At several points in his later writings Wittgenstein discusses imaginary forms of life and ways of thinking that appear queer or alien from our point of view; concepts so different from ours that those who think from within them seem to be alternatives to us. In this paper I argue that reflection on the notions of difference and possibility in play here shows that imaginary cases of alien conceptual schemes or forms of life such as those considered by Wittgenstein are (...) not all cases of concepts that are entirely unintelligible for us; rather they may represent possible, albeit distant, ways of thinking for us. Such cases serve to aid imaginative reflection on our own case(s). By making us appreciate the possibility of the strange, they help us better to appreciate the arbitrariness of the familiar. I end the paper by considering what the implications of this reading of Wittgenstein’s position might be for Donald Davidson’s rejection of conceptual relativism. (shrink)

Far from being indiscriminately critical of the ideas he associated with the morality system, Bernard Williams offered vindicatory explanations of its crucial building blocks, such as the moral/non-moral distinction, the idea of obligation, the voluntary/involuntary distinction, and the practice of blame. The rationale for these concessive moves, I argue, is that understanding what these ideas do for us when they are not in the service of the system is just as important to leading us out of the system as the (...) critique of that system. I then show how regarding the aspiration to shelter life from luck as the system’s organizing ambition explains why the system elaborates and combines these building blocks in the way it does. Finally, I argue that the ultimate problem with the resulting construction is its frictionless purity. It robs valuable concepts of their grip on the world we live in, and, by insisting on purity from contingency, threatens to issue in nihilism about value and scepticism about agency. (shrink)

This article compares situated cognition to contemporary Neo-Aristotelian approaches to the mind. The article distinguishes two components in this paradigm: an Aristotelian essentialism which is alien to situated cognition and a Wittgensteinian “capacity approach” to the mind which is not just congenial to it but provides important conceptual and argumentative resources in defending social cognition against orthodox cognitive science. It focuses on a central tenet of that orthodoxy. According to what I call “encephalocentrism,” cognition is primarily or even exclusively a (...) computational process occurring inside the brain. Neo-Aristotelians accuse this claim of committing a “homuncular” or “mereological fallacy”. The article explains why the label “fallacy” is misleading, reconstructs the argument to the effect that encephalocentric applications of psychological predicates to the brain and its parts amount to a category mistake, and defends this argument against objections by Dennett, Searle, and Figdor. At the same time it criticizes the Neo-Aristotelian denial that the brain is the organ of cognition. It ends by suggesting ways in which the capacity approach and situated cognition might be combined to provide a realistic and ecologically sound picture of cognition as a suite of powers that flesh-and-blood animals exercise within their physical and social environments. (shrink)

Ben-Yami presents Wittgenstein’s explicit criticism of the Platonic identification of an explanation with a definition and the alternative forms of explanation he employed. He then discusses a few predecessors of Wittgenstein’s criticisms and the Fregean background against which he wrote. Next, the idea of family resemblance is introduced, and objections answered. Wittgenstein’s endorsement of vagueness and the indeterminacy of sense are presented, as well as the open texture of concepts. Common misunderstandings are addressed along the way. Wittgenstein’s ideas, as is (...) then shown, have far-reaching implications for knowledge of meaning and the nature of logic, and with them to the nature of the philosophical project and its possible achievements. (shrink)

My topic is the relation between nonsense and intelligibility, and the contrast between nonsense and falsehood which played a pivotal role in the rise of analytic philosophy . I shall pursue three lines of inquiry. First I shall briefly consider the positive case, namely linguistic understanding . Secondly, I shall consider the negative case—different breakdowns of understanding and connected forms of failure to make sense . Third, I shall criticize three important misconceptions of nonsense and unintelligibility: the austere conception of (...) nonsense propounded by the New Wittgensteinians ; the “no nonsense position” which roundly denies that there are cases of nonsense—Chomsky’s semantic anomalies or Ryle’s category mistakes–that are grammatically well-formed, without even having the potential for being used to make a truth-apt statement ; the individualistic conception of language and of semantic mistakes championed by Davidson . All three positions, I shall argue, ignore or deny combinatorial nonsense, the fact that perfectly meaningful sentence-components can be combined in a way that may be grammatical, yet without resulting in a sentence that is itself “meaningful”, i.e. endowed with linguistic sense. At a more strategic level, the first and the third position deny or ignore that natural languages are communal historical practices that go beyond idiolects and the employments of expressions in specific contexts and that are guided by semantic rules—standards for the meaningful use of words. (shrink)

?258 of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations is often seen as the core of his private language argument. While its role is certainly overinflated and it is a mistake to think that there is anything that could be called the private language argument, ?258 is an important part of the private language sections of the Philosophical Investigations. As with so much of Wittgenstein's work, there are widely diverse interpretations of why exactly the private diarist's attempted ostensive definition fails. I argue for a (...) version of the no-stage-setting interpretation of the failure of private ostension. On this interpretation, the reason why the diarist cannot establish a meaning for ?S? is that she lacks the conceptual-linguistic stage-setting needed to disambiguate the concentration of her attention (the private analogue of an ostensive definition). Thus, the problem with any subsequent use of ?S? is not that there is no criterion of correctness for remembering the meaning of ?S? correctly, or for re-identifying S correctly in the future. Rather, it is because of the initial failure to define ?S? that there is nothing that could count as a criterion of correctness for the future use of ?S?; there is nothing to remember or re-identify. My argument for the no-stage-setting interpretation consists in showing how well it fits into the rest of the Philosophical Investigations and in defending it against objections from Robert J. Fogelin, Anthony Kenny, and most recently John V. Canfield. Kenny's and Canfield's objections are found to suffer from problems regarding memory scepticism. (shrink)

