Hans-Johann Glock

Several authors have detected profound analogies between Kant and Wittgenstein. Their claims have been contradicted by scholars, such being the agreed penalty for attributions to authorities. Many of the alleged similarities have either been left unsubstantiated at a detailed exegetical level, or have been confined to highly general points. At the same time, the ‘scholarly’ backlash has tended to ignore the importance of some of these general points, or has focused on very specific issues or purely terminological matters. To advance the debate, I distinguish four different topics: questions of actual influence; parallels at the methodological level; substantial similarities in philosophical logic; substantial similarities in the philosophy of mind. The article concentrates on the second and third topic. Section I argues that the critical conception of philosophy shared by Kant and Wittgenstein is itself due to the fact that they explain the a priori status of necessary propositions by reference to the way we experience or represent reality. Section II shows how the Tractatiis linguistically transforms this ‘reflective turn’, replacing Kant's preconditions of experience by preconditions of symbolic representation. Section III suggests that this explanation of the a priori involves the idea of an isomorphism between thought and reality, and that both Kant's transcendental idealism and Wittgenstein's early metaphysics of symbolism distort this isomorphism. Wittgenstein later rejected this metaphysics of symbolism, on the grounds that language is autonomous, and section IV detects parallels between that idea and Kant's ‘diallelus’ argument against the correspondence theory of truth. Finally, I claim that while Wittgenstein is right to insist that all a priori propositions are conceptual, Kant, in calling them synthetic a priori, is right to deny that they simply unpack the concepts involved in the propositions themselves.

There is a venerable tradition according to which the concept of truth is totally independent of human beings, their actions and beliefs, because truth consists in the correspondence of mind-independentpropositions to a mind-independent reality. For want of arespect. One way of doing so is relativism, the idea that whether a belief is true or false depends on the point of view of individuals or communities. A closely related position is a consensus theory of truth, according to which a belief is true if it is held by a (suitably qualified) group of people. In a similar vein, the pragmatist theory maintains that a true belief is one which it is expedient for us to accept.

This article first surveys the established views on Wittgenstein's relation to analytic philosophy. Next it distinguishes among different ways of defining analytic philosophy—topical, doctrinal, methodological, stylistic, historical, and the idea that it is a family-resemblance concept. It argues that while certain stylistic features are important, the historical and the family-resemblance conceptions are the most auspicious, especially in combination. The answer to the title question is given in section 3. Contrary to currently popular “irrationalist” interpretations, Wittgenstein was an analytic philosopher in all phases of his career, albeit an exceedingly exotic one whose style transcends the limits of academic philosophy in general. On the historical understanding he qualifies because he was influenced by and in turn influenced mainly analytic philosophers. On the family-resemblance conception he qualifies both because he developed and employed logico-linguistic analysis and because he initiated the linguistic turn and the distinction between philosophy and science that characterizes one important strand in analytic philosophy.

This paper discusses conceptual relativism. The main focus is on the contrasting ideas of Wittgenstein and Davidson, with Quine, Kuhn, Feyerabend and Hacker in supporting roles. I distinguish conceptual from alethic and ontological relativism, defend a distinction between conceptual scheme and empirical content, and reject the Davidsonian argument against the possibility of alternative conceptual schemes: there can be conceptual diversity without failure of translation, and failure of translation is not necessarily incompatible with recognizing a practice as linguistic. Conceptual relativism may be untenable, but not for the hermeneutic reasons espoused by Davidson.

Wittgenstein attached overarching personal importance to questions of moral value. Yet his written treatments of ethics are brief and obscure, while his views on language have had a strong, albeit intermittent and diffuse, influence on analytic moral philosophy. His remarks on ethics seem to be totally at odds with realist and cognitivist accounts. Both the Tractatus and 'A Lecture on Ethics' maintain that ethics transcends linguistic expression, and later remarks seem to point in the direction of a communal variant of expressivism and relativism. Nevertheless, Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language was invoked in the 1980s by Oxford philosophers like John McDowell and Sabina Lovibond against the still prevailing non-cognitivist mainstream. These ‘anti-anti-realists’ maintained that, from a Wittgensteinian perspective, all indicative sentences, including moral ones, make claims to truth. My article discusses this proposal, historically, exegetically, and substantively. Anti-anti-realism (AAR) chimes with Wittgenstein’s deflationary account of truth. But that account is not committed to the conclusion that all propositions that can be called ‘true’ or ‘false’ have the same semantic status. Indeed, anti-anti-realism is at odds with Wittgenstein’s view that the similarity in linguistic form disguises logical differences between moral and descriptive propositions.

