bemerktwerden nur entgehen, weil sie ständig vor unsern Augen sind. /weil sie sich ständig vor unsern Augen herumtreiben./5

It is of some interest to note that an uncatalogued copy of TS 221 which is housed at Trinity College Library, Cambridge, contains on the upper margin of the first page the words: “p. 222 Was wir liefern, ___ Naturgeschichte ___”.6 This reference seems to suggest that this remark played some prominent role in Wittgenstein’s work. Little wonder that it reappeared in what is now TS 222, a collection of cuttings composed on the basis of TS 221. However, the Zettel at issue includes significant corrections in Wittgenstein’s hand. It says:

2

Wittgenstein, MS 157b, 40v-41r. Wittgenstein, MS 119, 1. 4 I am here borrowing terminology that can be found in Joachim Schulte’s Kritischgenetische Edition and in G. H. von Wright’s and Heikki Nyman’s so-called HelsinkiAusgabe of the text. 5 Wittgenstein, TS 221, 222. 6 Wittgenstein, TS 221(i), 1. 3

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Was wir liefern, sind eigentlich Bemerkungen zur Naturgeschichte des Menschen; aber nicht kuriose Beiträge, sondern solche Feststellungen /Feststellungen von Fakten/, an denen /welchen/ niemand gezweifelt hat, und die dem Bemerktwerden nur entgehen, weil sie ständig vor unsern Augen sind. /weil sie sich ständig vor unsern Augen herumtreiben./7

If we take into consideration all these variations, it becomes clear that TS 222 cannot have been the ultimate source for §415 of the published Untersuchungen, whose Part I derives from TS 227. At first sight, a good candidate seems to be TS 221, with Wittgenstein dropping “solche” and deciding for the first open variant, or TS 222 before incorporating Wittgenstein’s corrections – one of them being his change of mind in regard to the alternative.8 As a matter of fact, the insertion of “Feststellungen von Fakten” in TS 222 is truly reminiscent of a remark that can be found in MS 130. Wittgenstein observes: Die Fakten der menschlichen Naturgeschichte, die auf unser problem Licht werfen, sind uns schwer uns zu sehen /finden/, denn unsre Sprache /Rede/ geht an ihnen vorbei, - sie ist mit andern Dingen beschäftigt. [...]9

The first dated entry in this manuscript volume is of 26 May 1946, occurring on page 147. In his comments on this item, von Wright considers that “[t]he undated first half of the book could have been written, or at least begun, one or two years earlier”.10 This is important because Wittgenstein was still working on the “Bearbeitete Frühfassung” of the second part of his new book as late as 1944.11 In my opinion, the addition of “Feststellungen von Fakten” actually derives from Wittgenstein’s work in MS 130. Additional evidence is given by two remarks on pages 59 and 72 of this manuscript in which Wittgenstein speaks of “naturgeschichtliche Grundtatsache” and of “naturgeschichtliche Tatsachen”. The latter remark made its way into §714 of TS 229, a typescript for which the above-quoted remark from MS 130 had also been selected. It appears as §748, with Wittgenstein underlining the word “Fakten”, the 7

Wittgenstein, TS 222, 114. I should point out here that the surviving physical arrangement of the cuttings obscures the numerical arrangement that Wittgenstein worked out in connection with the so-called “Bearbeitete Frühfassung” of the first part of his Untersuchungen, which corresponds to TS 239. I discuss this issue in more detail in Venturinha, 2010. 9 Wittgenstein, MS 130, 136-137. 10 von Wright, 1993, 496. 11 Compare two notes headed “Zu dem Typescript [sic]” in MS 124, 150-151, dating from 18 March 1944, with TS 222, 87-88. 8

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same happening in TS 245, in which §714 also reappears. But what matters for our immediate concern is the reappearance of the remark “Was wir liefern, ___ Naturgeschichte ___”12 in §389 of TS 228, the “Bemerkungen I”. Astonishingly, TSS 228 and 229 are consecutively paginated and their remarks are also numbered consecutively. The version of TS 228 contains, like that of TS 222, some amendments by Wittgenstein. It reads: Was wir liefern, sind eigentlich Bemerkungen zur Naturgeschichte des Menschen; aber nicht kuriose Beiträge, sondern solche Feststellungen /sondern Feststellungen von Tatsachen/, an denen niemand gezweifelt hat, und die dem Bemerktwerden nur entgehen, weil sie ständig vor unsern Augen sind. /weil sie sich ständig vor unsern Augen herumtreiben./13

My conjecture is that it was from the uncorrected version of this remark that Wittgenstein established the text of TS 227. We only have to admit that in the first open variant he decided for the second formulation – dropping “solche” – and in the second he decided for the first – as he actually did when he corrected the text. Then he has also inserted “von Tatsachen”. This insertion is closely linked to the one in TS 222 discussed above, and is the reason why I believe that they have some relationship. One may speculate whether the corrections in TS 222 were made only when Wittgenstein cut up the (numerical) typescript into Zettel in view of a reorganization of the material and whether this took place only after the preparation of TSS 228 and 227. With regard to the corrections in TS 228, I myself would lean towards the opinion that they have been made after the attempt to reorganize TS 222. In this hypothesis, the final version of the remark in question would have been §126 of TS 230, the “Bemerkungen II”, which states: Was wir liefern, sind eigentlich Bemerkungen zur Naturgeschichte des Menschen; aber nicht kuriose Beiträge, sondern Feststellungen von Tatsachen, an denen niemand gezweifelt hat, und die dem Bemerktwerden nur entgehen, weil sie ständig vor unsern Augen sind.14

Another hypothesis would be to take the corrections in TS 222 as being later than those in TS 228 and consequently later than TS 230. This would help to explain why only in TS 222 does Wittgenstein suggest “welchen” in place of “an denen” and select the latter alternative. In this context a remark written down in MS 169 as late as 1949 is worth referring to. It runs as follows: 12

As will become clear in a moment, I use this phrasing only as an abbreviation. Wittgenstein, TS 228, 109, §389. 14 Wittgenstein, TS 230, 33, §126. 13

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Ich will die Betrachtung über Mathematik die diesen /meinen/ Philosophische Untersuchungen angehören “infantile Mathematik” nennen. /“Anfänge der Mathematik” nennen/.15

Be that as it may, an important conclusion can be drawn from this philological analysis: the posthumous publication Philosophische Untersuchungen cannot be regarded as the “Spätfassung” of Wittgenstein’s second book project. Not only does TS 227 precede other versions, namely TS 230, but also TS 234, from which Part II of the Untersuchungen was printed, does not seem to fit into the book conceived by Wittgenstein. Indeed, there is an incomprehensible absence of the mathematical part in Wittgenstein’s alleged masterpiece which the remark just quoted precisely echoes. The Nachlass shows that the epistemological part should not be followed by a psychological part, but that the epistemologicalpsychological part should be completed by the mathematical investigation. This gulf created by the posthumous editions becomes evident in the remark that we have been examining. Besides its publication in Part I of the Untersuchungen, it also figures in Part I of the Bemerkungen über die Grundlagen der Mathematik. Here it bears the paragraph number 142, following the physical order of TS 222 and reading: Was wir liefern, sind eigentlich Bemerkungen zur Naturgeschichte des Menschen; aber nicht kuriose Beiträge, sondern Feststellungen von Fakten, an denen niemand gezweifelt hat, und die dem Bemerktwerden nur entgehen, weil sie sich ständig vor unsern Augen herumtreiben.16

We shall never know why Wittgenstein’s literary executors opted here for “an denen” instead of “welchen”. Yet the most striking aspect of these two publications is that, as this example makes plain, they can provide the reader with two different versions of the same remark when it has been conceived for only one book. This overlapping can be resolved if we succeed in reconstructing Wittgenstein’s new book. And in order to clear the way for such a realization, we should do well to look at how this new book began. Interestingly enough, the notion of a “natural history of human beings” was of crucial importance at that stage. 2.

Wittgenstein’s New Book

It is in the second entry for 6 November 1930 in Volume V that, under the form of a long draft for a foreword, Wittgenstein expresses for the first 15 16

Wittgenstein, MS 169, 36v. Wittgenstein, BGM, 92, §142.

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time the wish to write a second book.17 Shorter drafts, of a more fragmentary nature, which Rush Rhees has arranged for the foreword to the Philosophische Bemerkungen, would be written down on 8 November. Among them we can read: Dieses Buch ist für die geschrieben die dem Geist in dem es geschrieben /erzeugt/ /gemeint/ ist freundlich gegenüberstehen. Dieser Geist ist ein anderer als der des großen Stromes der europäischen und amerikanischen Zivilisation. Dieser äußert sich in einem Fortschritt, im Bauen immer größerer und komplizierterer Strukturen jener andere in einem Streben nach Klarheit und Durchsichtigkeit jeder möglichen Struktur /welcher Struktur immer/. Dieser will die Peripherie jener das Zentrum der Kugel erfassen /Dieser will die Welt an der /ihrer/ Peripherie jener an ihrem Zentrum erfassen/. Daher reiht dieser einen Stein an den anderen oder steigt von einer Stufe zum anderen während jener bleibt wo er ist und immer wieder dasselbe zu erfassen trachtet.18

The distance Wittgenstein assumes in relation to the cultural standard of his times can only be fully understood if it is not interpreted, precisely, in cultural, epoch-making terms, but in the perspective of an entirely new philosophical attitude. In effect, the target of Wittgenstein’s criticism is not solely a more and more unruly technological scientism; also the so-called scientific philosophy is under attack. What Wittgenstein urges us to do is to resist to a process of knowledge by addition through a novel way of apprehending reality, “at its centre”, or “in its essence” as he also says,19 in a fundamental (self-)identification of man. The goal is to describe the intricate connections which make experience possible, with no disconnections, only “clarity and transparency”. What is thus at stake is not a number of explanations, of theories, but a constituent approach to the workings of the mind. The implementation of such a discursiveness, which must be evident by itself, actually leaves little room for the concept of “foreword”. In the first entry for 7 November, trying to articulate the intention of his book, Wittgenstein writes that “[t]he danger in a long foreword is that the spirit of a book has to be evident in the book itself & cannot be described”.20 This idea reappears in the very first sentence of the published extracts from 17

Cf. Wittgenstein, MS 109, 204-206. Wittgenstein, MS 109, 211. 19 Cf. Wittgenstein, MS 109, 211-212. The English translations are taken from the foreword to the Philosophical Remarks. 20 Wittgenstein, MS 109, 208: CV, 10e. Here are Wittgenstein’s words: “Die Gefahr eines langen Vorworts ist die daß der Geist eines Buches sich in diesem zeigen muß & nicht beschrieben werden kann.” 18

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the “Yellow Book”. Wittgenstein is reported to have said that “[t]here is a truth in Schopenhauer’s view that philosophy is an organism and that a book on philosophy, with a beginning and end, is a sort of contradiction”, concluding that “[o]ne difficulty with philosophy is that we lack a synoptic view”.21 In a recent book on the Untersuchungen, Alois Pichler debates at length the notion of “übersichtliche Darstellung” and emphasizes that in his lectures from 1930-33 Wittgenstein frequently made use of terms like “synoptic view” and “synopsis”,22 having spoken even of “synoptizing” in drafts for lectures.23 Pichler then claims that “synoptic view” may be a better way of interpreting and translating into English the notion of “übersichtliche Darstellung” than those normally used, namely “bird’s-eye view”, “perspicuous representation” or “surveyable representation”. 21

Ambrose, 1982, 43. Cf. Moore, 1993, 50 and 113-114. I quote from the latter segment: “He did not expressly try to tell us exactly what the ‘new method’ which had been found was. But he gave some hints as to its nature. He said [...] that the ‘new subject’ consisted in ‘something like putting in order our notions as to what can be said about the world’ [...]. He said also that we were ‘in a muddle about things’, which we had to try to clear up [...]. He also said that he was not trying to teach us any new facts: that he would only tell us ‘trivial’ things – ‘things which we all know already’; but that the difficult thing was to get a ‘synopsis’ of these trivialities, and that our ‘intellectual discomfort’ can only be removed by a synopsis of many trivialities – that ‘if we leave out any, we still have the feeling that something is wrong’. In this connexion he said it was misleading to say that what we wanted was an ‘analysis’, since in science to ‘analyse’ [...] means to discover some new fact [...], whereas in philosophy ‘we know at the start all the facts we need to know’. I imagine that it was in this respect of needing a ‘synopsis’ of trivialities that he thought that philosophy was similar to Ethics and Aesthetics […].” Cf. also Lee, 1980, 26 and 34. The former passage, from a lecture held on 20 October 1930, is worth quoting: “What we find out in philosophy is trivial; it does not teach us new facts, only science does that. But the proper synopsis of these trivialities is enormously difficult, and has immense importance. Philosophy is in fact the synopsis of trivialities.” 23 Cf. Pichler 2004, 178ff. The term “synoptizing” occurs in MS 153b, 30r-30v, a pocket notebook which must have been written in 1931-32: “Difficulty of our investigations: great length of chain of thoughts. | The difficulty is here essential to the thought not as in the sciences due to its novelty. It is a difficulty which I can’t remove if I try to make you see the problems. | I can’t give you a startling solution which suddenly will remove all your difficulties. I can’t find one key which will unlock the door of our safe. The unlocking must be done in you by a difficult process of synoptizing certain facts.” 22

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The option for “bird’s-eye view” takes place in Raymond Hargreaves’ and Roger White’s translation of the Philosophische Bemerkungen, with that notion rendering both “übersichtliche Darstellung” and “Übersichtlichkeit”. The alternative “perspicuous representation” is due to G. E. M. Anscombe who, while translating §122 of the Untersuchungen, uses “perspicuity” for “Übersichtlichkeit” and “command a clear view” for the verb “übersehen”.24 Also C. G. Luckhardt and M. A. E. Aue decided for “perspicuous representation” and “perspicuity” when they translated the chapter “Philosophie” of the Big Typescript for the first time. But in their recent translation of the whole text we find “surveyable representation” and “surveyability”. This is exactly the same G. P. Baker and P. M. S. Hacker had suggested in their influential commentary on §122 of the Untersuchungen, explaining the translation of “übersehen” by “to survey” as follows: “in the sense in which one can survey a scene from the heights of a mountain”.25 The usual interpretation of what is implied in the idea of “übersichtliche Darstellung” thus lies, as Pichler rightly stresses, in an “Olympic” perspective, in which one could have a “systematic” view over what is observed. According to the authors of the first edition of Understanding and Meaning, this would allow “a systematic arrangement of our common explanations of meanings, and […] an examination of the ordinary uses of expressions”.26 Yet this systematization of linguistic meaning, which is indeed associated by most scholars to the Untersuchungen, overlooks what Wittgenstein had been trying to achieve since 1929: a “presentation” of reality, contrary to any representation of it – in particular that of the Tractatus. The only way of presenting reality is to make visible what we cannot see directly, thinking as we do, by bits of experience which involve everything. The “Übersicht” Wittgenstein aims at must coincide, therefore, with thought itself and cannot systematize 24

Here is how Anscombe, 1953, 522, justifies her translation: “Übersehen, ‘to see over’, with its cognate übersichtlich, ‘lucid’ seems impossible to render in English; I have rendered it by ‘command a clear view’, ‘survey’; and at § 122 have rendered übersichtliche Darstellung ‘perspicuous representation’. Übersehen suggests that something can be taken in at a glance because it is well arranged.” 25 Baker and Hacker, 1980, 546. In the second, extensively revised edition by Hacker, we find: “in the sense in which one can survey a scene from the heights.” (2005b, 259). See in addition Baker and Hacker, 2005a, 309-310. 26 Baker and Hacker, 1980, 544. This position is somehow attenuated in Baker and Hacker, 2005a, 302-303.

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anything. It is a concomitant view, a synopsis, hence the need for a “synoptic presentation”.27 Of course one can argue that maybe this is so in the early 1930s but not in the Untersuchungen, as representative of Wittgenstein’s mature philosophy. Nevertheless, when we investigate the genesis of §122, we verify that it stems from three remarks which suffered little change. The first of these is dated 23 December 1929 and immediately follows the first explicit criticism of the Tractatus in Wittgenstein’s manuscript volumes, saying: Unserer Grammatik fehlt es vor allem an Übersichtlichkeit.28

The other two remarks were written down on 2 July 1931, one day after Wittgenstein had thought of the title Philosophische Grammatik for his new book,29 a book on which he would work for the rest of his life. They read: Der Begriff der übersichtlichen Darstellung ist für uns von grundlegender Bedeutung. Er bezeichnet unsere Darstellungsform, die Art wie wir die Dinge sehen. (Eine Art der “Weltanschauung” wie sie scheinbar für unsere Zeit typisch ist.) Spengler)

27

For a cognate translation, see Waismann, 1997, 80-81, Waismann and Wittgenstein, 2003, 311, as well as Guest, 2003, 73, who renders “übersichtliche Darstellung” as “présentation synoptique” and “Übersichtlichkeit” as “synopticité”. 28 Wittgenstein, MS 108, 31. 29 The whole remark runs as follows: “Mein Buch könnte auch heißen: Philosophische Grammatik. Dieser Titel hätte zwar den Geruch eines Lehrbuchtitels aber das macht ja nichts, da das Buch hinter ihm steht.” (Wittgenstein, MS 110, 254) A few days before, more specifically on 24 June, Wittgenstein had written: “Mein Buch soll /kann/ heißen: Eine Philosophische Betrachtung. (Als Haupt-, nicht als Untertitel.)” (Wittgenstein, MS 110, 214) In the second entry of MS 154, 1r, which apparently also dates from 1931, we find: “Der Titel meines Buches: ‘Philosophische Betrachtungen. Alphabetisch nach ihren Gegenständen /Themen/ geordnet /aneinandergereiht/.’ /nach Stichwörtern angeordnet[.’]/” However, further ahead in the notebook (9v-10r) he says: “Ist es richtig oder unrichtig mein Buch nicht ‘Philosophische Betrachtungen etc.’ zu nennen, sondern: ‘Philosophische Bemerkungen, nach ihren Gegenständen alphabetisch geordnet’? /nach Stichwörtern alphabetisch geordnet/ /alphabetisch nach Stichwörtern angeordnet?/” Finally, on the cover sheet of MS 114, initiated on 27 May 1932, Wittgenstein wrote: “Im Falle meines Todes vor der Festigstellung oder Veröffentlichung dieses Buches sollen meine Aufzeichnungen fragmentarisch veröffentlicht werden unter dem Titel: | ‘Philosophische Bemerkungen’ [...].” It is worth mentioning that the text after “sollen” is in code.

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Philosophical Anthropology. Wittgenstein’s Perspective Diese übersichtliche Darstellung vermittelt das Verstehen /Verständnis/ welches eben darin besteht daß wir die “Zusammenhänge sehen”. Daher die Wichtigkeit der Zwischenglieder /des Findens von Zwischengliedern/.30

Let us now compare these remarks with the section of the Untersuchungen, putting alongside the text of its alleged “Urfassung” and that of its alleged “Spätfassung”: Eine Hauptquelle unseres Unverständnisses ist [Es ist eine Hauptquelle unseres Unverständnisses], daß wir den Gebrauch unserer Wörter nicht übersehen. – Unserer Grammatik fehlt es an Übersichtlichkeit. – Die übersichtliche Darstellung vermittelt das Vertsehen /Verständnis/ [Verständnis], welches (eben) [eben] darin besteht, daß wir die “Zusammenhänge sehen”. Daher die Wichtigkeit des Findens der Zwischenglieder [des Findens und des Erfindens von Zwischengliedern]. Der Begriff der übersichtlichen Darstellung ist für uns von grundlegender Bedeutung. Er bezeichnet die unsere Darstellungsform, die Art, wie wir die Dinge sehen. (Vielleicht ist dies eine Art der “Weltanschauung”. Spengler. [Ist dies eine “Weltanschauung”?])31

One of the most intriguing aspects of these considerations is the employment of the first person plural, making it difficult to understand whether Wittgenstein wishes to refer always to us, human beings, or sometimes to his own investigation. In fact, the “synoptic presentation” can be of “fundamental significance” to mankind as much as to Wittgenstein, the same happening with the “form of presentation”. Does it really mean the “way we see things” or Wittgenstein’s point of view? If we decide for the latter, we are left with an interesting cancelled alternative in MS 142: “die Darstellungsform”, instead of “unsere Darstellungsform”. However, that such a “concept” is after all what “produces the understanding” seems to involve a contradiction since if it were something proper to us then we would constantly be “seeing the connections” – the “connections” we make all the time, permitting at every instant synopses, conjunct views of experience.32 But what is included in the idea of “synoptic presentation” is 30

Wittgenstein, MS 110, 257. Wittgenstein, MS 142, 107, §115; TS 227a/b, 88, §122. I use square brackets to indicate additions or alterations and angle brackets to indicate the suppression of a new paragraph in the typewritten version(s). 32 For Baker and Hacker, 2005b, 260, the Darstellungsform is not the “way we see things”, in general, but Wittgenstein’s perspective, while “‘[…] form of representation’ (of philosophical issues)”, a consequence of their translation of “übersichtliche Darstellung” by “surveyable representation”. See also Backer and Hacker, 2005a, 326, as well as Lugg, 2000, 189. Savigny, 1994, 169, writes in turn: 31

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exactly, on the one hand, this “form of presentation”, this “way we see things”, and, on the other, an exhibition of and attention to what we often lose sight of. This is the great achievement of Wittgenstein’s new philosophical methodology: the development of a transparent, legitimate method. It is in these terms that he speaks of it in the heading of §89 of the Big Typescript: METHODE DER PHILOSOPHIE: DIE ÜBERSICHTLICHE GRAMMATISCHEN /SPRACHLICHEN/ TATSACHEN.

DARSTELLUNG DER

DAS ZIEL: DURCHSICHTGKEIT DER ARGUMENTE. GERECHTIGKEIT.

