Wittgenstein

This article argues that the analogy between conceptual changes in the history of science and conceptual changes in the development of young children is problematic. We show that the notions of ‘conceptual change’ in Kuhn and Piaget’s projects, the two thinkers whose work is most commonly drawn upon to support this analogy, are not compatible in the sense usually claimed. We contend that Kuhn’s work pertains not so much to the psychology of individual scientists, but to the way philosophers and historians should describe developments in communities of scientists. Furthermore, we argue that the analogy is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of science and the relation between science and common sense. The distinctiveness of the two notions of conceptual change has implications for science education research, since it raises serious questions about the relevance of Kuhn’s remarks for the study of pedagogical issues.

Dans le cadre de leur interprétation phénoménologique de la pensée de Wittgenstein, Jaakko et Merrill B. Hintikka ont proposé un argument concernant la nature des objets de l’ontologie du Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Selon eux, les objets du Tractatus sont identifiables aux objets de l’épistémologie russellienne, à savoir les sense-data. Cette identification des objets tractariens aux sense-data les conduit à avancer que le symbolisme développé par Wittgenstein dans le Tractatus est un langage phénoménologique, celui dont le philosophe parle dans ses Remarques philosophiques de 1929. Dans le présent mémoire, je montre qu’il existe de bonnes raisons de douter de la vérité de la thèse des Hintikka et défends que l’interprétation non empiriste du Tractatus proposée par David Pears est plus convaincante que leur lecture phénoménologique de la philosophie du premier Wittgenstein.

Wittgenstein’s Investigations proposed an egalitarian view about language games, emphasizing their plurality (“language has no downtown”). Uses of words depend on the game one is playing, and may change when playing another. Furthermore, there is no privileged game dictating the rules for the others: games are as many as purposes. This view is pluralist and egalitarian, but it says little about the connection between meaning and use, and about how a set of rules is responsible for them in practice.
Brandom’s Making It Explicit attempted a straightforward answer to these questions, by developing Wittgensteinian insights: the primacy of social practice over meanings; the idea that meaning is use; the idea of rule–following to understand participation in social practices. Nonetheless, Brandom defended a non–Wittgensteinian conception of discursive practice: language has a “downtown”, the game of “giving and asking for reasons”. This is the idea of a normative structure of language, consisting of advancing claims and drawing inferences. By means of assertions, speakers undertake “commitments” that can be challenged/defended in terms of reasons (those successfully justified can gain “entitlement”). This game is not one among many: it is indispensable to the very idea of discursive practice.
In this paper, my aim will be that of exploring the main motivations and
implications of both perspectives.

Critical Notices of approx. 50 books on Wittgenstein including volumes of essays and original works about THE PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS, The TRACTATUS, ON CERTAINTY etc.

HOSTED BY The British Wittgenstein Society

See www.editor.net/BWS/
for full list of Critical Notices and new books concerning Wittgensrtein

The paper discusses some possible ways of using Wittgensteinian philosophy to combat Marxism, independently of what Wittgenstein's explicit position was, as an individual, about this issue. Economic, political, social and historical uses are presented.

D.Phil dissertation 

Parts of Part 1. of this dissertation are developed in:
* "Contours and Barriers: What is it to Draw the Limits of Moral Language?"

Parts Part 2. of this dissertation are developed in two papers:
* "A Splitting 'Mind-Ache': An Anscombean Challenge to Kantian Self-Legislation" * "Self-Legislation and Other Figurative Dramas" .

General description:
Part 1. explains essential features of Cora Diamond’s philosophical methods, and explains what it takes to draw the limits of moral language--the language trough which moral reality is reflected. Based on that account I then argue that imaginative and figurative thinking--thinking grounded in metaphors and images--has an essential role in moral and religious understanding. Figurative language is not just a helpful guide to the understanding of some moral phenomena, but is  constitutive of them. In Part 2. I show this in the case of the Kantian idea of self-legislation and in Part 3. in the case of Anselm’s idea of God as reflected in his Ontological Proof.

