On Not Sparing Others the Trouble of Thinking: Wittgenstein and Education (original) (raw)

Some Thoughts Concerning Wittgenstein and Education

2020

Some Thoughts Concerning Wittgenstein and Education. The purpose of this article is to present a set of eight distinct discussions on the topic of education within the scope of a Wittgensteinian critique of language. To this end, I trace not only the development and peculiarities of Wittgenstein’s thought on language, but also the difficulties of his methodologies, his notion of “therapy”, and the literariness of his writings right through the maturation of his work as relevant topics to that effect. I hope this brief articulation will serve as an introduction to the reading of the texts of our thematic section, as they all touch in one way or another on these same points in a concordant or divergent way.

Wittgenstein's Impact on the Philosophy of Education

Philosophical Investigations

On the strength of a clarification of the nature of philosophy of education, a critical overview is offered of Wittgenstein's impact on the field. The focus then narrows to give attention to Wittgenstein's claim that "Nothing is hidden" (Philosophical Investigations, #435), pitched here in a questionable relation to contemporary concerns with transparency. Familiar readings of this passage are challenged in connection with Wittgenstein's late writings on psychology, especially with regard to imagination and pretence. These are argued to be essential to the development of mind and world, from the child's first entry into language, and hence crucial to education.

Wittgenstein at Cambridge: Philosophy as a way of life

Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2018

Ludwig Wittgenstein was a reclusive and enigmatic philosopher, writing his most significant work off campus in remote locations. He also held a chair in the Philosophy Department at Cambridge, and is one of the university's most recognized even if, as Ray Monk says (1990, 401), 'reluctant professors' of philosophy. Paradoxically, although Wittgenstein often showed contempt for the atmosphere at Cambridge and for academic philosophy in particular, it is hard to conceive of him making his significant contributions without considerable support from his academic colleagues, his research fellowship and later teaching career at Cambridge. It is this conflicted relationship we explore, between the revolutionary thinker and his base within an educational institution. Starting from a brief biographical sketch of Wittgenstein's academic life at Cambridge, including his involvement as a student and faculty member in the Moral Sciences Club, we look at how he reconceived the role of philosophy throughout this period of creative antagonism. Throughout his work, from the early Tractatus to his 'Lecture of Ethics', and again later in his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein drew a boundary between empirical science and philosophy: the latter defined as an investigation of language and the limits of meaning. Seldom at home at the university, he was also at odds with his chosen field, offering a therapeutic approach that allows readers 'to stop doing philosophy when they want to' (PI §132). We conclude our investigation of Wittgenstein's relationship with the university and academic philosophy with insights from Pierre Hadot on philosophical inquiry as a vital part of the bios, a form of life that is the life-blood of academia. Hadot offers insights on Wittgenstein's self-limiting narratives as a crucial aspect of what makes universities such important and enduring institutions, in spite of the vitriolic criticism they draw from iconic members like Wittgenstein.

Training and Abrichtung: Wittgenstein as a tragic philosopher of education

As a landmark philosopher of language and of mind, Ludwig Wittgenstein is also remarkable for having crossed, with apparent ease, the ‘continental divide’ in philosophy. It is consequently not surprising that Wittgenstein’s work, particularly in the Philosophical Investigations, has been taken up by philosophers of education in English. Michael A. Peters, Christopher Winch, Smeyers and Burbules, and others have engaged extensively with the implications of the later Wittgenstein’s philosophy for education. One challenge they face is Wittgenstein’s use of the word ‘training.’ It appears throughout his discussions of language learning and in his periodic references to education. This is made all the more problematic by realizing that the German term Wittgenstein uses consistently is Abrichtung, which refers to animal dressage or obedience training, which is used in sadomasochistic practice, and which also connotes also the breaking of an animal’s will. I argue that this little-recognized fact has broad significance for many important Wittgenstinian insights into education. I conclude by considering how an unflinching recognition of the implications of Wittgenstein’s word choice might cast him as a pessimistic or tragic philosopher of education and upbringing—following German-language traditions—rather than as thinker more compatible with Anglo-American perspectives.

​"Do Your Exercises: Reader Participation in Wittgenstein’s Investigations"

Pedagogical Investigations: A Companion to Wittgenstein on Education, 2017

Published as a chapter in Pedagogical Investigations: A Companion to Wittgenstein on Education, edited by Michael A. Peters and Jeff Stickney, 147-159. Singapore: Springer, 2017. Many theorists have focused on Wittgenstein’s use of examples, but I argue that examples form only half of his method. Rather than continuing the disjointed style of his Cambridge lectures, Wittgenstein returns to the techniques he employed while teaching elementary school. Philosophical Investigations trains the reader as a math class trains a student—‘by means of examples and by exercises’ (§208). Its numbered passages, carefully arranged, provide a series of demonstrations and practice problems. I guide the reader through one such series, demonstrating how the exercises build upon one another and give us ample opportunity to hone our problem-solving skills. Through careful practice, we learn to pass the test Wittgenstein poses when he claims that something is ‘easy to imagine’ (§19). Whereas other critics have viewed the Investigations as merely a diagnosis of our philosophical delusions, I claim that Wittgenstein also writes a prescription for our disease: Do your exercises.

Wittgenstein as a Philosopher of Post-Literacy

Wittgenstein as a Philosopher of Post-Literacy, 1996

Talk given at the 1995 Kirchberg am Wechsel International Wittgenstein Symposium. Attempting to answer the question why Plato was so significant for Wittgenstein. An expanded version of this talk was published in *Grazer Philosophische Studien*, 1996/97.

Judging Portraits of Wittgenstein

2018

Here, we examine two caricatures of Wittgenstein in order to show in relief a more accurate portrait of his later philosophy and its significance for education. Curry’s attempt to appropriate Wittgenstein to Philosophy of Geography backfires but gives occasion to explore his geographic metaphors in relation to his ambling method of philosophical investigation. Learning is shown to be the gradual absorption of rich cultural surroundings or background for going on as others do, knowing one’s way about but also sharing in the genius loci of one’s place. Friesen’s attempt to portray Wittgenstein as a ‘tragic Philosopher of Education’ based on a ‘German-first reading’ of his use of the word Abrichtung (training) also dissembles under closer scrutiny. Friesen’s apparent tribunal of Wittgenstein makes it seem like philosophers drawing on him for progressive purposes in education are somehow naive or duped in overlooking the dictionary definition of Abrichtung. Exonerating colleagues from d...

2018reviewEngelmann's "Wittgenstein's philosophical development 2013"

Mauro Engelmann’s 2013 book entitled “Wittgenstein’s philosophical development” investigates in detail Wittgenstein’s epic adventure through the labyrinth of philosophy from the Tractatus up to his Philosophical Investigations (PI). These are without doubt two perennial classics of the history of philosophy. But it is far from easy to understand what Wittgenstein had in mind at the time between the two writings if we insist in isolated readings of both works or in comparative work without using the richness of Wittgenstein’s Nachlass.