Danièle Moyal-Sharrock

If I had to say what the single most important contribution Wittgenstein made to philosophy was, it would be to have revived the animal in us: the animal that is there in every fiber of our human being, and therefore also in our thinking and reasoning. This means, his pushing us to realize that we are animals not only genealogically, but as evolved human beings—whether neonate, or language-possessing, civilized, law-abiding, fully fledged adults. Constitutionally, and in everything we do, still fundamentally animals.

How is it that we can be moved by what we know does not exist? In this paper, I examine the so-called 'paradox of fiction', showing that it fatally hinges on cognitive theories of emotion such as Kendall Walton's pretend theory and Peter Lamarque's thought theory. I reject these theories and acknowledge the concept-formative role of genuine emotion generated by fiction. I then argue, contra Jenefer Robinson, that this 'éducation sentimentale' is not achieved through distancing, but rather through the engagement of our emotions. Literature does this, I claim, by its uniquely perspicuous presentations of emotional concepts, and the cognitive pleasure that such 'presentations' prompt in us.

This special issue on Forms of Life was conceived on the top floor of a café overlooking one of Rome's wonderful Piazzas, after a conference, hosted by Piergiorgio Donatelli, on Forms of Life and Ways of Living. Piergiorgio, Sandra Laugier and I thought the subject cried out for a small collection of essays in which several voices would elucidate the genesis, use and potential of Wittgenstein's concept of form of life -- and we committed to producing it. This is the fruit of our Roman resolution. Danièle Moyal-Sharrock

In much of her writing, Cora Diamond stresses the role of the imagination in awakening the sense of our humanity. She subtly unthreads the operations of the ethical imagination in literature, but deplores its absence in philosophy. Borrowing the notion of ‘deflection’ from Cavell, Diamond sees ethical understanding ‘present only in a diminished and distorted way in philosophical argumentation’. She does, however, herself make a philosophical, if idiosyncratic, use of the imagination in her appeal to it for a ‘transitional’ understanding of nonsensical Tractarian remarks. I begin by delineating and endorsing Diamond’s humanistic view of the creative imagination; I then argue against her opportunistic use of the imagination in her interpretation of the Tractatus and her condemnation of philosophical ethics