Allan Janik

Why is Wittgenstein Important

To understand the importance of Wittgenstein we must examine language as an ensemble of strategies for weaving together words and actions. A failure to grasp the workings of language is at the root of our philosophical problems. Wittgenstein’s approach to philosophy, investigating both the formation and transference, of skill and the notion of rule-following, was that of a craftsman. A craft embodies “tacit knowing” in that it is learned through the repetition of a specified action until it becomes second nature. Skills cannot be learned from books because they cannot be described literally, although description can play a role in reminding the apprentice of the different stages through which (s) he must pass in order to master the craft. There is no single or fixed application of any rule. In his work on skill-acquisition Wittgenstein articulates what it means to learn on the basis of practical experience alone. Words, symbols, and sentences are only part of language, meaningful only to the extent that they are embedded in actions (or what Heidegger termed a situation). Through his study of language games, Wittgenstein shows how the whole range of human activities is constituted in changing alliances between words and actions. Wittgenstein’s mature philosophy is therefore vitally important for understanding the relation between artificial and natural intelligence, and the dependence of the new technology on human modes of learning (rather than vice versa).

Towards a Wittgensteinian Metaphysics of the Political

What is political? The question is stupefyingly simple. It leaves you dumbfounded. Like St. Augustine, everybody knows till they are asked but when asked are unable to reply. Political “scientists”, above all, avoid it like the plague. They are quick to point out how silly, how “philosophical” (i.e., naive/unimportant), it is to raise such an issue. Precious few of them are prepared to tackle it. Radicals such as certain feminists and Marxians (not Marxists), as well as some conservatives, on the other hand, suggest to us that our chief political problems arise from an unquestioning acceptance of the status quo; which is precisely because we fail to pose just such silly questions (R. G. Collingwood’s view of metaphysics is one which takes posing such silly questions to be metaphysics par excellence). To fail to pose this question in the minds of these critics of the existing order is to put yourself in a lamentable situation where you remain blind to — and, therefore, coerced by — class structure, patriarchy or trendy notions about, say, egalitarianism.

Wittgenstein, Hertz, and Hermeneutics

“How does Wittgenstein stand with respect to hermeneutics?” is a question that has often been posed by interested but puzzled hermeneuticists. They feel instinctively a certain sympathy for his idea of “seeing the world rightly” in the Tractatus as well as with his views about, say, what it is to understand persons in the Philosophical Investigations. Yet, there remains something strange, even foreign to the hermeneutic tradition from Dilthey to Gadamer in Wittgenstein’s philosophical writings.1 Like the hermeneuticists, Wittgenstein insists, for example, that description must replace explanation in philosophy but what he understood by description has precious little to do with either the historically-oriented contextualism of Dilthey or the phenomenology of the early Heidegger. Wittgenstein describes in the form of thought experiments, examples, aphorisms, analogies, metaphors and questions — the most interesting single fact about the Investigations is that it contains 784 questions of which only 110 are answered of which in turn 70 are answered falsely on purpose.2 This is a very curious way to do hermeneutics indeed. Nevertheless, Wittgenstein, despite his insistence that philosophy was a kind of analysis (PI, I, 91), always distanced himself from the tradition of Logical Positivism by emphasizing that it was fundamentally about meaning rather than truth. Indeed, the later Wittgenstein’s lack of concern for issues relating to truth in philosophy has been perceived by many, not least Bertrand Russell, as scandalous. His ways of “reminding” us of the multiple modes of interweaving words and gestures into meanings are, nevertheless, highly reminiscent of hermeneutic techniques. Yet, Wittgenstein’s rejection of Positivism was never for a moment connected with a temptation to develop an anti-positivistic philosophy like those of Dilthey, Heidegger and Gadamer. The question is why? The answer is to be found in his scientific background — the last place that either a Positivist or a hermeneuticist would look.

Wittgenstein, Marx and Sociology

The very act of mentioning Wittgenstein’s name in connection with either Marx or sociology, let alone both simultaneously, is apt to disturb any self-respecting Wittgensteinian. On the face of it nothing could seem farther from Marx’s celebrated exhortation to philosophers to change the world than Wittgenstein’s admonition that “philosophy may in no way interfere with the use of language . . . it leaves everything as it is”.1 Furthermore, what could form a sharper contrast with Marx’s allegation that history is the history of class struggle than Wittgenstein’s claim that it would be pointless to advance theses in philosophy because everybody would agree about them.2 Wittgenstein’s personal conservatism and his abiding concern with the works of such conservative authors as Spengler, Dostoievsky, Tolstoi and Weininger has led J. C. Nyiri to assert that Wittgenstein’s mature thought is nothing less than a defense of a peculiar brand of neo-conservatism.3 Whatever we may discover about Wittgenstein in the future, it is most unlikely that we shall ever turn up the slightest interest in politics let alone political activism. Finally as regards sociology, early in his career Wittgenstein maintained that “the word ‘philosophy’ must mean something whose place is above or below the natural sciences, not beside them”.4

A future for the humanities

The future of the humanities is an extremely complex question as it bears upon the status of a particular form of knowledge in society, the flexibility of a set of academic disciplines and institutions, the openness of political leaders to changing conceptions of education, and a host of other difficult issues. In order to illuminate these problems, it is necessary to focus upon the peculiar character of humanistic knowledge, why such insight is indispensable to individual and collective self-understanding, how the humanities as they are conventionally practised contribute to their own malaise and why the humanities must be accorded pride of place among the studies of human action. There is, in fact, a considerable demand for humanistic knowledge and the fruit of humanistic scholarship in our technological culture, especially in the area of adult education. The discussion ends with several examples of various ways in which that demand is being met.

