the influence of wittgenstein on american philosophy

of 42 The Influence of Wittgenstein on American Philosophy

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The Oxford Handbook of American PhilosophyCheryl Misak

Print publication date: Sep 2009Print ISBN-13: 9780199219315Published to Oxford Handbooks Online: Sep-09Subject: Philosophy, History of Western Philosophy (Post-Classical)DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199219315.001.0001

The Influence of Wittgenstein on American Philosophy

Hans‐Johann Glock

DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199219315.003.0018

Abstract and Keywords

This article sketches the complex connections between Wittgenstein andNorth America from their beginnings to the present. The first section dealswith the impact of the Tractatus on logical positivism and American post-positivism, and the second section concerns his personal connections withAmerican philosophers. The third section surveys the impact of his laterwork on post-war philosophical debates in America, and the fourth, Americancontributions to Wittgenstein studies and exegesis. The article ends withbrief reflections on the relationship between Wittgenstein and two prominentAmerican philosophical trends, pragmatism and naturalism.

American philosophy, Wittgenstein, American post-positivism, post-war philosophicaldebates, pragmatism, naturalism

During his lifetime, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) published only onesignificant philosophical work, the Tractatus. Nevertheless, some fifty yearsafter his death, many regard him as the greatest philosopher of the twentiethcentury. A fairly comprehensive bibliography up to 1995 has in excess of9,000 entries (Philipp 1996), and the stream of publications has not abatedsince then. At the same time, however, there is a pervasive feeling thathis influence is in decline. What is more, this impression is not confined toWittgenstein's detractors but is shared by many of his admirers.

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Some of Wittgenstein's metaphilosophical and philosophical ideas havenever found favor within the mainstream of Anglophone philosophy, notablythe distinction between saying and showing in the Tractatus, the comparisonof philosophy to a kind of therapy in the Philosophical Investigations, and hisanthropocentric conception of mathematics in Remarks on the Foundationsof Mathematics. Nevertheless, at the height of his influence—between the1940s and the 1970s—many of his views were common currency, and eventhose who did not subscribe to them treated them with respect. This heldnot just for his philosophy of mind—notably his attack on Cartesianism—andhis philosophy of language—especially his linking of linguistic meaning touse—but also for some of his metaphilosophical contentions: for instance,that there is a qualitative difference between the conceptual investigationspursued by philosophy and the factual investigations pursued by science.

Wittgenstein's attack on Cartesianism continues to carry favor. But thecontemporary mainstream of analytic philosophy rejects most of his otherideas. In both substance and spirit it seems alien, if not downright hostile,to Wittgenstein's legacy. That mainstream, moreover, has increasingly beendominated by North American philosophy: more specifically, philosophydone in the USA. Neither Quinean naturalism nor Kripkean essentialism ishospitable to Wittgensteinian philosophy. It might seem, therefore, thatthe story of Wittgenstein's influence on American philosophy is a shortone, or at any rate more of a history than an account of its current impact.This appearance is not entirely unfounded. It seems that concentrating onWittgenstein is considered to be a bad career move for aspiring graduatestudents in the USA (see Putnam, forthcoming: 2). But the relation betweenWittgenstein and Wittgenstein studies, on the one hand, and Americanphilosophy and intellectual life, on the other, is much more complex, intense,and intriguing than might appear at first.

The present is very much included in this verdict. Wittgenstein is the onlyphilosopher to have made it on to the Time Magazine list of the ‘100 mostimportant people of the [twentieth] century’, where he is portrayed byDennett <http://www.time.com/time100/scientist>. And though it maycome as a shock, in a recent poll among professional philosophers in NorthAmerica, the Investigations was ranked as the most important philosophicalwork of the twentieth century, and the Tractatus came in fourth (Lackey1999: 331–2). A poll undertaken in Europe might not yield similar results; anda poll of philosophers from Australia and New Zealand would almost certainlybe less favorable to Wittgenstein. Furthermore, Wittgenstein scholars andWittgensteinians continue to find employment in major philosophy


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programs.1 Finally, many of the leading mainstream American philosophersof the second half of the twentieth century have engaged with Wittgensteinin a spirit that is at least partly positive or constructive. What is more,this roll‐call includes not just followers like Cavell and McDowell, and‘mainstream’ sympathizers like Dennett, Sellars, and Searle, but also thinkerswhose ideas are generally contrasted with Wittgenstein's, such as Kripke,Davidson, Putnam, and Kaplan.