La tesi presenta inizialmente il pensiero di Jacques Derrida sull'animalità. Il tema affrontato è la sovranità dell'uomo sul resto dei viventi, in particolare nei riguardi della discriminazione dell'animalità. Nei capitoli a seguire si attua un'emancipazione dell'animalità e non dall'animalità come la corrente umanista voleva. Attraverso l'ontogenesi del concetto di "umanità" viene decostruito il costrutto che sorregge la soglia che divide l'uomo dagli animali, laddove essi partecipano all'animalità in maniere differenti. L'emergenza di questa composizione dei temi trattati si erge ad azione esemplare con cui Derrida, prima di morire, ha lasciato delle tracce da seguire durante il ricevimento del premio Adorno.

The problem of evil is not only a logical problem about God’s goodness but also an existential problem about the sense of God’s presence, which the Biblical book of Job conceives as a problem of aesthetic experience. Thus, just as theism can be grounded in religious experience, atheism can be grounded in experience of evil. This phenomenon is illustrated by two contrasting literary descriptions of aesthetic experience by Jean-Paul Sartre and Annie Dillard. I illuminate both of these literary texts with a discussion of the 18th Century philosopher Lord Shaftesbury’s concept of ‘enthusiasm’.

Wayne Vucinic Book Prize 2007, "for the most important contribution to Russian, Eurasian, and East European studies in any discipline of the humanities or social sciences." 

Endorsement by Slavoj Zizek:

"Alexei Yurchak's Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More immediately seduced me by its very title with a profound philosophical implication that eternity is a historical category--things can be eternal for some time. The same spirit of paradox runs through the entire book--it renders in wonderful details the gradual disintegration of the Soviet system from within its ideological and cultural space, making visible all the hypocrisy and misery of this process. I consider Yurchak's book by far the best work about the late epoch of the Soviet Union--it is not just history, but a pleasure to read, a true work of art." (Slavoj Zizek, author of In Defense of Lost Causes)

Abstract:

Soviet socialism was based on paradoxes that were revealed by the peculiar experience of its collapse. To the people who lived in that system the collapse seemed both completely unexpected and completely unsurprising. At the moment of collapse it suddenly became obvious that Soviet life had always seemed simultaneously eternal and stagnating, vigorous and ailing, bleak and full of promise. Although these characteristics may appear mutually exclusive, in fact they were mutually constitutive. This book explores the paradoxes of Soviet life during the period of "late socialism" (1960s-1980s) through the eyes of the last Soviet generation.

사회 세계 (MSW)를 aking에 자세히 언급하기 전에 m나는 먼저 철학 (설명 심리학)과 Searle (S)와 비트 겐슈타인 (W)의 작품에서 예시로 현대 심리학 연구와의 관계에 대한 몇 가지 의견을 제공 할 것입니다, 나는 이것이 행동에 Searle 또는 어떤 해설자를 배치하는 가장 좋은 방법이라고 생각하기 때문에, 적절한 관점에서. 그것은 크게 설명 심리학의이 두 천재에 의해 PNC, TLP, PI, OC, TARW 및 기타 책의 내 리뷰를 볼 도움이 될 것입니다.

S는 TLP의 메커니즘으로 W의 선견지명 진술과 그의 후기 작업에서 그의 파괴에 대한 언급을하지 않습니다. W, S는 행동의 이러한 기계적 견해의 주요 해체자가되었다, 그리고 가장 중요한 설명 심리학자 (철학자), 하지만 W가 그를 완전히 예상하고, 크게, 다른 사람을 수행 (하지만 W, 튜링과 AI에 프라우드 풋과 코플랜드의 많은 논문과 책을 참조하십시오). S의 작품은 W보다 훨씬 쉽게 따라할 수 있으며, 일부 전문 용어가 있지만 올바른 방향으로 접근하면 대부분 극적으로 분명합니다. 자세한 내용은 W S 및 기타 책에 대한 내 리뷰를 참조하십시오.

전반적으로, MSW는 작업의 S의 반세기에서 발생하는 Wittgenstein을 통해 많은 실질적인 발전의 좋은 요약이지만, 내 보기에, W는 여전히 그가 말하는 것을 파악하면 기본 심리학에 대한 타의 추종을 불허합니다 (내 리뷰 참조). 이상적으로,  그들은 함께 읽어야한다 : S1 / S2의 운영W의 기발한 예와 함께 설명 S2 / S3의 운영에 명확한 일관된 산문과 일반화에 대한 Searle, 그의 화려한 격언. 제가 훨씬 어렸을 때, 저는 그 일을 하는 책을 쓰곤 했습니다.

