Jason A. Springs
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195395044
- eISBN:
- 9780199866243
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Discontinued
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195395044.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Toward a Generous Orthodoxy provides a refined exposition of Hans Frei's christologically motivated engagement with Ludwig Wittgenstein, Clifford Geertz, Erich Auerbach, his use of ...
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Toward a Generous Orthodoxy provides a refined exposition of Hans Frei's christologically motivated engagement with Ludwig Wittgenstein, Clifford Geertz, Erich Auerbach, his use of ordinary language philosophy and nonfoundational philosophical insights, while illuminating and expanding his orientational indebtedness to Karl Barth's theology. By placing Frei's work into critical conversation with developments in pragmatist thought and cultural theory since his death, the rereading of Frei offered here aims to correct and resolve many of the complaints and misunderstandings that vex his theological legacy. The result is a clarification of the unity and coherence of Frei's work over the course of his career; a reframing of the complex relationship of his work to that of his Yale colleague George Lindbeck and successive "postliberal" theological trends; demonstration that Frei's uses of Barth, Wittgenstein, Auerbach, and Geertz do not relegate his theological approach to critical quietism, methodological separatism, epistemic fideism, or a so-called "theological ghetto"; explication and development of Frei's account of the "plain sense" of Scripture that evades charges of narrative foundationalism and essentialism on one hand and, on the other, avoids criticisms that any account so emphasizing culture, language, and practice will reduce scriptural meaning to the ways the text is used in Christian practice and community. What emerges from Toward a Generous Orthodoxy is a sharpened account of the christologically anchored, interdisciplinary, and conversational character of Frei's theology, which he came to describe as a "generous orthodoxy," modeling a way for academic theological voices to take seriously both their vocation to the Christian church and their roles as interlocutors in the academic discourse.Less
Toward a Generous Orthodoxy provides a refined exposition of Hans Frei's christologically motivated engagement with Ludwig Wittgenstein, Clifford Geertz, Erich Auerbach, his use of ordinary language philosophy and nonfoundational philosophical insights, while illuminating and expanding his orientational indebtedness to Karl Barth's theology. By placing Frei's work into critical conversation with developments in pragmatist thought and cultural theory since his death, the rereading of Frei offered here aims to correct and resolve many of the complaints and misunderstandings that vex his theological legacy. The result is a clarification of the unity and coherence of Frei's work over the course of his career; a reframing of the complex relationship of his work to that of his Yale colleague George Lindbeck and successive "postliberal" theological trends; demonstration that Frei's uses of Barth, Wittgenstein, Auerbach, and Geertz do not relegate his theological approach to critical quietism, methodological separatism, epistemic fideism, or a so-called "theological ghetto"; explication and development of Frei's account of the "plain sense" of Scripture that evades charges of narrative foundationalism and essentialism on one hand and, on the other, avoids criticisms that any account so emphasizing culture, language, and practice will reduce scriptural meaning to the ways the text is used in Christian practice and community. What emerges from Toward a Generous Orthodoxy is a sharpened account of the christologically anchored, interdisciplinary, and conversational character of Frei's theology, which he came to describe as a "generous orthodoxy," modeling a way for academic theological voices to take seriously both their vocation to the Christian church and their roles as interlocutors in the academic discourse.
Garry Hagberg
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199234226
- eISBN:
- 9780191715440
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199234226.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Language
The voluminous writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein contain some of the most profound reflections of our time on the nature of the human subject and self-understanding — the human condition, ...
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The voluminous writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein contain some of the most profound reflections of our time on the nature of the human subject and self-understanding — the human condition, philosophically speaking. This book mimes those extensive writings for a conception of the self. And more specifically, the book offers a discussion of Wittgenstein's later writings on language and mind as they hold special significance for the understanding and clarification of the distinctive character of self-descriptive or autobiographical language. The book also undertakes a philosophical investigation of selected autobiographical writings — among the best examples we have of human selves exploring themselves — as they cast new and special light on the critique of mind-body dualism and its undercurrents in particular, and on the nature of autobiographical consciousness more generally. The chapters take up in turn the topics of self-consciousness, what Wittgenstein calls ‘the inner picture’; mental privacy and the picture of metaphysical seclusion; the very idea of our observation of the contents of consciousness; first-person expressive speech; reflexive or self-directed thought and competing pictures of introspection; the nuances of retrospective self-understanding, person-perception, and the corollary issues of self-perception (itself an interestingly dangerous phrase); self-defining memory; and the therapeutic conception of philosophical progress as it applies to all of these issues. The cast of characters interwoven throughout the discussion include, in addition to Wittgenstein centrally, Augustine, Goethe, Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Iris Murdoch, Donald Davidson, and Stanley Cavell, among others.Less
The voluminous writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein contain some of the most profound reflections of our time on the nature of the human subject and self-understanding — the human condition, philosophically speaking. This book mimes those extensive writings for a conception of the self. And more specifically, the book offers a discussion of Wittgenstein's later writings on language and mind as they hold special significance for the understanding and clarification of the distinctive character of self-descriptive or autobiographical language. The book also undertakes a philosophical investigation of selected autobiographical writings — among the best examples we have of human selves exploring themselves — as they cast new and special light on the critique of mind-body dualism and its undercurrents in particular, and on the nature of autobiographical consciousness more generally. The chapters take up in turn the topics of self-consciousness, what Wittgenstein calls ‘the inner picture’; mental privacy and the picture of metaphysical seclusion; the very idea of our observation of the contents of consciousness; first-person expressive speech; reflexive or self-directed thought and competing pictures of introspection; the nuances of retrospective self-understanding, person-perception, and the corollary issues of self-perception (itself an interestingly dangerous phrase); self-defining memory; and the therapeutic conception of philosophical progress as it applies to all of these issues. The cast of characters interwoven throughout the discussion include, in addition to Wittgenstein centrally, Augustine, Goethe, Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Iris Murdoch, Donald Davidson, and Stanley Cavell, among others.
