Wittgenstein And Analytic Philosophy

Thirteen leading contributors offer new essays in honour of the eminent philosopher and Wittgenstein scholar Peter Hacker. They discuss issues in the interpretation of Wittgenstein, investigate central topics in the history of analytic philosophy, and explore and assess Wittgensteinian ideas about language, mind, action, ethics, and religion.

This volume initiates an inquiry into the relationship between Ludwig Wittgenstein’s “analytic stance” towards philosophy and the inherently apophatic nature of his epistemology, a subject that has been repeatedly hinted at, but hitherto never thoroughly researched through this particular hermeneutical lens. In using the term “apophaticism,” the book is not merely referring to the theological “via negativa” or to tendencies towards mysticism, but rather to a comprehensive epistemological stance that “refuses to identify truth with its formulation and to identify the understanding of the signifier with the knowledge of its signified reality,” to use Christos Yannaras’ definition. The question of whether Ludwig Wittgenstein’s work can be approached as a particularly efflorescent case of the implementation of an implicitly (and at times explicitly) apophatic epistemology is herewith addressed. As such, this volume contends that such an approach would not merely provide elucidations on apophatic epistemologies, but rather shed potentially valuable hermeneutical light on Wittgenstein’s work, functioning as an epistemological thread running through it. Consequently, the focal points here consist of questions concerning knowledge and its disclosure, ineffability, non-discursivity, the function of language, the limits of one’s language as the limits of one’s world, and the language of religion, among others. In addition, the volume’s contribution to shedding more light on the apophatic aspects of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy is enhanced by its inclusion of a broad spectrum of different approaches, with contributors ranging from Wittgenstein scholars to Patristics scholars—and beyond.

In Wittgenstein on Logic as the Method of Philosophy, Oskari Kuusela examines Wittgenstein's early and late philosophies of logic, situating their philosophical significance in early and middle analytic philosophy with particular reference to Frege, Russell, Carnap, and Strawson. He argues that not only the early but also the later Wittgenstein sought to further develop the logical-philosophical approaches of his contemporaries. Throughout his career Wittgenstein's aim was to resolve problems with and address the limitations of Frege's and Russell's accounts of logic and their logical methodologies so as to achieve the philosophical progress that originally motivated the logical-philosophical approach. By re-examining the roots and development of analytic philosophy, Kuusela seeks to open up covered up paths for the further development of analytic philosophy. Offering a novel interpretation of the philosopher, he explains how Wittgenstein extends logical methodology beyond calculus-based logical methods and how his novel account of the status of logic enables one to do justice to the complexity and richness of language use and thought while retaining rigour and ideals of logic such as simplicity and exactness. In addition, this volume outlines the new kind of non-empiricist naturalism developed in Wittgenstein's later work and explaining how his account of logic can be used to dissolve the long-standing methodological dispute between the ideal and ordinary language schools of analytic philosophy. It is of interest to scholars, researchers, and advance students of philosophy interested in engaging with a number of scholarly debates.

Analytic philosophy--arguably one of the most important philosophical movements in the twentieth century--has gained a new historical self-consciousness, particularly about its own origins. Between 1880 and 1930, the most important work of its founding figures (Frege, Russell, Moore, Wittgenstein) not only gained attention but flourished. In this collection, fifteen previously unpublished essays explore different facets of this period, with an emphasis on the vital intellectual relationship between Frege and the early Wittgenstein.

These essays present new analyzes of the central figures of analytic philosophy -- Frege, Russell, Moore, Wittgenstein, and Carnap -- from the beginnings of the analytic movement into the 1930s. The papers do not reflect a single perspective, but rather express divergent interpretations of this controversial intellectual milieu.

Many still consider Ludwig Wittgenstein’s 1953 Philosophical Investigations to be one of the breakthrough works of twentieth-century philosophy. The book sets out a radically new conception of philosophy itself, and demonstrates all the attributes of a fine analytical mind. Taking an argument from Plato and subjecting it to detailed (and very clear) analysis, Wittgenstein shows his understanding of how the sequence and function of differing parts of a highly-complex argument can be broken down and assessed. In so doing, he reaches a logical position of simultaneous agreement and disagreement with Plato’s philosophical position. Philosophical Investigations is also a powerful example of the skill of interpretation. Philosophical problems often arise from confusions in the use of language – and the way to solve these problems, Wittgenstein posits, is by clarifying language use. He argues that philosophers must study ordinary uses of language and examine how people use it as a tool in their everyday lives. In this highly-interpretative way, the meaning of a word or sentence becomes relative to the context (people, culture, community) in which it is used. Rather than debate abstract problems, Wittgenstein urges philosophers to concern themselves with ordinary life and the concrete situations in which humans find themselves.

This book aims to explain the decline of the later Wittgensteinian tradition in analytic philosophy during the second half of the twentieth century. Throughout the 1950s, Oxford was the center of analytic philosophy and Wittgenstein – the later Wittgenstein – the most influential contemporary thinker within that philosophical tradition. Wittgenstein's methods and ideas were widely accepted, with everything seeming to point to the Wittgensteinian paradigm having a similar impact on the philosophical scenes of all English speaking countries. However, this was not to be the case. By the 1980s, albeit still important, Wittgenstein was considered as a somewhat marginal thinker. What occurred within the history of analytic philosophy to produce such a decline? This book expertly traces the early reception of Wittgenstein in the United States, the shift in the humanities to a tradition rooted in the natural sciences, and the economic crisis of the mid-1970s, to reveal the factors that contributed to the eventual hostility towards the later Wittgensteinian tradition.