In what follows I shall sketch the complex connections between Wittgensteinand North America from their beginnings to the present. Section 1 dealswith the impact of the Tractatus on logical positivism and American post‐positivism, and section 2 concerns his personal connections with Americanphilosophers. Section 3 surveys the impact of his later work on post‐warphilosophical debates in America, and section 4, American contributionsto Wittgenstein studies and exegesis. I end with brief reflections on therelationship between Wittgenstein and two prominent American philosophicaltrends, pragmatism and naturalism.

One can distinguish between American philosophy and philosophy inAmerica (Marsoobian and Ryder 2004: p. xv). There are three reasonsfor this. The first is the decisive role played by European refugees fromNazism in establishing analytic philosophy of a positivist and post‐positivistbent as the dominant force within American academic philosophy (seesection 1 below). The second is the influx of philosophical talent (mainly,though not exclusively, from Britain) to the United States encouraged by theexpansion of the tertiary education sector from the 1960s onwards. The finalone is rarely noted. Logical positivism was not the only European import.Phenomenology, existentialism, critical theory, and postmodernism wereintroduced to America from the 1930s onwards.

Though least significant, even this last phenomenon is relevant toWittgenstein's role in American philosophy. Furthermore, like philosophy ingeneral, Wittgensteinian philosophy and Wittgenstein studies have becomean international field, with people moving back and forth freely. (Judging bycitation indexes, being a native speaker of German appears to be a distinctdisadvantage, but otherwise it's a level playing field.). The aforementionedbrain drain included such figures as Paul Grice, Stuart Hampshire, J. O.Urmson, and Philippa Foot. Grice was officially hostile to Wittgenstein. Buteven he wasdecisively shaped by conceptual analysis and hence indirectly byWittgenstein. And among (temporary or permanent) imports of a later




vintage are philosophers who are bona fide Wittgensteinians and/orWittgenstein scholars: notably Hintikka, Ishiguro, McDowell, Pears,Sluga, Stern, and Winch. As a result, I shall not confine my discussion tonative citizens of North America, but will include contributions made byphilosophers while working in America.

1. The Tractatus, Logical Positivism, and American Post‐Positivism

The Tractatus revolves around the relation between thought and language,on the one hand, and reality, on the other. But its interest differsfundamentally from the epistemological concerns that dominated modernphilosophy. Instead, the focus is on logical or semantic questions that are insome respects prior to those of epistemology and metaphysics. The issue isnot: How can we represent reality accurately, i.e. arrive at beliefs that aretrue and justified? It is, rather: How can we represent reality at all, whethertruly or falsely? What gives content to our beliefs and sentences? Whatenables them to be about something?

For Wittgenstein, the essence of representation or intentionality is intimatelylinked to the nature of logic, since logic comprises the most generalpreconditions for the possibility of representation. We represent realitythrough thought. But the Tractatus breaks with the traditional view thatlanguage is merely a medium for transmitting pre‐linguistic thoughts.Thought is intrinsically linked to the linguistic expression of thought.The Tractatus features a striking account of the essence of symbolicrepresentation—the picture theory of the proposition—which at the sametime furnishes a metaphysical account of the basic constituents of reality—logical atomism—a novel understanding of logic, and a revolutionaryconception of philosophy itself. All meaningful propositions can beanalyzed into logically independent ‘elementary propositions’. The ultimateconstituents of such propositions are unanalyzable ‘names’ (the simplestcomponents of language). These names have as their meaning, i.e. stand for,indestructible ‘objects’ (the simplest components of reality). An elementaryproposition depicts a possible combination of objects—a possible ‘state ofaffairs’—by arranging names in a certainmanner. If that possible state of affairs actually obtains, that proposition istrue.