The interpretation Pichler makes of the notion of “übersichtliche Darstellung”, based on Wittgenstein’s refusal to admit “theses”, on his attempt to avoid “dogmatism” in philosophy,33 seems then to be closer to the truth than many of the traditional readings are. The problem of this approach, which, interestingly enough, had already been suggested by the later Baker,34 is to run into what Hans-Johann Glock called “‘no position’“In b schließt ‘die Art, wie wir die Dinge sehen’ aus, daß der Abschnitt sich nur auf die Arbeitsweise beim Philosophieren bezieht. [...] Die Art und Weise, die Welt zu sehen, bestimmt auch, wie man sich philosophierend ein Bild von ihr macht. Aber es bleiben zwei Textschwierigkeiten: ‘Darstellungsform’ wird zweideutig verwendet (wörtlich und für ‘Auffassungsweise’); und darauf, daß philosophische Darstellungsform und alltägliche Auffassungsweise verknüpft werden, wird nicht ausdrücklich hingewiesen.” 33 Exactly on the same day when the “synoptic presentation” is specified, Wittgenstein wrote down the following remark, which would make its way into §128 of the Untersuchungen: “Wollte man Thesen in der Philosophie aufstellen, es könnte nie über sie zur Diskussion kommen, weil Alle mit ihnen einverstanden wären.” (Wittgenstein, MS 110, 259) See, in addition, a conversation from 9 December 1931, published in WWK, 182ff. 34 Reinterpreting §122 of the Untersuchungen, in the essay which marks the break with Hacker, Baker says: “[Wittgenstein] constantly advocated new ways of looking at things [...]. The application of [the concept of ‘perspicuous representation’] to what he called ‘descriptions of grammar’ bears on what he understood by the remark that he advanced no theses, gave no explanations, and avoided dogmatism in philosophy [...]. No fact (even one about ‘our grammar’) is stated, no thesis advanced. There is nothing to attack, hence nothing to defend against criticism. Wittgenstein advocated nothing more (and nothing less!) than different possible ways of looking at things which he offered in particular argumentative contexts for certain specific purposes.” (Baker, 2004, 44-45) An ancestor of this reading, on which Pichler also draws, is Timothy Binkley, who remarks: “Wittgenstein seeks not to say how things are, but how they might be – how we can profitably imagine them to be. He wants us to see how things look like when viewed in this way or when imagined in that way. When trying to

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position”, which Glock, following the lead of Hacker, rejects.35 Besides the fact that it is itself dogmatic, such a “position” seems to be extremely weak as to its philosophical purpose and relevance. If it does not have a determinate aim, there is the risk of it getting transformed into an unconcerned way of looking at things, a “Pyrrhonian” attitude, according to Pichler. I shall not go here into how I see Pyrrhonism, but even if one interprets Pyrrhonian scepticism in a mere relativistic way, I would place Wittgenstein’s research programme at its antipodes. In my opinion, Wittgenstein commits himself very clearly to a “position”: naturalism.36 3.

Wittgenstein’s Naturalism

In a parenthetical note penned on 30 June 1931, wondering about how he should begin his book, Wittgenstein points out: Ich sollte mein Buch vielleicht mit der Analyse eines alltäglichen Satzes, etwa “auf meinem Tisch steht eine Lampe”, anfangen, von da aus müßte man überall hin gelangen können. Das entspricht auch dem Gefühl, was ich schon vor längerer Zeit hatte, daß ich nämlich mein Buch mit einer Naturbeschreibung d.h. überhaupt mit der Beschreibung einer Situation beginnen sollte. Und aus /in/ ihr das Material für alles weitere zu erhalten.37

By “naturalism” I mean the reduction of philosophical inquiry to the natural, to what is manifested by nature itself, the aim of this investigation being the clarification of our constituent scheme of (non)sense. In truth, if reveal a new perspective, what is true will be important only insofar as it too serves the imaginative task. This activity of seeing is an ‘aesthetic’ one.” (Binkley, 1973, 53) For more recent versions, see Hutchinson, 2007, and Hutchinson and Read, 2008. 35 Cf. Glock, 1991, 73-76, especially note 8, where, together with O. K. Bouwsma and Richard Rorty, Baker is already seen as defending such a stance. 36 Stern, 2004, 49ff., also identifies a “Pyrrhonism” in the Untersuchungen, in the (Rortyan) sense of “satire” of traditional philosophy and overcoming of the dogmatic background of the Tractatus, but he stresses that there is a tension between that and a “non-Pyrrhonian philosophizing”. Plant, 2004, 254, considers, on the other hand, that both for Pyrrho and Wittgenstein, “we simply do not need philosophical speculation”, given that “philosophy is an unnecessary encumbrance on human life”. Plant then remarks parenthetically: “Though a ‘new’ conception of philosophy may be necessary to treat those already ‘infected’ with such dogmatism.” But the fact remains that, contrary to Pyrrho, Wittgenstein has created a whole philosophical œuvre and not merely a praxeological procedure. 37 Wittgenstein, MS 110, 243.

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there were not such an aim, such an application, the descriptiveness would be entirely confused. Even though the “intermediate links”, i.e. the “connections” that can be observed in the flux of the description, are to a certain extent arbitrary, they guide the analysis hinting at something. What study can be carried out uncompromisingly? What is the interest in arguing that things can be seen in many different ways?38 What really matters is that each examination takes place in a “language-game”, as Wittgenstein will say for the first time in a note dated 1 March 1932,39 with the work of the philosopher consisting of an observation of what leads us to pose metaphysical questions and of a therapy, drawing a limit to these questions.40 This is actually what Wittgenstein calls “trivialities” because such phenomena, in spite of having certain “connections” hidden from us, immediately become evident upon investigation: their grammar shows itself. The “trivialities” are not simply, as Pichler takes them to be, the multiple possibilities which, forming multiple “language-games”, innocently wait for us.41 38

This criticism was anticipated by the later Baker in his commentary on §122 of the Untersuchungen. He remarks: “One might object that the conception of a perspicuous representation which I have tried to pin on Wittgenstein would rob his writings of all interest and importance.” (Baker, 2004, 45) Katherine J. Morris, who edited the most relevant writings of the later Baker, goes as far as to argue the following: “Baker recognizes that a probable response to this way of looking at Wittgenstein’s method is disappointment: if this really is what Wittgenstein is doing, does he merit the place he has been accorded among the great philosophers? In the first place, it looks as if Wittgenstein is a relativist of the worst possible kind; have we not done away with the idea that this or that philosophical thesis is true or false? Indeed, secondly, he has done away with proofs and refutations. What is left of philosophy, of rational argument, if we do away with these? And in the third place, does it not make philosophy just too easy? If all Wittgenstein is doing is revealing alternative possibilities, where does the work, the builder-rolling that is the day-to-day business of the professional philosopher, come in? We can trade possibilities ’til the cows come home!” (Morris, 2004, 10) 39 Cf. Wittgenstein, MS 113, 45r-45v. 40 In an entry of 8 February 1931, Wittgenstein makes this point very clearly: “Die Aufgabe der Philosophie ist, den Geist über bedeutungslose Fragen zu beruhigen. Wer nicht zu solchen Fragen neigt der braucht die Philosophie nicht.” (Wittgenstein, MS 183, 65) 41 Here is how Pichler sees the question: “Was sind [...] die Trivialitäten, deren Nennung sich die Philosophie wohl erlauben darf – wenn es nicht die Regeln der Grammatik sind, die auch der Philosoph einhalten soll? Die trivialen Sätze sind Beschreibungen von Sprachverwendungen, wie wir sie aus dem alltäglichen Umgang mit Sprache kennen: aus dem Einkaufen z.B., aus dem Spielen, aus dem Erzählen [...].

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It is remarkable that Pichler compares Wittgenstein’s “synoptic presentation” to the “synoptic presentation of the Gospels”, even informing us that von Wright told him that Wittgenstein once said that he “would prefer to print his book like the Bible”,42 when the periscopes (or the Zettel) which make up those texts aim precisely at presenting the history of Jesus, thereby assuming an evangelical character. It is true that Pichler (positively) considers that Wittgenstein’s philosophizing has a “therapeutic” character, with its contemplative pluralism being both “aesthetical” and “ethical”, the reason why he claims that instead of a discontinuity, there was more a change in the “realization” of the basic views Wittgenstein already held at the time of the First World War.43 However, if it is a fact that the “view sub specie æternitatis” is maintained as the terminus ad quem of Wittgenstein’s work, we should bear in mind that if already in the Tractarian writings it is the running up against the limits of language that permits us to recognize this, then after 1929 such a recognition depends on a deconstruction of the possibilities of sense, with what belongs to the essence of the world manifesting itself in the various grammatical rules that can be identified. I am now in a position to turn back to Wittgenstein’s notion of a “natural history of human beings”. Its first occurrence, on 30 January 1931, takes place in a couple of remarks that would later open §87 of the Big Typescript, suggestively entitled “Philosophy Points out the Misleading Analogies in the Use of our Language”.44 They run as follows: Ist die Grammatik nur die Beschreibung der tatsächlichen Handhabung der Sprache? So daß ihre Sätze eigentlich wie Sätze einer Naturwissenschaft aufgefaßt werden könnten? Das ist aber dann nicht die descriptive Wissenschaft des Denkens, sondern des Sprechens. Es könnten ja auch die Regeln des Schachspiels als Sätze aus der Naturgeschichte des Menschen aufgefaßt werden (Wie die Spiele der Tiere in naturgeschichtlichen Büchern beschrieben werden.)45

Es sind also so einfache Dinge wie das Einkaufsspiel, das uns in Erinnerung ruft: So verwenden wir die Sprache – und jeder sagt dabei: ja! [...] Es sind Sprachspiele, die durch ihre Einbettung in nicht hinterfragte Praktiken selbstverständlich sind. Die Trivialitäten begegnen uns in den Verweisen auf das Sprachspiel [...].” (Pichler, 2004, 168) 42 Cf. Pichler, 2004, 183. 43 Cf. Pichler, 2004, 193ff. 44 The translation is Luckhardt’s and Aue’s in the Big Typescript. 45 Wittgenstein, MS 109, 281-282.

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Here lies the significance of the “synoptic presentation” as philosophical method with its application to a “natural history of human beings”, allowing us in each particular case to observe grammar at a glance. This effect results from the fragmentary treatment of any bit of experience, which necessarily involves the entire grammatical system. In the entry that follows the first drafts for a foreword, on 6 November 1930, we find Wittgenstein making clear that “[e]ach sentence that [he] write[s] is trying to say the whole thing, that is, the same thing over and over again & it is as though they were /are as it were/ views of one object seen from different angles”.46 And on the next day he wrote. Ausdruck und Beschreibung des Gedankens. [...] Der Gedanke ist durch seinen Ausdruck vollständig beschrieben. Eine Beschreibung die nicht im außerhalb des Ausdrucks des Gedankens enthalt liegt geht uns nichts an da sie den Gedanken zur pPsychologische oder pPhysiologische 47 gehört.

These considerations express a decisive point raised a few months before in the fourth manuscript volume. In a parenthetical remark dated 8 May 1930 Wittgenstein had written: Was ich auch immer schreibe, es sind Fragmente, aber der Verstehende wird daraus ein geschlossenes Weltbild entnehmen /ersehen/.48

Some pages ahead, in a note probably dating from 29 June, Wittgenstein would emphasize the fragmentary nature of thought itself: Der Gedanke ist ein Stück Wirklichkeit. Und wie kann ein Stück Wirklichkeit einem anderen wesentlich vorzuziehen sein /in einer wesentlichen Ausnahmsstellung sein/? Außer in einer Beziehung zu sich selbst. Eben so daß man über alles denken könnte aber über das Denken nicht.49

And on 24 July, again parenthetically, we find: Die Philosophie wird am Schluß aus äußerst trivialen Sätzen, Bemerkungen, bestehen; es ist nur ungeheuer schwer dazu zu gelangen sie zu verstehen. D.h. sie als die Philosophie zu verstehen. 46

Wittgenstein, MS 109, 207: CV, 9e. The German original reads. “Jeder Satz den ich schreibe meint immer schon das Ganze also immer wieder dasselbe und es sind quasi /gleichsam/ nur Ansichten eines Gegenstandes von unter verschiedenen Winkeln betrachtet.” 47 Wittgenstein, MS 109, 209-210. 48 Wittgenstein, MS 108, 152. 49 Wittgenstein, MS 108, 204.

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Philosophical Anthropology. Wittgenstein’s Perspective Die ganzen Anstrengungen die ich jetzt mache, dienen nur dazu um gewisse triviale Sätze zu verstehen d.h. sie in allen ihren Konsequenzen zu verstehen.50

In order to conclude, I would like to call attention to some striking parallels between all this and Novalis’ Fragmente. As a matter of fact, as Michael Nedo mentions, “the works of Novalis were among the few books in Wittgenstein’s small library, which he read aloud from again and again to friends and pupils, such as Ben Richards, Rush Rhees, and Elizabeth Anscombe”.51 Nedo quotes two passages from an edition of the Fragmente appeared in Dresden in 1929. This is the edition of Ernst Kamnitzer, published by Wofgang Jess Verlag and Nedo’s quotations appear at the beginning of the book, on page 28: Mein Buch soll eine szientifische Bibel werden, ein reales und ideales Muster und Keim aller Bücher. … (Erhebung des [eines] Buchs zur Bibel.) Die ausgeführte Bibel ist eine vollständige, gut geordnete [gutgeordnete] Bibliothek ...52

As Nedo insightfully remarks, there are many aspects in Wittgenstein’s new book project which recall Novalis’ own project,53 itself influenced by Lichtenberg’s working method on which Wittgenstein also draws. Besides the fragmentary style, also a number of issues in Wittgenstein’s Nachlass seem to be truly reminiscent of his reading of the Fragmente. Among them is that of a “natural history of human beings”. Under the concept “Enzyklopädistik”, Novalis wrote: Meine Wissenschaftskunde wird eine Art von wissenschaftlicher Grammatik oder logik oder Generalbaß oder Kompositionslehre, mit Beispielen. (Syntaxis) (Naturgeschichte der Wissenschaft.)54

But Novalis’ terminology is even closer to Wittgenstein’s in the following fragment: Der Anfang des Ich ist bloß idealisch. Wenn es angefangen hätte, so hätte es so anfangen müssen. Der Anfang ist schon ein späterer Begriff, der Anfang entsteht später als das Ich; darum kann das Ich nicht angefangen haben. Wir sehen daraus, daß wir hier im Gebiet der Kunst sind, aber diese künstliche Supposition ist die Grundlage einer echten Wissenschaft, die allemal aus 50

Wittgenstein, MS 108, 238-239. Nedo, 1998, xiii. 52 The formulations in square brackets are according to my copy of the book. 53 Cf. Nedo, 1998, xii. 54 Novalis, 1929, 28. 51

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künstlichen Faktis entspringt. Das Ich soll konstruiert werden. Der Philosoph bereitet, schafft künstliche Elemente und geht so an die Konstruktion. Die Naturgeschichte des Ich ist dieses nicht – Ich ist kein Naturprodukt, keine Natur, kein historisches Wesen, sondern ein anarchistisches, eine Kunst, ein Kunstwerk. Die Naturgeschichte des Menschen ist die andere Hälfte. Die Ichlehre und Menschengeschichte, oder Natur und Kunst, werden in einer höhern Wissenschaft (der moralischen Bildungslehre) vereinigt und wechselseitig vollendet. (Natur und Kunst werden durch Moralität gegenseitig armiert ins Unendliche.)55

There are other fragments in which Novalis debates the notion of a “natural history”, namely when he speaks of a “philosophical natural history”.56 A comparison between the anthropological side of his “philosophy of nature” and Wittgenstein’s cannot be undertaken here, but it is a topic of immense significance which deserves to be investigated. References Ambrose, A. (ed.), 1982 (1979): Wittgenstein’s Lectures. Cambridge, 1932-1935. Blackwell, Oxford. Anscombe, G. E. M., 1953: Note on the English Version of Wittgenstein’s Philosophische Untersuchungen, Mind, 62, 521-522. Baker, G. P., 2004 (1991): Philosophical Investigations §122: Neglected Aspects. In: Wittgenstein’s Method. Neglected Aspects, ed. K. J. Morris. Blackwell, Oxford, 22-51. Baker, G. P. and Hacker, P. M. S., 1980: Wittgenstein. Understanding and Meaning. Volume 1 of An Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations. Blackwell, Oxford. Baker, G. P. and Hacker, P. M. S., 22005a: Wittgenstein. Understanding and Meaning. Volume 1 of An Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations – Essays, ed. P. M. S. Hacker. Blackwell, Oxford. Baker, G. P. and Hacker, P. M. S., 22005b: Wittgenstein. Understanding and Meaning. Volume 1 of An Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations – Exegesis §§1-184, ed. P. M. S. Hacker. Blackwell, Oxford. 55 56

Novalis, 1929, 111-112. Cf. Novalis, 1929, 193ff.

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Binkley, T., 1973: Wittgenstein’s Language. Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague. Glock, H.-J., 1991: Philosophical Investigations section 128: “theses in philosophy” and undogmatic procedure. In R. L Arrington and H.-J. Glock (eds.), Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. Text and Context. Routledge, London, 69-88. Guest, G., 2003: Wittgenstein et la question du livre. Une phénoménologie de l’extrême. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris. Hutchinson, P., 2007: What’s the Point of Elucidation? Metaphilosophy, 38, 691-713. Hutchinson, P., and Read, R., 2008: Toward a Perspicuous Presentation of “Perspicuous Presentation”, Philosophical Investigations, 31, 141160. Lee, D. (ed.), 1980: Wittgenstein’s Lectures. Cambridge, 1930-1932. Blackwell, Oxford. Lugg, A., 2000: Wittgenstein’s Investigations 1-133. A guide and interpretation. Routledge: London. Moore, G. E. (ed.), 1993 (1954-1955): Wittgenstein’s Lectures in 1930-33. In: J. C. Klagge and A. Nordmann (eds.), Ludwig Wittgenstein. Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951. Hackett, Indianapolis, 45-114. Morris, K. J., 2004: Introduction. In: G. P. Baker, Wittgenstein’s Method. Neglected Aspects, ed. K. J. Morris. Blackwell, Oxford, 1-18. Nedo, M., 1998: Einleitung / Introduction, In: L. Wittgenstein, Wiener Ausgabe. Register zu den Bänden 1-5, ed. M. Nedo. Springer, Vienna, vii-xxv. Novalis, 1929: Fragmente, ed. E. Kamnitzer. Wolfgang Jess Verlag, Dresden. Padilla Gálvez, J., 2006: La variación como procedimiento de investigación. Una nueva aproximación a las obras de L. Wittgenstein, Episteme, 26, 163-188. Pichler, A., 2004: Wittgensteins Philosophische Untersuchungen. Vom Buch zum Album. Rodopi: Amsterdam. Plant, B., 2004: The End(s) of Philosophy: Rhetoric, Therapy and Wittgenstein’s Pyrrhonism, Philosophical Investigations, 27, 222257.

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Savigny, E. von, 21994: Wittgensteins “Philosophische Untersuchungen”. Ein Kommentar für Leser 1. Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt a. M. Stern, D. G., 2004: Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. An Introduction. Cambridge U. P., Cambridge. Venturinha, N., 2010: A Re-Evaluation of the Philosophical Investigations. In: N. Venturinha (ed.), Wittgenstein After His Nachlass. Macmillan, Basingstoke. von Wight, G. H., 1993 (1969): The Wittgenstein Papers. In: J. C. Klagge and A. Nordmann (eds.), Ludwig Wittgenstein. Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951. Hackett, Indianapolis, 480-506. Waismann, F., 21997: The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy, ed. R. Harré. Macmillan: Basingstoke. Waismann, F. and Wittgenstein, L., 2003: The Voices of Wittgenstein. The Vienna Circle., ed. G. P. Baker, trans. G. P. Baker, M. Mackert, J. Connolly and V. Politis. Routledge, London. Wittgenstein, L., 1975: Philosophical Remarks, ed. R. Rhees, trans. R. Hargreaves and R. White. Blackwell, Oxford. Wittgenstein, L., 1979: Philosophische Untersuchungen. Frühversion 1937-1938, ed. G. H. von Wright and H. Nyman. In: HelsinkiAusgabe. Unpublished. Wittgenstein, L., 1984 (1967): Wittgenstein und der Wiener Kreis. Gespräche, aufgezeichnet von Friedrich Waismann, ed. B. F. McGuinness. In: Werkausgabe 3. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M. (WWK) Wittgenstein, L., 31984: Bemerkungen über die Grundlagen der Mathematik, ed. G. E. M. Anscombe, R. Rhees and G. H. von Wright. In: Werkausgabe 6. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M. (BGM) Wittgenstein, L., 1993: Philosophie / Philosophy, ed. H. Nyman, trans. C. G. Luckhardt and M. A. E. Aue. In: J. C. Klagge and A. Nordmann (eds.), Ludwig Wittgenstein. Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951. Hackett, Indianapolis, 158-199. Wittgenstein, L., 21998: Culture and Value. A Selection from the Posthumous Remains, ed. G. H. von Wright in collaboration with H. Nyman, rev. ed. A. Pichler, trans. P. Winch. Blackwell, Oxford. (CV)

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Wittgenstein, L., 2000: Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. The Bergen Electronic Edition. Oxford U. P., Oxford. (MSS & TSS) Wittgenstein, L., 32001a: Philosophische Untersuchungen / Philosophical Investigations, ed. G. E. M. Anscombe and R. Rhees, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe. Blackwell, Oxford. (PU) Wittgenstein, L., 2001b: Philosophische Untersuchungen. Kritischgenetische Edition, ed. J. Schulte in collaboration with H. Nyman, E. von Savigny and G. H. von Wright. Suhrkamp: Frankfurt a. M. Wittgenstein, L., 2005: The Big Typescript. TS 213, ed. and trans. C. G. Luckhardt and M. A. E. Aue. Blackwell, Oxford. New University of Lisbon. Portugal

Is there a Mind-Body Problem? CHRISTIAN KANZIAN Introduction What I am going to do in this article is discuss the question of whether there is a mind-body problem. According to standard theories in philosophical anthropology my question does not make sense. These standard theories either belong to the no-problem party or to the problem party. The no-problem party would insist: The question does not make sense because we have brought forward sufficient reasons to show that there is definitively no such problem. The problem party would reply: Of course there must be a problem because we have worked out a solution and, if there were no problem, our solution would be moot. What I am going to do is neither deny the problem because of an uncritical reception of the arguments of the no-problem party, nor defend it, as it is discussed in the standard problem-theory contexts. Rather, I want to argue for a middle-position and try to ask for a possible re-establishment of the mind-body problem in a way which tries to avoid the shortcomings of both parties. On this occasion I will focus on the shortcomings of the problem party. This is legitimate because their shortcomings have to do with a misunderstanding of the dichotomy of empirical and philosophical anthropology which is the general topic of this volume. Here, I confess that some of my main arguments are borrowed from the Wittgenstein-tradition and the tradition in which I believe Wittgenstein himself to stand, at least with respect to the mind-body problem. However, it is also my intention to modify and to bring no-problem ideas into new contexts, which allow me to raise my question both without the mentioned difficulties of the problem party and without the original difficulties of the no-problem position. I am going to start by relating my project within the context of the last five or six decades of the history of the mind-body problem. This is also the place to mention the traditional arguments in favour of the noproblem party (section 1.). Then, I will proceed to the problem party. A Philosophical Anthropology. Wittgenstein’s Perspective, (Ed. Jesús Padilla Gálvez), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2010, 111-125. .

