Abstract
Kinds of analysis proliferate. The paradigm of analysis is mathematics; Newton spoke of scientific analysis; chemical analysis is a paradigm for that; psychologists speak of analyses; social scientists follow suit; linguists offer discourse analyses; critical analyses of Shakespeare’s sonnets are also familiar. The analysis nearest to, or identical with, Wittgenstein-style philosophy, is the most famous case in the field of foundations of mathematics: Russell’s 1905 view on definite descriptions. It has never left the agenda of analytic philosophy (Pelletier FJ, Linsky B: Russell vs. Frege on definite descriptions as singular terms. Griffin and Jacquette (eds), pp 40–64, 2009, conclusion). That explains his having found the discovery that language includes non-descriptive items downright silly.
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Notes
- 1.
Consider then real slum landlords who misuse language in order to confuse their tenants in order to exploit them. Would Wittgenstein denounce them? To the extent that he has addressed the problem of demarcation of metaphysics, his solution to it is that metaphysics is a special misuse of words: it is the bewitchment of the attempt to cross the limits of language. This invites some (metaphysical?) explanation.
- 2.
Much of the analytic literature is scarcely philosophical. It is a priori sociology of everyday life, contrary to Wittgenstein’s hostility to the a priori (Hall and Jarvie 1996 , 16).
- 3.
- 4.
The protest of Antisthenes that he could see horses but not the idea of the horse (“horseness”) brought about a dismissive explanation: he had eyes for vision with but no mind for intuition.
- 5.
Positivists noted repeatedly that the loss of metaphysics is a loss of but an empty shell.
- 6.
PI, §380. “I could not apply any rule to a private transition from what is seen to words.” Hence, private language is impossible.
- 7.
PI, §199. “To obey a rule … to play a game of chess, are customs (uses, institutions).” The rules of a private game, then, are different, just as a private taboo differs from a socially-enacted imposed taboo.
- 8.
The difference that troubled Wittgenstein was between the behaviorally similar expressions that describe the conduct pattern of following a given rule and the similar conduct pattern that does not: the one case is “following a rule”, “behavior in accord with a rule”, and such; the other is “as a rule”, “habitually” and such. This difference is common and obvious. Wittgenstein declared this difference his own paradox (PI, §201): “Our paradox was this: a rule could not determine a course of action, as every course of action can be made out to accord with the rule. The answer was, if everything can be made out to accord with the rule, then it can also be made out to conflict with it. And so there would be here neither accord nor conflict.” Indeed, we learn a few relevant ideas here: perfect rules are ideal (PI, §§100–3) and if we find a rule disappointing, then we may alter it (PI, §125). Further, we do not know what rule a series of numbers follows as we have always only a partial set of them (PI, §143). In brief, the games that we play or behavior-patterns that we exhibit are not clearly defined. Why did this trouble Wittgenstein? How was all that paradoxical? Why is that troubling? Suppose the game is well defined; the inability to define it clearly that troubled Wittgenstein is a version of Hume’s critique. It is thus no paradox but a detour to the problem of induction. Wittgenstein’s paradox echoes Duhem’s proof that there can be no rule of induction by reference to under-determination (which is likewise a fact, not a paradox): all our data fit into any one of infinitely many alternative explanations. What troubled Wittgenstein then is indeterminacy. The open-endedness of language delights some and upsets others.
- 9.
Hallett 2008, 10: “The notion of language as a principal determinant of truth and assertability has evoked a common reaction. ‘This,’ writes John Mackie , ‘is the basic problem for linguistic philosophy, to decide whether it is concerned with grammar or metaphysics, with language or the world. And if it is to tell us something about the world, on what evidence or on what arguments will its conclusions rest? If we want to learn about the world, no strictly linguistic evidence will be at all conclusive’.” Hallett suggests here the following idea that it seems he deems new. As the question “what we should say” in part depends on language, he asks, what part? Russell 1949 that Hallett maligns considered the inability to answer this question an obvious limitation of human thinking. Hallett’s new observation appears traditionally as the observation that all observation-reports are theory-laden; it is only four centuries old.
- 10.
- 11.