Empirical propositions have sense by virtue of depicting possible states ofaffairs. By contrast, logical propositions are vacuous ‘tautologies’, since theycombine empirical propositions in such a way that all factual informationcancels out. ‘It is raining’ says something about the weather—true or false




—and so does ‘It is not raining’. But ‘Either it is raining or it is not raining’does not. The necessity of tautologies simply reflects the fact that theydo not make any claims the truth‐value of which depends on how thingsactually are. The pronouncements of metaphysics, finally, are not justsenseless but ‘nonsensical’; for, contrary to the criterion of sense implicit inthe picture theory, they do not depict a state of affairs which may or maynot obtain. What such metaphysical ‘pseudo‐propositions’ try to say is shownby empirical propositions properly analyzed. In fact, the pronouncementsof the Tractatus itself are in the end condemned as nonsensical. Theylead one to appreciate the essence of symbolic representation. Once thisis achieved, however, one must throw away the ladder which one hasclimbed up. Philosophy cannot be a ‘doctrine’, since there are no meaningfulphilosophical propositions. It is an ‘activity’, a ‘critique of language’ bymeans of logical analysis. Positively, it elucidates the meaningful propositionsof science; negatively, it reveals that metaphysical statements arenonsensical (4.0031, 4.112, 6.53 f.).

The reception of Wittgenstein's early ideas started even before the book waspublished, through Russell. An American audience might conceivably haveheard of Wittgenstein as early as 1914. In the preface to Our Knowledgeof the External World, which Russell delivered as Lowell Lectures inBoston, Russell mentions that ‘in pure logic’ he has had ‘the benefit ofvitally important discoveries, not yet published, by my friend Mr. LudwigWittgenstein’ (1914: 9). The German–English edition of the Tractatusappeared in 1922. But easily the most important American reception ofWittgenstein's early work was indirect. In 1924 the Tractatus had cometo the attention of the Vienna Circle, a group of scientifically mindedphilosophers led by Moritz Schlick. It was recognized by some of them asa turning point in the history of philosophy. But their grasp of it was partial(see Hacker 1996: ch. 3): for instance, when they assimilated the accountof mathematical equations to that of logical tautologies. The idea thatmetaphysical pronouncements are nonsensical pseudo‐propositions appealedto their anti‐metaphysical zeal, and they dismissed the suggestion that thereare ineffable metaphysical and ethical truths. They harnessed the restrictionof philosophy to the analysisof language, in particular of the propositions of science, to their scientisticconviction that science is the only source of genuine knowledge.Wittgenstein himself found this view offensive, even though his restrictionof meaningful discourse to the empirical ‘propositions of naturalscience’ (1961[1922]: 6.53) sold the ticket on which the logical positivistswere traveling. As committed empiricists, they welcomed the idea that


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all necessary propositions are tautologous or ‘analytic’, and hence do notexpress knowledge of reality. Unlike earlier versions of empiricism (Mill,Mach), this logical empiricism promises to do justice to the necessity of logicand mathematics while avoiding both Platonism and the Kantian idea ofsynthetic a priori truths.

Although Wittgenstein did not take part in the weekly meetings of the Circle,he met a select few—Schlick, Waismann, and, initially, Carnap and Feigl.Together with the Tractatus, these discussions (recorded in Wittgenstein1979) were formative influences on the development of logical positivismin the interwar years. In the course of these discussions, Wittgensteindeveloped the now notorious principle of verification, according to whichthe meaning of a proposition is the method of its verification. Like Schlickand Carnap, he combined verificationism with phenomenalism, therebystrengthening further the impression that the Tractatus had been anempiricist overture to logical positivism, an interpretation recently revived byMerrill and Jaakko Hintikka (1986).

Logical positivism became what is by common consent—though notnecessarily common acclaim—the most influential philosophical school of thelast hundred years, mainly through its large‐scale exodus to America (Feigl1981: 57–94; Hacker 1996: sect. 7.1; Friedman 1998). Its emphasis on formallogic and admiration for natural science decisively shaped the mainstream ofAmerican analytic philosophy, which in this respect is post‐positivist.

By far the most eminent positivist import was Rudolf Carnap. Hedistinguished between a ‘left’ and a ‘right wing’ of the Vienna Circle, andnot just along political lines. The former comprised Neurath, Hahn, andhimself; the latter Schlick and Waismann, ‘who remained in personalcontact with Wittgenstein and were inclined to maintain his viewsand formulations’ (1963: 57–8). Furthermore, he was taken aback byWittgenstein's authoritarian style of debate, which tolerated ‘no criticalcomment’ and treated insights as a kind of divine inspiration.

