Oskari Kuusela

This chapter discusses the methodological and epistemological significance of so-called intuitions in philosophy; that is, whether intuitions can be understood as evidence for or against philosophical claims or, if not, whether they might have some other kind of methodological significance. A closely connected issue which the chapter addresses, is whether our comprehension of logical, conceptual, or metaphysical possibilities and necessities can be explained by reference to intuitions or the capacity of intuition or, if not, how our capacity to understand such modalities should be explained. In response to the accounts of Ernest Sosa and George Bealer, the author distinguishes three senses in which one might talk about intuition or intuitions. On this basis, it is argued that intuitions in the first and second senses cannot do the philosophical work with which Sosa and Bealer task intuitions, whilst the philosophical significance of intuitions in the third sense is radically different from what Sosa and Bealer suggest, namely, consisting not in their evidential status—pace Sosa and Bealer—but in the fact that their scrutiny may reveal something important about how a given philosophical issue has arisen for us, in the first place.

This Element outlines Wittgenstein's early and later philosophies of logic, and explains Wittgenstein's views regarding the methodological significance of logic for philosophy. Wittgenstein's early philosophy of logic is presented as a further development of Frege's and Russell's accounts of logic, and Wittgenstein later philosophy as a response to problems with his early views, including confusions about idealization and abstraction in logic. The later Wittgenstein's novel logical methods, such as the method of language-games, are outlined, and the new kind of logical naturalism developed in his later philosophy described. I conclude by discussing the later Wittgenstein on names.

This article proposes an interpretation of Wittgenstein’s so-called picture theory of propositions that forgoes the attribution of unsayable truths or theses to the Tractatus. Consequently, the interpretation avoids describing the Tractatus as entangled in a paradox of nonsensical theses. Rather, I argue, the proper expression for Wittgenstein’s logical insights is a logical symbolism into whose structure they are encoded. This also applies to his account of propositions as pictures. Its purpose is to clarify the principles governing a correct logical language that makes perspicuous how symbols symbolize, and is expressive of what Wittgenstein calls ‘the correct logical conception’.

Wittgenstein writes in the preface to the Philosophical Investigations: ‘I should not like my writing to spare other people the trouble of thinking. But if possible, to stimulate someone to thoughts of his own.’ In the following I argue that this indicates something essential about Wittgenstein’s approach. In order to remain true to his conception of philosophy without theses, he could not, for example, aim to instruct his reader about about grammar or put forward prescriptions about grammar, logic or language use. Thus, there is an essential connection between the aim of stimulating the reader to thoughts of their own, and philosophizing without theses. In order to clarify this I will discuss both Wittgenstein’s early and later account of philosophy without theses, his later rejection of philosophical foundations and the hierarchical organization of philosophy, such as assumed in his early philosophy, the notion of agreement in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, and certain remarks from the Nachlass on the composition of his book, eventually published as the Philosophical Investigations.

This chapter discusses Edward Harcourt’s recent criticism of Cora Diamond’s account of Wittgensteinian moral philosophy, and the view she associates with Wittgenstein that ethics has no specific subject matter. I argue that Harcourt has misconstrued Diamond’s account, and that his own proposal for what a Wittgensteinian moral philosophy would be like is not consistent with what Wittgenstein says about morality. In particular, Wittgenstein’s suggestion in his later philosophy that goodness is not a quality or property of actions in addition to their other properties lends further support to Diamond’s account of ethics as devoid of subject matter that could be identified in terms of distinctively moral concepts. Through my discussion of this issue I hope to clarify and reinforce the challenge that Diamond’s account poses for traditional moral philosophy which sees as its goal the development of an abstract theory of moral goodness the purpose of which is to account for all instances of goodness in an ethical sense.

Wittgenstein writes in the preface to the Philosophical Investigations: ‘I should not like my writing to spare other people the trouble of thinking. But if possible, to stimulate someone to thoughts of his own.’ In the following I argue that this indicates something essential about Wittgenstein’s approach. In order to remain true to his conception of philosophy without theses, he could not, for example, aim to instruct his reader about about grammar or put forward prescriptions about grammar, logic or language use. Thus, there is an essential connection between the aim of stimulating the reader to thoughts of their own, and philosophizing without theses. In order to clarify this I will discuss both Wittgenstein’s early and later account of philosophy without theses, his later rejection of philosophical foundations and the hierarchical organization of philosophy, such as assumed in his early philosophy, the notion of agreement in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, and certain remarks from the Nachlass on the composition of his book, eventually published as the Philosophical Investigations.

In this chapter I discuss Wittgenstein’s early and later views on ethics in the light of the development of his views on logic and philosophical method, maintaining that these developments are motivated by his aspiration to discover a method that enables one to do justice to the complexity of though and language use, and the richness of phenomena. I begin by discussing certain continuous features of Wittgenstein’s views on ethics and philosophy, in particular his conception that philosophy can only offer reminders and clarifications, not give a foundation for language, thought or ethics. The first section thus introduces Wittgenstein’s notions of the personal character and groundlessness of ethics whose different reincarnations are taken up in the sections that follow. In the second section I seek to elucidate Wittgenstein’s early account of the possibility and nature of ethics, conceived in abstract and general terms as the problem of the relation of the will to reality, and his account of a happy or good life. This is followed by a discussion of his later rejection of the early account with its key assumptions, and its replacement with a different account that, in accordance with Wittgenstein’s new methodology, treats the problem of the relation of the will to reality as a particular aspect of ethics, rather than as constituting its underlying essence. In the final section will be concerned with the interpretation of Wittgenstein’s explanation of the nature or grammar of ethical justification, connected with the notions of personality and groundlessness. I argue that although Wittgenstein does regard ethical justifications as inconclusive, neither this nor the personal character and groundlessness of ethics implies relativism, as do not certain other remarks and reported discussions, contrary to what they might at first sight suggest.

A main theme of this chapter is Ludwig Wittgenstein’s critical reception of Socrates in the 1930s, during which time Wittgenstein was developing a new philosophical methodology that he described as being antithetical to that of Socrates and best explained by way of this contrast. In particular, Wittgenstein is critical of an unexamined assumption relating to conceptual unity that seems to inform Socrates’ philosophical engagements, according to which one can always define a concept, or cases that fall under it, with reference to a feature or features common to all relevant cases. However, when accounting for Wittgenstein’s reception of Socrates, one needs to explain why the kind ofcritical remarks composed in the 1930s do not reoccur in Wittgenstein’s writings after this period, and why none of these critical remarks make it into his mature main work, the Philosophical Investigations. What made Wittgenstein change his mind about how to explain or introduce his later philosophy? My explanation is twofold: (i) Wittgenstein came to find his 1930s remarks on Socrates misleading for reasons connected with his rejection of philosophical theses and questions relating to the justification of philosophical methodology. (ii) Ultimately he came to recognize a possibility of reinterpreting Socrates’ method/s of employing definitions as consistent with his own methodology. Thus, rather than as an antithesis to Socratic philosophy, Wittgenstein’s later philosophy is better seen as giving it a new twist. Following this lead, I identify five important uses for definitions whose philosophical significance does not rest of the assumption of simple conceptual unity. Four of these are evidently present in Plato’s Socratic dialogues.