Gellner [1959] 2005 , 252, 265 says, members of the analytic school habitually feign observations. See also op. cit., 56, 69, 76, 228, 240, 242, 302, 319, 329.
- 12.
Hallett 2008 , 49 writes casually about “Carnap’s limited awareness of everyday expressions and their everyday employment (not only in English but also in German).” He also takes it for granted that young Wittgenstein offered a metaphysics with no reference to Wittgenstein’s insistence to the contrary.
- 13.
A large portion of Philosophical Investigations is devoted to examples of terms that are specifically applicable comfortably and that are inapplicable or problematic as universal terms. Consider the first example there. It is of St Augustine à la Wittgenstein, who knew what is the time but not what is time. This is fine; it does not do the job Wittgenstein assigned it, though: the admittedly metaphysical question, what is time, is legitimate by his own rules, as we all use freely the metaphysical concept: “Time and tide wait for no man”.
- 14.
Analytic philosophers have observed repeatedly that theology is neither scientific nor commonsensical. This claim is an appeal to the demarcation of science as empirically verified. Thus, the ordinary-language school was in error as it disassociated itself from the “logical” positivist school (the “Vienna Circle”), since it shared its verification theory of meaning. See Wisdom 1958 .
- 15.
Carnap made this mistake in his Aufbau: he rendered all sentences tautologies by his very rule of identifying every object by the full sets of its characteristics: It turns all identifications into definitions.
- 16.
- 17.
This echoes a real incident in Congo Free State that served Joseph Conrad for his “Heart of Darkness”. Wittgenstein’s failure to see Moore’s point is not due to his anti-metaphysics alone. The need to explain Moore is more general, as Morris and Preti 2015 and Preti 2017 have discussed it in great detail.
- 18.
- 19.
Kripke 1972 , 138 said we have no choice, even though we know that some marginal commonsense opinions are false (to use his example, “the whale is a fish”). Maxwell said, today’s science is tomorrow’s commonsense. Russell was more cautions, saying, when commonsense heeds science, it improves.
- 20.
Duncan 2007 , 54: “Although heavily influenced by Moore , Wittgenstein … was generally contemptuous of Moore’s version of ‘philosophy of commonsense’”.
- 21.
Haller declared Rorty’s view absurd, as it makes Wittgenstein a precursor of Popper or Feyerabend . This is a witty dismissal of Rorty’s view as frivolous.
- 22.
Ayer 1985 conclusion declares Wittgenstein the greatest after Russell, since he was hostile to some metaphysics; Wittgenstein’s hostility to all metaphysics Ayer dismisses. (Hallett 2008 , 48, faults Carnap for confusing these two options.)
- 23.
Janik and Toulmin 1973 , 192 also quote this assertion of Wittgenstein.
- 24.
This was the program of Heinrich Hertz and of Ernst Mach . Popper noted that any testable theory entails untestable ones. Instead, Popper 1959 §20 demanded (like Peirce before him) to choose the most testable theory first: this renders it preferable to omit from a theory under examination all metaphysical ballast.
- 25.
PI, § 426. Wittgenstein refers here to the most basic idea of standard abstract set theory, the one-to-one correlation between infinite sets, where a mere rule for it plays the role of its execution. This is astute.
- 26.
This passage, they say, alludes to a (vague) remark by Martin Luther . This is of no useful consequence.
- 27.
The ordinary use of the attribution of difficulty to comprehend is often the expression of inability to consider false a seemingly false statement of a bigwig plus the inability to reinterpret it as true.
- 28.
Hintikka appeared as a follower of Wittgenstein. He never specified. He assumed that meanings imply possibilities. The sense of a word is then a class of all of its possible references. Models and modalities thus equal meanings and theories. Sense and reference of the morning star differ, as the two do not coincide in all possible worlds. The set of all possible empirical tests serve as filters that aim at narrowing down the set of possible worlds to one. This is not far from critical rationalism; his view of science as games against nature is more so. It is still unfeasible, as it tacitly equates meaning with science. Carnap and Hempel proved this long ago, as they tried to refute Popper’s theory: to that end, they assumed tacitly that Popper had endorsed this equation. They never recognized his protest. This is cheap.
- 29.