현대 의 두 시스템 보기에서인간의 행동에 대한 포괄적 인 최신 프레임 워크를 원하는 사람들은 내 책을 참조 할 수 있습니다'철학의 논리적 구조, 심리학, 민d와 루드비히  비트겐슈타인과 존 Searle의언어'  2nd ed (2019). 내 글의 더 많은 관심있는 사람들은 '이야기 원숭이를 볼 수 있습니다-철학, 심리학, 과학, 종교와 운명 행성에 정치 - 기사 및 리뷰 2006-2019 3 rd 에드 (2019) 및 21st  세기 4번째  에드 (2019)  및 기타에서 자살 유토피아 망상.

D. Z. Phillips’ work in philosophy was animated by his interest in the diversity and heterogeneity of moral and religious perspectives and his antipathy towards philosophical theories that afford this variety little or no conceptual space. In contrast to what he perceived as essentialist efforts to promote certain viewpoints and to disparage others, Phillips championed a “contemplative conception” of philosophy, according to which the philosopher's aim is neither to underwrite nor to undermine but to understand. This paper argues that philosophy, while disinterested in its aims, nevertheless derives its elucidatory force from the normative contexts within which it is practised and read.

L. Wittgenstein and M. Polanyi both recognize a tacit background to knowing, but vary significantly in their understanding of how we know, what we can know, and what we can say about it. This paper explores whether we can say anything about the person as an emergent entity and how we know it, as Polanyi believed we could, or whether, as Wittgenstein early and late believed, the person is among those purported things that can only be shown and attempts to say how we know it lead to nonsense-if there even exists such an entity apart from the actions we may describe.

How can confession help us become more authentic? This article outlines something we can learn from Wittgenstein about this relation.

Full text available online: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/18/opinion/wittgensteins-confession-philosophy.html

This paper's aim is to critically analyze Wittgenstein's arguments against traditional philosophy. It is possible to identify three arguments against it in Wittgenstein's work: (1) The tractarian critique of the metaphysical necessary propositions, (2) the critique of the conception of real definition in the PI and (3) the problem of the role of the ideal, or the problem of dogmatism. By analyzing these three arguments we intend to show that none of them implies necessarily that we should abandon any positive conception of philosophy and stick to a negative analytical one as Wittgenstein understands it.

