Abstract

It is not surprising that ethical thinkers hardly ever set out intending to challenge the Socratic dictum about the unexamined life's not being worth living, for people reflective enough to raise the issue to the level of open discussion are unlikely to be inclined to entertain radical doubts about reflection's worth. Philosophical challenges to the Socratic dictum invariably occur in traumatic fashion, as instances of reason committing suicide. My dissertation tracks this development in Ludwig Wittgenstein's thought. Explication of Wittgenstein's ideas is followed by application of these ideas to specific ethical issues. This latter task is mainly accomplished through discussion of writings by Roger Wertheimer, Jean Amery, and John Rawls. ;The dissertation's core is a detailed reading of the Tractatus that does justice to Wittgenstein's own claim that the work's main purpose was in fact ethical. However, light is also shed on the much discussed question of the relationship between Wittgenstein's early and late writings. The basic unity of the Tractatus in its treatment of logic and language and its treatment of ethics is strongly emphasized. But it is suggested that the treatment of ethics looks forward to the way Wittgenstein in his later writings in effect overcomes the dilemma that compels him in closing the Tractatus to admit that his effort to define the border between sense and nonsense had itself generated nonsense. Furthermore, although Wittgenstein scarcely discusses ethics in his later works, it turns out that ethical argument is in fact a much better exemplar of his point about human reasoning than the cases of historical, arithmetical, and scientific reasoning which are cited as examples in these works. ;Although no survey of secondary literature is attempted, my dissertation strives to be self-conscious about its radical departure from traditional interpretations of Wittgenstein. Robert Fogelin's piecemeal Russellian reading of the Tractatus and Stanley Cavell's allegedly Wittgensteinian ethics are singled out for sustained and savage criticism.