The article focuses on the status of the transmission approach to communication. The approach is derived from Claude Shannon’s and Warren Weaver’s mathematical theory of communication, and is primarily used for the analysis of telecommunications processes. Within the model a metaphorical conceptualisation of communication is adopted, as conveying (transmission) of information (thoughts, emotions) from the mind of a subject A to the mind of a subject B. Despite the great popularity of the transmission approach, it is subjected to multilateral criticism. (...) Alternative approaches were formulated in which the transmission metaphor is exceeded, extended or even overcome (e.g., the constitutive, transactional, or the ritual approaches). This paper discusses such criticism. The doubts are raised primarily by the characteristic reductionism and the postulated exclusivity of the transmission approach. A question ariseswhether all the possible types of communication activities can be represented within the transmission approach as a transfer of information. In this context, the dispute between the supporters of the universalistic and the relativistic attitudes to the transmission metaphor is discussed. The polemic also concerns the psychologism elements which are present in the transmission models. Wittgenstein's criticism of psychologism conducted within the framework of his everyday language philosophy is of particular importance. The philosophy may applied to the problem of interpersonal communication. In conclusion it is assumed that the transmission metaphor is important as a tool for the study of many, but not all the aspects of communication. Its importance also lies in the fact that it is the first scientific approach to communication. The exclusivity claims of the transmission model, however, have several limitations, inter alia, it hinders research on the history of communication practices, although the model itself is embedded in a specific historical context. (shrink)

Statements of degree appear to falsify basic doctrines in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I offer a fresh formulation of the challenge and assess a solution proposed on Wittgenstein’s behalf by Sarah Moss. I find that Moss’s proposal fails. The proposal rides in part on novel interpretations of pronouncements by Wittgenstein on the nature of the elementary proposition. I find that the interpretations cannot be sustained but that Moss’s textual case hints at important and overlooked features of the Tractarian program. I develop Wittgenstein’s (...) comparison of propositions to measuring instruments and apply it throughout, showing that it captures philosophical commitments in Tractatus that otherwise tend to slip from view. (shrink)

According to the dominant view, the later Wittgenstein identified the meaning of an expression with its use in the language and vehemently rejected any kind of mentalism or intentionalism about linguistic meaning. I argue that the dominant view is wrong. The textual evidence, which has either been misunderstood or overlooked, indicates that at least since the Blue Book Wittgenstein thought speakers' intentions determine the contents of linguistic utterances. His remarks on use are only intended to emphasize the heterogeneity of natural (...) language. Taking into account remarks written after he finished the Investigations, I show how Wittgenstein anticipated the basic tenets of Gricean intention-based semantics. These are, in particular, the distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘non-natural’ meaning and the distinction between what a speaker means by an utterance and what the expression uttered means in the speaker’s natural language. Importantly, Wittgenstein also believed that only the meaning of the speaker determined the content of ambiguous expressions, such as ‘bank’, on a particular occasion of utterance. (shrink)

This paper forges links between early analytic philosophy and the posits of semiotics. I show that there are some striking and potentially quite important, but perhaps unrecognized, connections between three key concepts in Wittgenstein’s middle and later philosophy, namely, complex, rule-following, and language games. This reveals the existence of a conceptual continuity between Wittgenstein’s “early” and “later” philosophy that can be applied to the analysis of the iterability of representation in computer-generated images. Methodologically, this paper clarifies to at least some (...) degree, the nature, progress and promise of an approach to doing philosophy and semiotics from a modally modest perspective that sees in the intellectual products of humanities, and not in unreflective empiricism, the future of scientific development. This hybrid, non-reductionist approach shows, among other things, that semiotic processes are encoded by specific types of complexes in computer-generated images that display iterability in time and space. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s writings and lectures during the first half of the 1930s play a crucial role in any interpretation of the relationship between the Tractatus and the Philosophical Investigations . G. E. Moore’s notes of Wittgenstein’s Cambridge lectures, 1930-1933, offer us a remarkably careful and conscientious record of what Wittgenstein said at the time, and are much more detailed and reliable than previously published notes from those lectures. The co-authors are currently editing these notes of Wittgenstein’s lectures for a book to (...) be published by Cambridge University Press. We describe the materials that make up Moore’s notes, explain their unique value, review the principal editorial challenges that these materials present, and provide a brief outline of our editorial project. (shrink)