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systematic analysis of this position has at least to take into account the main lines of relevant solutions to the problem and, most importantly, the premises of the theoretical frameworks which create the problem itself (section 2.). As mentioned before, I will criticize these premises; this criticism clearly, but critically, follows arguments in the no-problem tradition (section 3.) such that I will come to an outlook on how we can reformulate the problem and perhaps also the expectations regarding possible solutions (section 4). To disclose at the beginning: the main part of my article, sections 1 to 3, is analytical and critical; the constructive part, as mentioned, has more the style of an outlook than of an elaborated theory. 1.

The mind-body problem

When Gilbert Ryle’s The Concept of Mind appeared 1949, the mind-body problem seemed to have found a definitive dissolution. According to Ryle, the mind-body problem could arise only because of a fundamental misunderstanding of the logic of mental expressions. Mental expressions stand for dispositions of behaviour, not for “inner events or states”. To say that somebody is intelligent may mean that she has the disposition to solve problems in a specific manner (correctly, quickly, in an innovative way), and not that there is a state within her “inner stage” which is labelled as intelligence. If philosophers mix up mental expressions with physical expressions, which indeed stand for some kind of states and events, external or physical ones, they commit categorical mistakes. These mistakes have led to the Cartesian myth of the duality of an inner and an outer reality, mind and body, and immediately to the mind– body problem which is the problem of explaining the relation between the wrongly assumed inner and the outer realities. The Rylean dissolution of the mind-body problem can be traced back to the later Wittgenstein. (I leave aside the question of whether Ryle’s theory can also be understood with reference to the early Wittgenstein and even to the Vienna Circle’s no-problem positions.) However, according to Wittgenstein´ sPhilosophical Investigations, we have to distinguish clearly between the language-game of referring to outer, physical things and the language game of conversing mentally. Problems like the mind-body problem can only arise if we are not aware of the differences of these “games” and accordingly mix them up. (Under this respect we can find the mentioned continuity from Wittgenstein to Ryle.) Here, it is useless to

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point out that the argumentation for the differences of the physical and the mental language is different in Ryle and in Wittgenstein. The latter stresses that mental expressions are part of a special behaviour, “Muster”. The rules governing this behaviour constitute the meaning of mental expressions. In his Philosophical Investigations,1 Wittgenstein generally denies the assumption of mental states as referents of mental expressions because reference presupposes identification of the referential objects and identification presupposes inter-subjective criteria of identification. For something essentially subjective such as mental states, we cannot have inter-subjective criteria of identification. That is why they cannot be referents of any expressions. I leave aside the details of Wittgenstein, Ryle, and the differences between their theories, and focus on their main argument for their noproblem position: The mind-body problem is the result of a defective understanding of the logic of mental expressions. A language with which we speak about our mental life, our subjective attitudes or the inner motives of our actions must be clearly distinguished from the language with which we speak about natural occurrences. That doesn’t only pertain to our everyday language use, but also to scientific-practices: (philosophical) psychology and (natural) science operate in incompatible language games. Following Ryle, the no-problem party seemed to have definitely won, at least within the analytical tradition (and I cannot take into account non-analytical philosophy of mind on this occasion). But, as we know today, this success was only a temporary one. Since the beginning of the 1970’s, new approaches to the philosophy of mind have been undertaken, and they have all been orientated toward the mind-body problem. What were the reasons for this development? – The period of the reestablishment of the mind-body problem was a time in which investigations into the physiology of the brain and its processes made remarkable progress. The last secrets of our brain, also as the bearer of our mental and intellectual capacities, seemed to be revealed. The discovery of a physiological key to a causal explanation of our mental life, and of bridging laws between physiology and psychology, seemed to be only a question of time, not of principal possibility. Hand in hand with the progress in physiology went the establishment of artificial-intelligence 1

E.g.: Wittgenstein, PI, § 258.

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research. It was coming to be accepted that the mental life of human beings could be explained positively, in a scientific way. Scientific progress gave rise to new realistic tendencies in the philosophy of science, but also in semantics and thus in the semantics of mental expressions. If science provides us certain knowledge about the nature of mental life, we, as philosophers, cannot restrict ourselves to an analysis of the inner-linguistic differences of several speech-practices. The matter of our mind became re-established as a question in philosophy as a consequence of the new scientific results. What are the real referents of mental expressions? - neurological processes? Can mental expressions really be translated into physical descriptions without any relevant cognitive loss? Furthermore, by asking such questions, we cannot immunize ourselves from the results of those natural sciences which pretend to know the answers to these questions. The conclusion of my historical excursus is: Despite the original success of the no-problem arguments, the mind-body problem reappeared. I think we have to take into account the systematic relevance of this reappearance. Or, the other way round: If we really want to get rid of the shortcomings of the mind-body problem, we have to deal with the reasons of this revival, not only with the historical motives of the 1960’s and 1970’s, but also with contemporary ones. This seems to be the right moment to come to the second part: What are the premises of the theoretical frameworks of standard problem theories? 2.

The solutions of the mind-body problem

I want to deal with the mentioned revival of the problem party by starting with the most prominent solutions of the mind-body problem in the postRylean time since I think that no one can regard a problem as a real one without any possibility for a solution, at least in his theoretical background. Likewise, no one can consistently look for answers to questions which are outcomes of pseudo-problems according to his theoretical basicconvictions. However, after presenting these solutions, I will try to analyse the premises of those background-theories which have led the majority of philosophers to convictions orientated toward the mind-body problem. What are standard solutions to our problem? - The main stream of post-Rylean philosophy of mind is monistic, naturalistic-monistic to be exact. Naturalistic monisms are, generally speaking, characterised by the

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assumption that there are sufficient natural explanations of all mental phenomena, or ontologically speaking: mental events or states are nothing else than physical ones. For every mental event it is the case that there is a physical one, with which it is identical. Naturalistic monism can be differentiated into eliminativism, reductionism, supervenience and other – isms, divided into type-isms and token-isms. Common to them is the conviction that the mind-body problem can be solved by neglecting ultimately one of the relata of the mind-body relation, i.e. the mind, by identifying or reducing it to the other relatum, i.e. the body, the brain. While it is not in the mainstream, there is certainly another solution to the mind-body problem which is contrary to monism, i.e. dualism. According to dualism there are no physical explanations of mental phenomena. Mental events or states are non-physical. Normally dualists trace the differences between mental and non-mental events and states to the different statuses of their bearers. The mental bearer is a kind of res cogitans accessible via introspection; the physical bearer is an empirically perceptible res extensa. Dualists are convinced that there is a real relation between mind and body. The mind-body problem is solved by an explanation of this relation: normally as a unique relation, which cannot be compared with other types of relations. Nowadays a kind of middle-position between monism and dualism has been established, which is called emergentism. The mental realm is not physical, but has emerged from a physical basis. In contrast to supervenience-theoreticians, emergentists regard mental events and their bearers as an ontological category in their own right, not as an ontological “free lunch”. The world would not be complete without the mental reality. Emergentists also solve the mind-body problem by assuming, like the dualist, a relation between mind and body. However, this relation is, unlike standard-dualism, not a unique relation, but rather a relation which can also be found between other relata: not only the mind emerges from the brain, but also life from a non-living basis, the social from the individual, and so on. What I want to emphasize is that monism, dualism and emergentism have in common that they all pretend to be solutions to a problem which must be regarded as a real problem. They all come together as followers of the problem party. As mentioned before, it is not my task to argue in favour of one of these solutions. I want to go a level deeper and try to search for premises of

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the theoretical backgrounds of the mentioned problem party-isms. They are astonishingly similar whether they serve as the premises of monistic theories or of the dualistic ones. To concretise this point, I want to propose the view that all the mentioned -isms of the problem party share at least two of three basic principles. The first of these basic principles is metaphysical (which seems to be paradoxical if you take into account that mainstream naturalistic monisms develop their position from an a-, sometimes anti-metaphysical background): it is the principle of the priority of multiplicity, tantamount to the principle of the derived character of unity. Referring to anthropology, we can call it the principle of the priority of the different constitutional elements of human beings, and of the derived status of the being as a whole. The dualists’ multiplicity seems to be easy to handle, especially if we are only concerned with the constitutive elements of human beings: there are two elements, a mental entity and a physical one. Characteristic of the dualists’ multiplicity is the qualitative difference of these entities. Dualists are only in need of a unifying relation between them. However, monists also believe in the priority of a multiplicity of qualitatively identical entities, whether you call them processes, atoms, simples etc. Their multiplicity is quantitatively enormous. For the monists, one relation is not enough for the derivation of the unity of human beings. What I want to point out is that both monists and dualists stick to the mentioned principle: the priority of multiplicity, the derived status of unity. This is not accidental, but a result of their common belonging to the mindbody problem party. In other words, for the revival of the mind-body problem, not only the belief in the new success of natural science, but also the assumption of a metaphysical principal is essential. The second principle consists in the conviction that a successful philosophical anthropology is guaranteed by a bottom-up strategy, a bottom-up strategy to reconstruct the unity of human beings from the basic multiplicity. That is what philosophers have to do: reconstruct what people in ordinary life are used to regarding as units from the underlying elements of the assumed multiplicity. The second principle, which is also common to both monistic and dualistic approaches to philosophy of mind, can be understood as a methodological consequence of the first, metaphysical, principle. For naturalistic monists this seems to be clear. If you believe in the priority of multiplicity, you must explain – step by step from the

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bottom up - how you can come from the multiple basis to the derived unified phenomenon. Otherwise, it would not be possible to demonstrate the derived character of the phenomenon in question, in our case: unity. The same holds, in principle, for dualists with the difference that the dualists’ reconstruction seems to be easier: there is only one step from duality to unity. However, I want to focus on the fact that bottom-up reconstruction is essential for all kinds of mind-body problem orientated positions post Ryle. The third principle belongs to philosophy of science; it has to do with an understanding of the relationship between the different sciences, especially between philosophy and the natural sciences. This third principle is not shared by all mind-body problem orientated positions, but is a defining characteristic of naturalistic monism: It is the principle of the a posteriori status of philosophy in general and philosophical anthropology in particular. A posteriorism means that philosophy has to look first at what other scientists say and then take their results as the preliminary findings of its own theory. If we consider, for instance, the nature of our mind, we must first look to the theories of neurophysiology. We can understand the relevance of a posteriorism when we combine it with the monistic interpretation of the first principle: neurophysiology tells us what the bottom-multiplicity actually is. Our philosophy of mind is an inductive consequence of their results or is natural science with a generalized terminology. This pertains directly to the general topic of our volume: Empirical or Philosophical Anthropology? - According to a posteriorism anthropology is only philosophical in so far as it is an inductive theory of empirical investigations. We can come to the conclusion that all followers of the problem party must accept as a premise of their theoretical framework a metaphysical principle: the priority of (bottom) multiplicity (principle 1); and in consequence a methodological principle (2): the belief in the success of a bottom-up strategy. The mainstream of problem party-members assumes that the nature of the bottom is revealed to us by other sciences, due to the belief of the a posteriori– status of philosophy as a science. With regard to our topic: philosophical anthropology is empirical, (principle 3). 3.

Attacking the mind-body problem

As mentioned in the introduction, the aim of this section is to criticize the problem party. I will do that by calling into question the plausibility of the

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three mentioned principles which are essential to this party. My criticism is strongly influenced by authors in the no-problem party, which does not however mean that I intend to follow them in all their consequences concerning the mind-body problem. In my criticism I start by dealing with the first two principles, which are taken by all members of the problem party (3.1). Then I proceed to principle three, which characterizes not all, but the mainstream of mind-body problem orientated positions (3.2). The fact that naturalistic monism is the most relevant contemporary problemorientated view legitimizes putting the main emphasis on an analysis of principle three. From here we can also strengthen the arguments against principles one and two. 3.1

The standard way

One standard way of criticizing the priority of the multiplicity principle and its methodological counterpart, the bottom-up principle, is to attack them because of their counter-intuitive consequences. We intuitively accept the inhabitants of our ordinary world as real units, “real” in a stable sense. We like to regard cars, sheep and especially human beings, i.e. ourselves, as unities in spite of the various changes they, and we, undergo. — This kind of criticism, whether true or false, leads to a dead-end of the debate because the followers of these principles normally do not intend to theorize in accordance with intuition. Quine, an important priority of the multiplicity theoretician, once claimed: “Unnaturalness in philosophy is all right.”2 Just to mention: this kind of critique can refer to dualism as well as to monism and the unnaturalness-in-philosophy response can be found in both fractions of the mind-body problem party. Another path of criticism would be to generally doubt the possibility of the success of a principle two-strategy, with the intention of consequently attacking principle one: because if principle two cannot hold, principle one looses all of its plausibility. Without a bottom-up strategy, no priority of the bottom multiplicity is intelligible. I am convinced that this really is a hard problem for both problem party fractions, for monism as well as for dualism. In fact, as far as I can see, there is no widely accepted theory of the reconstruction of even some phenomena of our macro-world, and especially not of mental phenomena, from the basis of a naturalistic interpreted micro-world, which is a problem of naturalistic monism; and 2

Quine, 1994, 93

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there is also no way of arguing from two ontologically different substances to the unity of a human person, which makes dualism implausible. — The reply is normally either to immunize or to present ad hoc solutions. The immunizing strategy is that it does not matter that we, today, have no theory of the reconstruction, for example, of my fear of giving a talk in front of the best Wittgensteinians in the international scientific community. In principle we can develop one and future generations of scientists surely will be able to tell my grandchildren precisely what was going on in the brain of their poor grandfather on September 3 in Toledo 2009. For their part, the ad hoc solutions are no more convincing than Descartes´ postulation of a bridge-part between mental and physical substances in the brain. — However, controversies about futurabilia cannot be resolved, neither falsified not verified, and the same holds for the debates of the ad hoc solution. This is why I am going to focus especially on the third principle: the principle that philosophy is an a posteriori discipline, especially that philosophical anthropology must be considered as inductive. Philosophical anthropology is empirical which has to start with the given results of physical, respective neurophysiological theories. As mentioned, this point concerns only naturalistic monism. 3.2

The intended debate of a posteriorism

The intended debate of a posteriorism should start from the most fundamental level: What is philosophical anthropology, what is philosophy in general, and what are natural sciences? With regard to principle three: What understanding of these sciences and their relation to each other must someone presuppose who regards philosophy in general and philosophical anthropology particularly as an a posteriori-project in the sense of the third principle? — According to the thir d principle, both philosophy and philosophical anthropology must be considered as kinds of natural sciences. Is this true? What are the consequences of such an assumption? A discussion of these questions would lead us too far away from our topic. I just want to point out the fact that monism makes a commitment at this level, a presupposition, which is not made explicit and which is not without an alternative. One of these alternatives can refer directly to the Tractarian Wittgenstein, who states “Die Philosophie ist keine der Naturwissenschaften” (Das Wort “Philosophie” muss etwas bedeuten, was

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über oder unter, aber nicht neben den Naturwissenschaften steht)”3 – Philosophy, which includes philosophical anthropology, is no natural science. The choice is between a posteriorism or Wittgenstein and the long and well-established tradition in which he stands. I am aware that this is no systematic argument, but rather a hint at a mostly hidden, but problematic premise of a posteriorism. Another level of the debate could be how descriptions, explanations and theories in philosophy, especially in philosophical anthropology, can be related to, e.g., physical, especially neurophysiological, ones. What is the epistemic status of the first, what of the second? Are there differences and how can these differences be explained? To what understanding of this matter is the third principle committed? — According to principle three, no differences should be allowed between empirical and philosophical theories, regardless of whether they concern verification/falsification or the functions of explanations. On this occasion I do not intend to discuss the mentioned fundamental questions. I rather want to point out one concrete issue which allows me to illustrate the methodological difficulty of the third principle. In my attempt to make the point clearer I start with the relevant problem of a posteriorism in general and then I will try to refer it to philosophical anthropology. According to the third principle, philosophy in general has to start with the results of the natural sciences, especially of physics. Let us ask what these results actually are in which our colleague-philosophers are so interested? —The non-interpreted bare empirical data are not interesting. No philosopher starts with a look into an electronic microscope. And even if he would, he could not understand what he sees. What philosophers need are interpretations. The first level of interpretation contains the models that physicists use to come to theoretical explanations of the given data. For instance, simple material elements (and it does not matter if they actually call them atoms, electrons, quarks, or sub-sub-quarks) are such models. And it seems to be the case that successful physical theory relies on such models. The problem is that our colleague-philosophers, in their effort to start with the results of physics, import such models and take them as ontological hard facts. They seem to mistake models for entities. To remain with the example, we can state that they regard material simples (some actually call them “atoms”, some simply “simples” and some 3

Wittgenstein, TLP, 4.111.

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“tropes”) as the basic units of reality and give them genuine ontological characteristics like “primitiveness”, “undividability”, and so on. The result is an atomistic ontology: material simples, called “atoms”, “simples”, or “tropes” are taken as primitive and undividable basic units of reality. They are regarded as the basic category of entities, from which all the macroscopic phenomena can be reconstructed. The case of material simples is just one very interesting and influential example among many other such models. To repeat the point: What they seem to do is to hypostasize or to ontologize physical models or “pictures”. In fact, there do not exist, in a stable sense, simple, primitive, undividable material units (however you call them). The thesis “Atoms do not exist” seems to be a rather dangerous one. I try to be careful and insist on the differentiation that I, of course, do not deny the usefulness of models for interpreting the empirical data we have from the basic levels of material reality. Rather, I deny that we should convert models into entities. “Atom” or “material simple” may be useful concepts for models in physics but not for ontological entities. We can understand this with the help of Wittgenstein, who described this methodological failure in his Blue Book: “We have been told by [popular] scientists that the floor on which we stand is not solid, as it appears to common sense, as it has been discovered that the wood consists of particles filling space so thinly that it can almost be called empty. This is liable to perplex us … Our perplexity was based on a misunderstanding; the picture of the thinly filled space had been wrongly applied.”4

The wrong application of pictures seems to be essential for a posteriori-philosophy generally and can also be particularly found in anthropology. I am no neurophysiologist. Thus, I cannot relay the latest pictures or models that neurophysiology present to us of the microphenomena within our brain. As far as I know, they don’t speak about thing- or substance-like atoms, but rather about events however they might describe them: as firings or something similar. That they work with models is legitimate from the perspective of their research interests and methodologies. However, my critical question to philosophers sticking to principle three is whether it is not the case that philosophers pick up these pictures of a natural science, hypostatize them and use them within their anthropological theories as the basis relata of the mind– body relation? To 4

Wittgenstein, BB, 1958, 45 f. [emph. CK].

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take “physical events” or “processes” for instance: it is the case that neurophysiologists operate with these concepts for an interpretation of empirical data; monists, on the other hand, take these models, hypostatize them to entities and assume them to be the basis of mental phenomena. To be exact, monists make two presuppositions in their a posteriorism in philosophical anthropology. The first is that that which neurophysiologists present are entities. The second is that these entities are relata of identity relations and that mental phenomena are the other relata. My critique is that the first presupposition is wrong. Neurophysiologists do not present events as entities, but as interpretations of empirical data. If the first is wrong, the same holds for the second: if there are no entities in a strict sense, then there is also no identity. And, crucially for monism, if there is no identity between mental phenomena and physical events, reductionism fails. Let me add three remarks to this argument, two that are explanatory and one that is apologetic: I start with the latter. I do not claim that, for as long as we are alive, nothing happens in our brains. Moreover, I don’t mean that the natural sciences have no proper object of investigation within our neuronal system. My thesis is simply that they do not operate with philosophical or ontological concepts. Precisely in the sense of Ryle, I would say that it is a categorical mistake to treat the concepts used by natural scientists for modelling neurophysiological data as logically equivalent with the concepts we use in everyday-life for events which indeed may be regarded as entities. The first explanatory remark is that this criticism of premise three can also be referred to the first principle of monistic positions because monists normally believe that the nature of the assumed bottom-entities is explained scientifically in the discussed a posteriori-way. The second is that I think that hypostatizing is not an exclusive monistic phenomenon but also the central failure of dualistic positions. I will come back to this point. However, if a posteriorism is false, the consequence is that an essential principle of naturalistic monism, the main-stream-position of the mind-body problem party, is lacking.

Is there a Mind-Body Problem?

4.