This paper considers the connection between concepts, conceptual schemes and grammar in Wittgenstein’s last writings. It lists eight claims about concepts that one can garner from these writings. It then focuses on one of them, namely that there is an important difference between conceptual and factual problems and investigations. That claim draws in its wake other claims, all of them revolving around the idea of a conceptual scheme, what Wittgenstein calls a ‘grammar’. I explain why Wittgenstein’s account does not fall prey to Davidson’s animadversions against the idea of a conceptual scheme as a force operating on a pre-conceptual content. In the sequel I deny that the distinction between grammatical and empirical propositions disappears in the last writings: it is neither deliberately abandoned, nor willy-nilly undermined by the admission of hinge propositions in On Certainty or by the role accorded to agreement in judgement.

This paper is devoted to the role hinge propositions play or should play in epistemology and meta-philosophy. It starts by distinguishing different ways in which propositions can be basic or fundamental and by arguing that the foundational status of hinge propositions cannot be reduced to any of the others. The second part maintains that hinges have anti-sceptical potential, provided that one combines Wittgenstein’s critique of sense with Moore’s method of differential certainty. The final part briefly considers implications of the idea of hinge propositions for two debates in which they have not featured so far—once concerning peer disagreement, the other the role of intuitions in philosophy.

The ever-increasing dominance of English within analytic philosophy is an aspect of linguistic globalisation. To assess it, I first address fundamental issues in the philosophy of language. Steering a middle course between linguistic universalism and linguistic relativism, I deny that some languages might be philosophically superior to others, notably by capturing the essential categories of reality. On this background I next consider both the pros and cons of the Anglicisation of (analytic) philosophy. I shall defend the value of English as a lingua franca, while denying both the feasibility and the desirability of English as the sole universal language of philosophy. Finally I turn to the linguistic inequality in contemporary analytic philosophy. While it does not per se amount to an injustice, there is a need to level the playing field. But the remedy does not lie in linguistic academic sectarianism. Instead, what might be called for are piecemeal measures to reduce explicit and implicit biases against analytic philosophers on the geographic fringes, biases that are only partly connected to the predominance of English.

My paper takes issue both with the standard view that the Tractatus contains a correspondence theory and with recent suggestions that it features a deflationary or semantic theory. Standard correspondence interpretations are mistaken, because they treat the isomorphism between a sentence and what it depicts as a sufficient condition of truth rather than of sense. The semantic/deflationary interpretation ignores passages that suggest some kind of correspondence theory. The official theory of truth in the Tractatus is an obtainment theory – a sentence is true iff the state of affairs it depicts obtains. This theory differs from deflationary theories in that it involves an ontology of states of affairs/facts; and it can be transformed into a type of correspondence theory: a sentence is true iff it corresponds to, i.e. depicts an obtaining state of affairs (fact). Admittedly, unlike correspondence theories as commonly portrayed, this account does not involve a genuinely truth-making relation. It features a relation of correspondence, yet it is that of depicting, between a meaningful sentence and its sense – a possible state of affairs. What makes for truth is not that relation, but the obtaining of the depicted state of affairs. This does not disqualify the Tractatus from holding a correspondence theory, however, since the correspondence theories of Moore and Russell are committed to a similar position. Alternatively, the obtainment theory can be seen as a synthesis of correspondence, semantic and deflationary approaches. It does justice to the idea that what is true depends solely on what is the case, and it combines a semantic explanation of the relation between a sentence and what it says with a deflationary account of the agreement between what the sentence says and what obtains or is the case if it is true.

Kalhat has forcefully criticised Wittgenstein's linguistic or conventionalist account of logical necessity, drawing partly on Waismann and Quine. I defend conventionalism against the charge that it cannot do justice to the truth of necessary propositions, renders them unacceptably arbitrary or reduces them to metalingustic statements. At the same time, I try to reconcile Wittgenstein's claim that necessary propositions are constitutive of meaning with the logical positivists' claim that they are true by virtue of meaning. Explaining necessary propositions by reference to linguistic conventions does not reduce modal to non-modal notions, but it avoids metaphysical accounts, which are incapable of explaining how we can have a priori knowledge of necessity.

Th is article explores a cognitivist approach to concepts. Such an approach steers a middle course between the Scylla of subjectivism and the Charybdis of objectivism. While concepts are not mental particulars, they have an ineliminable cognitive dimension. Th e article explores several versions of cognitivism, focusing in particular on Künne’s Neo-Fregean proposal that concepts are modes of presentation. It also tackles a challenge facing all cognitivist accounts, namely the ‘proposition problem’: how can the cognitive dimension of concepts be reconciled with the idea that concepts are components of propositions. My moral is that this challenge can be met only by combining Neo-Fregean ideas with certain Wittgensteinian insights.

