"The mother-tongue of thought". James and Wittgenstein on common sense (original) (raw)
“Our later and more critical philosophies are mere fads and fancies compared with this natural mother-tongue of thought”, says William James in his lecture on common sense. The deep bond connecting language, common sense and nature is also one of the main concerns of the later Wittgenstein. The aim of this paper is to compare the two philosophers in this respect, particularly focusing on James’ Pragmatism and on Wittgenstein’s On Certainty. Similarities, but also differences, will be highlighted. A further element will be offered by the analysis of a fragment of Wittgenstein’s Nachlass, which anticipates his image of the river-bed of thought through the critique of James’ stream of thought. By means of this comparison, I will question Wittgenstein’s explicit refusal of pragmatism. I will argue that his late philosophy can be said to be even more pragmatist than James’, in that it delineates a conception of the common sense certainties which shape our Weltbild (world-picture) as practically, and not merely epistemically, connected to our life.
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Wittgenstein and Common-Sense Philosophy
Wittgenstein is known to have been a visual thinker. But he was also, as I will briefly indicate below, a thinker who in his later years in fact came close to developing a philosophy of visual thinking. The position he was groping for corresponds, one might say, to the common-sense view: we think in images no less than in words, and both mental and physical images signify by resembling. More broadly, too, it can be maintained that the later Wittgenstein tended to be a philosopher of common sense, indeed a common-sense realist, while being very much aware of the intricacies of the notion of common-sense philosophy. The notes published as On Certainty, notes he wrote during the last one and a half years of his life, are an extended critical discussion of G. E. Moore’s “defence of common sense”; but already in the Blue Book, dictated to his class in Cambridge in 1933–34, we find some revealing passages not just on how the typical common-sense philosopher’s approach differs (to his detriment) from that of “the common-sense man”, but indeed on how a suitably conceived common-sense, and realist, philosophy should proceed. Fittingly, the first set of these passages is separated by a mere few pages from some important Blue Book passages on mental images, pictorial meaning, and visual similarity as constitutive of pictures. – Still, as this paper will point out, there are writings by Wittgenstein where his grasp of the proper mission of philosophy serving common sense, and hence realism, does not seem to be entirely firm. Such is the typescript no. 227, completed by 1946, posthumously published as Part I of the Philosophical Investigations. Here one cannot but sense a contradiction between Wittgenstein’s excessive claim as to the primordial literalness (non-metaphorical nature) of everyday language, and his stress on the felicitous multiplicity and flexibility of language-games.
Cognitio, 2020
This article supports a reading of the "Stream of Thought" chapter in The Principles of Psychology according to which James was not formulating an idea of linguistic meanings as private feelings occurring within the speaker's mind, but rather criticizing the habit of basically considering language an association of names, because of the misleading consequence of this assumption for our understanding of thought as primarily resulting from the sum of its discrete parts. James was suggesting the possibility of adopting a different approach to language by considering its continuous, relational or transitive aspects, instead of focusing exclusively on substantive elements. He seems to be inviting his readers to adopt an attitude towards language complementing his own holistic view of thought as continuous and involving relations. The author explores the claim that James was considering two different attitudes towards language (GAVIN, 1992, p. 69): a more critical approach and a disposition that is attentive to the dynamic, contextual and embodied shaping of the meaning of words. This reading is based on and further develops the idea that The Principles had a positive influence on Wittgenstein, rather than a merely critical one-an interpretation supported by a group of recent scholars (BONCOMPAGNI, 2012a, 2012b; GOODMAN, 2002; JACKMAN, 2006, 20017; and SANFELIX-VIDARTE, 2016).
Essays on the philosophy of Wittgenstein
2010
This is the first of two volumes containing the proceedings of the 32 nd International Wittgenstein Symposium in Kirchberg/Lower Austria, August 2009. The overall topic of this conference, "Language and World", can be seen as central to Wittgenstein's philosophy. When he was once asked by Yorick Smythies what he regarded as the greatest problem in philosophy, Wittgenstein's answer was "Subject and predicate". We have decided to dedicate this first volume solely to Wittgenstein's philosophy. The four sections only provide a very basic structure. Several contributions easily fit into more than one section. Some of the contributions even might have needed an altogether different heading. The chapter "Wittgenstein's Nachlass" results from a workshop on new aspects of Wittgenstein's published and unpublished writings. The editors would like to express their gratitude to all the contributors and to those who took part in the many and lively discussions during the conference. Without them this volume would never have happened. We would also like to thank the board of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society and our publisher Dr. Rafael Hüntelmann for supporting us all the way through. This volume and the conference were sponsored by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research as well by the Government of the Province of Lower Austria. We are very grateful for their generous funding.