Caliban’s Revenge

How can we employ our knowledge justly and humanely? How can we develop teaching techniques that conform to actual modes of learning? What does a worker with skill actually know? The Diderot Project poses questions about the social consequences of the implementation of computer technology in the workplace, starting from a series of informed studies of the internal - or epistemological - structure of work and drawing heavily upon such diverse disciplines as economic history, linguistics, mathematics and literary criticism as well as classical and contemporary philosophy. Enlightenment, skill and education have emerged as the pivotal issues around which a humanized and productive discussion of the new technology must be shaped. Diderot’s Rameau’s Nephew questions the limits of the Enlightenment, offering a trenchant analysis of the relationship of teleology to instrumentality, and, in doing so, challenges a central tenet in modern philosophy - namely, that practical knowledge ultimately has a theoretical basis. In Diderot’s view, the forms of knowledge we might label practical and theoretical, experiential and propositional, are not only incompatible, but actually in competition with one another in the social world. His use of the dialogue form, moreover, induces a form of reflective tension in the reader, who is thereby invited to actively participate in the textual debates. The chapter discusses the power of the hypocrite - or counter-example - with reference to both Rameau’s Nephew and Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The success “lui” as a parasite depends upon his ability to act or imitate: his knowledge entails knowing the appropriate gesture in any given social situation - a matter of skill, a “knowing how” rather than a “knowing that”. He cannot articulate in words this form of knowledge and thus the reflections of the philosopher mediate for the reader: words are explained by gestures and gestures by words. The dialogue form thus intersects two different modes of expression and thereby makes communication, if not resolution, possible.

Literature, Reflection and the Theory of Knowledge

Both humanists and scientists may think it absurd to suggest that literature can play a role in epistemology. But this is because literature has been consigned to a nebulous, non-cognitive realm of values, leading in the “fact”-worshipping twentieth century to the trivialization of studies which should illuminate the character of human life. The manifold nature of experience can only be captured significantly in narrative form, and by reflection, a mode of knowledge that involves epistemological pluralism. Literature has this ability and, through its capacity for concrete portrayal, it can also move us. Janik gives four examples: Aeschylus’ Orestia, Shakespeare’s King Lear, Diderot’s Ramean’s Nephew and the poetry of G. Trakl. His statement is: without literary reflection, the essential problematic character of human experience can only be superficially explored.

Culture, Controversy and the Human Studies

The conceptual difficulties which the human studies (humanities, Gesiteswissenschaften) confront directly, in sharp contrast to those encountered by the natural sciences in the course of their development, peripherally, as it were, turn upon the problematic character of the very categories through which the humanistic areas of research are constituted. In the human studies conundrums, paradoxes and even contradictions arise as soon as we begin to reflect upon their subject matter and not on the frontiers of disciplines as is more typical in the natural sciences. The problems typical of the natural sciences arise as we try to solve problems or answer questions; in the human studies the most pressing problems are typically problems about the nature and form of the inquiry itself. In science disagreement turns upon how we are to answer specific questions; in the human studies it is more a matter of disagreement about what questions to address. Indeed, the most distressing problems that arise in the human studies tend to bear upon the very nature of the subject under investigation. “What is literature?” “What is religion?” “What is society?” “What is it to explain something?” In the human studies these questions are not luxury items as their counterparts in the natural sciences tend to be. When these questions raise their ugly heads the very foundations of disciplines are being called into question.

Discussing Technology — Breaking the Ground

Strong claims have been made on behalf of the digital computer’s capacity to surpass human beings as thinkers. It has been claimed that computers can eventually replace human thinking completely. The overwhelming philosophical difficulties involved in this claim have been acutely analyzed by Hubert Dreyfus in his book, What Computers Can’t Do.1 More recently, Joseph Weizenbaum, a distinguished authority on artificial intelligence, has carried the critique of computer simulation of human intelligence beyond Dreyfus. In his book, Computer Power and Human Reason,2 Weizenbaum argues passionately and persuasively that there are potential catastrophes in the attitudes that the artificial intelligence community are fostering towards the digital computer in society at large. While I do not find all of their arguments equally convincing or well-formulated, I do not think that I am able to add significantly to them. This debate has raised nearly all of the significant questions facing intellectuals today. I would like to focus on some of the less discussed but none-the-less important issues before us: when should we abandon beliefs? and what are our obligations to convince our adversaries?

Nyíri on the Conservatism of Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy

In his keynote address to the 2nd International Wittgenstein Symposium at Kirchberg am Wechsel in Lower Austria in 1977 G. H. von Wright announced the publication of Wittgenstein’s pensees on philosophy, culture and society from Wittgenstein’s Nachlass and argued that the publication of the Vermischte Bemerkungen pressed the question of the relationship between Wittgenstein’s personal beliefs and his philosophical positions upon us more poignantly than even before.1 Wittgenstein’s enthusiastic endorsement of Oswald Spengler’s Kulturpessimismus more than anything else made it imperative in Professor Wright’s view that we determine whether the connection between Wittgenstein’s personal and philosophical beliefs is merely historical and psychological, or logically and conceptually linked. I have long believed that there is unity between Wittgenstein’s life and his thought. Indeed, I have made this view the cornerstone of my researches into Wittgenstein’s intellectual and moral heritage. However, I have refrained from articulating the precise nature of this link for two reasons: on account of the paucity of reliable information about his life, on the one hand, and the remarkably difficult problem of establishing such logico-conceptual links between personal beliefs and philosophical positions, on the other.