Jonathan Beale

“Tell me," Wittgenstein once asked a friend, "why do people always say, it was natural for man to assume that the sun went round the earth rather than that the earth was rotating?" His friend replied, "Well, obviously because it just looks as though the Sun is going round the Earth." Wittgenstein replied, "Well, what would it have looked like if it had looked as though the Earth was rotating?” What would it have looked like if we looked at all sciences from the viewpoint of Wittgenstein’s philosophy? Wittgenstein is undoubtedly one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. His complex body of work has been analysed by numerous scholars, from mathematicians and physicists, to philosophers, linguists, and beyond. This volume brings together some of his central perspectives as applied to the modern sciences and studies the influence they may have on the thought processes underlying science and on the world view it engenders. The contributions stem from leading scholars in philosophy, mathematics, physics, economics, psychology and human sciences; all of them have written in an accessible style that demands little specialist knowledge, whilst clearly portraying and discussing the deep issues at hand.

This thesis aims to show that attention to the role of scientism in Wittgenstein's thought helps to better understand the principal areas of his thought, and that it is therefore an important theme of investigation for understanding Wittgenstein. There are three further aims. First, to offer an account of what scientism is; second, to describe the role of scientism - or, rather, anti-scientism - in Wittgenstein's philosophy; third, to establish central elements of a Wittgensteinian critique of scientism. Chapter 1 reflects the first further aim, by constructing an account of scientism through identifying its central features and demarcating its forms by appeal to their possession of these features. In the subsequent chapters this account is used to identify which kinds of scientism Wittgenstein criticizes and is hostile towards. Chapters 2 and 3 seek to fulfil the second and third of the further aims. Focus is paid to Wittgenstein's conceptions of language and philosophy, and his diagnosis of philosophical confusion. Chapter 2 argues that we can partly understand the shift Wittgenstein's conception of language underwent berween his early and middle periods, on the one hand, and his later period, on the other, as a movement from scientistic theories of meaning to an anti-scientistic conception of language. Chapter 3 argues that Wittgenstein's opposition to scientism plays an important role in the way he conceived of philosophy in his later work and that some of his attempts to expose philosophical confusions can be undersrood as targeting scientistic confusions. His attack on a certain picture of mental phenomena is studied as a key example.

This book brings together leading international scholars in the philosophy of education to address some of the most pressing issues facing education today. Chapters draw upon recent research across several fields including philosophy, education, and the social sciences to address and raise important questions concerning the aims, responsibilities, and future of education, often with significant implications for educators and policymakers. These questions include: what role should education play in responding to the climate crisis or the mental health crisis among young people? Do educators have responsibilities to teach students how to build healthy relationships? What is the role of education in reducing extremism? How should we understand ‘decolonisation’ in education, and does decolonisation conflict with education’s epistemic aims? How should we conceive of ‘educational justice’? How can we make education fairer after the Covid-19 pandemic reversed progress towards educational equality? What are education’s aims? Is its ultimate aim to promote human flourishing? And, is it even helpful to think of education as having aims at all? Chapters point to important avenues for improving education in the future, including the prospects for character education, particularly how to cultivate students’ autonomy and honesty; the role of well-being in schools; the need for a prominent relationships education curriculum; the role of art in countering extremist narratives; and the mentoring obligations of university teachers.

The dominant interpretation of the later Wittgenstein as a naturalist is that he endorses a form of liberal naturalism. This chapter argues that liberal naturalism cannot be ascribed to Wittgenstein for four reasons: first, liberal naturalism offers an ontology; second, liberal naturalism can be construed as a theory; third, Wittgenstein sometimes appears to be hostile towards science; fourth, Wittgenstein does not reject all forms of supernaturalism. It is argued that Wittgenstein’s later philosophy can nonetheless be described as ‘naturalistic’ for two reasons. First, observations concerning natural facts play an important role in his method of providing surveyable representations of grammar. Second, his opposition to metaphysics and the absence of recourse to metaphysical phenomena in his philosophical investigations. While ascribing naturalism to the later Wittgenstein is misleading because of the four caveats raised, the chapter suggests that if we are to describe the later Wittgenstein as a naturalist, his position can be described as such insofar as there are the two naturalistic strands in his later philosophy, both of which are important to his method of grammatical investigation. This position is dubbed ‘grammatical naturalism’.

A mysterious remark to Friedrich Waismann on 30 December 1929 marks the only occasion where Wittgenstein refers to both Heidegger and Kierkegaard. Yet although this has generated much controversy, little attention has been paid to the charge of nonsense that Wittgenstein here appears to bring against Heidegger; thus, the supporting argument that may be latent has not been unearthed. Through analysis of this remark, Wittgenstein's arguments in the Tractatus and 'A Lecture on Ethics', and Heidegger's account of anxiety (Angst) in Being and Time, I argue that we can extract an argument against the central question of Heidegger's philosophy: the question of being. To understand this, I examine the Kierkegaardian ideas employed by Wittgenstein and Heidegger and attempt to show that this argument can be partly understood in Kierkegaardian terms. I further argue that examining what Heidegger means by 'being' (Sein) shows that Wittgenstein's argument does not meet its target.

This chapter outlines ways in which Wittgenstein’s opposition to scientism is manifest in his later conception of philosophy and the negative attitude he held toward his times. The chapter tries to make clear how these two areas of Wittgenstein’s thought are connected and reflect an anti-scientistic worldview he held, one intimated in Philosophical Investigations §122. It is argued that the later Wittgenstein’s metaphilosophy is marked out against two scientistic claims in particular. First, the view that the scientific method is superior to all other means of learning or gaining knowledge. Second, the view that scientific knowledge is superior to all other kinds of knowledge and understanding. Wittgenstein’s opposition to these claims is brought out through examining a fundamental aim of his later philosophy, producing the ‘kind of understanding which consists in “seeing connections”’ (PI §122), and his attempts to expose certain philosophical confusions. It is argued that these reflect his antiscientistic worldview. Through discussion of Oswald Spengler’s influence on Wittgenstein, the chapter outlines how Wittgenstein’s opposition to scientism underwrites his negative cultural outlook and how this is connected with the anti-scientistic elements of his later philosophy discussed. The work of Ray Monk (1999; 1990) and Hans-Johann Glock (1996) is instrumental in what follows.

Wittgenstein wrote critically about science, accusing it of "putting man to sleep". This volume is the first study of Wittgenstein’s scientism - a theme in his work that is both clearly central to his thought yet strikingly neglected by the existing literature. This volume explores the philosophical basis of Wittgenstein’s anti-scientism; how this anti-scientism helps us understand Wittgenstein’s philosophical aims; and how this underlies his later conception of philosophy and the kind of philosophy he attacked. The chapters explore and articulate Wittgenstein’s views on scientism and anti-scientism, critically assess them, and consider how they apply to topics such as mind and psychology, philosophical practice, the nature of religious belief, and the place of science in modern culture.