U različitim diskurzima govor o identitetu poprima različite konotacije. Na jednoj sasvim svakidašnjoj razini, koja se nerijetko izjednačava s medijskom, govor o identitetima odnosi se na socijalnu dimenziju, odnosno na onu dimenziju koja čovjeka vidljivim i vanjskim pokazateljima pozicionira unutar društvene mreže. Tako se može govoriti o etničkim, nacionalnim, rodnim i rasnim identitetima koji u svojoj mnogostrukosti izražavanja pružaju kolažnu sliku koju tzv. postmoderno društvo forsira i eksploatira. Takvi identiteti su društveno konstruirani i nazivaju se socijalnim identitetima. U svakodnevnim društveno - političkim raspravama najviše se raspravlja upravo o tom vidu identiteta, dok se osobni identitet kao apstraktni teorijski koncept ostavlja za teorijsko filozofijske analize. Ovaj rad se bavi načinom na koji se osobni identitet stvara, ragrađuje i ponovno uspostavlja unutar fikcionalnog djela. Riječ je o romanu Newyjorška trilogija američkog pisca Paula Austera, koji je kod nas prošao nezapaženo, neoprezno se svrstavajući na police knjižara pod područje krimića, pridonoseći korpusu tzv. lake književnosti. S druge strane, jasno je da bi bilo pretenciozno i pomalo pompozno Newyoršku trilogiju svrstati u područje tzv. teške književnosti , no namjera ovog rada je da pokaže neke u nas zanemarene dimenzije romana, a koje će se ponajviše ticati načina konstruiranja identiteta likova i autora; implikacijama takve konstrukcije na romanesknu strukturu te dvojničkom konstrukcijom likova.
Teorijski korpus na koji se ovaj rad naslanja i s kojim se dovodi u vezu obuhvaća raznorodne tradicije, povezujući Wittgensteinovu kasniju fazu s nekim aspektima dekonstrukcijske filozofije jezika, te pogledom na dvojništvo Renate Lachmann. Osnovna namjera rada je da se, uz pomoć poredbenog teorijskog uporišta, pokaže kako je osobni identitet u Newyjorškoj trilogiji diskurzivno utemeljen, odnosno kako je on produkt načina funkcioniranja jezika, što nudi mogućnost antiesencijalističkog utemeljenja osobnog identiteta, čime se izbjegava metafizičko utemeljenje identiteta u konačnom označitelju. Kada govorimo o antiesencijalističkom utemeljenju osobnog identiteta, valja napomenuti da se taj koncept odnosi na osobni identitet likova unutar fikcionalnog djela. Kako će se pokazati, osobni identitet likova, zbog svoje zamjenjivosti i fragmentarnosti na nivou narativa romana, ne sadrži neko čvrsto uporište u vidu stabilne biti, nekog konačnog označitelja koji mu propisuje esenciju i određuje njegovo značenje. Konkretnije, rad će se baviti načinom na koji su identiteti likova i autora konstruirani u Newyorškoj trilogiji, s posebnim osvrtom na dvojničku strukturu likova.
Newyorška trilogija sastoji se od triju kratkih romana – Stakleni grad, Duhovi, Zaključana soba -  naizgled nepovezanih, no nakon što se pročita posljednja stranica knjige, otvara se mogućnost gledanja na trilogiju kao na cjelinu sastavljenu od dijelova jedne te iste priče, s jednakim identitetnim strukturama likova.

The contemporary gene-centric model of colour and colour blindness still owes much to John Dalton's (1794) standard framing of the topic. The contemporary model defines colour blindness as a defect or aberration or error of underlying 'pigments' in the retina of the eye. I shall suggest instead that networks of historical-technological constitution account for those features. That is, gene-centric colour and colour blindness belong to a particular grammar of reality. When Wittgenstein talks about colour and colour blindness he is also inadvertently caught in this self-same grammar. I shall be arguing instead that colour and colour blindness belong to a whole body of thought which has been crafted so as to avoid acknowledging the regimes that sustain its legitimacy and the legitimacy of the describers. In particular I shall concentrate on Dalton's role in establishing these regimes. Science transforms the phenomenal world into observable and measurable data. Its putative way of knowing comprises a dynamic interplay between four key elements: Observation and experiment, hypothesis, law and theory. All sciences claim to be descriptive as they aim to make accurate, objective observations and classify the results. Observation and experiment establish the facts of science's raw data. After observation and experiment have established the facts, the scientist creates a hypothesis, a general rule that describes the facts. A hypothesis is a kind of educated guess that must be tested further. If it passes testing – that is, if it continues to describe the facts coherently – then it's promoted to scientific law. A theory makes sense of and explains a vast body of scientific knowledge, including both laws and the facts dependent on the laws. Science can thus be described as an unending process of growth and mutation according to the framework of the discourse of a given time. Scientific evolution progresses in two distinct directions: On the one hand, due to technological innovations, new knowledge systems are added to the existing corpus. Scientific disciplines, however, also undergo profound changes within themselves. Kuhn describes this not as a gradual but an abrupt process propelled by shifting paradigms. A paradigm is defined as coherent system of values and norms that shape the scientific framework by which reality is analysed. In contrast to Kuhn, Lakatos argued that several theories exist simultaneously. His umbrella unit is not a paradigm but a research programme which is characterized by a hard core of solid scientific facts. Lakatos' research programme progresses on an empirical or theoretical growth-based evolution. Finally, Feyerabend specifies that universal standards are unnecessary in judging the scientific body: …an absence of 'objective' standards does not mean less work; it means that scientists have to check all ingredients of their trade and not only those which philosophers and establishment scientists regard as characteristically scientific. Scientists

By thinking through our relationship with what we look out onto, by considering the frames we encounter the world through from specific domestic sites of kinship, I work to examine love’s propositional quality and the structures that frame its endurance.