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Let me come back to the question which is actually the topic of my article: Is there a mind-body problem? Referring to the results of the first three sections I could reformulate the question: Can we get rid of the problematic premises of standard problem-parties while still acknowledging that there are significant arguments against rashly assumed no-problem-views? Yes, I think we can and in my final section I will try to give an outlook (of course not a full theory) of a reformulation of the mind-body problem without the three problematic premises. Let me begin with a premise-one-free anthropology. The core-idea of every premise-one-freetheory is the acceptance of the priority not of the multiplicity of basic elements at a micro-level but rather of the unity of the macro-things of our ordinary world: cars, sheep and, with special attention to anthropology, human beings. Critics could object that this idea, priority of unity, is purely metaphysical. I would reply that it is indeed metaphysical, as metaphysical as the priority of the multiplicity-principle. However, if my arguments presented here are correct, the latter is bad metaphysics, and thus the first, as its contrary, is not. One of the advantages of the priority of macro-units would be that it is in no need of a principle two strategy. If the macro-units are prior we need no bottom-up-procedure to derive this unity from the multiplicity of micro-units. That makes life easier because a successful bottom-up-strategy is more a desideratum than an established method. How can we understand the mind-body problem from the background of a priority of everyday-units-view? – I think I need three theorems: The first is the assumption of human beings as complex unities. Complexity stands for the contrary of simplicity and means that there are several different aspects which structure (configure) the unity in question. The second is that the complexity of a unity does not impede the status of this unity as prior in comparison to the aspects making up the complexity. The unity is not derived or reconstructed. The unity is not a simple sum. The third: the unity is – due to its complexity - analysable, not bottom-up but top down. And this analysis can be done in a differentiated way: We can distinguish between a philosophical (ontological) top-down program and the procedures of natural sciences. Of course, there are several possible ontological top-down strategies. One of them is the analysis of the inner complexity of macro-things as being made up by an individual materialaspect and an individual form-aspect: What a thing is made of and how the

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components are built into a complex unity. Both, the what-, and the howaspect are irreducible to each other in their functions for the constitution of the whole complex thing. In addition to an ontological top-down analysis, there may be a wide range of other methods of top-down investigations into a complex macro-thing. One of them may be a physical investigation into the material aspect of such a thing. The results of such a physical investigation are physical theories, making use of illustrative models, like the above-mentioned atoms or events. I want to emphasize that with these differentiations we are not committed to a posteriorism, the fact of which implies no commitment to principle three of naturalistic monism. Assuming these three theorems, we can regard the mind-body problem as a special case of the problem of understanding the relation between the diverse aspects making up the complexity of the unity of macro-things; in our case of human beings, whose individual material aspect can be called body and whose mind has to do with their specific individual form. This is obviously no monistic view. However, what is new in this view in comparison with standard dualism? – Dualists abstract the mentioned aspects from the prior unity of human-beings, hypostasize them and make them entities, mental and bodily substances. That makes the relation between mind and body an ontologically difficult problem carrying with it the burden of the constitution of whole human beings. This is not the case in the renewed version. The problem gets rid of its ontological burden. If we accept the mind-body problem in the suggested style, we nevertheless have a problem: What is the relation between the different aspects making up the complex unity of a human being? – In hisKinds of Beings Jonathan Lowe5 once characterized this relation in a twofold way: it is a relation sui generis that means it is impossible to identify it with other relations, for instance identity, constitution, and other candidates. And this relation is not analysable. If it were analysable, and thus reconstructable, it would consequently be reducible to other relations. That would make the relation unsuitable for relating two irreducible relata. I know this is not much. It is an outlook to a theory. And it would be not enough, if the topic of my article were: The solution of the mind-body problem. However, my topic is: Is there a Mind-Body Problem? – My answer: yes there is one, but it is alleviated decisively in its significance if 5

Lowe, 1989, 120.

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we take the priority of unity-path, the answer of which has no informative answer if Lowe and others are right. References Lowe, E. J., 1989: Kinds of Being: A Further Study of Individuation, Identity, and the Logic of Sortal Terms. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford. Quine, W. v. O., 1994: From Stimulus to Science, Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Wittgenstein, L., 1958: The Blue and Brown Books, Blackwell, Oxford. University of Innsbruck / Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein-Society

Norms and Conventions MANUEL GARCÍA-CARPINTERO1 In claiming that illocutionary force is an irreducible aspect of meaning overlooked by previous theorists, Austin wanted to advance a social, antiindividualistic conception of meaning.2 Austin opposes traditional views of linguistic acts in general, and assertion in particular, which take them to aim at mere expression of independently characterized inner states, like beliefs or judgments. To pursue this goal, Austin distinguishes constitutive from non-constitutive features of the felicity conditions by means of which he hopes to characterize illocutionary forces, and then follows a twopronged strategy. Firstly, he suggests that the existence of a specific conventional procedure is the central constitutive feature of forces; secondly, he contends that the inner states associated with acts of meaning figure in merely non-constitutive sincerity conditions. Opposing the first prong in a classical defense of a Gricean individualistic view, according to which only communicative intentions are essential to non-natural meaning, Strawson rebutted some of Austin’s claims.3 Austin says: “there cannot be an illocutionary act unless the means employed are conventional”.4

This appears to be the very strong claim that there cannot be an illocutionary act, unless the means employed to perform it are conventionally devised for such an undertaking; this is also suggested by his claim that the existence of a conventional procedure is the main constitutive felicity condition of illocutionary forces. As Strawson points out, however, illocutionary acts that we ordinarily perform by using nonconventional means, like warnings made with declarative utterances, 1

Financial support for my work was provided by the DGI, Spanish Government, research project HUM2006-08236, and through the award ICREA Academia for excellence in research, 2008, funded by the Generalitat de Catalunya. Thanks to Teresa Marques for helpful discussion of some topics in this review. 2 Austin, 1962. 3 Strawson, 1964. 4 Austin, 1962, 119. Philosophical Anthropology. Wittgenstein’s Perspective, (Ed. Jesús Padilla Gálvez), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2010, 127-137.

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assertions made with rhetoric questions, and so on, disprove the claim so understood.5 Austin himself did not appear to have much confidence in the view, as witnessed by the weak characterization that he provides at other places for the conventionality claim; thus, a warning is conventional “in the sense that at least it could be made explicit by the performative formula”.6 On this understanding, speech acts are conventional in a weaker sense, in that there are conventional tools devised with the purpose of serving for them to be performed. Now, Strawson’s criticism leaves open the question of whether conventions are necessary in a stronger sense than this one ultimately advocated by Austin for the linguistically basic speech acts that one can take to be conventionally signified by default by moods, like assertions. They could be conventional in the stronger sense that no community could have a practice of performing acts such as assertions – the speech act on which I will focus, the one done by default (i.e., unless conditions in an open-ended list apply, such as those creating irony, fiction, or the presence of canceling parenthetical remarks such as ‘I conjecture’, etc) by uttering declarative sentences – unless it has conventional devices to indicate so. This sense is stronger than the one Austin provides in the passage just quoted; for one thing, unlike the latter, it is difficult to square it with the individualistic ambitions of Grice’s program. It is at least arguable that conventions are necessary in that stronger sense; of course, the claim needs argumentative support, but it at least is not immediately refuted by Strawson’s point. Non-natural meaning constitutively involves communicative intentions; but one could argue that the relevant communicative intentions appeal in the fundamental case to conventions operating in the social environment and accounting for the meaning-contribution of the semantic units of the expressions one has put together to produce one’s utterance. Dummett argues for this in the case of assertion.7 His argument relies on the fact that, except for a very limited 5

The same applies to the speech acts constituting, on the present view, the default meanings of moods, like questions, commands and assertions. Thus, in “Some Advice for poets”, New York Review of Books XLIX, 14, James Fenton says that the way poets refute the death of the sonnet “is not by argument, but by assertion. My sonnet asserts that the sonnet still lives” (op. cit., 67). To produce a sonnet is not a conventional means for asserting that the sonnet still lives (unless, of course, the sonnet says so, which is not Fenton’s point). 6 Austin, 1962, 103. 7 Dummett, 1973, 311, 354.

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range of cases, we cannot make sense of the attribution of the inner state (belief, knowledge or judgment) that the act verbalizes independently of its regulating function in the performance of the relevant linguistic acts. This appears to be the case for the complex higher-order mental states characteristic of Gricean accounts. The impact of Strawson’s criticism, and the strength of anticonventionalist views in general in contemporary philosophy is manifest in contemporary theories. Substantive conventionalist claims are associated with normative accounts of the relevant speech acts; the conventional features are supposed to account for these normative aspects. Among theories of speech acts, a very influential contemporary strand8 follow the Gricean lead of Strawson’s criticism of Austin, providing the kind of expressivist account that Austin was opposing; these views straightforwardly reject that assertion has any constitutive normative aspects, and therefore avoid any temptation to appeal to conventions to account for them. On one of these views, for instance, to make an assertion is to utter a sentence that means p thereby R-intending the hearer to take the utterance as a reason to think that the speaker believes p, where “Rintending” is explained in terms of some elaboration of Grice’s notion of communicative intention. Norms of assertion are not constitutive of the act; they merely derive from a general sincerity rule (SR), which has perhaps a moral source: (SR)

In situations of normal trust, one ought to be sincere.

Recently, however, different contemporary researchers, perhaps under the influence of Williamson’s proposal,9 have been developing different normativist views of assertion. On these views, assertion is characterized by a “simple” constitutive norm, either a truth-rule (TR),10 or a epistemic rule, perhaps a justification rule, (RBR),11 or Williamson’s knowledge rule (KR):12

8

(TR)

One’s assertion of p is correct if and only if p.

(RBR)

One’s assertion of p is correct if and only if it is reasonable for one to believe p.

Bach & Harnish, 1979, Hindriks, 2007. Williamson’s, 1996/2000. 10 Weiner, 2005. 11 Lackey, 2007. 12 Williamson, 1996/2000. 9

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One’s assertion of p is correct if and only if one knows p.

As I said, it would be natural for anyone holding conventionalist views about assertion, even if it is just one of a weaker kind than Austin ultimately defended, to sympathize with some such normativist account; the intuitive suggestion to be developed by the conventionalist would be that, while assertion is constitutively normative, the notion that such norms are in place cannot be understood unless agreements to the effect have been also implemented. One could even hope that those alleged stronger conventionalist features of assertion would also allow us to decide which among different proposals about the constitutive norms of assertion is right. There is, however, an influential argument by Williamson, which is intended to disappoint such conventionalist leanings towards normative accounts. The argument has the compelling simplicity of other anticonventionalist arguments.13 Williamson argues as follows: “Constitutive rules are not conventions. If it is a convention that one must I, then it is contingent that one must I; conventions are arbitrary, and can be replaced by alternative conventions. In contrast, if it is a constitutive rule that one must I, then it is necessary that one must I … a rule will count as constitutive of an act only if it is essential to that act: necessarily, the rule governs every performance of the act”.14

Although Williamson does not explicitly say so, this might suggest that there cannot be the kind of connection between assertion and convention offered in the previous considerations for a stronger conventionalist view on assertion, because they have contrasting modal properties. Assertions are defined by constitutive norms, which are essential to them; norms dependent on conventions, on the other hand, are contingent. This rough argument can be faulted on several grounds, and it is not my intention to attribute it to Williamson. But his argument may well confusingly suggest something like it; thus, referring to this argument, Green & Williams argue that the declarative mood cannot conventionally implicate assertion because “a convention is a practice that could have been otherwise, but it is not an optional feature of assertion that it is used 13

Other equally fallacious simplistic anti-conventionalist arguments, I should say; cf. García-Carpintero & Pé rez-Otero, 2009. 14 Williamson, 1996/2000, 239.

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for the manifestation of belief”.15 Green & Williams are assuming here a non-normative expressivist account of assertion; but they appeal to Williamson’s argument in order to reject a view (advanced in the course of providing an account of Moore’s Paradox) that could naturally be part of a conventionalist package: to wit, that when one asserts by using the conventional means for doing so (say, uttering in a default context a sentence in the declarative mood), one conventionally implicates that one is doing so, and hence doing whatever is constitutive of assertion, Rintending to express a belief or subjecting the act to a given norm. To be more precise about what I want to achieve here: I do not strictly speaking reject the conclusion of Williamson’s argument. There is more than one sense in which constitutive norms are not conventions, which is what the argument purports to establish. They are not conventions, the way that whales are not fish; as I will suggest, while one can take conventions themselves to be constitutive norms, they certainly do not exhaust the category. For the same reasons, they are not conventions, the way that Venus is not Mars; conventions and constitutive norms are beasts of different kinds. Nonetheless, Williamson’s argument is at the very least misleading. Because it is advanced with the apparent rhetorical aim of rejecting conventionalist claims (and in that way is taken by Green & Williams, for instance), and the platitudinous considerations the argument deploys have the power of suggesting that it puts those claims to rest. However, the conclusion of the argument, understood in any of the preceding ways, is compatible with any interesting conventionalist claim; serious, substantive, controversial conventionalist claims are simply not touched by it. In order to show this, I will firstly undermine the alleged modal disparity between assertion, understood as regulated by constitutive norms, and convention, the main consideration offered in Williamson’s argument, which we may call because of this the Argument of the Modal Disparity, AMD for short. My main claim will be this: to the extent that assertions are related to constitutive norms that are essential to them, governing every instance of them, conventions are also related to constitutive norms essential to them: there is no relevant modal disparity. Additionally, norms for assertions are contingent in a corresponding way to that in which norms related to conventions are contingent; and, although there is also a sense in

15

Green & Williams, 2007, 14.

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which conventions are contingent in a way in which assertion is not, that does not give any support to the argument. An obvious reason to suspect AMD is as follows: conventions can plausibly be taken to result from tacit or explicit agreements; agreements are exchanges of conditional promises, by which one commits oneself to do something on certain recurring situations on condition that others keep corresponding promises;16 and promises, and thereby conventions, are at first sight the very sort of thing to be characterized by constitutive norms, to the extent that assertions should be thus characterized. In the case of an assertion that snow is white, the obligation that Williamson takes to be constitutive – necessarily governing any instance of the assertion – has acts of asserting in its scope; it forbids asserting that snow is white, when one does not know that snow is white: “The rule is to be parsed as ‘One must ((assert p) only if p has C)’ … The rule unconditionally forbids this combination: one asserts p when p lacks C”.17

For the sake of the argument, let us compare the status of the following norm, plausibly at least associated to the convention of driving on the right: (DR)

One must ((convene with others on driving on the right) only if one thereby drives on the right while others thereby do likewise)

Is Williamson’s a good reason not to count DR as a constitutive rule of the convention to drive on the right? He argues that conventional obligations are contingent, because conventions are arbitrary. However, note that, in the case of an assertion that snow is white, the obligation that he takes to be constitutive – necessarily governing any instance of the assertion – has acts of asserting in its scope; it forbids asserting that snow is white, when one does not know that snow is white. Now, the arbitrariness of conventions is surely compatible with the claim that DR is a constitutive rule of the convention of driving on the right, understood as Williamson does here for the case of assertion. The convention’s constitutive rule unconditionally forbids convening with others on driving on the right, and then driving on the left while other parties to the convention do as was agreed. The arbitrariness of conventions must be

16 17

Gilbert, 1993. Williamson, 1996/2000, 241.

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compatible with counting this prohibition as necessarily governing any such case of convening. At least, the following seems to be the case: to the extent that assertions are essentially governed by the kind of norm that Williamson contemplates, conventions can be equally governed by similar norms. DR unconditionally forbids convening with others on driving on the right, and then driving on the left while other parties to the convention comply with the agreement. The arbitrariness of conventions is compatible with taking this prohibition as necessarily governing any such case of convening. It is contingent that a particular convention has in fact been adopted; another convention (or none at all) could have been adopted instead, for instance that of driving on the left. But the obligation DR would still obtain in the counterfactual situation; it would still forbid convening on driving on the right, and then driving on the left while others ... . “If it is a convention that one must I, then it is contingent that one must I; conventions are arbitrary, and can be replaced by alternative conventions”: surely this is platitudinous. However, the same applies here: to the extent that this is true, even platitudinous, there is a corresponding platitude true of assertions, compatibly with their being subject to constitutive rules. It is contingent that a particular convention has in fact been adopted; another convention (or none at all) could have been adopted instead, for instance that of driving on the left. But the obligation defining the convention of driving on the right would still be in place in the counterfactual situation; for it would still forbid convening on driving on the right, and then proceeding to drive on the left. What is contingent is the existence of an obligation to drive on the right, given that the convention determining it could well not have been adopted; this does not make contingent the obligation DR, which can be taken to be constitutive of the convention on the view parallel to the one Williamson holds regarding assertion. On the other hand, the obligations related to assertions are contingent in the precise sense that those ensuing from conventions are. If a particular assertion were not made, the knowledge obligation imposed by what Williamson takes to be its constitutive rule would not exist. It could even be the case that no act of assertion exists (other speech acts are made, or none at all), and then none of the knowledge-commitments imposed by that rule would exist. It would still be the case that in all those subjunctive situations, the obligations constitutive of assertion (as Williamson defines it) obtain.

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The arbitrariness of conventions consists in that any community that adopts any particular convention might have convened otherwise, while still securing the goals that the convention allows. This does not of course apply to assertions; but this fact does not lend any support to the Argument of the Modal Disparity, it only establishes the trivial fact that assertions are not conventions, in particular in that they lack the arbitrariness feature. Games can also be taken to be defined by constitutive rules (in fact games are Wiliamson’s paradigm case of an activity governed by constitutive rules), they are not arbitrary in the way that conventions are, and still they are plausibly counted as conventional in the following sense: the obligations their constitutive rules impose would not exist, unless conventions imposing them also existed. Part of Rawls’ aim in distinguishing constitutive and regulative norms was to put the vindication or rejection of utilitarianism in its proper place.18 The view of utilitarianism as a reductivistic form of naturalism goes hand in hand with thinking of all norms as regulative, as mere generalizations summing up types of useful consequences that follow from recurring situations. This gives rise to a confused view of the kind of obligation applying to particular instances of practices, acts subject to norms like promises or punishments; it raises issues that are absurd, such as whether or not one is obliged to comply with a given promise, perfectly made under whatever circumstances are required for that, by doing some research on the expected consequences of complying with it. The antireductivist view that there are constitutive norms prevents these confusions; and, as Rawls suggests, it still allows a place for utilitarian considerations, now directed at establishing which practices defined by constitutive rules should be in fact adopted, and thus which irreducible obligations should thereby exist in the actual world in particular cases. A similar point could be made regarding the social character of linguistic representation. It is not that the norms defining illocutionary forces merely sum up uses of representational devices with socially beneficial consequences; this view will only lead to a confused interpretation of the obligations accruing to performances of speech acts. In fact, one could find here the main consideration in favor of normative accounts of speech acts, and against descriptivist views. If we merely consider moral, derivative norms, such as the one ensuing from the sincerity rule, there are bound to be cases in which these norms do not 18

Rawl, 1955.

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apply: say, promises or assertions extracted under duress, or deception. However, we have a compelling intuition that, even if there is nothing morally wrong in (or a lot morally recommending) breaking the corresponding norms, there is still an important normative residue, left untouched by the moral facts of the case, such that one is doing something wrong in thereby violating the rules. Thus, difficult as it may be to articulate it, we should distinguish the sense in which constitutive norms are necessary, the sense in which the contingent facts existing in different possible worlds do not distinguish among them, from a sense in which norms are “in place”, or exist, which does depend on contingent facts.19 For all Williamson says, both conventions and assertions (understood as governed by constitutive norms) are not contingent in the first sense, and contingent in the second. Among all forces existing in the Platonic Heaven, all of them equally imposing their constitutive norms on their instances, it makes natural sense (i.e., it is compatible with a scientific view of the place of rational beings in the natural world), in addition to being consistent with our intuitions as competent speakers, to think that the conventional signification of some of them is constitutive of natural languages; that some specific forces are conventionally signified, even if only as defaults, by devices like moods. The same applies, manifestly, to games. All possible constitutive norms for games apply in all possible worlds, on the assumption that all are governed by constitutive norms defining them. But not all of them are implemented, in place, governing the particular transactions of a group of individuals. There is still an issue about what makes it the case that some games, and not others, are governed by rules that in fact apply to some transactions. It could even be an epistemic achievement of sorts for some individuals to determine which rules apply to their cases – which among several different games, governed by slightly different sets of rules, is the one they are in fact playing. There could be a causal-intentional sense in which all of them are playing one and the same game G, while it is still unclear what the constitutive rules defining G are. The conventionalist claim about assertion is a particular answer to the question why it is the case that a particular institution exists or “is in place,” which is compatible with this institution being defined by constitutive norms. This is why it is left untouched by Williamson’s point, 19

To get an idea of how difficult it apparently is, see Broome (forthcoming), section 13.

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and why his considerations are misleading in suggesting otherwise. I myself do not believe the conventionalist claim about assertion or other speech acts. In his discussion of conventions, David Lewis distinguished conventions from what he called social contracts.20 This distinction is again related to the sense in which it is a contingent matter which constitutive rules are in place in a given world; and it is again compatible with both conventions and social contracts being defined by constitutive rules. Once again, I have little to say here by way of firstly providing a positive characterization of the relevant sense of the existence of norms, and then elaborating on its basis on Lewis’ distinction. But I suggest that assertion is closer to social contracts, than to conventions. This is related to the issue of the arbitrariness of convention, which Williamson’s argument raises. But I hope to have establish here how misleading and confusing that argument is, and thereby paved the way for a deeper reflection on these issues. The arbitrariness of conventions does not pose any special difficulty for the view that linguistically fundamental forces like assertion, even if defined by constitutive rules, are necessarily conventional in the sense (undoubtedly in need of further elaboration) previously outlined; there is still room for vindicating an Austinian position, as opposed to a purely Gricean, reductively psychologistic one, in the debate about the place of intention and convention in speech acts. References Austin, John (1962): How to Do Things with Words, Clarendon Press, Oxford. (Second edition issued as an Oxford U.P. paperback, 1989, to which page references are made.) Bach, K., & Harnish, R.M. (1979): Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. Broome, John (forthcoming): “Requirements”, in Homage à Wlodek: Philosophical Papers Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz, edited by Toni Rø nnow-Rasmussen, Björn Petersson, Jonas Josefsson and Dan Egonsson. Dummett, M. (1973), Frege: Philosophy of Language; 2nd edition, 1981, from where I quote, Duckworth, London.