Pyrrhonian and Naturalistic Themes in the Final Writings of Wittgenstein
2011
The following inquiry pursues two interlinked aims. The first is to understand Wittgenstein's idea of non-foundational certainty in the context of a reading of On Certainty that emphasizes its Pyrrhonian elements. The second is to read Wittgenstein's remarks on idealism/radical skepticism in On Certainty in parallel with the discussion of rule-following in Philosophical Investigations in order to demonstrate an underlying similarity of philosophical concerns and methods. I argue that for the later Wittgenstein, what is held certain in a given context of inquiry or action is a locally transcendental condition of the inquiry or action in question. In On Certainty, Wittgenstein's analysis of the difference between knowledge and certainty forms the basis of his critique of both Moore's "Proof" and radical skepticism. This critique takes the shape of rejection of a presupposition shared by both parties, and utilizes what I identify as a Pyrrhonian-style argument against opposed dogmatic views. Wittgenstein's method in this text involves describing epistemic language-games. I demonstrate that this is consistent with the vii rejection of epistemological theorizing, arguing that a Wittgensteinian "picture" is not a theory, but an impressionistic description that accomplishes two things: (i) throwing into relief problems with dogmatic theories and their presuppositions, and (ii) describing the provenance of linguistic and epistemic practices in terms of norms grounded in convention. Convention, in turn, is not arbitrary, but grounded in the biological and social natures of human beings-in what Wittgenstein calls forms of life. Thus there is a kind of naturalism in the work of the later Wittgenstein. It is a naturalism that comes neatly dovetailed with Pyrrhonism-a combination of strategies traceable to Hume's work in the Treatise. I read Hume as someone who develops the Pyrrhonian method to include philosophy done "in a careless manner," and argue that Wittgenstein adopts a similar method in his later works. Finally, I explain the deference to convention in the work of both Hume and Wittgenstein by reference to a passage in Sextus' Outlines, on which I provide a gloss in the final chapter of this work. viii
James on the stream of language: with some remarks on his influence on Wittgenstein
2020
This article supports a reading of the “Stream of Thought” chapter in The Principles of Psychology according to which James was not formulating an idea of linguistic meanings as private feelings occurring within the speaker ’ s mind, but rather criticizing the habit of basically considering language an association of names, because of the misleading consequence of this assumption for our understanding of thought as primarily resulting from the sum of its discrete parts. James was suggesting the possibility of adopting a different approach to language by considering its continuous, relational or transitive aspects, instead of focusing exclusively on substantive elements. He seems to be inviting his readers to adopt an attitude towards language complementing his own holistic view of thought as continuous and involving relations. The author explores the claim that James was considering two different attitudes towards language (GAVIN, 1992, p. 69): a more critical approach and a d...
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In this reflection I address one of the critical questions this monograph is about: How to justify proposing yet another semantic theory in the light of Wittgenstein's strong warnings against it. I see two clear motives for Wittgenstein's semantic nihilism. The first one is the view that philosophical problems arise from postulating hypothetical entities such as 'meanings'. To dissolve the philosophical problems rather than create new ones, Wittgenstein suggests substituting 'meaning' with 'use' and avoiding scientism in philosophy together with the urge to penetrate in one's investigation to unobservable depths. I believe this first motive constitutes only a weak motive for Wittgenstein's quietism, because there are substantial differences between empirical theories in natural sciences and semantic theories in philosophy that leave Wittgenstein's assimilation of both open to criticism. But Wittgenstein is right, on the second motive, that...
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Wittgenstein's Influence: Meaning, Mind and Method
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 1990
In the first and shorter part of this essay I comment on Wittgenstein's general influence on the practice of philosophy since his time. In the second and much longer part I discuss aspects of his work which have had a more particular influence, chiefly on debates about meaning and mind. The aspects in question are Wittgenstein's views about rule-following and private language. This second part is more technical than the first.
The Contemporary Significance of Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy
2014
In his post-Tractatus work on natural language use, Wittgenstein defended the notion of what he dubbed the autonomy of grammar. According to this thought, grammar – or semantics, in a more recent idiom – is essentially autonomous from metaphysical considerations, and is not answerable to the nature of things. The argument has several related incarnations in Wittgenstein’s post-Tractatus writings, and has given rise to a number of important insights, both critical and constructive. In this paper I will argue for a potential connection between Wittgenstein’s autonomy argument and some more recent internalist arguments for the autonomy of semantics. My main motivation for establishing this connection comes from the fact that the later Wittgenstein’s comments on grammar and meaning stand in opposition to some of the core assumptions of semantic externalism.
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