Wittgenstein's Method

[ChrisK]

I've often heard about the Later Wittgenstein's method without fully comprehending what it entails. How exactly does one engage in Wittgenstienian analysis? How did the Analytical Marxists screw it up? And if any books could be recommended that follow that method I'd be extremely grateful.

[ZeroNowhere]

I'm not sure it would be correct to say that the 'Analytical' 'Marxists' screwed it up, I don't think they claimed to be trying it in the first place, though I may be wrong.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Zero is right, they did not screw it up, they just ignored it entirely.

Wittgenstein's method is largely that which I use here: return idle philosophical speculation to ordinary language, examining how we actually use words like 'real', 'exist', substance', 'change'...

As Marx noted:


"One of the most difficult tasks confronting philosophers is to descend from the world of thought to the actual world. Language is the immediate actuality of thought. Just as philosophers have given thought an independent existence, so they were bound to make language into an independent realm. This is the secret of philosophical language, in which thoughts in the form of words have their own content. The problem of descending from the world of thoughts to the actual world is turned into the problem of descending from language to life.

"We have shown that thoughts and ideas acquire an independent existence in consequence of the personal circumstances and relations of individuals acquiring independent existence. We have shown that exclusive, systematic occupation with these thoughts on the part of ideologists and philosophers, and hence the systematisation of these thoughts, is a consequence of division of labour, and that, in particular, German philosophy is a consequence of German petty-bourgeois conditions. The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life." [Marx and Engels (1970) The German Ideology, p.118. Bold emphases added.]

More details on his method here:

http://www.roangelo.net/logwitt/

[ChrisK]

First off, I'd like to thank both of you for your responses.


Zero is right, they did not screw it up, they just ignored it entirely.

Wittgenstein's method is largely that which I use here: return idle philosophical speculation to ordinary language, examining how we actually use words like 'real', 'exist', substance', 'change'...

So would I be right in assuming that the articles on your website follow this method as well?


More details on his method here:

http://www.roangelo.net/logwitt/

Thank you for the link!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Christopher:


So would I be right in assuming that the articles on your website follow this method as well?

In many places, but not everywhere.

[JazzRemington]

I wonder if there's books that apply this method, aside from, say, G. A. Cohen's work. I found an old copy of something called The Wittgenstein Notebook, but taht's about it.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Wittgenstein's Notebooks is based on work he was doing between 1912 and 1918.

And, Cohen does not apply his method.

The only other Marxist books I know of that try to apply it are:

Kitching, G. (1988), Karl Marx And The Philosophy of Praxis (Routledge).

--------, (1994), Marxism And Science (Pennsylvania State University Press).

--------, (2003), Wittgenstein And Society. Essays In Conceptual Puzzlement (Ashgate).

However, Kitching badly misunderstands Wittgenstein, and ends up an anti-Marxist.

Kitching, G., and Pleasants, N. (2002) (eds.), Marx And Wittgenstein. Knowledge, Morality And Politics (Routledge).

The best book by far is:

Robinson, G. (2003), Philosophy And Mystification. A Reflection On Nonsense And Clarity (Fordham University Press).

I cannot recommend this book too highly.

I am in fact publishing some of Robinson's essays at my site. Follow this link:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1663459&postcount=206

[JimFar]

I wonder if there's books that apply this method, aside from, say, G. A. Cohen's work. I found an old copy of something called The Wittgenstein Notebook, but taht's about it.

The late Jerry Cohen was not a Wittgensteinian. The kind of analytical philosophy that he drew upon when writing Karl Marx's Theory of History was, if anything, a variant of logical empiricism. Cohen cited Carl Hempel, especially Hempel's work on the covering-law model of explanation and Hempel's analysis of functional laws. And Cohen's later work on political philosophy was not very Wittgensteinian either. That work owed more to people like John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin. And his last writings on the subject took, what he described as a Platonic turn.

[JazzRemington]

eh, I still think the method was the most interesting part of the book.

[ZeroNowhere]

Rosa, any idea what happened to Robinson and 'Philosophy and Demystification'?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

He tried to get a publisher, but he wasn't successful.

I'll try to publish some of the essays from that book at my site.

Another going up next week.

[Hit The North]

Rosa, any idea what happened to Robinson and 'Philosophy and Demystification'?

You can get a used copy here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Philosophy-Mystification-Reflection-Nonsense-Clarity/dp/0415178517/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_cart_2

EDIT: On second thoughts, I think I may have misunderstood. Is Philosophy and Demystification the sequel?

[ZeroNowhere]

Yes, it is mentioned here (http://www.blogger.com/profile/02414512046203373023). Thanks for the effort, though.