20

Lewis, 1969.

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García-Carpintero, Manuel and Pé rez-Otero, Manuel (2009): “The Conventional and the Analytic” Philosophy and Phenomenological Review. Gilbert, Margaret (1993): “Is an Agreement an Exchange of Promises?”, Journal of Philosophy, XC, 627-649. Green, Mitchell and Williams, John (2007): “Introduction”, in Moore’s Paradox: New Essays on Belief and the First Person, M. Green and J. Williams (eds), Oxford University Press, Oxford. Hindriks, Frank (2007): “The status of the knowledge account of assertion”, Linguistics and Philosophy, 30, 393– 406. Lackey, Jennifer (2007): “Norms of Assertion”, Noûs, 41(4), 594-626. Lewis, David (1969): Convention: A Philosophical Study. Harvard U.P., Cambridge, Mass. Rawls, John (1955): “Two Concepts of Rules”, The Philosophical Review, 64, 3-32. Strawson, Peter (1964): “Intention and Convention in Speech Acts”, Philosophical Review, 73, 439-460. Weiner, Matthew (2005): ‘Must We Know What We Say?’, Philosophical Review, 114, 227– 51. Williamson, Timothy (1996/2000): “Knowing and Asserting”, Philosophical Review, 105, 1996, 489-523; included with some revisions as chapter 11 of his Knowledge and Its Limits, New York: Oxford U.P., 2000, from which I quote. LOGOS-Universitat de Barcelona

The Psychology of Volition: “Problem and Method Pass One Another By” LARS HERTZBERG 1.

“Who is behind all this?”

When several people are involved in a shameful, controversial or forbidden activity, we sometimes consider it important to decide on whose initiative it all began. This may be a matter of allocating responsibility: the agent, in the truest sense, was the one who instigated the action, and brought the others along with him. When two children get into a fight, we may try to settle which of them provoked the other. In a criminal case, it makes a difference if one of the accused put the others up to it. The person inciting a riot is held more responsible than those who merely followed. On the other hand, the question of initiative may concern the authority of an expression of will. Politicians may try to downplay the significance of protests by attributing them to the influence of foreign provocateurs, thus arguing that the unrest is not a sign of genuine popular dissatisfaction. Family members may contest a person’s last will cutting them out of their inheritance in favour of his nurse, by arguing that the nurse put him up to it: it was not really his will. In a child custody case, the court may attempt to take into account the child’s own choice of which parent to live with. In such a case, one party may argue that the child’s expressed preference was due to interference by the other. The fact that an expression of will was influenced by someone else is thought to diminish its authority or to cancel it altogether. In the latter cases, what is at issue is the responsibility of the persons being addressed rather than the subject whose will is in question. They may be reluctant, for some reason or other, to accede to the will that she is explicitly expressing, and they may defend their reluctance by questioning whether she really means, or is behind, what she says. They may claim that in ignoring or defying the other’s request, they are not showing lack of respect, rather they show respect for her real will. In both kinds of case, one may raise the question whether what her words or actions expressed Philosophical Anthropology. Wittgenstein’s Perspective, (Ed. Jesús Padilla Gálvez), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2010, 139-152.

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was “fully her will” or whether and to what extent it was produced by someone else. (This problem is sometimes discussed under the title “autonomy”.) 2.

Volition and the readiness-potential

Evidently, in many cases, such issues are not to be resolved by simply asking the subject whether she really meant what she said. The problem of sincerity aside, we may be convinced that she does not know her own mind. We might call this a psychological problem, and suggest that one would have to be a good psychologist to be able to decide what she really wants. The question I wish to consider is: could we take this suggestion literally, and turn to experimental psychology to resolve the problems that arise in our lives concerning the human will? Could psychology supply us with the know-how required for allocating responsibility? Let me approach the issue by discussing a famous investigation that may seem to have some bearing on it. In 1982, a research team headed by Benjamin Libet published a report on a series of experiments in which they had set out to investigate neuronal activities connected with self-initiated hand movements. The team claimed to have shown that these spontaneous actions are preceded by a characteristic change in the brain, a so-called readiness-potential, which can be recorded by EEG. The occurrence of readiness-potentials had been discovered in studies done by other researchers, who had detected what was described as “a scalp-recorded slow negative potential shift that begins up to a second or more before a self-paced act”. When attaching an electrode to the scalp over the motor/premotor area of the cortex that is taken to control the hand, the recording shows a rise in activity culminating just before the action. This discovery, they claim, “appeared to provide an electrophysiological indicator of neuronal activity that specifically precedes and may initiate a freely voluntary movement.”1 What had apparently been shown was that, when a person decides to do something, then although she may herself consider her action freely initiated and spontaneous, unbeknownst to her the action, and even the decision to perform the action, is preceded by a specific change in the brain which can be recorded by EEG. B. Libet and his team claimed to be able to confirm the finding “that cerebral initiation of a spontaneous, freely voluntary act can begin 1

Libet et allii, 1982, RPP, 322.

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unconsciously, that is, before there is any (at least recallable) subjective awareness that a ‘decision’ to act has already been initiated cerebrally”. (However, in their study the time interval shrunk from 1.5 second to between a quarter of a second and a second.) They concluded that this “introduces certain constraints on the potentiality for conscious initiation and control of voluntary acts”2. I understand this to mean that, when we think of ourselves as having reached a certain decision at a given moment, the feeling that up until that moment we were free to decide to act as we chose is in fact an illusion, since the action, if we undertake it, will have been anticipated by events occurring in the brain up to a second before we are aware of making the decision. In other words, Libet and his team might be thought to have given empirical confirmation of Spinoza’s claim that freedom is simply the illusion that we produce our own actions. On this finding, then, the distinction between having initiated an action oneself and having been put up to it by others has no basis in reality: people never actually initiate actions. In one of the tests carried out by Libet’s team, the test subject was to follow a spot of light revolving in a clocklike circle around a screen in front of him, and, “when he felt like doing so, to perform [a] quick, abrupt flexion of the fingers and/or wrist of his right hand”,3 and “to note and later report the time of appearance of his conscious awareness of ‘wanting’ to perform [this] self-initiated movement”.4 The overall result was that the onset of “readiness-potential”, as measured by EEG, preceded the time at which the subject reported being aware of wanting to perform the movement by between 1,055 and 240 milliseconds (thousandths of a second), i.e. between a second and a quarter of a second. (Actually, what the subjects recall is rather their decision to recall a certain moment in time.) Here, I should like to discuss the outlook on the will and human agency that underlies this investigation. The study was partly motivated by the need to eliminate what the researchers felt were weaknesses in earlier studies of the phenomenon. Their idea of what those weaknesses were and how they should be eliminated throws interesting light on how they understood the notion of self-initiation. They were critical of the earlier studies because they thought that the practical requirements of the 2

Libet, et allii, TCI, 1983, 623. Libet et allii, TCI, 1983, 625. 4 Libet et allii, TCI, 1983, 627, italics in original. 3

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experiment imposed constraints on the subject, thus compromising the “fully endogenous nature of the acts”. Thus, the number of acts to be performed within a given interval of time imposed a limit on the time in which to perform the act — in other words, the test subjects may have felt they had to hurry — and this and other factors may have acted as “external controlling influences on the subject’s initiation of the act”.5 To exclude this possibility, Libet’s team thought they had to ensure that the movements of the test subjects were genuinely self-initiated, endogenous, or “freely voluntary” as the writers sometimes expressed it. In order to do so, [a]n additional instruction to encourage “spontaneity” of the act was given ... to [one group of] subjects ... For this, the subject was instructed “to let the urge to act appear on its own at any time without any preplanning or concentration on when to act”, that is, to try to be “spontaneous” in deciding when to perform each act; this instruction was designed to elicit voluntary acts that were freely capricious in origin.6

3.

Volition as experience

B. Libet and his co-workers apparently thought that, as far as “selfinitiated” actions are concerned, there are two alternatives: either the behaviour really is initiated at the time reported by the subject, in which case it is (or at least may possibly be) brought about by his own decision, or else it is initiated at an earlier moment in time, in which case the subject’s “decision” can no longer make a difference. Now, for this line of argument to get off the ground, it must be taken for granted that voluntariness, if there is such a thing at all, is a matter of the agent’s having the experience of deciding to act at a given moment in time. The volition is concentrated in this experience. Unless that assumption is made, the experiment shows nothing surprising: nobody has questioned that there might be distinctive occurrences in the central nervous system just before we perform a movement. In a more recent article, Libet makes his commitment to this assumption explicit in spelling out the operational definition of free will used in the experiments: First, there should be no external control or cues to affect the occurrence or emergence of the voluntary act under study; i.e. it should be endogenous. 5 6

Libet et allii, 1982, RPP, 322. Libet et allii, 1982, RPP, 324; also Libet et allii, TCI, 1983, 625.

The Psychology of Volition: “Problem and Method Pass One Another By”143 Secondly, the subject should feel that he/she wanted to do it, when to do it or not to do it.7

This definition, he claims, accords with common views. We shall get back to the first condition later. However, the idea of identifying voluntary action with a specific experience is problematic. This is brought out in the instruction to the test subjects to “let the urge to act appear”. There are two ways of understanding this instruction. “Letting the urge appear” might be taken to mean that he should make it appear: so, rather than simply flex his fingers, he should produce in himself an urge to flex them, and then watch as the urge produces the flexing – or it might mean that he should wait for an urge to appear, and then do nothing to stop it. On both readings, the agent is made out as having a peculiarly divided relation to his voluntary action: in both cases, there is something he is in a position to do on his own, as it were (bringing about the urge or letting his fingers flex), and something for which he is dependent on the occurrence of some event (the urge causing the movement or the urge appearing). In as far as I have to wait for something to happen, however, I am not in control. Actually, any account that equated the notion of being in control with having this or that particular experience would face a similar intractable problem. According to B. Libet, the volition experience is what tells me that I am in control of my movements. In support of this, he points out that [m]any actions [or better, movements] lack this second attribute. For example, when the primary motor area of the cortex is stimulated, muscle contractions can be produced in certain sites in the body. However, the subject … reports that these actions were imposed by the stimulator, i.e. that he did not will these acts.8

The existence of such cases, however, hardly shows that some experience is distinctive of voluntary action; all it really shows is that an agent can normally tell whether his movements are voluntary or not. There are two sides to being able to tell. On the subjective side, there is the agent’s inclination to say he was or was not in control. On the objective side, there is the fact that what he claims usually fits into the context of life in which he is acting9: e.g., his voluntary actions usually make sense or he 7

Libet, 1999, FW, 47. Libet, 1999, FW, 47. 9 Of course, there may be exceptions to this. 8

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can give reasons for them, whereas his involuntary movements do not; on the other hand, these can often be given a causal explanation. Now, the assumption seems to be that if I can tell that I am ion control, there must be something by which I tell. I must have a feeling or experience of being in control. What can be questioned, however, is not whether people do have such a feeling or not (after all, how would one go about deciding that?), but rather whether any experience can have the role attributed to it by Libet. I would have to have discovered that whenever I have such and such a feeling I am in control of what happens. However, the notion that one might discover that one is in control of one’s bodily movements is problematic. There is such a thing as discovering one is in control of certain events. In moving through an empty building, I may notice a recurrent noise and try to find out where it comes from. After a while I may discover that I am producing the noise myself: I cause it by stepping on a certain board. Here I discover that I control the noise. But this I can only do because I discover that the noise is produced by something I do. On the other hand, is there some way I could find out that stepping on the board is something I do? Not if my body functions normally. Evidently, it is only because I do not need to discover that I am in control of certain things that I can find out that I am in control of other things. Learning to tell what I can control could not get started from my learning to recognize a feeling of being in control.10 4.

“Being capricious”

Another underlying assumption is that in investigating the role of the will, what we are investigating is the mechanism by which purportedly voluntary behaviour is produced. To show that behaviour was genuinely voluntary, on this assumption, we have to rule out its having been produced by an alternative mechanism. 10

We sometimes use the locution “I feel as if p” or “It feels as if p” simply as a way of reporting or expressing the state I am in, without laying any claim to the truth of p. In a peculiar state of mind, or if I am drugged or drunk, I might, say, have the feeling that I am controlling the traffic lights. (Having this feeling need not entail that I believe I do.) But this kind of feeling could not be what gave people the idea that they could control things in the first place. On the contrary, it is because we are normally able to tell what we control that we may sometimes have this peculiar feeling of controlling things.

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We should note that the authors use the terms “self-initiated”, “endogenous”, “freely voluntary”, “spontaneous” and “capricious” as more or less exchangeable expressions. Self-initiation, or spontaneity, for them, is apparently the absence of determining or constraining factors of any kind. They take this to exclude, not only physical or psychological constraints, but anything that would give the subject a reason to flex his fingers at one moment rather than another. This explains the idea that what the authors call a “capricious” action is the purest conceivable form of voluntary behaviour. The need to eliminate anything that could be a reason for performing the movement at any one moment is perhaps thought about along similar lines as the need to remove any external disturbances (such as heat or a draught) that might interfere with the measuring of some subtle physical process. Only by establishing a state of complete balance can we be sure to detect what effect the will may have on behaviour. As the authors put it, with evident approval, …the simple voluntary motor act studied here has in fact often been regarded as an incontrovertible and ideal example of a fully endogenous and “freely voluntary” act. The absence of any larger meaning in the simple quick flexion of hand or fingers, and the possibility of performing it with capriciously whimsical [my italics] timings, appear to exclude external psychological or other factors as controlling agents...11

Of course this would mean that, if I do not only have a reason for doing what I do, but my reason for acting is bound up with some present occurrence to which I am responding, my action is even less free. As Libet puts it, “A quick reaction to an unwarned stimulus also lacks a preceding RP, and it is not a freely voluntary act”12. Thus Libet sees no distinction, for instance, between my reaching out to stop my camera from falling to the floor and my dropping the camera when startled by a strong explosion. Neither response is “freely voluntary”. In fact, Libet’s discussion has some analogies with an earlier treatment of freedom of the will. I am thinking of William James’s discussion of the problem of getting out of bed. In a celebrated passage in The Principles of Psychology, James writes: We know what it is to get out of bed on a freezing morning in a room without a fire, and how the very vital principle within us protests against the ordeal. 11

Libet, et allii, TCI, 1983, 640 f. Libet, 1999, FW, 52 my italics. It is not clear whether Libet takes this as additional evidence that voluntariness and RP go together, or whether RP is here being treated as a criterion of voluntariness. 12

146

Philosophical Anthropology. Wittgenstein’s Perspective Probably most persons have lain on certain mornings for an hour at a time unable to brace themselves to the resolve. We think how late we shall be, how the duties of the day will suffer; we say, “I must get up, this is ignominious,” etc.; but still the warm couch feels too delicious, the cold outside too cruel, and resolution faints away and postpones itself again and again just as it seemed on the verge of bursting the resistance and passing over into the decisive act. Now how do we ever get up under such circumstances?13

One reason why William James chose a case like this may have been that in order to get the role of the will into focus, we should consider a case of someone launching into action from a state of passivity. Here, it appears, the question about the role of the will comes to a head, since, in distinction from the case, say, in which I act in immediate response to an event, there is nothing here besides the act of will itself to explain why I do what I do when I do it. If we are able to describe what happens at this moment, then, it might be thought, we shall have captured the essence of what it is to be a voluntary agent. In the Libet case, the agent has no reason to do one thing rather than another; in the James case there is a deadlock between the urgent need to get up and go to work and the unpleasantness of exchanging the warm bed for the cold room. What they have in common is that there is no motivating force in operation, driving the agent to do one thing rather than another. This is precisely what seems to make them suitable as paradigms for the study of volition provided the will is taken to be a force of its own beside our various motives etc (freedom of will = “freedom of indifference”), the operation of which is most clearly seen when the different factors motivating us to act are either passive or deadlocked.14 This line of thought, however, is obviously based on a misapprehension of what it is to act for a reason. The authors seem to think that having reasons for performing an action somehow constrains one’s freedom, as though reasons for acting were independent circumstances competing with my will for control of my behaviour (“external psychological factors as controlling agents”). Quite to the contrary, acting for reasons might be called the paradigmatic case of exercising one’s power to act. The authors, in other words, seem to be running together different senses of the question why something was done. It is clear that, if they 13 14

James, 1890, 524. Howard, Conway, 1986, 1241-1251.

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want to study voluntary behaviour, they must eliminate the possibility that the movement they are recording was actually produced by some causal factor beyond the agent’s control. For instance, the experiment would have failed if it turned out that the subject’s movement was in fact a spasm. But one would of course be mistaken in concluding from this that a person’s movements are not fully voluntary if there is any answer at all to the question why he did what he did. On the contrary: we should be baffled if we were to ask someone who appeared to be carrying out some activity in a normal fashion why he was doing what he was doing, and it turned out that he did not have a ready answer for us. In certain circumstances (though the case is not easy to imagine), this might make us conclude that he was acting under some strange compulsion. In fact, contrary to the authors’ assumption, the idea of acting capriciously or on a whim seems to get no foothold in a context in which it makes absolutely no difference what I do or when I do it. Being capricious means acting with disregard for whatever reasons may have a bearing on one’s action. Hence, in the test situation, the only way the test subjects could have acted capriciously would have been by not flexing their fingers at all, or by disobeying the instructions in some other way, say, by deciding in advance when to flex them. 5.

On initiation

In running together two senses of the question “why”, the authors are running together two different ways of speaking about behaviour. This is evident, too, in the way they speak about the initiation of behaviour. They interpret the finding that some neuronal activity associated with performing an action takes place before the time the subject recalled initiating the action as follows: …the brain evidently “decides” to initiate or, at least, prepare to initiate the act at a time before there is any reportable subjective awareness that such a decision has taken place. It is concluded that cerebral initiation even of a spontaneous voluntary act ... can and usually does begin unconsciously.15

As the scare quotes around the word “decides” indicate, the authors are aware that the word is being used here in a somewhat peculiar way: of course, people make decisions, not the brain or some other bodily organ. However, they do not seem prepared to take this insight far enough. (In 15

Libet, et allii, TCI, 1983, 640.

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“Do we have free will?”, Libet writes, without scare quotes, “The brain was evidently beginning the volitional process in this voluntary act well before the activation of the muscle that produced the movement.”16) Perhaps it will be thought that the problem involved in attributing decisions to the brain is simply a matter of style or linguistic etiquette, as it were; as if it were clear to everybody what would be meant in speaking that way, although there is a slightly exasperating prohibition on saying it – rather in the way that, on board a ship one has to remember to use the word “starboard” rather than “right-hand side”, even though everybody knows what one is talking about anyway. But actually, the problem goes much deeper: in fact, the closer we look at what is being said in saying that the brain makes decisions, the harder we find it to understand what could be meant. The passage cannot be read literally; but if it is not read literally, on the other hand, it is not clear whether anything at all is being said. To speak about the brain making decisions is to invoke the image of a little person, a homunculus, lodged inside the skull, registering impulses and calling the shots. Of course, no one would take that image seriously. I want to argue, however, that unless a homunculus is tacitly assumed, Libet’s entire project collapses. 17 Consider the idea that the occurrence of the readiness-potential constitutes the moment at which an action is originally initiated. Why is this particular occurrence singled out? Evidently, there are recordable processes going on in the brain all the time, as revealed by EEG. If not, 16

Libet, 1999, FW, 49. In fact, as far as linguistic etiquette is concerned, the shoe is on the other foot: using anthropomorphic terms in speaking about the brain or the central nervous system seems to be the accepted practice, say, in psychology textbooks or in popularized science. Consider, for instance, the following textbook passage about what it takes to brake a car: ... the brain must know where your foot is as well as where you want it to go. The brain must contain some sort of register of the position of the body parts relative to one another, which is used to plan directed movements. ... A specialized part of your brain receives continual feedback from leg and foot muscles so that you are aware of how much pressure is being exterted and can alter your movements accordingly. (Atkinson, Atkinson, Hilgard, 1983, 31) The process is evidently very complicated. There are the things you know, and there are the things your brain knows. Some of these things the brain evidently keeps to itself (the brain knows exactly where your foot is, but it obviously does not want to trouble you with the information), other things the brain lets you know as soon as it finds out about them, etc. 17

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that would mean that the brain is dead. But why should the rising curve be considered the beginning of the volitional process? Why should this occurrence rather than any other stage in the process leading up to it be called the beginning? After all, the specific changes in the EEG curve are hardly produced ex nihilo, but rather they reflect neurological occurrences each of which is connected with other, earlier occurrences in accordance with the laws of neurology. The only reason for singling out this particular change as interesting, it seems, is that it immediately precedes the agent’s reported decision to act. Neurologically speaking, there seems to be no compelling reason to suppose that the process leading up to the movement might not have been initiated, say, by some event occurring 30 minutes earlier. “But hold on! ” someone will exclaim at this point. “At least the process can’t begin before the test subject has been given the instruction to flex his fingers.” But how do we know that, after all? We can only make this claim by drawing on our everyday understanding of human action, e.g. that people will normally perform certain movements when asked to do so. But it is precisely the validity of this understanding that is supposedly being tested in the experiment.18 Our inclination to regard the rising curve as the initiation of the act, it appears, is a reflection of the way in which we are inclined to imagine the role of the brain, rather than based on an empirical discovery. In fact, Libet more or less gives the game away, when he writes, …the actual initiating process in the brai n probably starts before our recorded RP, in an unknown area that then activates the supplementary motor area [which is thought to be the source of the recorded RP] in the cerebral cortex.19

Once the door is opened to speculation about unobserved processes in unknown areas of the brain, we are pretty far removed from any idea of an empirical inquiry into the neurological initiation of human action.20 18

Actually, if we pursue this line of thought, we end up having to acknowledge that we do not even know what we are testing, since we rely on being able to communicate with the test subjects. 19 Libet, 1999, FW, 51. 20 In a more recent study, an attempt has been made to trace the history of decisions even further back. (See: Siong Soon, Brass, Heinze, Haynes, 2008, 543-545.) It was shown that preparatory processes took place in a different part of the brain up to 10 seconds before the decision was made. (These authors do not attribute decisions to the brain.) Also, the subjects were given a choice whether to move their right or their left

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Starting an argument

Talk about initiating something, being behind something, and the like, normally has a place in discourse about human affairs, in the contexts in which praise and blame are apportioned. For instance, starting a husbandwife argument means transforming a conversation from one that is not unfriendly into a hostile one. Trying to decide who did this on a particular occasion is often a matter of trying to decide who first responded in a way that was not justified by what had gone before. This may not always be easy, or even possible. Suppose, for instance, a husband and wife are having an argument. Who started it? Which was the first unfair, sullen, impatient, provocative or snide remark, which justified the other party’s offended reaction? If we ask them, they probably will not agree; in fact, many quarrels sooner or later come to turn around the very question of who started it. A neutral bystander might have a clear idea, but she might also reach the conclusion that both were equally to blame, that the discussion gradually escalated into an argument without there being any one point at which the debate had become heated. (Or she might think it was all just due to an unlucky chain of misapprehensions. Neither, at first, had meant anything bad, but she could see why each of them may have thought the other one did.) There seems to be no given standard for settling such a matter. Cut out this piece of dialogue from the lives surrounding it, and we can make nothing at all or anything we like of it. If we know nothing about their shared history, what they had been talking about just before, the kinds of conversation they usually have, their normal ways of responding, what kinds of life they lead and what kind of relation they have to one another, we cannot really tell what is going on here.

hand, and evidently the choice could be predicted from the character of the preparatory process. According to the authors, an advantage of their test was that the time interval was large enough to eliminate the possibility of measuring errors. However, these circumstances do not really make a difference with regard to the criticism put forward here. It is also striking that their result cannot even seem to have application to cases in which the occasion for acting arises less than 10 seconds in advance, which is quite common, as when we stop for a light turning red. I wish to thank Christian Kluge for drawing my attention to this study.

