Abstract
In his political philosophy, Peter Winch was pursuing two themes, one of which is more explicit and more conventional than the other. His first theme was the critique of classical social contract theory. His second theme is best characterised as the primacy of agency over spectatorship. This long-term philosophical commitment is distinct from another central theme for Winch, his emphasis on particular cases. In ethics and politics, the perspective of agency implies understanding how an individual may be ‘called to agency’ by some course of events.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
On Rawls, see Winch (1989, 184–185, 187). Today certain applications of game theory to political philosophy would look like an obvious target of Winch’s criticism. This is, however, not a theme that Winch discussed.
- 2.
In his notes for ‘Intercollegiate Lectures on Political Philosophy’ (1969–70, 3) Winch includes a mention of ‘the craving for particularity’. Lynette Reid informs me that Winch is repeating a joke that Gerald Cohen (who participated in the lectures) made about him.
- 3.
As Winch’s discussion (1992b, Lecture 9) brings out, this paradox is particularly pressing for Hobbes because of his specific view on human motivation: his determinism, his causalist view on action and his logical hedonism.
- 4.
Winch’s main criticism of Locke’s subsequent development of contract theory is that, rather than solving the problem, he brushes it under the carpet.
- 5.
One conclusion from Wittgenstein would be that, in a sense, it is easier to refute the statement that the world is less than five million years old than that it is less than 150 years old. Engaging with the first statement mobilises all the resources of geology and genetics, while the latter statement implies utter scepticism about those very resources.
- 6.
As pointed out by Reid (2017).
- 7.
For a related discussion, see Lagerspetz 2015, 145–146.
- 8.
Reid 2017, 11. Italicisation added.
- 9.
Elsewhere in his work, Wittgenstein frequently offers mechanical training as a model for teaching language or specific rule following activities – admittedly always in stylized illustrations of specific activities and not as a general model for learning. See, for instance, Wittgenstein 1960, p. 77; Wittgenstein 1953, §§ 5–6, 157.
- 10.
Winch avoids the term ‘re-enactment’, partly because he goes along with the then (1958) usual misconception of re-enactment as psychological Einfühlung and not, as Collingwood would have it, a critical reconstruction of past reasoning along with the historically contingent conditions of its meaningfulness (see Winch 1958/1990, 132). That view is no longer held among Collingwood scholars (D’Oro and Connelly 2015).
- 11.
‘Man and Society in Hobbes and Rousseau’, included in (Winch 1972a, 90–109).
- 12.
The conclusion Winch draws here is, firstly, that any moral agent is committed, by pain of inconsistency, to treating all similar cases (including his own) in the same way – unless of course he has changed his mind in the meanwhile. This view is widely shared among moral philosophers. His second conclusion is not so. He argues that the moral agent is not similarly committed to thinking that other moral agents, looking at the same cases, would have to arrive at the same judgments as he has.
- 13.
- 14.
The temporal reading of his argument would face the obvious objection that it might be empirically refuted. Is it obvious, for instance, that we need first-hand experience of a murder case before we can judge that murder is wrong?
- 15.
- 16.
See my paper Lagerspetz 2019.
- 17.
- 18.
Cf. Winch 1969–70, 3: ‘It would be dangerous to assume that there is any one problem which all political philosophers have been concerned with. Even if one uses a formula which could be thought to cover the enquiries and difficulties of many different philosophers, there is the real possibility that different men have been troubled about the problem in different ways and hence have different kinds of requirement about what would constitute a satisfactory solution. This being said I am going to ignore the danger for the time being and talk about what I do think is in a way the fundamental problem in political philosophy’ (italicization added).
- 19.
Parts of this paper were presented at the Centre of Ethics at the University of Pardubice, 4 May 2018 and at the conference Keeping it Honest. Vulnerable Writing, 22–23 August 2019, Uppsala University (conference hosted by Engaging Vulnerability and organized in collaboration with the Nordic Wittgenstein Society). The paper was presented again at Philosophy Research Seminar, Åbo Akademi University, 9 September 2019. Thanks to the participants and others for comments and discussions – especially, but not exclusively, to Jonas Ahlskog, Michael Campbell, Martin Gustafsson, Lars Hertzberg, Markus Kortesmäki, Camilla Kronqvist, Lynette Reid and Björn Vikström.
References
Beran, O. (2018). “Give me an example”: Peter Winch and learning from the particular. Nordic Wittgenstein Review, 7, 49–75.