I sometimes had the impression that the deliberately rationaland unemotional attitude of the scientist and likewise any ideawhich had the flavour of ‘enlightenment’ were repugnant toWittgenstein. (1963: 25–9).

At the same time Carnap continued to regard Wittgenstein as ‘thephilosopher who, apart from Russell and Frege, had the greatest influence onmy thinking’ (1963: 24). Perhaps Carnap realized that on one crucial issuehe himself was a ‘right‐winger’: namely, the status of philosophy vis‐à‐vis




science. All logical positivists believed that philosophy should emulate therigor and the cooperative spirit of the formal and empirical sciences. Butwhereas Neurath adopted a naturalistic stance according to which philosophyitself dissolves into a unified physicalist science, thereby anticipatingQuine, Carnap held fast to a qualitative distinction between the empiricalinvestigation of reality and the philosophical analysis of the propositions andmethods of science. The Tractatus had portrayed philosophy as a second‐order discipline. Unlike science, philosophy does not itself represent reality,but sets ‘limits to the disputable sphere of science’. Without propounding anypropositions of its own, it clarifies meaningful propositions, and demonstratesthat metaphysical propositions violate the rules of logical syntax (4.112 ff.,6.53). In exact parallel for Carnap, philosophy is not a doctrine consisting ofpropositions but a method, namely of logical analysis. Negatively, it revealsmetaphysical nonsense. Positively, it turns into the ‘logic of science’: namely,the linguistic analysis or explication of scientific propositions, concepts, andmethods (1937: 279). This demarcation of philosophy and science underliesCarnap's distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions in TheLogical Syntax of Language and his distinction between internal and externalquestions in ‘Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology’ (1956). He reaffirmedit towards the end of his life. Scientific philosophy is not philosophy thatmeddles in the scientific investigation of reality. Instead, it is philosophythat reflects on this investigation in the same rationalistic and collaborativespirit as the one which guides the first‐order explorations of the scientiststhemselves (1964: 133–4). Accordingly, Quine's famous attack on Carnapalso pits him against Wittgenstein (see section 5).

On other issues, Carnap increasingly diverged from the Tractatus after hismove to the USA in 1935. He had originally been impressed by Wittgenstein'sstrictures against any attempt to talk about the relation between languageand reality, and he had therefore restricted the analysis of languageto logical syntax, the intra‐linguistic rules for the combination of signs.Tarski's resolution of the semantic paradoxes persuaded Carnap to drop therestriction to syntax. His subsequent attempts to explicate semantic notions—notably through the idea of possible worlds (1956)—laid the foundations forintensional semantics, perhaps the most ‘American’ of all semantic theories.Still, that impetus was indebted not just to C. I. Lewis's modal logic and toFrege's sense/meaningdistinction, but also to the Tractatus. The basic idea of all truth‐conditionalsemantics, intensional semantics included, is that the meaning of a sentenceconsists in, or is determined by, the conditions under which it is true. Thatidea was first expressed clearly in the Tractatus (4.022, 4.024, 4.061–4,




5.101–21). Furthermore, Wittgenstein's technical apparatus (logical space,truth possibilities, range) influenced not just Carnap's theory of probabilitybut also his notion of an ‘L‐state’ (1956: 9–10) or possible world, and therebyintensional semantics, which identifies the meaning of a sentence with theset of possible worlds in which it is true.

At the same time, there is also an important difference which is generallyoverlooked. Like Frege, Russell, and Quine, Carnap was a bona fide ‘ideallanguage’ philosopher. He regarded his logical calculi as artificial ideallanguages that replace natural languages for the purposes of scienceand scientific philosophy. By contrast, the early Wittgenstein regardedformal logic as an ideal notation which brings out the underlying logicalstructure which sentences in the vernacular possessed all along. In thisrespect he is a clear forerunner of another project of abiding importanceto American philosophy: namely, that of a theory of meaning for naturallanguages. This project is pursued not just by intensional semanticists likeMontague, but also by Davidson. Just as the Tractatus maintains that thedepth structure of ordinary language is given by Russellian logic, so Davidsonmaintains that it is given by Tarski's formal theory of truth. Like the earlyWittgenstein, and in explicit opposition to Quine, Davidson aims to bringout the ‘metaphysics implicit in natural language’. He is interested not in‘improving on natural language, but in understanding it’. Alluding to a simileof the later Wittgenstein, he describes ‘the language of science not as asubstitute for our present language, but as a suburb of it’ (2001[1984]:203; 1985: 172, 176). Formal logic is philosophically important because itreveals the underlying structure of natural languages (see Glock 1996: 223–5; 2003b: 17).2