This article discusses the problems which concepts pose for the attribution of thoughts to animals. It locates these problems within a range of other issues concerning animal minds (section 1), and presents a ‘lingualist master argument’ according to which one cannot entertain a thought without possessing its constituent concepts and cannot possess concepts without possessing language (section 2). The first premise is compelling if one accepts the building-block model of concepts as parts of wholes – propositions – and the idea that intentional verbs signify relations between subjects and such propositions. But I shall find fault with both (section 3). This opens the way for recognizing a form of ‘holodoxastic’ thought-ascription which does not presuppose concept-possession on the part of the subject (section 4). Section 5 defends this idea against objections. Section 6 turns to the second premise of the lingualist master argument. I press the idea of judgement into service as a label for conceptual thought that need not be linguistic and argue that the possession of concepts is an ability. Section 7 accepts that concept-possession requires the ability to classify rather than merely to discriminate, but suggests that this need not disqualify animals. In the final section I confirm this verdict by returning to the notion of judgement: classification is the deliberate and considered response to a range of options in a sorting or discrimination task. Notwithstanding appearances to the contrary, the capacity for such a response does not presuppose the linguistic ability to answer questions. Judgement is a feature of a type of problem-solving that we share with some non-linguistic creatures.

The debate about concepts has always been shaped by a contrast between subjectivism, which treats them as phenomena in the mind or head of individuals, and objectivism, which insists that they exist independently of individual minds. The most prominent contemporary version of subjectivism is Fodor's RTM. The Fregean charge against subjectivism is that it cannot do justice to the fact that different individuals can share the same concepts. Proponents of RTM have accepted shareability as a ‘non-negotiable constraint’. At the same time they insist that by distinguishing between sign-types and – tokens the Fregean objection cannot just be circumvented but revealed to be fallacious. My paper rehabilitates the Fregean argument against subjectivism. The RTM response rests either on an equivocation of ‘concept’—between types which satisfy the non-negotiable constraint and tokens which are mental particulars in line with RTM doctrine—or on the untenable idea that one and the same entity can be both a shareable type and hence abstract and a concrete particular in the head. Furthermore, subjectivism cannot be rescued by adopting unorthodox metaphysical theories about the type/token and universal/particular contrasts. The final section argues that concepts are not representations or signs, but something represented by signs. Even if RTM is right to explain conceptual thinking by reference to the occurrence of mental representations, concepts themselves cannot be identical with such representations.

There is a growing feeling that analytic philosophy is in crisis. At the same time there is a widespread and prima facie attractive conception of analytic philosophy which implies that it equates to good philosophy. In recognition of these conflicting tendencies, my paper raises the question of whether anything could be wrong with analytic philosophy. In section 1 I indicate why analytic philosophy cannot be defined by reference to geography, topics, doctrines or even methods. This leaves open the possibility that analytic philosophy is a style of philosophizing (section 2). According to what I call a rationalist conception, the distinguishing feature of analytic philosophy is that it is guided by the ideal of rational argument. This conception implies that ‘analytic philosophy’ is an honorific title. In section 3 I point out that the rationalist definition yields a different extension for ‘analytic philosophy’ than commonly recognized. Section 4 defends the appeal to ordinary use in debates about the nature of analytic philosophy. Section 5 grants that there is an honorific use of the label, while also pointing out that the rationalist-cum-honorific conception is at odds with a more wide-spread and entrenched taxonomic practice. Section 6 alleges that the rationalist conception boils down to a ‘persuasive definition’ of analytic philosophy, and argues in favour of a more neutral philosophical taxonomy. Section 7 argues that analytic philosophy is an intellectual tradition held together both by lines of influence and by family-resemblances. The consequences for my topic are two-fold. First, there could obviously be something wrong with this intellectual tradition; secondly, the question whether there is something wrong needs to be raised separately with respect to individual phases or sections of that tradition.

This essay argues that nonlinguistic animals qualify not just for externalist notions of rationality (maximizing biological fitness or utility), but also for internal ones. They can act for reasons in several senses: their behaviour is subject to intentional explanations, they can act in the light of reasonsprovided that the latter are conceived as objective facts rather than subjective mental statesand they can deliberate. Finally, even if they could not, it would still be misguided to maintain that animals are capable only of (mechanical) behaviour, not of (intentional) action.

There are three main positions on animalthought: lingualism denies that non-linguistic animalshave any thoughts; mentalism maintains that theirthoughts differ from ours only in degree, due totheir different perceptual inputs; an intermediateposition, occupied by common sense and Wittgenstein,maintains that animals can have thoughts of a simplekind. This paper argues in favor of an intermediateposition. It considers the most important arguments infavor of lingualism, namely those inspired byDavidson: the argument from the intensional nature ofthought (Section 1); the idea that thoughts involveconcepts (Sections 2–3); the argument from the holisticnature of thought (Section 4); and the claim that beliefrequires the concept of belief (Sections 5–6). The lastargument (which Davidson favors) is uncompelling, butthe first three shed valuable light on the extent towhich thought requires language. However, none of themprecludes animals from having simple thoughts. Even ifone adopts the kind of third-person perspective onthought Davidson shares with Wittgenstein, the resultis a version of the intermediate position, albeit oneenriched by Davidson's insights concerningintensionality, concepts and holism (Section 7). We canonly ascribe simple thoughts to animals, and even thatascription is incongruous in that the rich idiom weemploy has conceptual connections that go beyond thephenomena to which it is applied.