The opinion reflected in Warnock’s obituary is quite the contrary: it is a disclaimer: Austin was in no way under Wittgenstein’s influence and admiration for ordinary language did not sway him. Warnock’s evidence goes the other way, especially in his discussion of the problems that Austin was facing. Austin’s 1956 Presidential Address to the Aristotelian Society (“A Plea for Excuses”) excited the London philosophical community. It presented a task (that he called a problem): to offer an alternative to Russell’s theory of definite description closer to ordinary language. This refutes Warnock’s characterization of Austin’s attitude.
- 30.
Ibid. 17; see also ibid. 103, where Wittgenstein’s last work seems to tolerate hypotheses – on the ground of a “Weltbild”, a world-image, to wit, a metaphysics, no less. See also ibid., 109. Stegmüller 2012 , 10, 106 legitimized unverified hypotheses by reading them as expressions of hope. See Agassi and Wettersten 1980 .
- 31.
Ironically the idea that the meaningless may be rescued as a rule appeared in efforts to save from the proverbial dump-heap not metaphysics but science. This was a move initiated by Mill in the pre-history of analytic philosophy, revived by Schlick and adopted by Toulmin . Russell had presented the metaphysical theory of simplicity as a rule: seek the simplest hypothesis. Both Wittgenstein and Popper followed suit.
- 32.
Only Rorty 2010 , 135 noted that Wittgenstein had shunned the problem of demarcation.
- 33.
Remarkably, Warnock 2013 , 5–7 attributed to Austin a demarcation of philosophical problems; in a true Austin style he took it back (2013, 5, note 1). What is the metaphysics to exorcise is unclear. Yet the difference between complete and partial verification is clear enough to avoid with ease (McGuinness 1985 ).
- 34.
David Pole 1958 , 68–9 rightly dismissed Wittgenstein’s assertion that privileged access to sensations is a matter of grammar.
- 35.
Chomsky postulated a universal grammar: generative grammar generates all specific natural grammars. He never explained this and he never elaborated beyond offering some dazzling instances that possibly refute some possible alternative theories.
- 36.
Jorge Luis Borges describes a language (Tlon) that is inherently idealistic; he could not say how. Can such a language exist? Wittgenstein had to answer in the negative. He did not explain.
- 37.
Blue Book, 17. Dummett 1960 (his review of Gellner’s critique of analytic philosophy) opens with observing that both Oxford and Wittgenstein owe Russell a grudge. This is the insinuation that Russell’s support of Gellner is a retaliation of sorts. This is the worst insult to Russell. Dummett 1978 ix–xiii, in which he discussed his own review, seems an effort to make amends. For, it displays marked respect for Russell. As implicit withdrawals are confusing, it is hard for me to ascribe this conduct to Dummett. Gellner’s book, he concludes his initial review, “does not even have the smell of honest or seriously intentioned work” as he does not distinguish between Wittgenstein’s two schools. He does not say there why this is so serious an error. In the 1978 addendum to it, he adds some agreement with some of Gellner’s criticism of the analytic school. This exposes his initial review as a partisan hatchet job: as not very candid.
- 38.
Kenny 2006 , xiii says, this text expresses anti-scientism. The project that Russell was working on with Wittgenstein’s help was the attempt to render philosophy scientific; this is how Kenny presents scientism.
- 39.
It is hard to express the sense of puzzlement that this claim should provoke. Even on the assumption that Wittgenstein was indeed as ignorant as he systematically pretended to be, even then it is very hard to suggest that he had never bumped into the ubiquitous mystical claim that language is severely limited.
- 40.
This is a general methodological hypothesis that is derivative of Popper’s solution to the problem of induction (Agassi 1975 , Ch. 3).
- 41.
We may remember that Berkeley declared his idealism commonsense. His evidence was from the claim that the alternative, materialism, is contrary to commonsense. Of course, he was in error as two wrongs to not make a right, but he presents the ideal as a commonsense metaphysics. This ideal is too good to be true: as Maxwell has noted, in time commonsense adjusts to scientific novelties.
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Agassi, J. (2018). Analysis of Analysis. In: Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. Synthese Library, vol 401. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00117-9_12
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