This paper reconsiders the notion that Nagarjuna and Wittgenstein’s Tractatus may only be seen as comparable under a shared ineffability thesis, that is, the idea that reality is impossible to describe in sensible discourse. Historically, Nagarjuna and the early Wittgenstein have both been widely construed as offering either metaphysical theories or attempts to refute all such theories. Instead, by employing an interpretive framework based on a ‘resolute’ reading of the Tractatus, I suggest we see their philosophical affinity in terms of (...) a shared conception of philosophical method without proposing theses. In doing so, this offers us a new way to understand Nagarjuna’s characteristic claims both to have ‘no views’ and refusal to accept that things exist ‘inherently’ or with ‘essence’. Therefore, instead of either a view about the nature of a mind-independent ‘ultimate reality’ or a thesis concerning the rejection of such a domain, I propose that we understand Nagarjuna’s primary aim as ‘therapeutic’, that is, concerned with the dissolution of philosophical problems. However, this ‘therapy’ should neither be confined to the psychotherapeutic metaphor nor should it be taken to imply a private enlightenment only available to philosophers. Instead, for Nagarjuna and Wittgenstein, philosophical problems are cast as a source of disquiet for all of us; what their work offers is a soteriology, a means towards our salvation. (shrink)

El presente trabajo presenta una interpretación de los enunciados internos hartianos basada en la filosofía del lenguaje de Wittgenstein y la metodología del conocimiento social de Winch. Según esta lectura, la distinción entre enunciados internos y externos representa una forma de contextualismo en la teoría analítica del derecho. En el trabajo se defiende que el discurso descriptivo sobre lo que en un ordenamiento jurídico es obligatorio, permitido o prohibido es siempre un discurso interno respecto de los criterios de pertenencia de (...) ese ordenamiento. Además, se argumenta que esta forma de discurso interno no tiene una función ideológica sino cognoscitiva y permite aún distinguir entre cuestiones de validez y de legitimidad de las normas. (shrink)

Proposition 5.122 of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus has been the source of much puzzlement among interpreters, so much so that no fully satisfactory account is yet available. This is unfortunate, if only because the containment account of logical consequence has a venerable tradition behind it. Pasquale Frascolla’s interpretation of proposition 5.122 is based on a valid argument and one true premise. However, the argument explains sense containment only in an indirect way, leaving some crucial questions unanswered. Besides, Frascolla does not address the (...) issue of how to make sense containment notationally perspicuous, an essential theme in Wittgenstein’s reflections. In this paper, we elaborate on Frascolla’s account by looking at the issue through the Tractarian notion of logical space. Our analysis shows that, for containment to be fully appreciated, one should adopt a negative perspective on the notion of sense, in line with the exclusionary theory of conceptual content, as labelled by Ian Rumfitt. Besides this, we introduce and discuss two methods—one envisaged by Wittgenstein himself—for making sense containment notationally perspicuous. (shrink)

There is now an established literature on the link between later Wittgenstein and enactivist approaches in cognitive science. However, is this link not just a matter for card carrying Wittgensteinians? Can enactivists not manage perfectly well without Wittgenstein? In this paper, I show why some enactivists should care about Wittgenstein. Focusing on the enactivist view, “Sensorimotor Identity”. I argue that proponents of this view can use Wittgensteinian considerations to resolve an issue confronting their view and thereby shore up their proposed (...) dissolution of the explanatory gap. Some enactivists thus have in fact much to gain by engaging with Wittgenstein. (shrink)

Extended mind remains a provocative approach to cognition and mentality. However, both those for and against this approach have tacitly accepted that cognition or mentality can be understood in terms of those sub personal processes ongoing during some task. I label this a process view of cognition (PV). Using Wittgenstein’s philosophical approach, I argue that proponents of extended mind should reject PV and instead endorse a ‘wide view’ of mentality. This wide view clarifies why the hypothesis of extended mind (HEM) (...) is incoherent. However, this view also indicates why the hypothesis of extended cognition (HEC) could be true. (shrink)

In this article, a novel Wittgensteinian approach to philosophy of religion is presented which uses autobiographical exposition as a way of clarifying religious concepts. After analyzing what Wittgenstein is trying to accomplish in his philosophical approach, Wittgenstein’s type of grammatical inquiry into concept formation is applied to religion in this very straightforward manner. How a child learns to use religious concepts and how people check whether the child is using these concepts correctly, reminds us of the actual role these concepts (...) play in our discourses. In the third and fourth sections, the Wittgensteinian investigation of concept formation into religion conducted in this article is used to establish that the two common criticisms, namely that a Wittgensteinian approach fails to acknowledge that for believers God is real and that religious conflicts exist, are misplaced. It is shown that a Wittgensteinian approach in philosophy of religion merits renewed attention. (shrink)

Naïve realism is the view according to which perception is a non-representational relation of conscious awareness to mind-independent objects and properties. According to this approach, the phenomenal character of experience is constituted by just the objects, properties, or facts presented to the senses. In this article, I argue that such a conception of the phenomenology of experience faces a clear counter-example, i.e., the experience of seeing aspects. The discussion suggests that, to accommodating such a kind of experience, it must be (...) acknowledged that perception is, at least in part, representational. (shrink)