Karen Zumhagen-Yekplé
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226677019
- eISBN:
- 9780226677293
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226677293.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter offers a detailed account of the Tractatus, beginning with attention to the modernist cultural contexts out of which that book arose. It offers an overview of key aspects of the ...
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This chapter offers a detailed account of the Tractatus, beginning with attention to the modernist cultural contexts out of which that book arose. It offers an overview of key aspects of the “resolute” program of Wittgenstein interpretation first advanced by Diamond and Conant. It shows that by emphasizing Wittgenstein’s own particular literary sensibilities and investment in the instructive capacity of literature, as well as the relationship between the unique philosophical (and indirect pedagogical) method he employs in the book and its unusual aesthetic form, and by highlighting the productive disjunction between the purported logical-philosophical treatise and its author’s conception of the book’s overall ethical aim, resolute interpretive approaches prompt us to see Wittgenstein’s 1921 work of philosophy as a complex modernist puzzle as revolutionary in its formal ambition and experimentalism as the self-consciously wrought “masterpieces” of the modernist literary canon. It analyzes the ways in which this therapeutic interpretive program corrects established misunderstandings of Wittgenstein’s philosophy in standard readings (e.g., by Anscombe, Pears, Hacker, and others), and recent scholarship on Wittgenstein and modernism written by historians and literary critics who adhere to some combination of these more traditional philosophical readings in their treatment of the Tractatus.Less
This chapter offers a detailed account of the Tractatus, beginning with attention to the modernist cultural contexts out of which that book arose. It offers an overview of key aspects of the “resolute” program of Wittgenstein interpretation first advanced by Diamond and Conant. It shows that by emphasizing Wittgenstein’s own particular literary sensibilities and investment in the instructive capacity of literature, as well as the relationship between the unique philosophical (and indirect pedagogical) method he employs in the book and its unusual aesthetic form, and by highlighting the productive disjunction between the purported logical-philosophical treatise and its author’s conception of the book’s overall ethical aim, resolute interpretive approaches prompt us to see Wittgenstein’s 1921 work of philosophy as a complex modernist puzzle as revolutionary in its formal ambition and experimentalism as the self-consciously wrought “masterpieces” of the modernist literary canon. It analyzes the ways in which this therapeutic interpretive program corrects established misunderstandings of Wittgenstein’s philosophy in standard readings (e.g., by Anscombe, Pears, Hacker, and others), and recent scholarship on Wittgenstein and modernism written by historians and literary critics who adhere to some combination of these more traditional philosophical readings in their treatment of the Tractatus.
Lorraine Code
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195159431
- eISBN:
- 9780199786411
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195159438.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
This is the first of three chapters that develop the conception of subjectivity on which the book’s argument relies. It shows that the model of developmental psychology, originating with Jean Piaget ...
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This is the first of three chapters that develop the conception of subjectivity on which the book’s argument relies. It shows that the model of developmental psychology, originating with Jean Piaget and persisting in Lawrence Kohlberg’s stage theory of moral development, is embedded in assumptions about achieved rational mastery as the mark of moral and cognitive maturity. Not only does it overlook the part played by sociality and affect in child development, it pays scant attention to the constitutive role of situational factors — cultural, class, racial, gendered, sexual — in the production of human subjectivities. Taking as its point of departure Valerie Walkerdine’s critique of Piaget in The Mastery of Reason, and reading Walkerdine together with Ludwig Wittgenstein’s remarks about “the child”, the chapter argues for an approach to developmentality that is socially and ecologically aware in its conception of subjectivity, sociality, citizenship, and of knowledge as a power-saturated social institution.Less
This is the first of three chapters that develop the conception of subjectivity on which the book’s argument relies. It shows that the model of developmental psychology, originating with Jean Piaget and persisting in Lawrence Kohlberg’s stage theory of moral development, is embedded in assumptions about achieved rational mastery as the mark of moral and cognitive maturity. Not only does it overlook the part played by sociality and affect in child development, it pays scant attention to the constitutive role of situational factors — cultural, class, racial, gendered, sexual — in the production of human subjectivities. Taking as its point of departure Valerie Walkerdine’s critique of Piaget in The Mastery of Reason, and reading Walkerdine together with Ludwig Wittgenstein’s remarks about “the child”, the chapter argues for an approach to developmentality that is socially and ecologically aware in its conception of subjectivity, sociality, citizenship, and of knowledge as a power-saturated social institution.