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In any case, in apportioning blame in such a case we attribute the change in the conversation to someone (to one party or both). It is ultimately a question of what we consider just. Obviously, there cannot be any sense in looking for a corresponding neurological change. For one thing, with neurological occurrences there is no issue of justification. For another thing, if a neurologist fails to trace an occurrence to the stages preceding it, she would not conclude that she had discovered the start of something. Rather she would either believe that she had made a faulty observation, or that our knowledge of the processes in question was deficient.21 In making it seem as if our actions were initiated in the brain, I have tried to argue, Benjamin Libet and his team have performed a conjuring trick. His experiment rests on three assumptions, all of which I have tried to show are questionable. There is no specific experience by which we tell whether or not our movements are under our control. For an action to be fully voluntary does not mean that it is performed without reason or motive. There is no ground for singling out some neurological occurrence as constituting the initiation of our voluntary actions. If my criticism is correct, Libet has not been able to show what he claims to have shown (indeed, it might be questioned whether a project such as his made any sense in the first place). As for the problem we started out with: whether psychology can help us allocate responsibility by identifying who initiated some joint action, this outcome should lead us to suspect that we have been barking up the wrong tree all along. The idea that we might allocate responsibility by identifying who initiated the activity is misguided, since an attribution of responsibility is already embodied in the notion of taking the initiative. It would be futile to seek a factual foundation for our judgments, since the relevant facts are constituted by our judgments.

21

Nor would it help us to be privy to the thoughts of the two parties. People who argue do not usually start out by deciding to argue. (It might even be said that a quarrel is not genuine if it starts according to plan.) We might even recognize, say, that the husband had no bad intent in making some remark, but yet he was being thoughtless since he should have realized that, in the circumstances, his wife was bound to be hurt by it.

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References Atkinson, R., R. Atkinson and E. Hilgard, 1983: Introduction to Psychology, (8th ed), Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. Howard, G. S. and Ch. G. Conway, 1986: “Can There Be an Empirical Science of Volitional Action?”, American Psychologist, 41, 12411251. James, W., 1890: The Principles of Psychology, Volume II, Dover, New York. Libet, B., 1999: “Do We have Free Will?”, in: Benjamin Libet, Anthony Freeman and Keith Sutherland (eds.), The Volitional Brain: Towards a Neuroscience of Free Will. Imprint Academic, Thorverton, 1999, 47-57. (Henceforth referred to as “FW”). Libet, B., E. W. Wright, Jr. and C. A. Gleason,, 1982: “ReadinessPotentials Preceding Unrestricted ‘spontaneous’ vs. Pre-Planned Voluntary Acts”, Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology 54, 322-335 (Henceforth referred to as “RPP”). Libet, B., Curtis A. Gleason, Elwood W. Wright and Dennis K. Pearl, 1983: “Time of Conscious Intention to Act in Relation to Onset of Cerebral Activity (Readiness-Potential)”, Brain, 106, 623-642. (Henceforth referred to as “TCI”). Siong Soon, Ch., M. Brass, H-J. Heinze, J.-D. Haynes, 2008: “Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain”, Nature Neuroscience, Volume 11, Number 5, May, 543-545. Åbo Akademi University. Finland

‘Dirty’ and ‘Clean’ Between Ontology and Anthropology ȱ

OLLI LAGERSPETZ 1.

Remarks on Why, and How, to Investigate Dirt-Related Concepts

Dirt and pollution are typically seen as a theme for the social anthropologist, not for the philosopher. However, philosophical treatments of the clean and the dirty are almost as old as Western philosophy itself, starting with Heraclitus. This paper will outline some reasons for thinking that the topic is not odd at all in philosophy but, on the contrary, a helpful avenue to a better understanding of important questions about our being in the world.1 In particular, the concepts of the dirty and the clean illustrate the fact that questions usually framed in terms of ontology (supposedly dealing with what really exists) may often more helpfully be seen as, in a broad sense, anthropological or ethical ones; i.e., as questions about how we live. I see this also as an important lesson to be learned from Wittgenstein. The present aim is not to work out definitions of what it must mean to describe something as clean or dirty. In that sense I do not want to provide ‘essentialist’ descriptions. But I do hope to capture something of the ‘essence’ of the distinction between dirty and clean; that is: something about what is essential about it and our active involvement with items to which it is applicable.2 Our current theoretical understanding of the material world has largely been shaped by physics and chemistry. On the other hand, our 1

The present paper takes up themes also discussed in Lagerspetz 2006. The book includes a fuller discussion of the literature. – In writing on this topic, I have profited from discussions with a number of friends and colleagues. I must especially mention previous comments by Lars Hertzberg and David Cockburn, as well as the points made by James Conant, Peter Hacker, and Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer at the presentation of this paper at Toledo, 4 September 2009. 2 cf. Wittgenstein 1953, I: § § 371 – 373. Philosophical Anthropology. Wittgenstein’s Perspective, (Ed. Jesús Padilla Gálvez), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2010, 153-162.

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relations to the ordinary physical environment are crucially informed by concepts that cannot occur as theoretical explanatory concepts in science. The concepts of the dirty and the clean are a central case. They do not seem to fit neatly into standard distinctions between the subjective and the objective, or between fact and value. Thus the distinction between dirty and clean highlights central and neglected aspects of our relation to our physical environment. Conversely, it has not been neglected simply out of reluctance to touch a dirty topic. Its neglect is a direct consequence of the hold that certain metaphysical views have on our theoretical thinking – perhaps most conspicuously in realism vs antirealism debates. I will make few direct textual references to Wittgenstein. On a methodological level, however, there is an obvious connection. A fundamental lesson to be learned from Wittgenstein (and which, for instance, Peter Winch3 has instructively and repeatedly spelled out) is that the relation between our concepts and the lives we are living is internal; and so is the relation between our lives and the world in which we live. Descriptions of ‘our use of the concept of’ this or that will not just be descriptions of how specific words occur in sentences. Instead, we need to examine the lives in which the concept makes a difference. Thus the examination of ‘the concept of X’ will be an examination of our lives with X. Furthermore: to examine our lives with a given concept is at the same time to describe a world where such life makes sense. Again connecting to Wittgenstein, our concepts relate to our ‘natural history’, and one cannot make sense of them without it. One more thing: the point of the philosophical description is not to arrive at a general answer to the general question of ‘what’ this or that ‘is’, regardless of why anyone is asking the question. The aim is to address specific misconceptions and prejudices that prevent us from doing justice to our concepts. 2.

The Idea of a Disenchanted World

Ideas about the subjective and the objective have a central role in current theoretical work about dirt, pollution, cleanliness, and purity. The few philosophers and many social scientists addressing this topic tend to agree 3

Winch, 1958, 1972.

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on one thing: our descriptions of things as clean or dirty are expressions of subjective or symbolic attitudes towards them. This is obvious, for instance, in the treatments by Douglas, Kristeva, and Nussbaum.4 The approach they share involves an explicit or implicit background assumption. The world as such is devoid of purposes, strivings, and meanings. Pollution concepts are human ways of projecting meaning onto a basically meaningless world. A concise statement of that theoretical attitude is included in Sigmund Freud’s Totem and Taboo. Freud presents an analysis of the concept of the ‘uncanny’ (unheimlich). Freud argues that no things in themselves can be ‘uncanny’. This he thinks is just obvious. He refers to the ‘projection outwards of internal perception’ which, according to him, is responsible for the fact that the physical world is invested with emotionally charged, subjective qualities.5 Thus, for Freud, the world of reality is a disenchanted world in contrast with the enchanted world inhabited by children, primitives, poets, dreamers, and neurotics. Seeing reality as it is involves drawing a dividing line between the contributions to perception made by objects themselves and those that issue from the subject’s internal emotive states. And Freud takes it to be obvious that things and events cannot be uncanny as such. Here I would like just to be bloody-minded and ask why things cannot be uncanny as such. Shouldn’t their uncanny qualities be the very reason why we react to them as we do? But of course, the real philosophical question is not whether things are uncanny ‘as such’, but how we are supposed to draw the line between reality ‘as such’ and reality as ‘it’ appears to us. This is, however, not a question that Freud is discussing. He simply writes on the assumption that the real world is the world of theoretical natural science. The alternative suggestion I wish to make is not that the world is really ‘enchanted’ as opposed to ‘disenchanted’; nor that philosophers must put enchantment back to it. It is not clear to me what such statements (or their negations) would mean in this context; though they might, in the best case, furnish useful stepping-stones for a general discussion of our various ideas of objectivity. I take these points to be an illustration of what Winch means when he remarks: “Reality is not what gives language sense. What is real and 4 5

Douglas, 1966, Kristeva, 1980, and Nussbaum, 1999. Freud, 1989, 81.

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what is unreal shows itself in the sense that language has”.6 The meanings of our critical concepts are themselves determined in the context of the inquiries in which they are used. In other words, the word ‘reality’ is not a metaphysical term but a tool for problem solving. The question, “What elements are included in reality as such?” has no answer until we know more about the specific concern that the speaker wants to address. A paper by Jakob Melø e7 includes a helpful discussion of the relation between the subjective and the objective. He looks into the concept of harbour. A harbour is a natural or a man-made structure where land meets water. There are good and bad harbours, depending on the prevailing winds, the depth of the water and other factors – and, on the other hand, depending on the size and type of the vessels one has in mind. The harbour is there independently of what you and I think. At the same time, the concept of a harbour is dependent on a form of life that involves seafaring vessels too large for their crews to draw ashore. A harbour is an object belonging to a world constituted by specific seafaring and other practices. To understand what a harbour is, is to understand the practice and how the harbour contributes to the practice.8 Neither the practice, nor the object that contributes to the practice, must be let out of one’s sight. The object is individuated by the concept, which is constituted by the practice. A given practice – for instance, fishing – will open up the world in a certain kind of way for us. It will constitute a world that includes places and things that belong to the practice in question. Melø e should not be read as simply saying that our concepts carve out different parts from an underlying objective reality. Nor is he saying, conversely, that there is no objective reality. What we need to understand here is that nothing is objective or subjective ‘as such’, regardless of why this question is asked. This dichotomy is not a metaphysical one but it is used for problem solving purposes. Moving on to the distinction between clean and dirty: in many contexts, the fact that an object is dirty is a simple fact about that object – for instance, it may be a fact that someone needs to wash up. On the other hand, that fact cannot be understood in abstraction from human life. Our ideas of the clean and the dirty are only intelligible against the background 6

Winch, 1972, 12. Melø e, 1988. 8 Melø e, 1988, 393. 7

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of what we do with dirty objects. Conversely, those activities are intelligible because they are our ways of relating to facts that are already there. The concepts I have been discussing in this section (the dirty and the clean, harbour, the uncanny, etc.) may be called practical concepts. They presuppose certain ways of acting and thinking, or certain forms of life, and a world in which these forms of life make sense. We might also say that these concepts make a certain world visible. What kind of a world is, then, the world where things, places, and living beings can be clean or dirty? It was possible to identify a specific practice that constitutes the concept of a harbour. In the case of the dirty and the clean, a specific practice cannot be singled out as crucial. This distinction has a more general role across several practices. To suggest an analogy, ‘dirty’ resembles ‘damaged’. Both concepts imply a certain relation to things or material entities entering our practices. I will suggest that the world where something can be clean or dirty is a world that involves things as opposed to mere material objects; that is, identifiable individual items, beings or artefacts that in some sense have a teleology or ‘point’. 3.

Varieties of Badness

Socrates, in the dialogue Parmenides, maintains that each thing partakes of a Form by virtue of which it is the thing it is. Parmenides, his interlocutor, challenges this by bringing up “things of which the mention may provoke a smile”, asking whether also “hair, mud, dirt, or anything else that is vile and paltry‘’ have Forms.9 There is an important reason why Socrates was reluctant to acknowledge a Form of dirt. The Forms are in some sense connected with perfection. The concept of a Form is of course, to an extent, modelled on geometrical form. No geometrically perfect circle exists as a drawing. To grasp the Form of the circular is to understand what would make something a perfect circle. Conversely, it helps us recognise shortcomings in actual drawings. However, some concepts essentially involve falling short of perfection. For instance, ‘damaged’ does not describe a possible species of perfection but a shortcoming. 9

Plato, 1952, 130d.

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Grammatically speaking, ‘dirty’, like ‘damaged’, implies a shortcoming. There is an implicit reference to an ideal, unblemished state plus a deviation from that state.10 (Thus, there is a difference between calling a liquid dirty and calling it mixed. ‘Mixed’ (=non-homogeneous) does not imply value judgment.) This is not to deny that we might sometimes wish for an item to be dirty or damaged. But that must be understood against an acknowledged background where the general norm is accepted. In a paper on ‘everyday surface aesthetic qualities’, Thomas Leddy describes ‘dirty’ as ‘a surface quality’.11 By this he does not mean that dirt often collects on the surfaces of objects. A liquid may be dirty through and through. These judgments nevertheless involve the general idea of a distinction between a substance as such and an additional disturbing element. Thus, ‘dirty’ is a surface quality insofar as it can be kept analytically distinct from the fundamental ‘underlying form or substance’ of the host item. Among ‘everyday surface aesthetic qualities’, Leddy includes ‘neat’, ‘messy’, ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’. These qualities require an underlying structure that is tidied up, made a mess of, cleaned, or soiled.12 ‘Dirty’ as a surface quality also implies that the underlying object is in principle possible to clean, and in some sense needs to be cleaned, or is worth cleaning. In sum, our relations to our normal environment seem to be informed by concepts that are, in a sense, value-laden, teleological, even Platonic. They involve an element of interest in, or concern for, the ideal state from which dirt, damage and other forms of deterioration are deviations.13

4.

Host Item and Contact Element

The previous section indicates that dirt cannot really be discussed in abstraction from the particular items that are described as clean or dirty. By saying that a thing is dirty we imply, roughly, a contact between an alien element and the item that is ruined, soiled or polluted. Thus ‘dirty’ is like ‘wet’. An object is wet when water makes contact with it and stays on as moisture. Moisture consists of a substance, namely water; but water 10

Faryno, 1999. Leddy, 1995, 259; italics added. 12 Leddy, 1995, 262. 13 Leddy, 1995, 260. 11

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only becomes moisture in a specific environment. Similarly, dirt consists of matter – but only of matter in contact with an item that is soiled. For brevity, I will call these elements the contact element and the host item. In this analysis, the disturbing element – for instance, a stain on my shirt – does not constitute ‘a substance’ in the same sense as my shirt may be called a substance. The important fact about the stain is not its identity as a substance in its own right – say,grease – but its function in relation to the shirt that constitutes the host item. Thus it may be said that, by relating to the stain as dirt I relate to it as non-substance. Without the host item, no dirt exists here in the relevant sense.14 Thus there is a grammatical difference between stains of dirt and, on the other hand, refuse, garbage, faeces, and other unwanted substances – incidentally, a distinction not honoured in a number of influential discussions of the topic.15 ‘Dirt’ as substance would mean a kind of earth, as in ‘road dirt’ or as the nonproductive soil tilled by a ‘dirt farmer’. But when ‘dirty’ is contrasted with ¨ clean’, the grammatically primaryconcept is that of things being dirty – not dirt, as a substance. Our judgments here are in many ways similar to assessing damage in objects. In a sense, each thing has its own ways of being damaged. Damage in a CD will not necessarily count as damage in a windowpane. The characteristics of each thing will determine in what ways we go about finding out whether it needs cleaning. We smell the T-shirt. We look through the windowpane. We open the refrigerator and check the inside, not the outside. This is not only to say there are different methods of finding out. ‘Dirty’ means different things. Its meaning is connected with our understanding of what kinds of objects the host objects are, and of what it is to lead a life where they have a place. Sometimes our judgment depends entirely on pragmatic considerations. But in a large number of cases, it has more to do with aesthetics in a broad sense. Our judgments reflect our ideas about what belongs to the host item and what is alien and disturbing. Anna Magdalena Midtgaard, working at the Rare Books section of Copenhagen Royal Library, brings this out in a paper on the conservation of books.16 Some librarians think it is important to remove stains and dust 14

Also see Enzensberger, 1970, 30. Douglas, 1966, Kristeva, 1980, Nussbaum, 1999. 16 Midtgaard, 2006. 15

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from old volumes. Others would take a more conservative approach. Grains of pollen and sand may be seen as parts of the volume’s history. They sometimes contain useful information about its provenance. This variety of attitudes not only reflects variations of taste and sensibilities among librarians, but also differences in ideas about the identity of the item itself. A stain may either be seen as a blemish or as patina. It is seen either as external to the volume or as an integral feature of it. However, sometimes when we call an item dirty we are not mainly concerned about how this particular item falls short of an undisturbed ideal state. We are worried that it might soil something else. This is typical of our concern for washing hands. It depends on our ideas, not about the generally desirable state for hands, but of what it is to handle a thing with care. And our understanding of what ‘care’ involves will reflect our views about the thing we are going to handle. Thus my primary concern in this case is about the rare manuscript volume (or whatever); the state of my hands is judged in relation to that primary item. Furthermore, my judgment that something might make my hands dirty is dependent on my understanding of what kinds of soiling would be unacceptable on the manuscript volume. To sum up this section, judgments about the clean and the dirty imply ideas about what it is to care for the item that is soiled or might be soiled. And such care implies an understanding of the thing in terms of its teleologies, i.e., in terms of what we require of the thing and what that thing requires of us. 5.

Contextuality

Thus dirt is not just symbolic. It is not in the eye of the beholder.17 Our ability to distinguish between clean and dirty items is, on the contrary, an important part of our understanding of what the items in question are. And this is quite independent of our personal sensitivities. ‘Dirty’ is an objective quality approximately in analogy with ‘damaged’. However, I can sense a possible objection here. Our judgments of things as clean or dirty are notoriously sensitive to the situation. To mention an obvious example, by saying that a teacup is dirty I may simply

17

cf. Douglas, 1966.

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mean I am no longer drinking, so you may collect it. When still holding on to my cup I will not be applying that description. Does my cup suddenly change from clean to dirty as I stop drinking? Or was it dirty all the time, only I was not worrying about it? – Or finally, should we say that these are simply conventional expressions? It looks as if the choice was forced on us. These kinds of example incline philosophers and anthropologists towards the view that the distinction between clean and dirty is just a symbolic cultural construct. The apparent dilemma is created by the assumption that the question, ‘Is that cup dirty?’ has a definite meaning regardless of the situation in which the words are uttered. But these questions are asked for a reason, not out of a general wish to survey the state of the world. Our judgments are context dependent and yet objective; in other words, not arbitrary. They depend on our appreciation of the situation – the character of the item, its current state and its current role. And we may be right or mistaken. – The bottom line isthat we understand what it means to care for a thing in a particular situation. 6.

Our Stewardship of Objects

To summarise the analysis suggested in this essay, the concepts of the clean and the dirty are internally related to a teleological understanding of the things that physically surround us. And this understanding is, in turn, related to our ways of living with things. Our relations to objects are determined by care and responsibility, the attitude that the historian Susan Strasser calls our stewardship of objects.18 – Thus the distinction between clean and dirty presupposes a world of culture, a world where we are in charge. We are responsible for maintaining or creating the ideal state that tends otherwise to deteriorate. Conversely, this also means that things have claims on us. A window must be cleaned, a shoe must be repaired, and so on. Birds preen themselves and cats are notoriously clean animals. There is an obvious continuity between animal behaviour and human cleanliness. What apparently distinguishes human cleanliness is that it expresses the idea of a responsible relation towards the environment.