According to Brandom, perceptual knowledge is the product of two distinguishable capacities: the capacity to reliably discriminate behaviorally between different sorts of stimuli, and the capacity to take up a position in the game of giving and asking for reasons. However, in focusing exclusively on the entitlements and commitments of observation reports, rather than on perception itself, Brandom passes over a conception of perceptual experience as a sort of contentful mental state. In this article, I argue that this is a (...) blind spot, which makes Brandom’s account of perceptual knowledge unable to properly accommodate the phenomenon of seeing aspects. (shrink)

The power of Wittgenstein's N operator described in the Tractatus is that every proposition which can be expressed in the Russellian variant of the predicate calculus familiar to him has an equivalent proposition in an extended variant of his N operator notation. This remains true if the bound variables are understood in the usual inclusive sense or in Wittgenstein's restrictive exclusive sense. The problematic limit of Wittgenstein's N operator comes from his claim that symbols alone reveal the logical status of (...) propositions. This would require knowledge of the size of the Tractarian domain of unchangeable, simple objects, and this, Wittgenstein maintained, cannot be known. (shrink)

What does it mean to see someone as human, as a member of humankind? What kind of call for justice is it to demand that a group be seen as human beings? This article explores a fundamental kind of injustice: one of perception and how we respond to our perceptions. Drawing on Cavell, Wittgenstein and Rancière, we elucidate “soul blindness” as a distinct and basic form of injustice. Rancière’s police orders and Cavell’s soul blindness are mutually constitutive; the undoing of (...) police orders entails a politics of soul dawning. Soul dawning entails acknowledging the humanity of others without erasing difference. In the concluding section, we consider white obliviousness to the Black Lives Matters movement as a case of soul blindness. Part of the political import of BLM is its capacity to illustrate how practices of soul blindness in the United States constitute whiteness in a racialized police order. (shrink)

This paper considers the connection between concepts, conceptual schemes and grammar in Wittgenstein’s last writings. It lists eight claims about concepts that one can garner from these writings. It then focuses on one of them, namely that there is an important difference between conceptual and factual problems and investigations. That claim draws in its wake other claims, all of them revolving around the idea of a conceptual scheme, what Wittgenstein calls a ‘grammar’. I explain why Wittgenstein’s account does not fall (...) prey to Davidson’s animadversions against the idea of a conceptual scheme as a force operating on a pre-conceptual content. In the sequel I deny that the distinction between grammatical and empirical propositions disappears in the last writings: it is neither deliberately abandoned, nor willy-nilly undermined by the admission of hinge propositions in On Certainty or by the role accorded to agreement in judgement. (shrink)

En la actualidad, los desarrollos teóricos acerca de la justicia desde una perspectiva lingüística giran alrededor de la teoría de la justicia de John Rawls y la teoría de la acción comunicativa de Jürgen Habermas. Empero, aunque un estudio detallado del funcionamiento del lenguaje hace parte de estas teorías no pueden concebirse propiamente como filosofías del lenguaje. La filosofía del lenguaje propende por la construcción de una teoría del significado que permita explicar diferentes fenómenos lingüísticos entre los que se encuentran (...) aquellos donde es usado el concepto de justicia. Mientras estas teorías permiten comprender las dinámicas pragmáticas de estos fenómenos, quedan cortas en la comprensión del contenido semántico del concepto. Este contenido semántico es lo que en última instancia aclara la naturaleza del mismo y, por tanto, una teoría del significado que permita dar cuenta tanto de las dinámicas pragmáticas como del contenido semántico será de vital importancia en la aclaración del concepto de justicia. Según este panorama, una salida más viable podría encontrarse en el pensamiento de Robert Brandom y Charles Travis, cuyas teorías del significado están basadas en el pensamiento expuesto en la obra tardía del filósofo Ludwig Wittgenstein. Según este autor, las prácticas de la justicia hacen parte de nuestras formas de vida y si el contenido semántico del concepto de justicia ha de ser buscado en algún lugar, es allí, en esas prácticas, donde será encontrado. La trama de la vida misma es la luz adecuada que puede iluminar la oscuridad en la que se ha sumido el concepto de justicia. Currently, the theoretical developments about justice from a linguistic perspective revolve around the theory of justice of John Rawls and the theory of communicative action of Jürgen Habermas. However, although a detailed study of the functioning of language is part of these theories, they can not be properly conceived as philosophies of language. The philosophy of language tends to the construction of a theory of meaning that allows explaining different linguistic phenomena among which are those where the concept of justice is used. While these theories allow to understand the pragmatic dynamics of these phenomena, they are short in the understanding of the semantic content of the concept. This semantic content is what ultimately clarifies the nature of it and, therefore, a theory of meaning that allows to account both the pragmatic dynamics and the semantic content will be of vital importance in the clarification of the concept of justice. According to this panorama, a more viable exit could be found in the thought of Robert Brandom and Charles Travis, whose theories of meaning are based on the thought expressed in the later work of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. According to this author, the practices of justice are part of our forms of life and if the semantic content of the concept of justice has to be sought somewhere, it is there, in those practices, where it will be found. The plot of life itself is the adequate light that can illuminate the darkness in which the concept of justice has been submerged. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first we outline a version of non-descriptivism, ‘minimal expressivism’, leaving aside certain long-standing problems associated with conventional expressivist views. Second, we examine the way in which familiar expressivist results can be accommodated within this framework, through a particular interpretation that the expressive realm lends to a theory of meaning. Expressivist theories of meaning address only a portion of the classical problems attributed to this position when they seek to explain why the expressions they (...) deal with have a given meaning. A position can nevertheless be termed ‘expressivist’ – in the minimal sense that we favor – based simply on the following key features of the meaning of these expressions: they can be used as functions of propositions, and they are not used to describe the way the world is. (shrink)