Karen Zumhagen-Yekplé
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226677019
- eISBN:
- 9780226677293
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226677293.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
The introduction explores the relationship between Wittgenstein and modernist literature by focusing attentively on a set of intersecting and mutually illuminating formal, linguistic, ethical, and ...
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The introduction explores the relationship between Wittgenstein and modernist literature by focusing attentively on a set of intersecting and mutually illuminating formal, linguistic, ethical, and spiritual or existential concerns that Wittgenstein’s philosophy shares with the modernist monuments of his literary contemporaries and the works of their late-century neomodernist heirs. These concerns coalesce around three salient modes of engagement—difficulty, ethical teaching, and transformative yearning. Attending closely to these three core commitments affords us new ways of understanding the reciprocal relevance of Wittgenstein’s early philosophy and modernist literature. The introduction adumbrates the main concerns of the so-called “resolute reading,” and situates Wittgenstein within the contested category of modernism by offering a survey of modernist experiments with existential questions and different orders of difficulty in relation to Wittgenstein’s philosophical method and pedagogical aims. Taking as a point of departure a line from Ulysses (which inspires the book’s title) about problems of different orders of difficulty, it sets up a taxonomy of the different kinds of intellectual, cognitive, tactical, ontological, and existential difficulty that the book’s constellation of authors grapple with in their respective works.Less
The introduction explores the relationship between Wittgenstein and modernist literature by focusing attentively on a set of intersecting and mutually illuminating formal, linguistic, ethical, and spiritual or existential concerns that Wittgenstein’s philosophy shares with the modernist monuments of his literary contemporaries and the works of their late-century neomodernist heirs. These concerns coalesce around three salient modes of engagement—difficulty, ethical teaching, and transformative yearning. Attending closely to these three core commitments affords us new ways of understanding the reciprocal relevance of Wittgenstein’s early philosophy and modernist literature. The introduction adumbrates the main concerns of the so-called “resolute reading,” and situates Wittgenstein within the contested category of modernism by offering a survey of modernist experiments with existential questions and different orders of difficulty in relation to Wittgenstein’s philosophical method and pedagogical aims. Taking as a point of departure a line from Ulysses (which inspires the book’s title) about problems of different orders of difficulty, it sets up a taxonomy of the different kinds of intellectual, cognitive, tactical, ontological, and existential difficulty that the book’s constellation of authors grapple with in their respective works.
Karen Zumhagen-Yekplé
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226677019
- eISBN:
- 9780226677293
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226677293.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter explores resonances between Kafka’s parables and the parabolic aspects of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, and accounts for the deployment of obscurity in the oblique modes of ethical teaching ...
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This chapter explores resonances between Kafka’s parables and the parabolic aspects of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, and accounts for the deployment of obscurity in the oblique modes of ethical teaching both writers adopt to train readers to think and live differently. It grapples with the central question of Kafka’s “On Parables”: how do literature and the humanities guide us through the perplexity of existence in the face of a gap between the everyday real and the unattainable (yet still longed-for) “higher”? It examines the ethical stakes of these authors’ shared investment in the philosophical depth of riddle, irony, and figurative and nonsensical expression in their treatments of ordinary language and world, the yearning for transcendence, and the failure to achieve it. Their works call for attention and exegesis, emphasizing the ethical difference between “getting” and "not getting" the philosophical import of a text, in the context of an examination of the relationship (or lack thereof) between the activities and difficulties of everyday life, and of literary expression and/or spiritual or philosophical teaching. They lead readers beyond the dichotomy of facticity and transcendence toward a recognition of the possibility of seeing and describing ordinary life’s significance in linguistically meaningful and ethically valuable ways.Less
This chapter explores resonances between Kafka’s parables and the parabolic aspects of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, and accounts for the deployment of obscurity in the oblique modes of ethical teaching both writers adopt to train readers to think and live differently. It grapples with the central question of Kafka’s “On Parables”: how do literature and the humanities guide us through the perplexity of existence in the face of a gap between the everyday real and the unattainable (yet still longed-for) “higher”? It examines the ethical stakes of these authors’ shared investment in the philosophical depth of riddle, irony, and figurative and nonsensical expression in their treatments of ordinary language and world, the yearning for transcendence, and the failure to achieve it. Their works call for attention and exegesis, emphasizing the ethical difference between “getting” and "not getting" the philosophical import of a text, in the context of an examination of the relationship (or lack thereof) between the activities and difficulties of everyday life, and of literary expression and/or spiritual or philosophical teaching. They lead readers beyond the dichotomy of facticity and transcendence toward a recognition of the possibility of seeing and describing ordinary life’s significance in linguistically meaningful and ethically valuable ways.
