VOLUME 6 • 2007
THE GRAMMAR OF
ABSTRACT. In this paper I argue against several defenders of metaphysics who claim that the extant analytic critiques of metaphysics do not apply to "good" versions of it, particularly to A. N. Whitehead's version. The proponents of "good metaphysics" grant it the status of a "language-game" and/or ..
WITTGENSTEIN, ETHICS, AND NONSENSE
ABSTRACT. Wittgenstein argues in his "Lecture on Ethics" that ethical statements, although in some way significant, are logically nonsense. Wittgenstein's pronouncement about ethical statements, and the analysis which leads to it, bears similarities to his claim at the end of the Tractatus Logico-Ph..
INNER AND OUTER, SELF AND OTHER: WITTGENSTEIN ON SUBJECTIVITY
ABSTRACT. On my reading, Wittgenstein's seemingly anti-philosophical remarks do not reject philosophy as inherently confused. Far from arguing that philosophers are at fault for aspiring to understand the nature of things, he is merely trying to explain that, to the extent in which they hope to find..
COMMUNAL PRAXIS AND NORMATIVITY
ABSTRACT. Pragmatists and those with affinities for pragmatism, such as Wittgenstein, have argued that the sorts of rules or norms fit to constitute anything as a community, including linguistic norms, must be more than formal, must be embedded in practice. It is argued that linguistic norms or rule..
WITTGENSTEIN'S MUSIC, MUSIC'S WITTGENSTEIN, AND JOSEF LABOR
ABSTRACT. Ludwig Wittgenstein rejected the contemporary music of his time (Strauss, Mahler, Schoenberg, et al.) in favor of older, classically constructed and generally more conservative music (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and Josef Labor). The reasons for his preference are not immedi..
WITTGENSTEIN'S PRIVATE LANGUAGE ARGUMENT AND SELF CONSCIOUSNESS
ABSTRACT. The private language argument in Wittgenstein has important implications for how self consciousness should be characterised. Some recent cognitivist theories claim that the self is really the sense of being a mental presence whilst the body is merely a container for these vital mental attr..
WITTGENSTEIN'S LETTERS TO RUSH RHEES, OR PLAGIARISM, POSITIVISM AND A FIRE-POKER
ABSTRACT. He was arguably the most important Austrian philosopher of our century: Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), whose works, including his well-known Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, continues to present us with many a riddle. Meanwhile, Wittgenstein was not just a publisher of studies, essays and..
WITTGENSTEIN: MEANING AND REPRESENTATION. WHAT DOES HE MEAN?
ABSTRACT. For Wittgenstein, all aspects of the human mind are inescapably dependent upon the use of language. A cartesian view would maintain that thoughts and representation are possible without language, but Wittgenstein does not agree. In this paper I will describe Wittgenstein's theories of cons..
WAISMANN'S CRITIQUE OF WITTGENSTEIN
ABSTRACT. Friedrich Waismann, a little-known mathematician and onetime student of Wittgenstein's, provides answers to problems that vexed Wittgenstein in his attempt to explicate the foundations of mathematics through an analysis of its practice. Waismann argues in favor of mathematical intuition an..
WITTGENSTEIN'S METHOD FOR UNDERSTANDING UNDERSTANDING PRAXEOLOGICALLY
ABSTRACT. Wittgenstein employed a method of "grammatical analysis" to investigate how expressions such as 'to know.' 'to understand,' 'to feel' are actually used and understood. His analysis in the Philosophical Investigations of a conversation concerning the generation of a number series is one of ..
PICTURING, SHOWING, AND SOLIPSISM IN WITTGENSTEIN'S TRACTATUS LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICUS
ABSTRACT. I attempt to show how Wittgenstein's Tractatarian views on solipsism follow from a certain construal and elaboration of the picture theory of intentionality or aboutness. I do this by first reconstructing Wittgenstein's famous distinction between showing and saying in terms of the key noti..
WITTGENSTEIN, IDEALISM AND PHILOSOPHY
ABSTRACT. For the early Wittgenstein, the limits of what makes sense make manifest the unspeakable truth of idealism: that the limits of language are the limits of the world. An influential interpretation also finds an implicit commitment to idealism in his mature thought. I argue that his views on ..