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein cites the Gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Koehler almost as often as he cites William James in his posthumously published writings on the philosophy of psychology. Yet, few treatments of the Wittgenstein–Koehler relation in the philosophical literature could be called sustained discussions. Moreover, most of them treat Koehler as a mere whipping boy for Wittgenstein, one more opportunity to criticize the practice of psychologists. This article emphasizes how much the two thinkers agreed, and the extent to which some (...) of Wittgenstein’s work not only agreed with but also has a logical structure parallel to some of Koehler’s text. Both thinkers hold that the theoretician should strive to recognize and resist the impulse to step in and purify, distill, streamline, or exclude phenomena: common, everyday experience for Koehler and common, everyday uses of words for Wittgenstein. They both aim to counteract the tendency to discount and disparage what is ordinary and common. (shrink)

What aesthetic interest do we have in watching films? In a much debated paper, Roger Scruton argued that this interest typically comes down to the interest in the dramatic representations recorded by such films. Berys Gaut and Catharine Abell criticized Scruton’s argument by claiming that films can elicit an aesthetic interest also by virtue of their pictorial representation. In this article, we develop a different criticism of Scruton’s argument. In our view, a film can elicit an aesthetic interest that does (...) not come down to an interest in the dramatic representation or in the pictorial representation. We will argue that this is a distinctively cinematic interest. In section I we outline Scruton’s argument. In section II we point out an interest in how the cinematic medium presents the portrayed subject as detached from the spectator’s environment. In section III, by referring to Wittgenstein’s account of the contemplation from outside, we contend that the interest in films introduced in section II can count as an aesthetic interest. In section IV we argue that both documentaries and fiction films can elicit this kind of interest. In section V we compare the three different kinds of aesthetic interest that, in our view, a film can elicit. In section VI we describe the corresponding kinds of cinematic achievements. (shrink)

Several scholars have argued that Wittgenstein held the view that the notion of number is presupposed by the notion of one-one correlation, and that therefore Hume's principle is not a sound basis for a definition of number. I offer a new interpretation of the relevant fragments on philosophy of mathematics from Wittgenstein's Nachlass, showing that if different uses of ‘presupposition’ are understood in terms of de re and de dicto knowledge, Wittgenstein's argument against the Frege-Russell definition of number turns out (...) to be valid on its own terms, even though it depends on two epistemological principles logicist philosophers of mathematics may find too ‘constructivist’. (shrink)

Central to a new, or 'resolute', reading of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus is the idea that Wittgenstein held there an 'austere' view of nonsense: the view, that is, that nonsense is only ever a matter of our failure to give words a meaning, and so that there are no logically distinct kinds of nonsense. Resolute readers tend not only to ascribe such a view to Wittgenstein, but also to subscribe to it themselves; and it is also a feature of some (...) readings which in other respects are clearly not Resolute. This paper forms part of a reply to Hans-Johann Glock's work in which he argues (in part) that Wittgenstein in the Tractatus held a view of nonsense other than the austere view. Instead, Glock argues, Wittgenstein there held that there are many logically distinct kinds of nonsense. Here, I outline and defend the austere view, together with its attribution to the early Wittgenstein, against a number of Glock's criticisms, and focussing especially on Wittgenstein's reformulation in the Tractatus of Frege's context-principle. (shrink)

: Sociologists of Scientific Knowledge sometimes claim to study scientists belonging to other forms of life. This claim causes difficulties, as traditionally Wittgensteinians have taken it to be the case that other forms of life are incomprehensible to us. This paper examines whether, and how, sociologists might gain understanding of another form of life, and whether, and how, this understanding might be passed on to readers. I argue that most techniques proposed for gaining and passing on understanding are inadequate, but (...) I end by describing a method that might work. (shrink)

Social scientists, political scientists and philosophers debate key concepts such as democracy, power and autonomy. Contested concepts like these pose questions: Are terms such as “democracy” hopelessly ambiguous? How can two theorists defend alternative accounts of democracy without talking past each other? How can we understand debates in which theorists disagree about what democracy is? This paper first discusses the popular strategy to answer these questions by appealing to Rawls’s distinction between concepts and conceptions. According to this approach, defenders of (...) rival conceptions of, e.g. justice can disagree without talking past each other because they share the concept of justice. It is argued that this idea is attractive but limited in application and that it fails to do justice to the dynamic and normative aspects of concept formation. Reflective equilibrium is then suggested as an alternative approach. It replaces the static contrast between a conceptual ‘core’ and competing conceptions by a dynamic perspective of concept formation as a partly normative undertaking: pre-theoretic language use and commitments can provide a shared starting point for developing alternative accounts which yield different concepts of, e.g. justice. This perspective provides a new understanding of how it is possible that different theorists defend rival accounts of, e.g. justice, without talking past each other. (shrink)