2. Wittgenstein in America

After Wittgenstein's return to Cambridge in 1929, he subjected his ownearlier work to a withering critique. He came to realize that there are logicalrelations between propositions which cannot result from the truth‐functional combination of simpler propositions, and hence that the logicallyindependent elementary propositions he had postulated were a myth.Similarly, the atomistic idea of indecomposable objects and unanalyzablenames is a chimera. This collapse of logical atomism also underminesthe picture theory. The explanation of how propositions represent realitycannot be that they are arrangements of logical atoms which share a logicalform with an arrangement of metaphysical atoms. Moreover, meaningfulpropositions do not presuppose a one‐to‐one correlation between words




and things. The underlying referential conception of meaning is doublywrong. Not all words refer to objects. Indeed, even in the case of referringexpressions, their meaning is not the object they stand for. The meaning ofa word is not an entity of any kind, but its use according to linguistic rules(1953: §43).

Wittgenstein held on to the idea that ordinary language is alright, butnot because analysis reveals it to be au fond ‘a calculus according todefinite rules’. Language is not the self‐sufficient abstract system which ispresented in the Tractatus. Rather, it is a human practice which in turn isembedded in a social ‘form of life’. Wittgenstein also continued to believethat philosophical problems are rooted in misunderstandings of language.But he rejected logical depth analysis as a means of achieving clarity.Many philosophically contested concepts cannot be defined analyticallyby reference to necessary and sufficient conditions. They are united by‘family‐resemblances’, overlapping similarities, rather than by a commoncharacteristic mark. To fight the ‘bewitchment of our understanding throughthe means of our language’ we require neither the construction of artificiallanguages nor the uncovering of logical forms beneath the surface ofordinary language. Instead, we need a description of our public linguisticpractices, which constitute a motley of ‘language‐games’ (1953: §§23, 81,108).

The initial influence of Wittgenstein's later ideas was through his teaching,and through the circulation of lecture notes and dictations. As a result, itwas largely confined to his colleagues and pupils at Cambridge. But amongthe latter were American visitors such as Alice Ambrose. She was working inthe philosophy of mathematics, and planned to present what she took to beWittgenstein's views in an article for Mind (1935). But Wittgensteinwas paranoid about distortions of his unpublished ideas (see 1953: preface;Malcolm 1984: 49–50). He tried to sabotage the publication by intercedingwith both Ambrose and Moore, then editor of the journal. When theseattempts failed, he broke off all contacts with her (Monk 1990: 346). Ambroselater taught at Smith College, together with her husband Morris Lazerowitz.Both of them had an abiding interest in the topic of logical necessity, andtheir publications clarified and developed Wittgenstein's iconoclastic claimsabout the necessary propositions of logic, mathematics, and metaphysics,(e.g. Lazerowitz and Ambrose 1985).

By far the most important North American pupil of Wittgenstein, however,was Norman Malcolm. He had studied at the University of Nebraska with




Bouwsma, an ardent admirer of Moore and acquaintance of Wittgenstein's,and later at Harvard. Before setting off for Cambridge in 1938, he went tosay goodbye to the logician Henry Sheffer. ‘He said to me, in a mocking tone,that when I met Wittgenstein I should make a low bow and exclaim: “There isbut one Tautology, and Wittgenstein is its prophet” ’ (1984: 86). This remarkattests not just to an ironical skepticism towards the Tractatus, but also to akeen appreciation of one aspect of its account of logical propositions—thatthey all say the same: namely, nothing.

On arrival at Cambridge, Malcolm soon became one of Wittgenstein's mostdevoted disciples and a trusted friend. After returning to the USA, Malcolmeventually acquired a position at Cornell. He managed to turn Cornellinto one of America's leading departments and into its premier center forWittgenstein studies. This development was aided by Wittgenstein's onlyvisit to the USA, between July and October 1949, when he stayed with theMalcolms. Given the rationing and extreme austerity of post‐war Britain,most visitors would have cherished the creature comforts afforded bythe land of plenty. Predictably, Wittgenstein proved entirely immune tosuch temptations. According to Malcolm, ‘he would more or less eat breadand cheese at all meals, largely ignoring the various dishes that my wifeprepared. Wittgenstein declared that it did not much matter to him what heate, so long as it was always the same’ (1984: 69).