Ernest Sosa
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199217250
- eISBN:
- 9780191696053
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199217250.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This book argues for a reflective virtue epistemology based on a kind of virtuous circularity that may be found explicitly or just below the surface in the epistemological writings of Descartes, ...
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This book argues for a reflective virtue epistemology based on a kind of virtuous circularity that may be found explicitly or just below the surface in the epistemological writings of Descartes, Moore, and now Davidson, who also relies crucially on an assumption of virtuous circularity. Along the way various lines of objection are explored. Part I of this book considers historical alternatives to the view developed in Part II. It begins with G. E. Moore's legendary proof, and the epistemology that lies behind it. That leads to classical foundationalism, a more general position encompassing the indirect realism advocated by Moore. Next the book turns to the quietist naturalism found in David Hume, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and P. F. Strawson. After that comes Thomas Reid's common sense alternative. A quite different option is the subtle and complex epistemology developed by Wilfrid Sellars over the course of a long career. Finally, Part I concludes with a study of Donald Davidson's distinctive form of epistemology naturalized (as the book argues). The second part of the book presents an alternative beyond the historical positions of Part I, one that defends a virtue epistemology combined with epistemic circularity. This alternative retains elements of the earlier approaches, while discarding what was found wanting in them.Less
This book argues for a reflective virtue epistemology based on a kind of virtuous circularity that may be found explicitly or just below the surface in the epistemological writings of Descartes, Moore, and now Davidson, who also relies crucially on an assumption of virtuous circularity. Along the way various lines of objection are explored. Part I of this book considers historical alternatives to the view developed in Part II. It begins with G. E. Moore's legendary proof, and the epistemology that lies behind it. That leads to classical foundationalism, a more general position encompassing the indirect realism advocated by Moore. Next the book turns to the quietist naturalism found in David Hume, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and P. F. Strawson. After that comes Thomas Reid's common sense alternative. A quite different option is the subtle and complex epistemology developed by Wilfrid Sellars over the course of a long career. Finally, Part I concludes with a study of Donald Davidson's distinctive form of epistemology naturalized (as the book argues). The second part of the book presents an alternative beyond the historical positions of Part I, one that defends a virtue epistemology combined with epistemic circularity. This alternative retains elements of the earlier approaches, while discarding what was found wanting in them.
Cressida J. Heyes
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195310535
- eISBN:
- 9780199871445
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195310535.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
This chapter argues that the contemporary Western understanding of the relationship between the body and self is subject to a number of “pictures” that mark significant constraints on our ability to ...
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This chapter argues that the contemporary Western understanding of the relationship between the body and self is subject to a number of “pictures” that mark significant constraints on our ability to imagine alternative ways of caring for ourselves and others, hence on our self-government, and ultimately on our freedom. Two related pictures are used to explain how the somatic individual has come to dominate ways of understanding the self. The first is a picture in which we have an inner depth and authenticity that the outer (in this case, the flesh) must represent. This is a model of the self in general (selves as objects with an inner essence) and also of each self in particular. In their different ways, both Ludwig Wittgenstein and Michel Foucault challenge this picture, the former primarily through his private language argument, and the latter through his genealogical method. The second picture is one of power, and is characterized by the view that power is a substance, power is held and exercised by a sovereign who rules over us, and power is a force external to the self, whose primary purpose is repressive.Less
This chapter argues that the contemporary Western understanding of the relationship between the body and self is subject to a number of “pictures” that mark significant constraints on our ability to imagine alternative ways of caring for ourselves and others, hence on our self-government, and ultimately on our freedom. Two related pictures are used to explain how the somatic individual has come to dominate ways of understanding the self. The first is a picture in which we have an inner depth and authenticity that the outer (in this case, the flesh) must represent. This is a model of the self in general (selves as objects with an inner essence) and also of each self in particular. In their different ways, both Ludwig Wittgenstein and Michel Foucault challenge this picture, the former primarily through his private language argument, and the latter through his genealogical method. The second picture is one of power, and is characterized by the view that power is a substance, power is held and exercised by a sovereign who rules over us, and power is a force external to the self, whose primary purpose is repressive.
Mathieu Marion
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199550470
- eISBN:
- 9780191701559
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199550470.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics
In order to appreciate fully the depth of Ludwig Wittgenstein's commitment to finitism, one ought to look for the causes of his change of mind on quantification. They are to be found in underlying ...
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In order to appreciate fully the depth of Ludwig Wittgenstein's commitment to finitism, one ought to look for the causes of his change of mind on quantification. They are to be found in underlying changes in the notion of analysis which took place in the first steps away from Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus in the manuscripts of 1929. Upon his return to Cambridge in January of that year, Wittgenstein immediately started writing extensively. This was a period of intense intellectual fervor. Early entries in his notebooks indicate that he had started to think afresh some of the problems even before his arrival in Cambridge and that he moved in new directions very quickly. This indicates that Wittgenstein had already given up or was about to give up one of the cental claims of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.Less
In order to appreciate fully the depth of Ludwig Wittgenstein's commitment to finitism, one ought to look for the causes of his change of mind on quantification. They are to be found in underlying changes in the notion of analysis which took place in the first steps away from Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus in the manuscripts of 1929. Upon his return to Cambridge in January of that year, Wittgenstein immediately started writing extensively. This was a period of intense intellectual fervor. Early entries in his notebooks indicate that he had started to think afresh some of the problems even before his arrival in Cambridge and that he moved in new directions very quickly. This indicates that Wittgenstein had already given up or was about to give up one of the cental claims of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.
