Anat Biletzki

This concluding chapter reflects on what we may learn from engagement with Wittgenstein about how philosophy communicates with its times. One aspect, the authors suggest, is that Wittgenstein’s work undermines the idea of political philosophy as a separable field of study with pregiven problems. A further claim is that Wittgenstein may help us reimagine routine conceptions of political practice and of where, when and how politics and philosophy happen and how the two meet. One pivotal notion is that Wittgenstein, through his study of the foundations of reason, brings to the fore interdependences among dialogical engagement, formation of self and building political community. It follows, the authors argue, that Wittgenstein helps us overcome the divide in much of modern political theory between “atomistic” and “communicative” views of the relation between the freedom of individuals and democracy. From the perspective of Wittgenstein, there is a unity of philosophy and a democratic form of life due to the equally primordial role dialogical philosophy has to play in the search for understanding of oneself and of others.

Travelling between “democracy” and “form of life,” this chapter adopts a nuanced reading of the latter, suggested by Juliet Floyd, as an all-encompassing norm of elucidation for human life and merges it with Chantal Mouffe’s intricate application of Wittgensteinian mores to our understanding of democracy (as contextual rather than universal, substantial rather than procedural, and pluralistic rather than consensual). A Wittgensteinian portrayal of the democratic form of life is used as a guideline and is subsequently compared with military and religious forms of life, both of which provide conjectured contraries to it. With real-life exemplars of sometimes unsettling narratives in Israel, it is argued that, for essential reasons, neither military nor religious forms of life stand to be fully democratic. The open question remains – whether we can countenance either of them alongside the democratic form of life.

This volume demonstrates how Wittgenstein's philosophy can illuminate our understanding of politics and open new ways of conceptualizing democratic theory and practice. Its focus is on language, reason and communication as central to identifying present confusions in our understanding of democracy. The book seeks to engage Wittgenstein's philosophical insights, aiming to go beyond the dichotomous oppositions and conceptual entanglements pervading existing frameworks of social and political theories of democracy. Its key topic is the irreplaceable role of dialogue in civic democratic engagement as a condition for the understanding of self and others and, hence, for political life in which reason has a role. Indeed, it presents concrete examples of how Wittgenstein can be constructively applied to current political discourse. Part I of the volume focuses on the general idea of applying Wittgenstein's philosophy to political and democratic theory and explains the deep and intrinsic relation between Wittgenstein's thought and politics. Part II discusses Wittgenstein's concrete concepts as illuminating for understanding selected aspects of democratic politics. Part III deals with a possible exchange between Wittgenstein and other political thinkers, especially Hannah Arendt. Wittgenstein and Democratic Politics will appeal to researchers and advanced students working on Wittgenstein's philosophy, political philosophy, and democratic theory.

(Over)Interpreting Wittgenstein will be read by philosophers investigating Wittgenstein and by scholars, interpreters, students, and specialists, in both analytic and continental philosophy. It will intrigue readers interested in issues of interpretation and cultural studies. This book tells the story - as yet untold - of Wittgenstein interpretation during the past eighty years. It provides different interpretations, chronologies, developments, and controversies. It aims to discover the (socio-cultural rather than psychological) motives and motivations behind the philosophical community's project of interpreting Wittgenstein. As a cultural history of ideas, it traces the parallelism between Wittgenstein interpretation and the move from metaphysics, to language, to postmodernism effected in the twentieth century.

During the last 20 years, philosophers from different quarters and with very different approaches have begun to theorize human rights in an outpouring of authored and edited books and journal articles. In addition, among policy makers and in the legal arena—the so called workings fields of human rights—there have been noteworthy investigations of human rights that tackle philosophical issues. In this book, Anat Biletzki brings a systematic approach to the multitudinous philosophical analyses of human rights, offering a cohesive overview and analysis of this diverse but now very active field. She explores both the conceptual and historical treatments of human rights and the roots of its practice and examines its derivation from classical theories of rights all the way to existing uses. The book is "contemporary" in two senses: it investigates the most current human rights issues and it addresses emerging criticism of human rights, now arising in various sectors. A long introduction provides background information on the history of human rights, a synopsis of modern-day documents, and an articulation of basic questions. This is followed by a section on the philosophical groundings of human rights, proceeding from a philosophy of rights, to specific theories of human rights, to the questions of universalism vs. relativism. The third sections focuses on specific philosophical issues in human rights, including cultural relativity, economic rights, women’s rights, group, indigenous, and minority rights, security, and sovereignty and humanitarian intervention. And a final section on critiques of human rights has separate chapters on postmodernism, anti-foundationalism, and human rights discourse and practice.

(Over)Interpreting Wittgenstein will be read by philosophers investigating Wittgenstein and by scholars, interpreters, students, and specialists, in both analytic and continental philosophy. It will intrigue readers interested in issues of interpretation and cultural studies. This book tells the story - as yet untold - of Wittgenstein interpretation during the past eighty years. It provides different interpretations, chronologies, developments, and controversies. It aims to discover the (socio-cultural rather than psychological) motives and motivations behind the philosophical community's project of interpreting Wittgenstein. As a cultural history of ideas, it traces the parallelism between Wittgenstein interpretation and the move from metaphysics, to language, to postmodernism effected in the twentieth century.

The UDHR posits a conjunction of dignity and rights as the basis of ‘‘freedom, justice and peace in the world’’. This paper distinguishes between the two, viewing human dignity itself as the ultimate - even though enigmatic - foundation of human rights. Although originally seen as under the purview of sovereign states (while still being international), human rights have travelled into the more amorphous territory of civil community. It is, indeed, now fashionable to address civil community (aka civil society) as both the locale for discussion of human rights and the provider of actors (aka NGOs) on the human rights stage. However, this well-meant move harbors a distancing from the centers of power, which should remain responsible and, more so, accountable for human rights. B’Tselem, a leading Israeli human rights organization, is used as a case study and illustration of this problematic relation between civil community and political power.