While at Cornell, Wittgenstein met for discussions several Americanphilosophers. Among them were Max Black and Malcolm's former teacher,Bouwsma. Black's influential work in the philosophy of language was partlyshaped by both the early and the later Wittgenstein. He tried to show howphilosophical problems concerning analysis, metaphor, and vagueness couldbe solved by linguistic methods that combine the formal analysis envisagedby the Tractatus with a conceptual analysis influenced by the PhilosophicalInvestigations (see Black 1949). Bouwsma, for his part, published anaccount of the conversations he had with Wittgenstein at Cornell in 1949and Oxford in 1950–1 (Bouwsma 1986). In it he denies that Wittgensteinpursued philosophical arguments of any kind. Instead, Bouwsma stresses thetherapeutic side, assimilating Wittgenstein's method to psychoanalysis. Inthis he is in line with other American interpreters, such as his former pupilLazerowitz, and with the new Wittgensteinians (see section 4). According toMalcolm, however, Wittgenstein repeatedly repudiated the suggestion that,on his conception, philosophy was a form of psychoanalysis: ‘The two aredifferent techniques’, he insisted (1984: 48).




The sojourn at Cornell also had one important consequence, which was notedonly recently. Wittgenstein's final manuscripts, written in 1950–1, featureseminal discussions of epistemological themes that were posthumouslypublished under the title On Certainty. Important parts of On Certaintyengage with Moore's refutation of idealism and skepticism, and with thetruistic propositions that Moore regarded as certain. For this reason, ithas generally been assumed that these remarks were based on readingMoore's ‘Defense of Common Sense’ and ‘Proof of an External World’, andon personal discussions between Moore and Wittgenstein at Cambridge. AsKober (1996) has shown, however, it is more probable that they were thereflection of discussions between Malcolm and Wittgenstein at Cornell. Thesediscussions were based on an article that Malcolm had recently completed(1949; see 1984: 70–5), in which he tried to reconstruct Moore's refutationof skepticism from a Wittgensteinian perspective. So the intellectual trafficbetween Wittgenstein and his American followers was not all one‐way.

3. Wittgensteinianism in America

Wittgenstein's influence through hearsay was decisively superseded by theposthumous publication of the Investigations in 1953. Just as the Tractatushad shaped logical positivism, so Wittgenstein's later work was a guidingforce behind so‐called ordinary language philosophy (Hacker 1996: sect.6.3). This movement flourished between the 1930s and the 1960s, and ismore aptly called ‘conceptual analysis’. Like Wittgenstein and the logicalpositivists, the conceptual analysts took a linguistic turn by regardingphilosophical problemsas conceptual and concepts as embodied in language. Again likeWittgenstein, but unlike the logical positivists, they thought that traditionalphilosophical problems are to be solved or dissolved not by constructingartificial languages, but by describing the ordinary use of philosophicallycontested terms. Finally, like Wittgenstein but unlike the logical positivists,most of them were suspicious of large‐scale quasi‐scientific theoryconstruction in philosophy.

Conceptual analysis is closely associated with Oxford, and commonlycontrasted with American analytic philosophy. To be sure, under theleadership of Carnap, Hempel, Reichenbach, and Quine, many Americanphilosophers concentrated on the logical construction of artificial languages.But for one thing, Wittgenstein's influence on post‐war American philosophywas not confined to the later work. For instance, next to Whitehead andCassirer, the early Wittgenstein was also a major influence on Susanne K.




Langer. Her influential Philosophy in a New Key applies a theory of symbolisminspired by the Tractatus to problems in aesthetics. More importantly, to thisday there are plenty of American philosophers who devote at least part oftheir efforts to the task of analyzing concepts rather than constructing formallanguages. And most of these have been inspired by or are sympathetic toWittgenstein (an exception is Ebersole 1979).

