Oskari Kuusela

This chapter discusses differences between the Wittgensteinian account of content developed by Travis and systematic theories of meaning and language. These theories aspire to explain knowledge of linguistic meaning and language use in terms of a uniform framework, such as truth conditions. An alternative framework for thinking about language and linguistic meaning is presented, based on Wittgenstein’s later philosophy of logic. One component of this is an explanation of how logic is possible as a non-empirical discipline, when it is acknowledged that logic is concerned with parochial forms of thought and language, rather than abstract principles adhered to by any possible speaker or thinker. This view makes it possible to account for multiple dimensions of meaning determination, including Travisian parochial considerations which are now explainable as particular dimensions of meaning determination, and to transcend the restrictive commitment of systematic theories to the uniformity of meaning determination.

Comprising specially commissioned essays from some of the most significant contributors to the field, this volume provides a uniquely authoritative and thorough survey of the main lines of Wittgenstein scholarship over the past 50 years, tracing the history and current trends as well as anticipating the future shape of work on Wittgenstein. The first collection of its kind, this volume presents a range of perspectives on the different approaches to the philosophy of Wittgenstein Written by leading experts from America, Britain, and Europe Provides a much needed overview of the complex landscape of Wittgenstein exegesis and Wittgensteinian approaches to philosophy Assesses the current state, aims, and future of Wittgenstein scholarship An essential guide for both students and scholars.

Comprising specially commissioned essays from some of the most significant contributors to the field, this volume provides a uniquely authoritative and thorough survey of the main lines of Wittgenstein scholarship over the past 50 years, tracing the history and current trends as well as anticipating the future shape of work on Wittgenstein. The first collection of its kind, this volume presents a range of perspectives on the different approaches to the philosophy of Wittgenstein Written by leading experts from America, Britain, and Europe Provides a much needed overview of the complex landscape of Wittgenstein exegesis and Wittgensteinian approaches to philosophy Assesses the current state, aims, and future of Wittgenstein scholarship An essential guide for both students and scholars.

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’.

This chapter discusses the question, what kind of explanation is given when rule-following is characterized as a practice or as involving or based on communal agreement, and how Wittgenstein’s account of rule-following should be understood in light of his philosophical methodology. I argue that certain kinds of explanations, often attributed to Wittgenstein and discussed in this chapter with reference to Kripke, that treat communal agreement as a condition of possibility and a ground of rule-following, are problematic. Such explanations are not consistent with Wittgenstein’s philosophical methodology, and closer inspection reveals them to be empty pseudo-explanations that cannot do the intended philosophical work. Thus, as I argue, Kripke’s account merely pushes the problem about rules one step further, where it arises again as a problem about understanding communal agreement. Instead the characterization of rule-following as a practice is better construed as clarificatory description that ascribes a role to linguistic practices and communal agreement as the background or context against which instances of rule-following, having certain intentions and understanding meanings are possible.

This volume of new essays explores the relationship between the thought of Wittgenstein and the key figures of phenomenology: Husserl, Heidegger, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty and Sartre. It is the first book to provide an overview of how Wittgenstein’s philosophy in its different phases, including his own so-called phenomenological phase, relates to the variety of phenomenological approaches developed in continental Europe. In so doing, the volume seeks to throw light on both sides of the comparison, and to clarify more broadly the relations between analytic and phenomenological philosophy. However, rather than treating the interpretation of either phenomenological philosophy or Wittgenstein as an already settled issue, several chapters in the volume examine and question received views regarding them, and develop alternatives to such views. "Wittgenstein and Phenomenology" will be of interest to scholars working in philosophical methodology and meta-philosophy, the philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and logic, and ethics.

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 article discusses the relationship between Ludwig Wittgenstein’s and Rudolf Carnap’s philosophies of logic during the time of Wittgenstein’s interactions with the Vienna Circle and up to 1934 when the German edition of Carnap’s _The Logical Syntax of Language_ was published. Whilst Section 1 focuses on the relationship between Carnap and Wittgenstein’s _Tractatus_, including Wittgenstein’s accusation of plagiarism against Carnap in 1932, Section 2 discusses the relationship between Carnap’s principle of tolerance and Wittgenstein’s similar principle of the arbitrariness of grammar. I argue that, although Carnap’s claim in _Logical Syntax_ to ‘go beyond’ Wittgenstein has certain justification in relation to the _Tractatus_, so does Wittgenstein’s priority claim. The relationship between Carnap’s philosophy of logic and the _Tractatus_ is thus more complicated than is often recognized. If the reference point is Wittgenstein in the early 1930s, however, Carnap cannot be described as going beyond him, and by 1934, Wittgenstein had advanced further than Carnap would ever venture. Despite evidence that Carnap knew about Wittgenstein’s principle of the arbitrariness of syntax well before his first articulations of his principle of tolerance, the extent of the influence of Wittgenstein’s principle on Carnap remains unclear. What can be established with certainty is that Wittgenstein’s principle predates Carnap’s and that Carnap resisted acknowledging him despite being urged to do so. Arguably, Wittgenstein’s account of syntax as both arbitrary and non-arbitrary is also superior in clarity to Carnap’s misleading claim about a ‘complete freedom’ implied by the principle of tolerance, because such a freedom only exists for idle syntactical systems that are not put to work. In Section 3, I discuss the relationship between Carnap’s notion of expediency and Wittgenstein’s account of the correctness or truth of logical accounts. As my discussion of Wittgenstein’s account brings out, Carnap’s rejection of truth in logic for expediency as the goal of logical clarifications does not follow from the principle of tolerance and is not justified by it. It remains unclear what justifies Carnap’s rejection of truth as the goal of logical clarification. Again, Wittgenstein’s account seems preferable, given the vacuity of the claim that expediency constitutes the basis of choice between different logical languages and clarifications.

This volume draws connections between Wittgenstein's philosophy and the work of Saul Kripke, especially his Naming and Necessity. Saul Kripke is regarded as one of the foremost representatives of contemporary analytic philosophy. His most important contributions include the strict distinction between metaphysical and epistemological questions, the introduction of the notions of contingent a priori truth and necessary a posteriori truth and original accounts of names, descriptions, identity, necessity and realism. The chapters in this book elucidate the relevant connections between Kripke's work and Wittgenstein, specifically concerning the standard meter, contingent apriori and rule-following. The contributions shed light on how Kripke's philosophical outlook was influenced by Wittgenstein, and how mainstream analytic philosophy and Wittgensteinian philosophy can fruitfully engage with one another. Kripke and Wittgenstein will be of interest to philosophers working on Wittgenstein, Kripke, and the history of analytic philosophy.

In this paper I argue, with reference to Wittgenstein’s discussion of the standard metre in the Philosophical Investigations, that Kripke’s introduction of the epistemological-metaphysical category of contingent a priori in Naming and Necessity fails, due to his overlooking certain important distinctions in the use of relevant expressions and due to his unrecognized or unacknowledged wavering between different uses of relevant sentences. If the argument is correct, the notion of contingent a priori truths that Kripke seeks to introduce is merely a philosophical mirage that arises from bending the use of relevant sentences similarly to how the bending of light waves can create a mirage. I conclude with a discussion of the logical status of definitions, and by outlining an alternative Wittgensteinian account of relevant kinds of definitional sentences in terms of their non-temporal use. The advantage of this account is that it helps to keep track of the distinctions that Kripke overlooks, and that it avoids the problems raised by Donnellan and Salmon for Kripke regarding the notion of knowledge of contingent a priori truths.

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’.

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.

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.

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.