Collingwood, R. G. (1939). An autobiography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
D’Oro, G., & Connelly, J. (2015). Robin George Collingwood. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2015 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/collingwood/
Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2001). Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Hardwig, J. (1991). The role of trust in knowledge. The Journal of Philosophy, 88, 693–708.
Havel, V. (1990). The power of the powerless. In J. Vladislav (Ed.), Living in Truth (pp. 36–122). London: Faber & Faber.
Hobbes, T. (1651/1981). Leviathan. London: Penguin.
Hume, D. (1970). Of the original contract. In A. MacIntyre (Ed.), Hume’s Ethical Writings (pp. 255–273). London: Collier-Macmillan.
Lagerspetz, O. (2015). Trust, Ethics and Human Reason. London: Bloomsbury.
Lagerspetz, O. (2019). Peter Winch on “Aristotelian” and “Socratic” reasoning. Philosophical Investigations, 42, 146–162.
Rawls, J. (1971). A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Reid, L. (2017). Peter Winch on political and epistemic authority, Manuscript draft, presented at Philosophy research seminar at Åbo Akademi University, 4 September 2017 and at Peter Winch conference – truth in politics and metaphysics at King’s College London, 30 June to 2 July 2017.
Robinson, C. (2009). Wittgenstein and Political Theory. The View from Somewhere. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Weil, S. (1987). The legitimacy of the provisional government (P. Winch, Trans.). Philosophical Investigations, 53, 87–98.
Winch, P. (1957). The universities and the state. Higher Education Quarterly, XII, 14–23.
Winch, P. (1958/1990). The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy. 2nd ed. London: Routledge/Kegan Paul.
Winch, P. (1969–1970). Intercollegiate lectures in political philosophy. [Typescript; lecture notes; 16 pp]. Peter Winch Archives (GB 0100 KCLCA K/PP171, Box 14). King’s College London.
Winch, P. (1972a). Ethics and Action. London: Routledge/Kegan Paul.
Winch, P. (1972b). Authority and rationality. The Human World, 8, 11–21.
Winch, P. (1987). Trying to Make Sense. Oxford: Blackwell.
Winch, P. (1989). Simone Weil: The Just Balance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Winch, P., ed. Lagerspetz, O. (1990). Seminars on authority, The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Notes by O. Lagerspetz, MS, 39 pp.
Winch, P. (1990). Introduction. In I. Maclean, A. Montefiore, & P. Winch (Eds.), The Political Responsibility of Intellectuals (pp. 1–16). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Winch, P. (1991a). Certainty and authority. In A. P. Griffiths (Ed.), Wittgenstein Centenary Essays (pp. 223–238). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Winch, P. (1991b). Persuasion and reason. [Typescript of a lecture delivered at Brooklyn College; 20 pp.] Peter Winch Archives (GB 0100 KCLCA K/PP171, Box 28), Kings College, London. (Shared with students at Illinois and Abo.)
Winch, P. (1992a). Persuasion. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 17, 123–137.
Winch, P. (1992b). Philosophy of law and the state [Computer printout; lecture notes; 61 pp.]. Peter Winch Archives (GB 0100 KCLCA K/PP171, Box 16). King’s College London.
Winch, P. (1993). Political authority. [Computer printout; seminar notes; 24 pp.]. Peter Winch Archives (GB 0100 KCLCA K/PP171, Box 16). King’s College London.
Winch, P. (1997). Can We Understand Ourselves? Philosophical Investigations, 20, 193–204.
Winch, P. (2002). How is political authority possible? D. Z. Phillips (Ed.). Philosophical Investigations, 25, 20–32.
Winch, P. (n.d. [mid-1990s]). Authority, consent, and practical reason [Computer print-out outline for a book]. Peter Winch Archives (GB 0100 KCLCA K/PP171, Box 16), Kings College, London.
Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Wittgenstein, L. (1960). The Blue and Brown Books (Second ed.). New York: Harper & Row.
Wittgenstein, L. (1972). On Certainty. New York: Harper & Row.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lagerspetz, O. (2020). Political Philosophy and the Primacy of Agency. In: Campbell, M., Reid, L. (eds) Ethics, Society and Politics: Themes from the Philosophy of Peter Winch. Nordic Wittgenstein Studies, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40742-1_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40742-1_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-40741-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-40742-1
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)