Mathieu Marion
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199550470
- eISBN:
- 9780191701559
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199550470.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics
This chapter looks at some of the parallels and differences between intuitionism and Ludwig Wittgenstein's new logic. One good way to handle this topic is with the help of the notion of truth maker. ...
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This chapter looks at some of the parallels and differences between intuitionism and Ludwig Wittgenstein's new logic. One good way to handle this topic is with the help of the notion of truth maker. This expression was introduced by Kevin Mulligan, Peter Simons, and Barry Smith in order to designate in a neutral fashion entities in virtue of which sentences and/or propositions are true. The basic intuitionist thesis is, on the other hand, that a mathematical proposition is made true by a proof of it. It is on the basis of this thesis that intuitionists developed a new interpretation of logical constants in the 1930s which has interesting affinities not with conceptions found in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus but with Wittgenstein's new form of analysis in the early 1930s.Less
This chapter looks at some of the parallels and differences between intuitionism and Ludwig Wittgenstein's new logic. One good way to handle this topic is with the help of the notion of truth maker. This expression was introduced by Kevin Mulligan, Peter Simons, and Barry Smith in order to designate in a neutral fashion entities in virtue of which sentences and/or propositions are true. The basic intuitionist thesis is, on the other hand, that a mathematical proposition is made true by a proof of it. It is on the basis of this thesis that intuitionists developed a new interpretation of logical constants in the 1930s which has interesting affinities not with conceptions found in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus but with Wittgenstein's new form of analysis in the early 1930s.
Karen Zumhagen-Yekplé
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226677019
- eISBN:
- 9780226677293
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226677293.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter attends to modernism’s obsession with the question of life’s meaning that shows forth in Woolf’s writing in the expressions of a longing for out-of-reach answers to the perennial ...
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This chapter attends to modernism’s obsession with the question of life’s meaning that shows forth in Woolf’s writing in the expressions of a longing for out-of-reach answers to the perennial existential questions ‘why?’ that pervade the world of her novels. It focuses specifically on Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, the novel in which such questions arise with greatest urgency. Woolf’s fixation on questions, quests, and the yearning for a revised understanding of life offers a way of coping with the specific category of “different-order” difficulty that Diamond calls “the difficulty of reality,” and describes as the experience of an ordinary sublime so terrible or astonishing that it resists our very capacities of thought. Diamond’s account of this weighty order of difficulty creates a new philosophical context in which to understand Woolf’s treatment of the difficulties of life. Reading Woolf with reference to Diamond shows how matters at the heart of Woolf’s novel intersect with Wittgensteinian and Cavellian preoccupations that inform Diamond’s own thinking about literature and moral philosophy. Making connections among Wittgenstein’s, Diamond’s, and Woolf’s treatments of these issues brings into clearer focus the philosophical sympathies that attest to the mutual significance of their particular brands of modernism.Less
This chapter attends to modernism’s obsession with the question of life’s meaning that shows forth in Woolf’s writing in the expressions of a longing for out-of-reach answers to the perennial existential questions ‘why?’ that pervade the world of her novels. It focuses specifically on Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, the novel in which such questions arise with greatest urgency. Woolf’s fixation on questions, quests, and the yearning for a revised understanding of life offers a way of coping with the specific category of “different-order” difficulty that Diamond calls “the difficulty of reality,” and describes as the experience of an ordinary sublime so terrible or astonishing that it resists our very capacities of thought. Diamond’s account of this weighty order of difficulty creates a new philosophical context in which to understand Woolf’s treatment of the difficulties of life. Reading Woolf with reference to Diamond shows how matters at the heart of Woolf’s novel intersect with Wittgensteinian and Cavellian preoccupations that inform Diamond’s own thinking about literature and moral philosophy. Making connections among Wittgenstein’s, Diamond’s, and Woolf’s treatments of these issues brings into clearer focus the philosophical sympathies that attest to the mutual significance of their particular brands of modernism.
Michael LeMahieu
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199890408
- eISBN:
- 9780199369652
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199890408.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
In the literary response to logical positivism, Ludwig Wittgenstein figures both as inspiration and opposition, as the philosopher of what is the case and as the poet of what is not. Wittgenstein’s ...