How does a physical perspective, out of the window for example, created as a framed perspectival view, change one’s cognitive perspective on the world? How are these co-constituted and co-constituting? More specifically, what is considerable in considering the idea of love and the notion of this spatial and ideational perspective?

What follows is an effort to consider the relational condition of the window as a condition of and a contributor to love’s perspective. Conceptually the chapter works through Erwin Panofsky’s notion of perspective as “seeing through,” with the “entire picture transformed … into a ‘window,’” alongside the historiography of Le Corbusier and Perret’s confrontation regarding the historical change from portrait-style windows to modernist landscape “cinematic” windows, and finally
through Wittgenstein’s note 115, which reminds us that the propositional “this is how things are” is akin to thinking one is “tracing the outline of the thing’s nature over and over again.”

Norsk filosofisk tidsskrift03-04 / 2013
The starting point for my discussion is the passage from Augustine’s Confessions that forms the beginning of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. Augustine’s recollection of how he learned to speak as a small child is juxtaposed with Frege’s answer to a question he poses in the midst of a discussion of problems that adhere to functions and signs that designate them: How does a child learn to understand grown-ups? I argue that the comparisons implied in Frege’s answer are meant to show that the passageway into a language cannot be theoretical in character. Frege argues that leading someone into a language requires «entgegenkommendes Verständnis». I point at difficulties that adhere to the translation of this expression to the English idiom «a meeting of minds», and go on to suggest a correspondence between our communication in language in everyday life, as Frege depicts it, and the means he uses for elucidatory purposes. The comparison shows, I argue, that when Frege uses the expression «entgegenkommendes Verständnis» as a presupposition for language acquisition, he speaks of understanding as it is found in our everyday communication in language. My paper ends with a discussion of a possible parallel between Wittgenstein’s conception of ‘agreement in judgments’ and Frege’s conception of ‘entgegenkommendes Verständnis’. A comparison between Frege’s approach to, and conception of philosophical difficulties and Wittgenstein’s investigations of such difficulties in Philosophical Investigations forms a background for my discussion as a whole.

Resumen: La pretensión del autor es iluminar, en contraste con los dos proyectos que dominan el panorama filosófico contemporáneo: una reconstrucción de la filosofía de corte pragmatista e historicista y una reconstrucción en filosofía que acentúa su carácter sustantivo y autónomo; algunos de los aspectos, frecuentemente ignorados, del método desarrollado por Wittgenstein en su última producción, aspectos tan radicales como novedosos.
Pretendemos, por tanto: (i) Mostrar que, de acuerdo con Wittgenstein, la fuente de la inquietud filosófica es la existencia de imágenes inconscientes que funcionan como normas de representación absorbidas dentro de las formas de nuestro lenguaje y que excluyen posibilidades alternativas. Estos símiles fijan cómo las cosas deben y cómo no pueden ser. (ii) Demostrar que la finalidad del método filosófico diseñado por Wittgenstein es cambiar nuestras representaciones y reemplazar viejos hábitos de pensamiento, esto es, que su meta es la creación de nuevos objetos de comparación y la yuxtaposición de símiles con el objeto de quebrar la fascinación que una analogía única ejerce sobre nuestra inteligencia. (iii) Subrayar que los modelos de presentación carecen de valor de verdad; que la imaginación es esencial en la práctica del método wittgensteiniano; que su consecuencia es la libertad intelectual y que, en la medida en que al concebir como absurdo un problema filosófico se alcanza lo que podría denominarse “una suspensión de interés”, la estrategia de Wittgenstein es análoga a la formulada y ejemplificada por el pirronismo. 

Palabras clave: Actitud reformista en filosofía - Actitud revolucionaria en filosofía - Método de representación - Modelos alternativos - Normatividad - Pirronismo - Presentación perspicua - Suspensión de interés - Terapia - Wittgenstein.

