Wittgenstein
on the Limits of Philosophy
Wittgenstein and "ordinary-language philosophy":
The philosophic task: to get
clear about (reveal the criteria of) actual
employment of language, such as use of the word "I," not to make metaphysical
proclamations about the nature of "the self," for example, or anything
else.
No more philosophy in the "grand style" (where everything would be
illumined).
The linguistic turn. Positivism and the empiricist theory of meaningfulness.
The authority of science, including psychology: the "naturalization of
epistemology."
[By these lights, Bertrand
Russell, who launched his career by panning Hegelianism and urging that
philosophy is continuous with science, seems nevertheless a
Cartesian dinosaur.]
The early Wittgenstein and the positivism of the "Vienna Circle.''
The "later Wittgenstein."
Fundamental assumption: We know what
we mean when we communicate with one another in
everyday circumstances. (We know what "red"
means by being able to speak English.)
Language games. The human "form of life."
Our words have no power to extend our knowledge beyond the usages that
are there natural home. Therefore, metaphysical conclusions are bankrupt.
Philosophers have the bad
habit of projecting features of our forms of
representation on what they think of as "reality"
or the world as a whole.
The true philosophic task is to get clear about
right applications in order to be able to dispel philosophical illusion.
For example, the "mind-body
problem" is generated by conflating terms of
distinct areas of discourse (distinct language
games), confusing reasons and causes, willings and mechanistic
determinations, perceivings and neurological
processes, in a word, by running together third
and first-person points of view.
Descriptive vs. revisionist metaphysics (P.F. Strawson):
Ordinary-language philosophy
makes us sensitive to the richness of everyday speech. It is
enough to get clear about the concepts we actually use, acknowledging
our limitations.
Descriptive metaphysics reveals
the commitments of the concepts we actually use. Revisionist metaphysics tries to
make us use different (and unfamiliar, unworkable) concepts.