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In the literary response to logical positivism, Ludwig Wittgenstein figures both as inspiration and opposition, as the philosopher of what is the case and as the poet of what is not. Wittgenstein’s contradictory reputation reflects the complexities of his philosophy, particularly the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The text exemplifies the logical positivist philosophy to which postwar American writers responded and at the same time prefigures that very response. In casting Wittgenstein as a positivist, each for their own ends, Rudolf Carnap’s Vienna Circle and Theodor Adorno’s Frankfurt School are surprisingly aligned. Yet with its unsettled combination of logical propositions and mystical aphorisms, the Tractatus refuses to correspond to either group’s description of it. Ironically, it is Adorno’s own concept of negative dialectics that makes legible Wittgenstein’s negative aesthetics, the attempt to show the “nonsense” that cannot be said, and that reveals the ways in which Wittgenstein rejects the very positivism his text makes possible.Less
In the literary response to logical positivism, Ludwig Wittgenstein figures both as inspiration and opposition, as the philosopher of what is the case and as the poet of what is not. Wittgenstein’s contradictory reputation reflects the complexities of his philosophy, particularly the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The text exemplifies the logical positivist philosophy to which postwar American writers responded and at the same time prefigures that very response. In casting Wittgenstein as a positivist, each for their own ends, Rudolf Carnap’s Vienna Circle and Theodor Adorno’s Frankfurt School are surprisingly aligned. Yet with its unsettled combination of logical propositions and mystical aphorisms, the Tractatus refuses to correspond to either group’s description of it. Ironically, it is Adorno’s own concept of negative dialectics that makes legible Wittgenstein’s negative aesthetics, the attempt to show the “nonsense” that cannot be said, and that reveals the ways in which Wittgenstein rejects the very positivism his text makes possible.
Jason A. Springs
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195395044
- eISBN:
- 9780199866243
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Discontinued
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195395044.003.0000
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter introduces the overarching purposes that motivate the book. It forwards and explicates the book's central premise that unlocking the full resourcefulness of Hans Frei's theological ...
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This chapter introduces the overarching purposes that motivate the book. It forwards and explicates the book's central premise that unlocking the full resourcefulness of Hans Frei's theological approach requires sustained attention to, and meticulous exposition of, its interdisciplinary and conversational character. This book aims to provide a critical elucidation and expansion of Frei's theology that accounts for the range of criticisms his work has incurred in the decades since his death, and how new developments in cultural theory and nonfoundational philosophy during that period can be used to expand upon his approach. The chapter concludes with a synopsis of the central claims and arguments in each of the chapters that follow.Less
This chapter introduces the overarching purposes that motivate the book. It forwards and explicates the book's central premise that unlocking the full resourcefulness of Hans Frei's theological approach requires sustained attention to, and meticulous exposition of, its interdisciplinary and conversational character. This book aims to provide a critical elucidation and expansion of Frei's theology that accounts for the range of criticisms his work has incurred in the decades since his death, and how new developments in cultural theory and nonfoundational philosophy during that period can be used to expand upon his approach. The chapter concludes with a synopsis of the central claims and arguments in each of the chapters that follow.
John Gunnell
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231169400
- eISBN:
- 9780231538343
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231169400.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
A distinctive feature of Ludwig Wittgenstein's work after 1930 was his turn to a conception of philosophy as a form of social inquiry, and Thomas Kuhn's approach to the philosophy of science ...
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A distinctive feature of Ludwig Wittgenstein's work after 1930 was his turn to a conception of philosophy as a form of social inquiry, and Thomas Kuhn's approach to the philosophy of science exemplified this conception. This book shows how these philosophers address foundational issues in the social and human sciences, particularly the vision of social inquiry as an interpretive endeavor and the distinctive cognitive and practical relationship between social inquiry and its subject matter. The book tackles the demarcation between natural and social science; the nature of social phenomena; the concept and method of interpretation; the relationship between language and thought; the problem of knowledge of other minds; and the character of descriptive and normative judgments about practices that are the object of inquiry. Though Wittgenstein and Kuhn are often criticized as initiating a modern descent into relativism, this book shows that the true effect of their work was to undermine the basic assumptions of contemporary social and human science practice. It also problematized the authority of philosophy and other forms of social inquiry to specify the criteria for judging such matters as truth and justice. When Wittgenstein stated that “philosophy leaves everything as it is,” he did not mean that philosophy would be left as it was or that philosophy would have no impact on what it studied, but rather that the activity of inquiry did not, simply by virtue of its performance, transform the object of inquiry.Less
A distinctive feature of Ludwig Wittgenstein's work after 1930 was his turn to a conception of philosophy as a form of social inquiry, and Thomas Kuhn's approach to the philosophy of science exemplified this conception. This book shows how these philosophers address foundational issues in the social and human sciences, particularly the vision of social inquiry as an interpretive endeavor and the distinctive cognitive and practical relationship between social inquiry and its subject matter. The book tackles the demarcation between natural and social science; the nature of social phenomena; the concept and method of interpretation; the relationship between language and thought; the problem of knowledge of other minds; and the character of descriptive and normative judgments about practices that are the object of inquiry. Though Wittgenstein and Kuhn are often criticized as initiating a modern descent into relativism, this book shows that the true effect of their work was to undermine the basic assumptions of contemporary social and human science practice. It also problematized the authority of philosophy and other forms of social inquiry to specify the criteria for judging such matters as truth and justice. When Wittgenstein stated that “philosophy leaves everything as it is,” he did not mean that philosophy would be left as it was or that philosophy would have no impact on what it studied, but rather that the activity of inquiry did not, simply by virtue of its performance, transform the object of inquiry.