Abstract: The author aims at shedding light, against the background of two projects which share the whole present philosophical landscape: a “reconstruction of philosophy” inspired by pragmatism and historicism and a “reconstruction in philosophy” defending the autonomous and substantive character of philosophical theses and methods; on some neglected aspects of Wittgenstein’s late method, aspects so much radical as novel.
Therefore, we pretend: (i) To show that, according to Wittgenstein, the source of philosophical disquiet is the existence of unconscious pictures which function as norms of representation deeply ingrained in our thinking and which exclude alternative possibilities. They fix how things must and cannot be. (ii) To demonstrate that the philosophical method Wittgenstein envisages tries to change someone’s way of looking at things and to replace entrenched habits of thinking by new ones, that is, it tries to create new objects of comparison and to juxtapose pictures with pictures in order to break the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of an unique analogy. (iii) To stress that analogies are not true or false; that imagination is essential to practising Wittgenstein’s method; that its consequence is intellectual freedom and that, because coming to see that a philosophical problem is meaningless we reach what might be called “a suspension of concern”, this purge of our philosophical anxieties resembles the persuasive use of arguments in Pyrrhonism.

Key words: Alternative Models - Method of Representation - Normativity - Perspicuous Presentation - Pyrrhonism - Reforming Attitude in Philosophy - Revolutionary Attitude in Philosophy - Suspension of Concern - Therapy - Wittgenstein.

A discussion of the relationship between Wittgenstein's published work and the Wittgenstein papers which argues that attention to the way in which he wrote can cast light on the nature of his contribution to philosophy. Special attention is given to the editorial problems posed by Wittgenstein's repeated revision and rewriting of his remarks and the work on a complete electronic edition of his papers. Because the Wittgenstein papers are the product of such an extensive act of rewriting, they are not so much a collection of texts as a hypertext, an interconnected network of remarks.

Toilets in modern water closets rise up from the floor like water lilies. The architect does all he can to make the body forget how paltry it is, and to make man ignore what happens to his intestinal wastes after the water from the tank flushes them down the drain. Even though the sewer pipelines reach far into our houses with their tentacles, they are carefully hidden from view, and we are happily ignorant of the invisible Venice of shit underlying our bathrooms, bedrooms, dance halls, and parliaments. Milan Kundera in The Unbearable Lightness of Being All is designed A cursory look at our surroundings should suffice to show that our lives are carried out in the depth of a designed environment. So prevalent is the presence of design in our experience that the fact that our environment is designed has become transparent and in this transparency, invisible. Sheltered in the inconspicuousness and normalcy of daily use, the normative might of the rules that issue from the objects of our use determining our customary doings becomes lost from view. Virtually all our doings—both voluntary and, more remarkably, involuntary actions—are framed, determined, oriented and guided by our interactions with objects of human invention and manufacture. Nature, our own and around us, has been counterfeited. This, however, is not necessarily a bad thing. The park, the animal, the field, the sky and the mountain, all those things that we insist in calling 'nature' are little more than impostors. By design, nature has receded out of sight and the often-heard political summon of its proverbial purity expressing naturalist appeals to biological authenticity are politically suspect. We are not in nature and the traces of nature that remain with us are the product of our invention. By design,

Drawing from the "anti-philosophies" of Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, and deploying a methodology which synthesizes critical theory with evolutionary psychology and contemporary cognitive science, our analysis demonstrates:
1. Justifications, in any context, are oriented towards social manipulation and bear no relation to any "cognitive processes."
2. The role of logic is overstated, both with regards to our justifications, and also our cognition.
3. Truth and falsity are socio-linguistic functions which have no bearing on any "objective reality."

Insofar as these claims are correct, the methods and aims (both normative and descriptive) of "classical epistemology" are invalidated. We offer up a proposal as to what a more useful/meaningful epistemology might look like, exploring how such a reformulation might affect conceptions of "knowledge" and "rationality."

1. Quote/Unquote Philosophers like other people often have a weakness for quiz-shows. And like the crew in the Hunting of the Snark, they are all of them fond of quotations 1 . So I begin with a quotation and a question. The quotation comes from a famous o indeed a ‘superstar’ o text. But which text? Which famous writer indicted these lines? The purpose of the universal jargon was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of logical empiricism, but to make other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when the universal jargon had been adopted for all and the metaphysically infected terminology forgotten, a metaphysical thought o that is a thought diverging from what logical empiricism regarded as genuinely thinkable o should be literally unthinkable, at least in so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a log...