The object of this essay is to discuss Ludwig Wittgenstein's remarks inPhilosophical Investigationsand elsewhere in the posthumously published writings concerning the role of therapy in relation to philosophy. Wittgenstein's reflections seem to suggest that there is a kind of philosophy or mode of investigation targeting the philosophical grammar of language uses that gratuitously give rise to philosophical problems, and produce in many thinkers philosophical anxieties for which the proper therapy is intended to offer relief. Two possible objectives of later Wittgensteinian (...) therapy are proposed, for subjectivepsychologicalversus objectivesemanticsymptoms of ailments that a therapy might address for the sake of relieving philosophical anxieties. The psychological in its most plausible form is rejected, leaving only the semantic. Semantic therapy in the sense defined and developed is more general and long-lasting, and more in the spirit of Wittgenstein's project on a variety of levels. A semantic approach treats language rather than the thinking, language-using subject as the patient needing therapy, and directs its attention to the treatment of problems in language and the conceptual framework a language game use expresses in its philosophical grammar, rather than to soothing unhappy or socially ill-adjusted individual psychologies. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to argue that Hegel has a therapeutic conception of philosophy, and also to argue that in significant respects this anticipates the classical pragmatist position, which is also interpreted as offering a therapeutic approach. In the first section, I introduce Hegel’s views on how theoretical reasoning has an important connection with practical life. I argue that this important connection between theoretical reason and the practical establishes Hegel as a member of the therapeutic tradition – broadly (...) conceived. My focus in section II of the paper is on the relation between Hegelian therapy and Wittgenstein’s quietistic approach. I conclude my discussion of Hegel’s therapeutic conception of philosophy in section III, by arguing that Hegelian therapy has much in common with classical pragmatist metaphilosophy, which I also take to involve a therapeutic approach. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article intends to reconsider the epistemological status of delusional beliefs on the basis of Wittgenstein’s conception of certainty. Several works over the last two decades have compared delusional beliefs with so-called hinge propositions, which – according to Wittgenstein – function as expressions of objective certainty. This gives rise to a paradox. On the one hand, delusions are compatible to Wittgensteinian certainties in some respects; on the other hand, they contradict beliefs shared by other members of the community, which makes (...) them different from ‘normal’ certainties. In order to address this issue, I use Moyal-Sharrock’s taxonomy of hinge propositions. This taxonomy allows one to distinguish between different types of hinge propositions; all types share the same features, but these features are manifested in a variety of ways. Thus, delusional beliefs might also be regarded as constituting a specific type of hinge propositions. This move makes it possible to resolve the paradox and to identify the special epistemic features of delusional beliefs. (shrink)