18

Strasser, 1999, 21-67.

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References Douglas, M., 1966: Purity and Danger. Routledge, London. Enzensberger, C., 1970: Grösserer Versuch über den Schmutz. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, München. Faryno, J, 1999: Neskol’ko obš þih soobraž enij po povodu konceptov ”grjaznyj/þistyj”. Utopia czystoĞci i góry Ğmieci – Utopija þistoty i gory musora, Studia Litteraria Polono-Slavica, 4, 59 – 62. Freud, S., 1989: Totem and Taboo. W.W. Norton, New York. Kristeva, J., 1980: Pouvoirs de l’horreur. É ditions du Seuil, Paris. Lagerspetz, O., 2006: Smuts. En bok om världen, vårt hem. Symposion, Stockholm/Stehag. Leddy, T., 1995: Everyday Surface Aesthetic Qualities: ”Neat”, ”Messy”, ”Clean”, ”Dirty”, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 53, 259 – 268. Melø e, J., 1988: The Two Landscapes of Northern Norway, Inquiry, 31, 387– 401. Midtgaard, A. M. L., 2006: The Dust of History and the Politics of Preservation. Paper for the Nordic Summer University Winter Symposium, Circle 4: Information, Technology, Aesthetics. 3-5 March 2006, Helsinki. Nussbaum, M., 1999: Secret Sewers of Vice: Disgust, Bodies, and the Law. In Susan Bandes (ed.), The Passion of Law. New York University Press, New York, 19 – 62. Plato, 1952: Parmenides. In: The Dialogues of Plato. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Chicago; London; Toronto, 486 – 511. Strasser, S., 1999: Waste and Want. A Social History of Trash. Metropolitan Books, New York. Winch, P., 1958: The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy. RKP, London. Winch, P, 1972: Understanding a Primitive Society. In: Ethics and Action. RKP, London, 8-49. Wittgenstein, L, 1953: Philosophical Investigations. Blackwell, Oxford. Åbo Akademi University, Finland

Konvergenztechnologien und die “technische Verbesserung des Menschen” Überlegungen zur philosophischen Anthropologie NICANOR URSÚA “Wir fühlen, dass selbst, wenn alle möglichen wissenschaftlichen Fragen beantwortet sind, unsere Lebensprobleme noch gar nicht berührt sind. Freilich bleibt dann eben keine Frage mehr; und eben dies ist die Antwort”. (Wittgenstein: TLP, 6.52).

1.

Einführung

Was meint man wenn man von “Konvergentechnologien” (“Converging Technologies” (CT) spricht? Das Konzept der “Konvergenztechnologien” beruht auf der Verbindung von Wissenschaft und Technologie und findet seine Anwendung hauptsächlich im EDV-Bereich und in der Haushaltselektronik. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird der Begriff speziell für das Zusammenwirken wissenschaftlich-technologischer Disziplinen verwendet, wobei gemeinsame Probleme durch trans-und interdisziplinäre Zusammenarbeit gelöst werden sollen. In anderen Worten, der Begriff benennt jene Entwicklung neuer Technologien, die sich auf die Verbindung von lebenden und künstlichen Systemen spezialisiert hat. Ziel dieser technologischen Entwicklung ist nicht nur die Verbesserung der kognitiven und interaktiver Fähigkeiten sondern auch die Erhöhung des physischen Gesundheitszustands und des soziale Standards. Im Mittelpunkt dieses neuen Ansatzes stehen interaktive Beziehungen, Synergien und eine Verschmelzung von Forschungsbereichen, wie etwa der Nanowissenschaft und -technologie, der Biotechnologie und der Life Sciences, der Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien, der Kognitions- und Neurowissenschaften sowie der Robotik und der künstlichen Intelligenz. In der Diskussion über die Konvergenztechnologien (CT) geht es auch um die Erforschung der zukünftigen Auswirkungen von Natur- und Ingenieurswissenschaften.

Philosophical Anthropology. Wittgenstein’s Perspective, (Ed. Jesús Padilla Gálvez), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2010, 163-178.

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Ausgangspunkt dieser Diskussion über die CT war die im Jahr 2001 von den Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika veröffentlichte Initiative zur Techologie- und Forschungspolitik.1 Konkret geht es dabei um die “NBICInitiative”2 (d.h. “nano, bio, info, cogno“) und vor allem um die “Verbesserung der menschlichen Leistungsfähigkeit” sowie um das Thema “Human Enhancement”,3 d.h. einer Art “Steigerung des Wohlbefindens und des Fortschritts“ in Bezug auf Körper und Geist.4 Auf dieses Thema werde ich an später noch einmal zurückkommen. Die Europäische Kommission hat in ihrem IV. Rahmenprogramm zum Thema “Bürger und Staat in der Wissensgesellschaft” Forschende angeregt, die möglichen Auswirkungen der neuen Konvergenztechnologien auf die europäische Wissensgesellschaft zu untersuchen. Das von der “High Level Expert Group (HLEG)”5 im Jahr 2004 veröffentlichte Dokument der Europäischen Kommission unterscheidet sich allerdings grundlegend von der amerikanischen Initiative. Letztere konzentrierte ihre Besterbungen in Bezug auf “enhancement” hauptsächlich auf den Einzelnen und plädiert für eine “neuen Einheit der Wissenschaft” gekennzeichnet von einem radikalen Reduktionismus. Gemäss dieser Auffassung lässt sich alles auf einer Nano-Skala darstellen. Das amerikanische Dokument könnte also mit folgenden Worten beschrieben werden: Wenn sich der Kognitionswissenschafter etwas vorstellen kann, so lässt es sich auch auf der Nano-Ebene konstruieren und auf der biologischen Ebene anwenden und auf der Informatikebene überwachen. Die Europäische Forschungsinitiative geht im Gegensatz davon aus, dass Konvergenztechnologien gesellschaftliche Bedürfnisse und Anforderungen erfüllen sollen und basiert auf einem inter- und multidisziplinären Ansatz. 1

Siehe: Roco, Bainbridge, 2003. Die Autoren verwendeten als Erste das Konzept der CT. Grafisch wurde das Konzept als “NBIC Tetraeder dargestellt. 2 Initiative “Nano-, Bio-, Info-, Cogno”. 3 D.h. “technische Verbesserung des Menschen”. 4 Siehe: Fuchs, et allii, 2002; Aguilo, 2005; Andler, et allii, 2008; Fleischer, Quendt, Rader, 2008; Grunwald, 2007a; 2007b, 2007c, 2008. 5 Sachverständigengruppe der Kommission einberufen und finanziert von der Abteilung K2 finanziert: “Society and Technology Foresight”, Direktion K: “Knowledge-based Economy and Society” der Forschungsabteilung der Europäischen Gemeinschaft: “Foresighting the New Technology Wave”: “Converging Technologies – Shaping the Future of European Societies (Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno-Socio-AntropoPhil)”, Siehe: Nordmann, (30. 12. 2008), CTEKS, http://ec.europa.eu/research/ conferences/2004/ntw/pdf/final_ report_ en.pdf. Ebenso: Coenen , Rader, Fleischer, 2004, die den Standpunkt der Europäischen Gruppe erläutern.

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Der Philosophie kommt dabei eine ganz bestimmte Rolle zu indem sie die neue Wissensproduktion analysieren und helfen soll den wissenschaftlichtechnologischen Konvergenzprozess zu erklären. Sie soll darüberhinaus die “epistemischen Kulturen” der an dem Prozess beteiligten Disziplinen vereinen.6 Die Philosophie soll das Bild der neuen Technologien und ihrer sozialen und ethischen Auswirkungen erforschen und zur Klärung des “neuen” Selbstverständnisses des Menschen beitragen. Sobald das menschliche Genom erforscht und wesentliche Fortschritte im Bereich der Neurologie und Kognitionswissenschaften erzielt worden waren, hat die Europäische Union innerhalb des VI. Rahmenprogramms das “Human Mind Project“ (HMP) vorgestellt, ein interdisziplinäres Forschungsprojekt über die menschliche Entwicklung. In der von der Senior Expertengruppe (HLEG) vorgestellten Publikation des Jahres 2005 ging es um folgendes Thema: What it means to be human. Origins and Evolution for Human Higher Cognitive Faculties.7 Laut Bericht sollte sich die Untersuchung auf die folgenden fünf großen Themenbereiche konzentrieren: 1) Genetik der menschlichen Erkenntnis, 2) Entwicklung des Geistes, 3) Denkprozess, 4) Motivation und Entscheidungsfindung, und 5) kultureller Kontext. Aus der Perspektive der Konvergenztechnologien muss man dabei aber auch die Genetik und Neurobiologie, die Kognitionswissenschaft und die Verhaltensforschung bei Menschen und Tieren, die Paläoanthropologie und Geschichte sowie verschiedene Modelle der Philosophie des Geistes in Betracht ziehen. In diesem Zusammenhang sind auch die Projekte “NBIC Converging Technologies” (2005) und “CONTECS - Converging Technologies and their impact on social sciences and humanities” (2008) zu nennen. Sie dienen Reflexionsgrundlage, wobei letzteres Projekt eine “Specific Support Action” darstellt, die innerhalb des VI. Forschungsrahmenprogramms der Europäischen Kommission von Februar 2006 bis April 2008 finanziert und durchgeführt wurde.8 6

Knorr-Cetina, 1999. ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/nest/docs/whatitmeanstobehuman_ b5_ eur21795_ en. pdf. (1. 12. 2008). 8 Folgende Forschungsinstitutionen nahmen an dem genannten Projekt teil: das Institut für Technikfolgenabschätzung und Systemanalyse des Forschungszentrums Karlsruhe (ITAS), als Projektkoordinator das Fraunhofer-Institut für System-und Innovationsforschung (FhG-ISI Karlsruhe), die Saï d Business School (Oxford) und die É cole Normale Supé rieure (Paris). Siehe: Andler, et allii, 2008; Fleischer, Quendt, Rader, 2008, 74-77. 7

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Relevanz der Konvergenztechnologien

Die aufmerksame Lektüre von Dokumenten wie etwa der National Science Foundation,9 der CTEKS und von Projekten wie CONTECS sowie vielen anderen Publikationen in diesem Bereich bringen uns dazu Zukunftsvisionen kritisch zu hinterfragen. Diese Dokumente nehmen auf soziale, ethische, ontologische und anthropologische Themen Bezug und führen uns vor Augen wie die Konvergenztechnologien neue Wege und Dimensionen zur Verbesserung des menschlichen Zusammenlebens eröffnen können. Konkret geht es dabei um technische Verbesserungen und die Umgestaltung von Körper und Geist. Das könnte uns zu der irrtümlichen Annahme verleiten, dass wir die natürlichen Elemente des Lebens einer neuen Akkulturation unterziehen müssten. Das ”naturalistische Argument“, wonach die Evolution den Menschen physiologisch geformt hat, gilt allerdings so nicht mehr. Gleichzeitig könnte die Verwendung von Konvergenztechnologien und die durch sie ausgelösen Zukunftsvisionen einerseits zu einer Auflösung von Werten, Gewissheiten und sogar der Selbsterkenntnis führen. Anderseits könnte sie aber auch eine Erhöhung der Kontingenz der conditio humana mit sich bringen. Die neue Orientierung an der Kontingenz eröffent uns neue Wahlmöglichkeiten und vermindert unsere Abhängigkeit von Natur und Traditionen. Anderseits sind wir durch das Infragestellen von herkömmlichen Gewissheiten mit neuen Unsicherheiten und mehrdeutigen Situationen konfrontiert.10 Laufen wir auf diese Weise Gefahr uns in wissenschaftlichtechnologischer Hinsicht entscheidend festzulegen oder wird es weiterhin Freiräume bezüglich sozialer und ethischer Gesichtspunkte geben? Werden wir alle menschlichen Probleme wissenschaftlich-technologisch lösen können? Sind wir mit einer passiven Technologisierung (cyborgs, Symbiose von Mensch und Maschine) des Menschen konfrontiert und befinden wir uns in einem post-humanistischen Prozess? Was genau bedeutet “human enhancement” in diesem Zusammenhang?

9

Roco, Bainbridge, 2003. Grunwald, 2007a, 3-7; 2007b, 381-383; 2007c, 949-953.

10

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3.

CT und die “Verbesserung” der menschlichen Fähigkeiten

Das Thema des “human enhancement” und der technischen Verbesserung des Menschen ist nicht neu.11 Sie stellte und stellt sich uns in Fragen wie: wie viele Menschen sind mit Ihrem Körper zufrieden und glücklich? Wollen wir nicht oft anders sein? Würden wir nicht gerne allwissend oder gar allmächtig sein? Würden wir nicht gerne Alter und Tod überwinden? Es scheint als ob wir einer gewissen “normative Unzufriedenheit” unterliegen, die durch gewisse körperliche und psychopathologische Merkmale charakterisiert ist.12 Individueller Unzufriedenheit aufgrund eines körperlichen Makels kann mit plastischer Chirurgie und Kosmetik begegnet werden. Diese Behandlungsformen nehmen eine zunehmend hohe wirtschaftliche Bedeutung ein und erfahren immer mehr soziale Akzeptanz. In diesem Zusammenhang muss aber darauf hingewiesen werden, dass die Beurteilung des äussere Erscheinungsbilds subjektiv ist da es sich immer erst im Vergleich mit Anderen entfaltet. Dabei muss man zwischen jenen Personen unterscheiden, die einen kleineren chirurgischen Eingriff durchführen lassen und anderen, die etwa unter Dysmorphophobie leiden und eine psychiatrische Behandlung benötigen. Von einem sozialethischen Standpunkt aus gesehen müsste man dabei untersuchen ob sich eine Person einer chirurgisch-kosmetischen Behandlung freiwillig und aus eigener Entscheidung unterzieht oder ob sie das tut weil sie sich kritiklos den vorherrschenden konsumorientierten Normen unterordnet. Es entsteht fast der Anschein als ob das Leben und das Alter in der Weise kontrollierbar wären als sie kontinuierlich verbessert werden können. Ein jugendliches Erscheinungsbild wird in unserer Gesellschaft positiv angesehen währenddessen die inneren Prozesse unbeachtet bleiben. Damit der Patient dabei nicht Gefahr läuft vom Arzt einvernahmt zu werden muss man das Arzt-Patient Verhältnis analysieren, das entweder paternalistisch, interpretativ, informativ oder beratend sein kann. Letzteres schliesst immer die ärztliche Berücksichtigung der Werte des Patienten in Bezug auf Gesundheit und Wohlbefinden mit ein. Da die Schönheitschirurgie grundsäzlich jenseits des traditionellen ärztlichen Gesundheitsauftrags angesiedelt so kann argumentiert werden, dass wird sie weniger zum ärztlichen Behandungsspektrum gezählt als eher zum Breich der 11

So versuchten beispielsweise schon unsere biblischen Vorfahren Adam und Eva Götter zu werden. 12 Fuchs, Michael, et allii., 2002, 73.

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Schönheitsbehandlung. Während sich ärztliche Behandlungsmethoden an physikalisch objektiv messbaren Tasachen orientieren, hilft die kosmetische Chirurgie subjektive Wünsche zu erfüllen.13 Viele Menschen versuchen heutzutage ihre körperliche Leistungsfähigkeit durch ständiges Training zu verbessern. So zählen beispielsweise im Sport das Intensivtraining oder der Einsatz von technischen Hilfsmitteln zu den Methoden der Leistungssteigerung. Ein altbekanntes Motto des Sports war schon von jeher: “Citius, altius, fortius”, also schneller, höher, stärker. Das Internationale Olympische Komittee definiert in diesem Zusammenhang Doping folgenderweise: die Verwendung eines Stoffes oder einer Methode, der oder die möglicherweise gefährlich für die Gesundheit des Sportlers ist oder dazu geeignet ist, die Leistung eines Athleten durch eine verboten Substanz zu erhöhen. Demgemäss wird die Verwendung von Dopingmitteln (Stimulanzien, Narkotika, Anabolika, Diuretika, Peptid-Hormone, Wachstumshormone, Gendoping, etc..) als Eingriff in die sportliche Leistung angesehen daher sanktioniert. Den Rahmen der Diskussion über Doping bestimmen “Fair Play”, Chancengleichheit und Authentizität.14 Im Jahr 2002 wiesen Forscher auf die Bedeutung von human enhancement für viele Bereiche hin, wie etwa den Bereich der plastischen und kosmetischen Chirurgie, den Sport, die Gentechnologie, die Hormonbehandlung in der Pädiatrie und die Psychopharmaka. Historisch gesehen haben Menschen immer wiederf ihre moralischen und zivilisatorischen Fehler beklagt. Seit der Aufklärung hat man versucht Fehler mit Mitteln der Bildung und Kultur zu minimieren um dadaurch die gesellschaftlichen Lebensbedingungen zu optimieren. Inzwischen ist man jedoch dazu übergegangen Verbesserungen durch die konvergente Anwendung folgender Technologien zu erreichen: Nano- und Biotechnologie, Gen- und Neurotechnologie, Gehirnforschung, Kognitionswissenschaft sowie Kommunikations- und Informationstechnologien. Wenn wir den Ausführungen von M. Roco und W. Bainbridge über die “technische Verbesserung”15 der menschlichen Fähigkeiten Glauben schenken sollen, so müssten wir uns an unserern eigenen technischquantitativen Möglichkeiten orientieren. Diese beruhen auf der 13

Siehe: Fuchs, et allii, 2002, 71-85. Siehe: Fuchs, et allii, 2002, 85-106. 15 Roco, Bainbridge, 2003. 14

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Erweiterung der sensorischen Qualifikationen, wie zum Beispiel einem verbesserten Hör- und Sehvermögen, einer erhöhten Gedächtnisleistung durch Neuro-Implantate, und einer Verzögerung des Alterungsprozesses. Dies alles trägt zu einer Steigerung der Kontingenz der conditio humana.16 Im Rahmen des von Experten aus verschiedenen wissenschaftlichtechnologischen Bereichen durchgeführte Projekts CONTECS (2008)17 wurden die folgenden acht Teilbereiche der Konvergenztechnologien herausgearbeitet: 1) Neurowissenschaften und Verbesserung der Gehirnleistung, 2) Biomedizin und körperliche Leistungsfähigkeit, 3) synthetische Biologie, 4) Schnittstelle Mensch und Maschine, 5) die verschiedenen Sensoren, 6) Modelle der Wiedererkennung, 7) Modelle der Computerisierung der Welt, und 8) Roboter sowie intelligente Software. 4.

Ethisch-soziale Enhancement

Fragen

der

Technologien

des

Human

Eine der grundlegenden Fragen in Bezug auf human enhancement ist die nach dessen Zielen und Absichten. Die Frage ist eng verbunden mit sozialen, politisch-ideologischen und anthropologischen Konzepten. Diskussionen darüber konzentrieren sich auf das Thema der Werte und die wissenschaftlich-technologische Machbarkeit und sie beeinflussen unsere Vorstellungen von Gesundheit, Normalität, Therapie, Perfektion, etc. Die Bandbreite der Projekte der human enhancement-Technologien reichen beispielsweise von der Einflussnahme auf den Stoffwechsel von Soldaten über die der Entwicklung anspruchsvoller Verbindungsmechanismen zwischen Mensch und Maschine, bis hin zur Visionen über eine post-humanistische Zukunft. Einige post-humanistische Visionäre schlagen sogar eine Ersetzung des Menschen durch intelligente Maschinen vor. Andere denken etwa an eine Hybridisierung von Mensch und Maschine. Solche transhumanistischen Ansätze basieren auf der Annahme einer neuen technischen Zivilisation.18 Eine Expertengruppe, die in Brüssel im September 200819 zu diesem Thema Untersuchungen anstellte hatte zum Ergebnis, dass man innerhalb des human enhancement zwei Richtungen unterscheiden muss. In der 16

Grunwald, 2007a, 4-5; 2007b, 382-383; 2007c, 950-951. CONTECS, 2008, 10. 18 Coenen, 2006, 195-222. 19 Coenen, 2008, 144 f. 17

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ersten geht es um die Verbesserung der Arten und ihrer eugenetischen Kennzeichen. Diese Richtung wurde aber aufgrund historischer, pragmatischer und metaphysischer Einwände abgelehnt. Eine zweite Richtung befasst sich mit der Verbesserung von Individuen.20 Bei diesem Treffen wurde eine für Europa angemessene Vision herausgearbeitet, die Verbesserungen sowohl auf individueller Ebene (Wohlstand) als auch auf der sozialen Ebene d.h. als soziale Kohäsion mit einschliesst. Christopher Coenen bevorzugt in diesem Zusammenhang eher den Begriff der Optimierung des Menschen als das Konzept des human enhancement.21 Forscher gaben nämlich zu bedenken, dass dem human enhancement ein unkritischer Wissenschaftsglaube zugrunde liege und von daher Zukunftsalternativen zur Lösung von gesellschaftlichen Problemen im Diskurs um human enhancement gänzlich ausgeklammert seien. Die technokratischen Eliten müssten daher über Alternativen nachdenken, wie die wissenschaftlich-technologische Entwicklungen eng mit sozialen Problemen verknüft gedacht werden können. Dazu müsste die soziale Dimension in der Diskussion um human enhancement einbezogen werden damit der gesellschaftliche Zusammenhalt im Sinne von Verteilungsgerechtigkeit gewahrt bleibt. Es besteht nämlich grundsätzlich eine Kluft zwischen der Verfügbarkeit der Konvergenztechnologien und deren Anwendung. Deren konkrete Anwendung und die sich daraus ergebenden Konsequenzen sind dabei bislang noch weitgehend unbekannt und gelten als nur schwer vorhersehbar.22 So befasst sich beispielsweise die Studie von D. Andler, et allii mit dem Problem der Ethik und der Abschätzung von Technikfolgen und konzentriert sich auf allgemeine Fragen zur Technikentwicklung. Es geht dabei konkret um die Frage nach Chancen und Risiken23 der Techniken des

20

Über die Diskussion zum Thema Humangenetik und deren Entwicklungen in Richtung einer neuen Eugenik siehe: Irrgang, 2002; Romeo-Casabona, 2004, 325, der feststellt, dass genetische Eingriffe zum Zwecke der biologischen Auswahl dauerhaft und irreversibel seien und zum Bereich der Eugenik gezählt werden können wenn sie im Bereich der menschlichen Fortpflanzung eingesetzt werden. Siehe auch: Habermas, 2009. 21 Coenen, 2008a. 22 Andler, et allii, 2008, 22-26; Fleischer, Quendt, Rader, 2008, 76-77. 23 In diesem Zusammenhang spricht man von Risikobewertung, Risikomanagement, Risikokommunikation und Risiko-Charakterisierung.