Margaret Urban Walker
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195315394
- eISBN:
- 9780199872053
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195315394.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
Representational practices affect moral perception and moral recognition, and so are proper studies for moral philosophy. Using Wittgenstein's idea that a human body pictures a soul, this chapter ...
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Representational practices affect moral perception and moral recognition, and so are proper studies for moral philosophy. Using Wittgenstein's idea that a human body pictures a soul, this chapter examines three patterns of representation of human bodies that impair or bias moral perception and proper recognition of human beings. Stereo-graphy fuses representation of the bodies of one kind of human being to a particular kind of comportment. Porno-graphy repetitively pictures certain bodies in sexualized ways. Necro-graphy produces representations of bodies that picture living human beings as already dead or beyond hope, or inscribe dead human bodies with an insult to their humanity. Moral graphics — the study of morally significant patterns of representation — aids in understanding the construction of identities, the nature and impact of stereotypes, and the fact that some kinds of prejudice are not easily accessible by conscious reflection.Less
Representational practices affect moral perception and moral recognition, and so are proper studies for moral philosophy. Using Wittgenstein's idea that a human body pictures a soul, this chapter examines three patterns of representation of human bodies that impair or bias moral perception and proper recognition of human beings. Stereo-graphy fuses representation of the bodies of one kind of human being to a particular kind of comportment. Porno-graphy repetitively pictures certain bodies in sexualized ways. Necro-graphy produces representations of bodies that picture living human beings as already dead or beyond hope, or inscribe dead human bodies with an insult to their humanity. Moral graphics — the study of morally significant patterns of representation — aids in understanding the construction of identities, the nature and impact of stereotypes, and the fact that some kinds of prejudice are not easily accessible by conscious reflection.
Mathieu Marion
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199550470
- eISBN:
- 9780191701559
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199550470.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics
This chapter shows that Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics has much less in common with intuitionism than is usually assumed, although some strategical moves are barely distinguishable. ...
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This chapter shows that Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics has much less in common with intuitionism than is usually assumed, although some strategical moves are barely distinguishable. At least one such move cannot be overlooked because of its importance for the development of Wittgenstein's philosophy: it concerns quantification theory. This chapter shows that Wittgenstein's stance on quantification was, however, even more radical than that of intuitionists. This is a topic about which Wittgenstein changed his mind around 1929. The search for the source of Wittgenstein's new ideas on quantification leads directly to Hermann Weyl. He actually developed original ideas on topics such as quantification. According to him, propositions containing an existential quantifier ranging over the natural numbers do not possess the full status of judgement.Less
This chapter shows that Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics has much less in common with intuitionism than is usually assumed, although some strategical moves are barely distinguishable. At least one such move cannot be overlooked because of its importance for the development of Wittgenstein's philosophy: it concerns quantification theory. This chapter shows that Wittgenstein's stance on quantification was, however, even more radical than that of intuitionists. This is a topic about which Wittgenstein changed his mind around 1929. The search for the source of Wittgenstein's new ideas on quantification leads directly to Hermann Weyl. He actually developed original ideas on topics such as quantification. According to him, propositions containing an existential quantifier ranging over the natural numbers do not possess the full status of judgement.
Kevin M. Cahill
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231158008
- eISBN:
- 9780231528115
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231158008.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter examines Ludwig Wittgenstein's ethical aim in writing the Tractatus. While resolute readings provide a framework for how the relation between ethics and the Tractatus should be ...
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This chapter examines Ludwig Wittgenstein's ethical aim in writing the Tractatus. While resolute readings provide a framework for how the relation between ethics and the Tractatus should be understood, none of those readings have offered a detailed explanation of this relation. This chapter first considers the problem of conveying an intention in the context of reading the Tractatus using the resolute approach and proceeds with an overview of the concepts of anxiety, the “they” (Das Man), and authenticity in Martin Heidegger's Being and Time. It then analyzes Heidegger's description of an authentic stance toward anxiety and the “they” within the context of the Tractatus, along with the conceptual resonances between wonder and anxiety and how they relate to passages in the Tractatus dealing with the self and solipsism. The chapter concludes by commenting on Michael Kremer's interpretation of the ethical aim of the Tractatus in relation to the writings of St. Paul and St. Augustine as well as James Conant's comparison of the Tractatus to Søren Kierkegaard's work.Less
This chapter examines Ludwig Wittgenstein's ethical aim in writing the Tractatus. While resolute readings provide a framework for how the relation between ethics and the Tractatus should be understood, none of those readings have offered a detailed explanation of this relation. This chapter first considers the problem of conveying an intention in the context of reading the Tractatus using the resolute approach and proceeds with an overview of the concepts of anxiety, the “they” (Das Man), and authenticity in Martin Heidegger's Being and Time. It then analyzes Heidegger's description of an authentic stance toward anxiety and the “they” within the context of the Tractatus, along with the conceptual resonances between wonder and anxiety and how they relate to passages in the Tractatus dealing with the self and solipsism. The chapter concludes by commenting on Michael Kremer's interpretation of the ethical aim of the Tractatus in relation to the writings of St. Paul and St. Augustine as well as James Conant's comparison of the Tractatus to Søren Kierkegaard's work.