Analysts of political culture within the "civil religion" tradition have generally assumed that discourse in civil society is structured by a single set of enduring codes based on liberal traditions that actors draw upon to resolve crises. Based on two case studies of national crises and debate in Brazil during its transition to democracy, I challenge this assumption by demonstrating that not only do actors draw upon two distinct but interrelated codes, they actively seek to impose one or another as (...) dominant. In Brazil this is manifest in actors who defend elements from the code of liberty and its valuation of the freestanding citizen, and those who defend the corporate code and its valuation of the collectivity over the individual. In an earlier debate on crime the corporate code was dominant, but in a later debate surrounding presidential improprieties, the liberal code became dominant. This analysis makes two contributions to the literature: it highlights the importance of nonindividualist cultural codes, such as the corporate code, in animating discourse in the public sphere in democratizing societies, raising attention to the importance of the symbolic contestation between actors seeking to establish one or another code during political transitions. Second, it offers a subtle commentary on the literature on democratization: changes in collective representations in the public sphere may not proceed apace of institutional changes and may be contingent on the kinds of crisis events and actors willing to contest previously dominant codes. (shrink)

This article offers an explanation of perhaps Wittgenstein’s strangest and least intuitive thesis – the semantical mutation thesis – according to which one can never answer a mathematical conjecture because the new proof alters the very meanings of the terms involved in the original question. Instead of basing our justification on the distinction between mere calculation and proofs of isolated propositions, characteristic of Wittgenstein’s intermediary period, we generalize it to include conjectures involving effective procedures as well.

This paper considers the connection between concepts, conceptual schemes and grammar in Wittgenstein’s last writings. It lists eight claims about concepts that one can garner from these writings. It then focuses on one of them, namely that there is an important difference between conceptual and factual problems and investigations. That claim draws in its wake other claims, all of them revolving around the idea of a conceptual scheme, what Wittgenstein calls a ‘grammar’. I explain why Wittgenstein’s account does not fall (...) prey to Davidson’s animadversions against the idea of a conceptual scheme as a force operating on a pre-conceptual content. In the sequel I deny that the distinction between grammatical and empirical propositions disappears in the last writings: it is neither deliberately abandoned, nor willy-nilly undermined by the admission of hinge propositions in On Certainty or by the role accorded to agreement in judgement. (shrink)

The paper attempts a novel defense of the main claim of Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument, i.e. that 'inner' ostensive definition is impossible. Part 1 traces Wittgenstein's target to the idea that 'ostensive definition' is a mental act, an idea that makes it tempting to think that its objects might just as well be private as public. Part 2 discusses a recent interpretation and defence of Wittgenstein's position due to Stroud and McGinn. On their view, private ostensive definition establishes no pattern (...) of use because it fails to specify the type of inner episode that is being ostended. But not explicitly specifying a type is harmless so long as the ostension in fact brings it about that the subject's usage is sensitive to it. Part 3 proposes a new argument. Private ostensive definition does sustain a pattern of use, but that use is semantically indeterminate: nothing in it (or in the subject's mind) settles which of two alternative schemes of reference applies. The conclusion discusses Wittgenstein's best-known remarks on the subject from the perspective of this new argument. (shrink)

According to the received view, the Tractatus would present a realistic conception of the meaning of a declarative sentence: that meaning would be explained in terms of evidence-transcending, not epistemically-constrained, truth-conditions. In this paper, I make a case against such a contention. If states of affairs are identified with possible combinations of phenomenal objects, the truth-conditions of an elementary proposition inevitably collapse onto its assertability-conditions: the existence of the state of affairs depicted by the proposition would be both the condition (...) for its being true and, at the same time, the condition for our recognition of its being true. Moreover, the finiteness of logical space (the set of all phenomenal states of affairs) would ensure the decidability, in principle, of all meaningful propositions, and hence would preserve the general validity of the laws of classical logic. Lastly, the problem of the relationship between the overt verificationism of Wittgenstein's 1929-1933 writings and the Tractatus's ontological and semantic views, is dealt with. (shrink)

According to the received view the later Wittgenstein subscribed to the thesis that speaking a language requires being guided by rules (thesis RG). In this paper we question the received view. On its most intuitive reading, we argue, (RG) is very much at odds with central tenets of the later Wittgenstein. Giving up on this reading, however, threatens to deprive the notion of rule-following of any real substance. Consequently, the rule-following considerations cannot charitably be read as a deep and subtle (...) defense of (RG) against the threat of paradox, as proponents of the received view are wont to do. Instead, we argue, the rule-following considerations provide Wittgenstein's deep and subtle reasons for rejecting the very idea that speaking a language involves rule-guidance. Although Wittgenstein subscribed to (RG) during his middle period writings, his later remarks on rules, far from being a clarification and elaboration of his earlier views, are directed against the claim of the middle period that speaking a language is an essentially rule-guided activity. (shrink)

