Bela Szabados

This book provides the first in-depth exploration of the importance of music for Ludwig Wittgenstein’s life and work. Wittgenstein’s remarks on music are essential for understanding his philosophy: they are on the nature of musical understanding, the relation of music to language, the concepts of representation and expression, on melody, irony and aspect-perception, and, on the great composers belonging to the Austrian-German tradition. Biography and philosophy, this work suggests that Wittgenstein was a composer of philosophy who used the musical form as a blueprint for his own writing and thought. For Wittgenstein music is not alone, but connects and resonates with our cultural forms of life. His relation to composers, especially to Richard Wagner and Gustav Mahler, enables Wittgenstein to address the question of how to do philosophy and compose music in the breakdown of tradition. Unlike his conservative musical sensibility, Wittgenstein’s philosophy is open to musical experiments. Reflecting on his remarks on music makes it possible to compare the therapeutic aim of his philosophical activity with that of music, and thus notice affinities between Wittgenstein and John Cage. Béla Szabados has a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Calgary and is professor of philosophy at the University of Regina. His publications include Wittgenstein Reads Weininger (2004), Wittgenstein at the Movies (2011) and Wittgenstein on Race, Gender, and Cultural Identity: Philosophy as a Personal Endeavour (2010)

Hypocrisy and privacy are commonly thought to be completely different, yet it turns out to be surprisingly difficult to distinguish them. We consider various ways in which they might be differentiated, especially the attempt to do so on the basis of their moral standing. We argue, by case and through discussion, that there is more moral ambiguity about each concept than generally acknowledged. Finally, we offer some additional speculations about the similarities and differences between the two, with a view to aid moral discernment.

pour l'autre en nous et parmi nousAn apologia seeks to cover up the revolutionary moments in the course of history. The establishment of continuity is dear to its heart. It only gives importance to those elements of a work that have already generated an after-effect. It misses those points at which the transmission breaks down and thus misses those jags and crags that offer a handhold to someone who wishes to move beyond them.I am all the same convinced that these notes [in Culture and Value] can be properly understood and appreciated only against the background of Wittgenstein’ s philosophy and, furthermore, that they make a contribution to our understanding of that philosophy.

Caputo’s book is enigmatic. It is, on the one hand, a remorseless screed directed against those who proclaim to the world “the totalizing truth or logos that engulfs the other.” As such, it contains predictable characterizations of a variety of logocentric villains as historically disparate as Plato and the “Polish Pope, John Paul II,” in which their contributions to philosophical discourse are alternatively parodied and vilified as being hostile to that spirit of openness to the “toute autre,” spirit that which, we are told, animates the deconstructive enterprise. On the other hand, it is possible to discern within the book a certain structure that, however much it may belie Caputo’s expressed revulsion of closure, makes the book interesting and instructive. In this regard, three closely related themes present themselves. The first of these is particular and exegetical, comprising an attempt to explore in some detail the rather surprising claim that the point of view of Derrida’s work as an author is religious and that his recent writings especially contain elements of a religion “about which no one, not even his mother, understands anything.” The second, no less surprising, is the wider, more philosophically interesting thesis that Derridian deconstruction, and perhaps deconstruction itself, is to be situated within the framework of faith, the same passionate religious faith that animated the writings of St. Augustine, Meister Eckhart, and Kierkegaard. The third is the attempt to capitalize on the political mission of Derridian deconstruction which is characterized as the “delimitation of totalization in all its forms,” an objective that retains a faithful, though somewhat unclear, connection to Marx.

Wittgenstein at the Movies is centered on in-depth explorations of two intriguing experimental films on Wittgenstein: Derek Jarman's Wittgenstein and Péter Forgács' Wittgenstein Tractatus. The featured essays look at cinematic interpretations of Wittgenstein's life and philosophy in a manner bound to provoke the lively interest of Wittgenstein scholars, film theorists, students of film aesthetics and artistic modernism, and those concerned with the world of Cambridge in the first half of the twentieth century.

Kai Nielsen and Felicity McCutcheon have each in their own way taken issue with the received view that Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious language are to be construed as a form of “fideism”. They each provide sharply divergent views on Wittgenstein’s remarks on the meaning of religious language and, indeed, the importance of religion itself. These differences, however, serve to bring into relief both Wittgenstein’s recognition of the genuinely descriptive nature of ordinary religious discourse and his underlying political sensitivity. The paper reflects on these differences in the the recent works of Nielsen and McCutcheon on Wittgenstein’s alleged fedeism.“…speak the old language… but speak it in a way that is appropriate to the modern world, without on that account necessarily being in accordance with its taste.” (Wittgenstein, 1980, 60e)

Emotions are in as a philosophical topic. Yet the recent literature is bent on grand theorizing rather than attempting to explore particular emotions and their roles in our lives. In this paper, I aim to remedy this situation a little by exploring the emotion of embarrassment. First, I critically examine R.C. Solomon’s conceptual sketch and try to distinguish “embarrassment” from “shame”, “humiliation” and “being amused”. Secondly, I argue that “private embarrassment” is a coherent and useful idea and social scientists and philosophers who dismiss it as unintelligible are mistaken. Thirdly, I discuss the question why is embarrassment (unlike other emotions) catching. Fourth, I make the heretical suggestion that doing philosophy is essentially embarrassing for Socratic interlocutors. Throughout the paper there is a discussion of possible links between embarrassment and loss of self-esteem.

Not so long ago it was fashionable to claim that it is not the moral philosopher's business to say what things are good or what actions we should perform. This view is succinctly stated by A. J. Ayer:There is a distinction, which is not always sufficiently marked, between the activity of a moralist, who sets out to elaborate a moral code, or to encourage its observance, and that of a moral philosopher, whose concern is not primarily to make moral judgments but to analyse their nature.On the other hand, in direct opposition to this, recently many philosophers actively moralize, in the sense that they argue for substantive normative ethical positions. In doing this they tend to assume but not to explore seriously two views: that the notion of moral expertise is unproblematic, and that moral philosophers in particular are moral experts. My aim in this paper is to promote the exploration of these questions. is logically prior to. Nevertheless I begin with discussing ; for puzzles about expertise in morals naturally emerge when one examines the credentials of candidates for the job.

Otto Weininger was one of the most controversial and widely read authors of fin-de-siècle Vienna. He was both condemned for his misogyny, self-hatred, anti-semitism and homophobia, as well as praised for his uncompromising and outspoken approach to gender and morality. For Wittgenstein Weininger was a 'remarkable genius'. He repeatedly recommended Weininger's Sex and Character to friends and students and included the author on a short list of figures who had influenced him. The purpose of this new collection of essays is to explore the various ways in which Wittgenstein absorbed and responded to Weininger's ideas. Written by an international team of experts on Wittgenstein and Weininger, the volume is especially timely in the light of recent translations of Weininger's work and will appeal to anyone interested in the history of 20th century philosophy, and the literary and cultural history of fin-de-siècle Vienna.

People do, quite naturally and not uncommonly, speak of other people as deceiving themselves, as being their own dupes. A man's child is ill and growing constantly worse. The father keeps talking optimistically about the future, keeps explaining away the evidence, and keeps pointing to what he insists are signs of improvement. We can easily imagine ourselves deciding that he has deceived himself about his son's condition. Nor is it the case that talk of self-deception is appropriate only in connection with other people. We can easily imagine the father admitting, say, after the son's death, that he has deceived himself about the child's condition. Thus the notion of self-deception obviously has application. Furthermore, ordinarily talk of self-deception is not thought to be puzzling.