Kevin M. Cahill
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231158008
- eISBN:
- 9780231528115
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231158008.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter examines the purpose of Philosophical Investigations, with particular emphasis on the connections Ludwig Wittgenstein saw between the philosophical problems with which he grappled in his ...
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This chapter examines the purpose of Philosophical Investigations, with particular emphasis on the connections Ludwig Wittgenstein saw between the philosophical problems with which he grappled in his later philosophy and the historical-cultural context in which those problems arose. It begins with an overview of Wittgenstein's development of certain themes he found in Oswald Spengler as an important connecting link between his critique of metaphysics and his concerns with cultural decline. It then considers some ideas broached by Stanley Cavell to show how Philosophical Investigations can be read as a substantial continuation from the Tractatus, both in the way it attempts to embody a nontheoretical conception of philosophy and in the way in which this conception is in the service of what can be seen as an attempt to fulfill something like the earlier work's ethical purpose. The chapter also tackles the question of how these issues intersect with Wittgenstein's attitude toward and engagement with religion.Less
This chapter examines the purpose of Philosophical Investigations, with particular emphasis on the connections Ludwig Wittgenstein saw between the philosophical problems with which he grappled in his later philosophy and the historical-cultural context in which those problems arose. It begins with an overview of Wittgenstein's development of certain themes he found in Oswald Spengler as an important connecting link between his critique of metaphysics and his concerns with cultural decline. It then considers some ideas broached by Stanley Cavell to show how Philosophical Investigations can be read as a substantial continuation from the Tractatus, both in the way it attempts to embody a nontheoretical conception of philosophy and in the way in which this conception is in the service of what can be seen as an attempt to fulfill something like the earlier work's ethical purpose. The chapter also tackles the question of how these issues intersect with Wittgenstein's attitude toward and engagement with religion.
Mathieu Marion
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199550470
- eISBN:
- 9780191701559
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199550470.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics
The notion of operation plays a pivotal role in the symbolism of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: on the one hand, truth-functions are based on truth-operations; on the other, numbers are ...
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The notion of operation plays a pivotal role in the symbolism of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: on the one hand, truth-functions are based on truth-operations; on the other, numbers are exponents of an operation. Considering that operations seem to be so central, it is amazing to notice how little is understood of Ludwig Wittgenstein's remarks: not enough attention has been paid in the past to the curious piece of symbolism of 6.01. What Wittgenstein says about the notion of operation very much resembles informal explanations of the notion of operator. Two differences with the set-theoretic notion of function were mentioned in Chapter 1: firstly, an operator is defined by describing how it transforms an input without defining the set of inputs, that is without defining its domain. Secondly, there is no restriction on the domain of some operators.Less
The notion of operation plays a pivotal role in the symbolism of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: on the one hand, truth-functions are based on truth-operations; on the other, numbers are exponents of an operation. Considering that operations seem to be so central, it is amazing to notice how little is understood of Ludwig Wittgenstein's remarks: not enough attention has been paid in the past to the curious piece of symbolism of 6.01. What Wittgenstein says about the notion of operation very much resembles informal explanations of the notion of operator. Two differences with the set-theoretic notion of function were mentioned in Chapter 1: firstly, an operator is defined by describing how it transforms an input without defining the set of inputs, that is without defining its domain. Secondly, there is no restriction on the domain of some operators.
Mathieu Marion
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199550470
- eISBN:
- 9780191701559
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199550470.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics
The philosophical world outside Cambridge discovered the later Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics with the publication in the 1956 of the Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, a ...
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The philosophical world outside Cambridge discovered the later Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics with the publication in the 1956 of the Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, a selection from manuscripts dating from 1938 to 1944. In his 1958 survey paper, Hao Wang promoted strict finitism, which he then called anthropologism, to the rank of a foundational thesis alongside finitism, intuitionism, predicativism, and Platonism, with the later Wittgenstein being enrolled as its most important representative. This has been by far the prevailing view ever since, with some exceptions. A useful preliminary step would be to give a brief characterization of strict finitism. Various strict finitist programmes have been devised in the past, and they do not show much homogeneity: contrary to intuitionism, there is no orthodoxy.Less
The philosophical world outside Cambridge discovered the later Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics with the publication in the 1956 of the Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, a selection from manuscripts dating from 1938 to 1944. In his 1958 survey paper, Hao Wang promoted strict finitism, which he then called anthropologism, to the rank of a foundational thesis alongside finitism, intuitionism, predicativism, and Platonism, with the later Wittgenstein being enrolled as its most important representative. This has been by far the prevailing view ever since, with some exceptions. A useful preliminary step would be to give a brief characterization of strict finitism. Various strict finitist programmes have been devised in the past, and they do not show much homogeneity: contrary to intuitionism, there is no orthodoxy.