In the text the author tries to investigate Wittgenstein’s notions of action, practice and pragmatism in his book On Certainty. An attempt is made to sketch the criterion of Wittgenstein’s analysis of certainty and to define the crucial concepts such as world-picture, practice, certainty and justification. The analysis shows that Wittgenstein applies a specific form of pragmatic solution to the problem of justification, which after all, can and should be called a kind of pragmatismus. This is the subject of the (...) first and the second part of the text. The third part shows the application of this pragmatic theory of justification to Wittgenstein’s refutation of scepticism. The author suggests that his pragmatic analysis of certainty presents an adequate means for the refutation of scepticism. However, his anti-scepticism is situated in the tradition of common sense and ordinary language philosophy and epistemology (Moore, Chisholm, Lehrer, Austin, Grice, Strawson, etc.). In the conclusion the author applies this anti-sceptical solution to the so called rule-following problem (as stated in Kripke’s work) and shows that there are some far reaching consequences of this interpretation of Wittgenstein’s later work to his position on language, learning, ontology and knowledge. (shrink)

Inspired by the work of Sellars, Cumpa (2014, 2018) and Buonomo (2021) have argued that we can evaluate our metaphysical proposals on fundamental categories in terms of their capacity for reconciling the scientific and the manifest image of the world. This criterion of fundamentality would allow us to settle the question of which categories among those proposed in the debate—e.g., substance, structure or facts—have a better explanatory value. The aim of this essay is to argue against a central assumption of (...) the criterion: semantic descriptivism. Specifically, I aim at showing that the criterion rests on the idea that the manifest picture is mostly a description of the world, and thus, it commits us with certain realism. Instead, I argue that at least some of the vocabulary we use to construct our manifest picture of the world, mental vocabulary, is evaluative rather than descriptive and thus creates problems in reconcile the manifest picture with scientific psychology and neurosciences. I conclude with some remarks on alternatives that could provide a way out of the fundamentality criterion. (shrink)

This work is an investigation into philosophical method and rational argument in moral philosophy. It makes an original contribution to human understanding, by taking some of the tools and techniques that Gordon Baker identifies in the later work of Wittgenstein, and using them as a way of fending for oneself in an area of philosophy that neither Baker, nor Wittgenstein, wrote on. More specifically, a discussion of some different aspects of the contemporary literature on Dancy’s moral particularism is used as (...) a vehicle for illustrating how Baker’s therapeutic conception of philosophy offers alternative possibilities for how we can do philosophy, and what counts as rational argument in moral philosophy. I maintain that, by considering some indicative ways in which Baker’s therapeutic approach to philosophy can dissolve, rather than solve, the kinds of perplexities found in the existing literature on Dancy’s moral particularism, we can liberate ourselves from the traditional/theoretical view of how we ought to do philosophy, and an understanding of rational argument in moral philosophy, to which we need not be committed. (shrink)

We discuss a previously unnoticed resemblance between the theory of relations and predicates in The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [TPLA] by Russell and the theory of objects and names in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [TLP] by Wittgenstein. Points of likeness are detected on three levels: ontology, syntax, and semantics. This analogy explains the prima facie similarities between the informal presentation of the theory of types in TPLA and the sections of the TLP devoted to this same topic. Eventually, we draw some (...) consequences concerning both sides of the analogy: for what concerns Russell, the contextual pertinence of this surprising fragment of Tractarian metaphysics and semantics is questioned on several grounds; about Wittgenstein, the interpreters who do not identify Tractarian objects with particulars are in a better position to make sense of the analogy here discovered. (shrink)

One of the most important problems for a study of symbolic practices (pictorial, verbal or other) is the choice of a language of description that is general enough to allow for comparisons between different symbolic practices and specific enough to allow for meaningful descriptions of actual practices. I will argue that Goodman’s theory of symbols provides some of the categories needed for such an analysis. I will try to indicate this by looking at Goodman’s analysis of a symbolic practice that (...) – though widely used in many different kinds of discourse – has generally not received much attention: the giving of examples. Goodman’s extensional description of exemplification allows us to differentiate between various types of examples and to determine what we mean when we say that examples ‘show’ something. In this way, conflicting approaches to the question of examples (namely Kant and Wittgenstein) can be seen as complementary. A theory of symbols can operate these clarifications by virtue of its strict extensionalism. (shrink)