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human enhancement, wobei dem Prinzip der Rücksichtnahme, wie sie von der Europäischen Union definiert wurde, besondere Beduetung zukommt. A. Grunwald schlägt in diesem Zusammenhang vor, eine Diskussion über Zukunftsperspektiven darüber zu etablieren, wie die Kontingenz der conditio humana erhöht werden könne.24 Eine Diskussion darüber hätte folgende Ziele: 1) die Kontingenz zu erhöhen (mediale und katalysierende Funktion), 2) die wachsende Kontingenz zu bestimmen (hinweisende Funktion), und 3) die Folgen zu überwachen (orientierende Funktion). Für einen konstruktiven Gebrauch der Orientierung innerhalb der Zukunftsdiskussion ist es jedoch unerlässlich den Begriff der Evaluierung einzuführen.25 Eine solche Evaluierung muss aus der Perspektive verschiedener Standpunkte überdacht werden, wie zum Beispiel aus der Perspekte der Philosophie, der Philosophie der Technik, der Wissenschaftstheorie, der empirischen Wissenschaften und der Kommunikation. Die Analyse einer Zukunftsvision, die ihren Komunikationsgehalt und ihre kognitiven und evaluativen Konsequenzen einbezieht, ermöglicht am ehesten eine rationale und transparente Diskussion. Die Evaluierungsschritte einer solchen Zukunftsvision wären: 1) eine epistemologische Analyse, 2) die Kategorisierung und Beurteilung der kognitiven Aspekte zur Überprüfung der Realisierbarkeit, und 3) Verwaltung der Zukunfsvision als Grundlage von rationalen Handlungen und Entscheidungen. Obwohl eine Abgrenzung zwischen sozialen und ethischen Themen nihct immer einfach ist, so drängen sich in Zusammenhang mit dem human enhancement doch die folgenden Fragen auf:26 Was bedeutet es heutzutage Mensch zu sein? Wie kann die Menschenwürde gewährleistet bleiben? Was verstehen wir unter der Natur des Menschen? Kann und sollte man die “Natürlichkeit” des Menschen durch technische Verbesserungen gefährden bzw aufs Spiel setzen? Was ist persönliche Identität? Was bedeuten Selbstbestimmung und freier Wille? Inwieweit birgt eine Erhöhung der mentalen Leistungsfähigkeit, der Arbeitsethik, der persönlichen Ziele sowie der Selbstverwirklichung die Gefahr der “Selbsttäuschung” in sich? Wie soll man auf Zwänge oder Druck im sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Bereich reagieren? Wie unterscheidet man die natürliche von der künstlichen Darstellung, wie differenziert man zwischen zeitlich 24

Grunwald, 2007a, 7-13; 2007b, 383-391; 2007c, 953-955. Siehe auch Coenen, 2004. 26 Siehe: Romeo-Casabona, 2004, 315-328. 25

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begrenzten und dauerhaften Veränderungen? Und wer hat Zugang zur Verteilungsgerechtigkeit? Wird es zu einer gesellschaftlichen Spaltung kommen zwischen denen die Zugang haben und anderen, denen dieser Zugang verwehrt bleibt? Welche Auswirkungen hat das Alles für unsere Vorstellungen von Gesellschaft und der Menschheit der Zukunft? Soll es Grenzen der technischen Verbesserung des Menschen geben? Und wenn ja, an welchen Kriterien sollen sich diese Grenzen orientieren? Wie weit kann und soll man bei der Gestaltung von Körper und Geist gehen? Birgt die technische Verbesserung Risiken für den Menschen in sich? Welche Haltung sollen wir zur technischen Verbesserungen einnehmen? Genügt allein die Zustimmung? Kann man diesbezüglich irgendwelche Normen festsetzen? Wie soll man mit Norm- und Wertkonflikten umgehen? Sollte man in diesem Zusammenhang auch andere Kulturen in Betracht ziehen? Sollte man alle Akteure in die Debatte miteinbeziehen? Sollen öffentliche Mittel für die technischen Verbesserungen bereitgestellt werden? Inwieweit sind wir für die Gestaltung von Körper und Geist persönlich verantwortlich? Kann die Philosophie eine Orientierungshilfe für all diese Fragen sein?27 5.

Naturalismus und das deterministische Modell vom Menschen

Das “Naturalisieren” eines Bereiches oder einer Domäne bedeutet kurz gesagt, dass dieser Bereich als zur Natur gehörig angesehen wird und daher mit Mitteln und Methoden der Naturwissenschaften behandelt und erklärt werden soll. In diesem Sinne basieren Konvergenztechnologien auf einer naturalistischen Auffassung. Menschen und ihre kognitiven Strukturen sind Bestandteil der Natur, die mit anderen Entitäten in ständiger Wechselbeziehung stehen. Die naturwissenschaftlichen und technologischen Untersuchungen helfen dabei den Menschen als solches zu erklären und zu verbessern und Konvergenztechnologien stellen ihre Werkzeuge dafür zur Verfühung. Die moderne Debatte über den Naturalismus stellt eine Kontroverse dar zwischen der Interpretation der aus naturwissenschaftlichen Untersuchungen gewonnenen Ergebnisse und deren Konsequenzen für die soziale Ordnung. Zwei Beispiele sollen das Gesagte verdeutlichen. Das erste Beispiel betrifft das menschlichen Genom-Projekt und die dadurch gewonnenen Erkenntnisse über das menschliche Gehirn. Konkret geht es 27

Siehe: Grunwald, 2007a, 5-6; 2007b, 383; 2007c, 950, 952; 2008.

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um die technische Verbesserung des Menschen, die - wie bereits erwähnt neue Möglichkeiten der Konfiguration und Rekonstruktion von Körper und Geist ermöglichen, immer unter der Zustimmung der betroffenen Person. Der philosophische Naturalismus steht im Gegensatz zu einer eher allgemeinen Philosophie (die durch eine Ablehnung von externen Kategorien gekennzeichnet ist) lehnt den Reduktionismus ab und lässt sich grob als eine Konzeption mit vier Forderungen darstellen: 1) ein einheitliches Bild von der Welt, 2) dem Menschen wird eine eigene aber eingeschränkte Rolle innerhalb des Kosmos zugestanden, 3) die menschlichen Fähigkeiten sind im Rahemn dieses Kosmos erklärbar, 4) auf dieser Grundlage entwickelt sich eine naturalistische Anthropologie, eine naturalistische Wissensauffassung, eine naturalistische Forschungsmethodologie, naturalistisch geprägte Ethik und sogar eine naturalistische Ästhetik. Gemäss dieser philosophischen Auffassung ist unser Universum ein kausalistisch geschlossenes System und daher können alle internen und epistemiologischen Probleme auch nur mit systeminternen Mitteln gelöst werden.28 J. Gayon29 legt das biologische Fundament des naturalistischen Projekts und seiner Bedeutung für kulturelle Phänomene dar. Er vertritt die These von der Ko-Evolution, wie auch B. Kanitscheider, einer Verbindung von Kultur und Biologie (Gen-Kultur),30 bei dem beide Bereiche aufeinander abgestimmt sind. Dabei untersteht der autonome Charakter der Kultur ebenso einem evolutionären Prozess, was einer Konvergenz zwischen biologischen und kulturellen Modellen entspricht. Eine solche naturalisierte Philosophie steht dem Naturalismus nicht entgegen sondern folgt einem naturwissenschaftlich methodischen, ontologischen und erkenntnistheoretischen Monismus. Die Haltung macht die Philosophie allerdings noch nicht zur Naturwissenschaft. Die zunehmende Formalisierung der Philosophie und der Sozialwissenschaften im Allgemeinen zeigt einen stetig wachsenden und nachweisbaren Effekt. Die Forderung nach Formalisierung und Quantifizierung steigt in dem Ausmaß als immer komplexere Phänomene einer Erklärung bedürfen. Dabei bedient sich die Philosophie einer Reihe von anderen Wissenschaften, wie der empirischen Kognitions- und Neurowissenschaft, der Evolutionsbiologie oder der evolutionären 28

Siehe: Vollmer, 2003, 362; Kanitscheider, 1994, 184-199. Gayon, 2003, 243-275. 30 Kanitscheider, 1991, 374. 29

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Erkenntnistheorie, etc.31 In der Folge werden die aus den Naturwissenschaften gewonnenen Resultate auch auf die Geisteswissenschaften übertragen. Dabei kann ein Vorbehalt gegen den ontologische Reduktionismus entstehen. Die sogenannte Bio-neurocogno-Forschung geht nämlich von einem Menschen als blosse biologische Schöpfung aus, die einem evolutionären, kausalen, physiologischen und mechanischen Prozess unterworfen ist und dabei seine wesentlichen Attribute verliert. Das würde für den Menschen aber unter anderem auch den Verlust von Freiheit und Autonomie (freier Wille) bedeuten. Da die Konvergenztechnologien nicht als eine eigene Wissenschaft angesehen werden kann, so ist sie von einem materiellen oder natürlichen Determinismus abhängig. Da sie aber mit Menschen operieren erzwingen sie auch gleichzeiig einen neuen Determinismus. Diese Einstellung ist für viele Humanwisseschafter inakzepatebel und wird daher abgelehnt. Eine grundlegende Frage zum Thema Naturalisierung könnte daher lauten: Wann erscheint die Naturalisierung akzeptabel? Die Forscher des Projekts CONTECS,32 unterstreichen die folgende Hypothese: Die Naturalisierung ist dann akzeptabel, wenn das Objekt der Naturalisierung untergeordnete kognitive Fähigkeiten besitzt. Die Naturalisierung ist außerdem durch Form und Inhalt beschränkt. Innere menschliche Prozesse, wie etwa was eine Person in einer Gelegenheit sagt, glaubt oder beabsichtigt ist nicht Gegenstand der Naturalisierung. Wenn diese Grenze gewahrt bleibt so stehen Freiheit und Verantwortung jenseits der Naturwissneschaften und somit jenseits der technologischen Einflußnahme. Sollte diese Hypothese nicht stimmen, so müssten wir den Grund für den Widerstand gegen die Naturalisierung untersuchen. Das Argument, dass die Naturalisierung des Menschen seine Natürlichkeit durch die technischen Verbesserungen in Gefahr bringen würde, wäre allerdings nicht sehr überzeugend, denn die Naturalisierung oder menschliche Akkulturation ist eng an die Deutung der conditio humana gebunden. Ein weiteres Argument, nachdem wir biologisch-evolutionär erworbenen Fähigkeiten deswegen nicht technisch verbessern sollten, da sie evolutionsbedingt durch Anpassung entstanden sind, könnte man als naturalistischen Fehlschluss ansehen.33 Gemäss A. Grunwald lässt sich aus 31

Ursua, 1993. CONTECS, 2008, 33. 33 Grunwald, 2007a, 6. 32

Konvergenztechnologien und die “technische Verbesserung des Menschen” 175

den genannten Argumenten keine Normativität ableiten. Würde man das tun, so würde man damit die Menschen auf einen Museumsgegenstand reduzieren und seinen kulturelle Dimension negieren. Aus den genannten Argumenten kann man auch nicht ableiten, dass die technische Verbesserung unbegrenzt erlaubt sei oder gar ein technologischer Imperativ folgen würde. Man benätigt im Gegenteil vielmehr Orientierungskriterien um darauf aufbauend zu verantwortungsvollen und rationalen Entscheidungen zu kommen. Die wesentlichen Fragen sind: Verbessern wofür und zu welchem Zweck? Um zu Entscheidungen zu gelangen müsste man Konsequenzen und Risiken gegeneinander abwägen und den ethisch-sozialen Hintergrund miteinbeziehen. Was das Konzept des human enhancement betrifft34, so sollte man vor allem über folgende Aspekte reflektieren: 1) die Rolle der Medizin für die Erhaltung und Wiederherstellung der Gesundheit sowie für die Anwendung von wissenschaftlich-technologischen Kenntnissen, 2) die Nutzung der begrenzten medizinischen Ressourcen und die Erforschung der Bedeutung von Gesundheit für das Wohlergehen, 3) die ethisch-soziale Legitimation der technischen Verbesserung des Menschen und deren Verteilungsgerechtigkeit in Bezug auf Menschen und Regionen, 4) die Chancengleichheit, 5) das anzustrebende Gesellschaftsmodell, und 6) welche Art von Mensch wir anstreben, welche Würde wir erhalten wollen und mit welchem normativen Konzept wir opereieren wollen. Fragen nach der Selbstbewertung und dem Selbstentwurf erscheinen im Zusammenhang mit den neuen Technologien und ihrer Anwendung auf den Mnecshen unumgänglich. Wir stehen daher vor der Aufgabe, eine Philosophie sowie eine evaluative Anthropologie zu entwerfen um, die uns eine Bewertung der Natur und ein Verständnis des Mensch ermöglicht. Dies erlaubt uns das dadurch gewonnene Selbstverständnis und eine soziale Oreintierung in die Agenda der Forschungspolitik aufzunehmen. (Übersetzt von Margit Gaffal)

Bibliographie Aguiló, Jordi (Hg.), 2005: Tecnologías Convergentes NBIC. Situación y Perspectiva 2005. CSIC. Barcelona. (http://nbic.org.es; http://nbic.org.es/institute/downloads-eu/NBIC-2005.pdf. 30. 12. 2008). 34

Siehe: Fuchs, et allii. 2002, 16-17, 24-25, 44-45.

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Andler, Daniel; Barthelmé , Simon; Beckert, Bernd; Blümel, Clemens; Coenen, Christopher; Fleischer, Torsten; Friedewald, Michael; Quendt, Christiane; Rader, Michael; Simakova, Elena; Woolgar Steve, 2008: Converging Technologies and their Impact on the Social Siences and Humanities (CONTECTS). An Analysis of Critical Issues and Suggestion for the Future Research Agenda. Final Report. May. (http://www.contecs.fraunhofer.de/images/files/contecs_ report_ comp lete.pdf 31.12. 2008). Coenen, Christopher, 2004: “Nanofuturismus: Anmerkungen zu seiner Relevanz, Analyse und Bewertung”, Technikfolgenabschätzung Theorie und Praxis, 13:2, 78-85. Coenen, Christopher; Rader, Michael; Fleischer, Torsten, 2004: “Of Visions, Dreams and Nightmares: The Debate on Converging Technologies”, Technikfolgenabschätzung - Theorie und Praxis, 13:3, 118-125. Coenen, Christopher, 2006: “Der posthumanistiche Technofuturismus in den Debatten über Nanotechnologie und Converging Technologies”, in: Nordmann, A.; Schummer, J.; Schwarz, A. (Ed.): Nanotechnologien im Kontext: Philosophische, ethische und gesellsachaftliche Perspektiven. Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, Berlin, 195-222. Coenen, Christopher, 2008: “Expert Meeting “Human Enhancement”. Shifting Boundaries, Changing Concepts: The Challenges of Human Enhancement to Social, (Dis-)Ability, Medical and Ethical Frameworks”, In: Technikfolgenabschätzung - Theorie und Praxis, 17:3, 144-145. Coenen, Christopher, 2008a: “Die Vollstreckung des Prinzips der Technizität – Anmerkungen zu aktuellen Visionen wissenschaftlichtechnischer Konvergenzprozesse”. In: Topoi der Rationalität. Technizität, Medialität, Kulturalität. Universität Potsdam. Potsdam. European Union. Report of a NEST (New and Emerging Science and Technology) High-Level Expert Group (2005, VI Programa Marco): What it means to be human. Origins and Evolution for Human Higher Cognitive Faculties. (ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/nest/docs/ whatitmeanstobehuman_ b5_ eur21795_ en.pdf). (1. 12. 2008).

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Fleischer, Torsten; Quendt, Christiane; Rader, Michael, 2008: “Converging Technologies und die Sozial- und Geisteswissenschaften. Ergebnisse und Erfahrungen aus einem EU-Projekt”, In: Technikfolgenabschätzung - Theorie und Praxis, 17:2, 74-77. Fuchs, Michael; Lanzerath, Dirk; Hillebrand, Ingo; Runkel, Thomas; Balcerak, Magdalena; Schmitz, Barbara, 2002: Enhancement. Die ethische Diskussion über biomedizinische Verbesserung des Menschen. Deutsches Referenzzentrum für Ethik in den Biowissenschaften. DRZE-Sachstandsbericht 1. Bonn. Gayon, Jean, 2003: “Naturalisation de la culture, naturalisation de la philosophie: Enjeux et limites”, In : Buschslinger, W./L. Christoph (2003): Kaltblütig. Philosophie von einem rationalen Standpunkt. Festschrift für Gerhard Vollmer zum 60. Geburstag. S. Hirzel Verlag. Stuttgart/Leipzig, 243-275. Grunwald, Armin, 2007a: “Converging Technologies for human enhancement – a new wave increasing the contingency of the conditio humana”, In: http://www.itas.fzk.de/deu/lit/epp/2007/ grun07-pre04.pdf (19.12.2008). Grunwald, Armin, 2007b: “Converging Technologies: Visions, increased contingencies of the conditio humana, and search for orientation”, Futures, 39, 380-392. Grunwald, Armin, 2007c: “Orientierungsbedarf, Zukunftswissen und Naturalismus. Das Beispiel der “technischen Verbesserung” des Menschen”, Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 55, 949-965. Grunwald, Armin, 2008: Auf dem Weg in eine nanotechnologische Zukunft. Philosophisch-ethische Fragen. Karl Alber. Freiburg. Habermas, J., 2009: El futuro de la naturaleza humana. ¿Hacia una eugenesia liberal? Paidós. Barcelona. HLEG, 2004: Converging Technologies. Shaping the Future of European Societies. A Report from the High Level Expert Group on “Foresighting the New Technology Wave”. Rapporteur Alfred Nordmann. Brusels. (http://ec.europa.eu/research/conferences/2004/ntw /pdf/final_ report_ en.pdf , 30.12. 2008). Irrgang, Bernhard, 2002: Humangenetik uf dem Weg in eine neue Eugenik von untem? Wahrlich Druck. Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler.

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Kanitscheider, Bernulf, 1991: “Biología evolutiva, é tica y destino del hombre”, Folia Humanística. XXIX, Nr. 322, 355-381. Kanitscheider, Bernulf, 1994: “Naturalismus und wissenchaftliche Weltorientierung”, Logos. Neue Folge. 1:2, 184-199. Knorr-Cetina, Karin (1999): Epistemic Cultures. How the Sciences make Knowledge. Harvard University Press. Cambridge Mass. Roco, Mihail C.; Bainbridge, William S. (eds.), 2003: Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance: Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology and Cognitive Science. Dordrecht, Boston, London: Kluwer Academic Press. NSF/DOCsponsored report, Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation, June, Online: http://www.wtec.org/ConvergingTechnologies/ (19.12. 2008). Romeo-Casabona, Carlos, 2004: “Legal perspectives in novel psyquiatric treatments and related research”, Poiesis Prax. 2, 315-328. Ursúa, Nicanor, 1993: Cerebro y conocimiento. Un enfoque evolucionista. Anthropos. Barcelona. Vollmer, Gerhard, 2003: “¿ Cómo es que podemos conocer el mundo? Nuevos argumentos sobre la teoría evolucionista del conocimiento”, Diálogo Filosófico, 57, 356-377. Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea

Abbreviations L. Wittgenstein AWL BF BGM BPP BT BB CV LCA

: : : : : : : :

LE LFM LO LRKM LWPP LWL MSS MWL NB NL OC PB PG PI PO PR PU PT

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

Ambrose, A., Wittgenstein’s Lectures. Cambridge, 1932-1935 Bemerkungen über die Farben Bemerkungen über die Grundlagen der Mathematik Bemerkungen über die Philosophie der Psychologie The Big Typescript The Blue and Brown Books Culture and Value Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief Lectures on Ethics Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics Letters to Ogden Letters to Russell, Keynes and Moore Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology Lee, D., Wittgenstein’s Lectures. Cambridge, 1930-1932 Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. The Bergen Electronic Edition Moore, G. E., Wittgenstein’s Lectures in 1930-33 Notebooks 1914 – 1916 Notes for Lectures on Private Experience and Sensedata On Certainty Philosophische Bemerkungen Philosophische Grammatik / Philosophical Grammar Philosophical Investigations Philosophical Occasions 1912 – 1951 Philosophical Remarks Philosophische Untersuchungen Prototractatus

Philosophical Anthropology. Wittgenstein’s Perspective, (Ed. Jesús Padilla Gálvez), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2010, 179-180.

180

RC RFM RPP RLF TB TLP TSS ÜG VB VW WL WN WWK Z

Philosophical Anthropology. Wittgenstein’s Perspective

: : : : : : : : : : : : : :

Remarks on Color Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology Some Remarks on Logical Form Tagebücher 1914 – 1916 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. The Bergen Electronic Edition Über Gewißheit Vermischte Bemerkungen / Culture and Value The Voices of Wittgenstein. The Vienna Circle Wittgenstein’s Lectures Wittgenstein’s Nachlass Wittgenstein und der Wiener Kreis Zettel

I. Kant KrV KpV KU

: Kritik der reinen Vernunft : Kritik der praktischen Vernunft : Kritik der Urteilskraft

D. Hume THN

: Treatise of Human Nature