Dans la première partie, les auteurs étudient Wittgenstein en tant que morphologue. Ils expliquent son concept de vue synoptique et de connexions et offrent quelques notes sur les auteurs l’ayant influencé . En outre, les auteurs résument certains points chez Wittgenstein ainsi que certains commentaires à propos de sa méthode morphologique et de son application. L’objectif est de commenter les Investigations philosophiques : 122 et les Remarques sur Le Rameau d’or de Frazer : 133 ; la présentation, claire et compréhensible, (...) semble être une étude conceptuelle qui consiste à trouver des similitudes et des analogies parmi de nombreux cas différents et d’apparence disparate, ce qui désigne la morphologie comme une méthode. Dans la deuxième partie, les auteurs étudient Wittgenstein en tant que morphologue. Ils débattent de la nature de la morphologie à l’égard de la grammaire ou des institutions, et tentent de formuler ses avantages et ses inconvénients par rapport à la méthode de recherche philosophique. La reconnaissance du rôle de la morphologie nous aide à mieux comprendre la phase tardive de Wittgenstein. Ceci offre un aperçu clair, du moins de certaines parties, des Investigations philosophiques. Les auteurs tentent également, en citant Wittgenstein, d’en finir avec certaines objections importantes à la méthode morphologique. Ce qui est important du point de vue morphologique est l’organisation des phénomènes et leur modèle qui doit être vu afin d’être compris. On peut distinguer la morphologie comme méthode de la morphologie comme structure et organisation, lorsqu’elle s’explique à partir des phénomènes. (shrink)

I believe that there are only a select few topics, which arouse a similar level of interest and curiosity among academics and laymen alike, as does the study of mind and brain. Although mind and brain have been capturing the attention of philosophers for centuries, it is the "scientific investigation" of age old philosophical queries by socalled cognitive scientists, which is distinctive of the developments of the last few decades and which, in times to come, may well be considered the (...) hallmark of the study of mind in the 20th and early 21st centuries. In the past, advances in the natural sciences underlay or boosted a plethora of developments in the technological, economic and political spheres that not only improved the standard of living and prolonged the average life span for a vast number of people, but also fuelled hopes that a new and improved understanding of the nature of man was also within reach. Despite all the benefits mankind derived from scientific and technological progress past and present, the success of the natural sciences also helped spread and foster a virulent and nowadays quasi-ubiquitous and unquestioned believe in the omnipotence of science and technology. In the context of the study of mind, in particular, it fostered the widespread conception that in order for an investigation leading to insight and understanding a "scientific" approach is a sine qua non. This thesis highlights the danger of such an approach. By investigating the framework of explanation adopted by cognitive scientists, the cognitive view, and by examining its inherent conceptions of mind and thought, it will be shown that the scientific, or rather scientistic, approach inherent in the views depicted above is highly questionable, and in the case of the study of mind and brain, does not further insight and understanding, but rather prevents it. In the 20th century, Ludwig Wittgenstein has been one of the few philosophers who recognized the fallaciousness of these ideas and who opposed the inherent scientism. His later philosophy, which provides the philosophical mise en scène for the following investigations, provides a much-needed antidote against the misconceptions common among cognitive scientists today. Although, many of the shortcomings of the ideas and views of cognitive scientists have, with a certain regularity, been discussed by philosophers working in the tradition of the later Wittgenstein their criticisms, more often than not, fell on deaf ears. I believe that one of the main reasons underlying the imperviousness of the community of cognitive scientists to the criticism of the kind of analytic philosophy inspired by the later Wittgenstein, is that it mainly focused on select misconceptions inherent in the cognitive view, but regularly failed to point out their place in the overall framework of thought for cognitive scientists. As a result, it was easy to dismiss these criticisms with excuses of the sort "but that does not bear any direct relevance to the work I do...". For this reason, this thesis aimed to portray and examine the cognitive view in its entirety, i.e. to depict the intricate interconnections existing between the premises that provide the foundation of the cognitive view, and to point out their disastrous consequences for our understanding not only of a select view aspects of mental phenomena, but to our understanding of the mind in its entirety. In order to provide such a "big picture", and to describe the numerous often very subtle interconnections between the various ideas making up the cognitive view in all their breadth and depth, a lot of well-trodden ground had to be revisited and reviewed. Thus, Anthony Kenny's and Peter Hackers' discussions of the mereological fallacy will provide the "base camp" from which we will visit less familiar aspects of the cognitive view via novel routes on our way to the peak of this "philosophical mountain". Where required, my indebtedness to the works of these philosophers will be highlighted throughout the text. (shrink)

In the 1st part authors investigate Wittgenstein as the morphologist. They explicate his notion of overview and seeing connections as his description of the method and they also make a few notes on authors which influenced him on this matter . Besides that they summarise some places from Wittgenstein and commentaries regarding his morphological method and some of the obvious applications of it. The main goal is to comment on PI: 122 and GB: 133. Perspicuous presentation seems to be a (...) conceptual investigation which consists in finding similarities and analogies between many and at first glance completely different and disconnected cases which is in fact morphology as a method. In the 2nd part authors investigate Wittgenstein as the morphologist. They discuss the nature of morphology regarding grammar, customs and institutions and try to make sense of advantages and disadvantages of morphology regarding the method of philosophical inquiry. Acknowledging the role of morphology helps us to better understand the later Wittgenstein. It gives us perspicuous presentation of of PI. In the paper they also try to come up with an answer to few important objections to the morphological method by quoting Wittgenstein. That which is morphologically important is organisation of phenomena, their pattern which should be seen in order to be understood. There is also the distinction within the notion of morphology, namely morphology as a method, when it is applied and the morphology as a structure or organisation, when it is explicated from the phenomena. (shrink)