Between the late 1950s and the late 1960s, respect for Wittgenstein'sachievements was at its peak. The emphasis was on two areas. One washis later philosophy of language, especially the slogan that meaning is useand the idea of family resemblance, which were regarded as central tothe proper conduct of philosophical analysis. The other was Wittgenstein'sphilosophy of mind, especially the private language argument and the ideaof a criterion, which were recognized as powerful challenges to Cartesiandualism, phenomenalism, and skepticism about other minds.

American philosophers were major contributors to these debates, variouslyinterpreting, developing, attacking, or defending Wittgenstein's views, orwhat they took to be his views. Malcolm was the leading American advocateof Wittgenstein. His writings, mainly on epistemology and the philosophy ofmind, were renowned for their clarity and intellectual honesty even amonghis opponents. He sought to clarify Wittgenstein's philosophical psychologyand to defend it against the charge of logical behaviorism (1972). He usedWittgensteinian methods to combat both imagist and neurophysiologicalcausal theories of memory (1977). In a scintillating debate with Armstronghe also employed Wittgensteinian ideas against the identity theory of mind(Armstrong and Malcolm 1984). Malcolm's attempts to extract from Mooreand On Certainty a response to skepticism have already been mentioned.His book Dreaming (1959) pursued a somewhat different line to revealthat Cartesian doubt is senseless, inspired by remarks in PhilosophicalInvestigations (Part II: 184, 222). It argues that one cannot think or judgeduring sleep, and hence, a fortiori, one cannot judge falsely during a dreamthat one is awake.

The book provoked a vehement backlash. Critics such as Putnam (1975:chs. 15–16), Fodor and Chihara (1965) accused it of relying on indefensibleassumptions like logical behaviorism and verificationism. What is more,the actual or alleged flaws in his reasoning were regarded as reflectingfundamental flaws in Wittgensteinian philosophy.3 Wittgenstein's anti‐Cartesian philosophy of mind was widely accused of resting on mistakensemantic assumptions. Malcolm in turn attacked the functionalist and






representationalist alternatives of his critics. He objected especially tothe Chomskian idea that genuinely cognitive and symbolic activitiescould be inaccessible in principle to consciousness, in the way in whichneurophysiological processes are. His own animadversions against popularassumptions in cognitive science fell largely on deaf ears. But they are notso very unlike Searle's high‐profile attacks on strong artificial intelligenceand on ‘deep unconscious’ rule‐following. Searle's approach to these issuesis indebted to the conceptual analysis of his teachers Austin and Grice,who disliked Wittgenstein. Searle himself, however, has at times employedand developed Wittgensteinian ideas, in particular on rule‐following andproper names (1987). Like Wittgenstein, he holds that even the most evolvedmental life presupposes a background of non‐representational and non‐theoretical capacities and dispositions.

One crucial bone of contention between Malcolm and his critics was therelation between the meaning of mental terms and behavioral criteria. LikeRogers Albritton (1959), a highly resourceful yet less prolific Wittgensteinian,Malcolm maintained that behavioral criteria provide non‐inductive evidencefor the truth of third‐person psychological statements, and thereby furnishthe wherewithal for a refutation of skepticism about other minds. WhenSusan displays pain behavior under certain circumstances, there remains noroom for intelligible doubt.

By contrast, the Harvard philosopher Stanley Cavell resisted the attempt todissolve skepticism conclusively by appeal to fixed rules of language.4 Forhim Wittgenstein's criteria do not underpin the certainty of third‐personpsychological statements, but determine the applicability of mentalconcepts. Put differently, their role is semantic, rather than epistemic. Cavellfirst came to fame through an article ‘The Availability of Wittgenstein's LaterPhilosophy’ (1962). In it he points out the complex obstacles facing a readerof Philosophical Investigations, and defends the book against the chargeof revolving around dogmatic appeals to ordinary language or commonsense. In both style and content his approach to Wittgenstein differs sharplyfrom that of Malcolm and Albritton, and displays the influence of so‐calledcontinental philosophy. According to Cavell, the Investigations manifestsexistential tensions typical of the modern subject. Wittgenstein is tornbetween the deep human need to transcend the limitations of the ordinaryand the realization that such attempts are ultimately futile (1969, 1979,2001).




Cavell's admiration for Wittgenstein and Austin was shared by BurtonDreben, whose other icon was his colleague Quine. Because of the two,Harvard became a center of Wittgensteinian thought in North America,Quine's pre‐eminence notwithstanding. Even Putnam came to recognizeaffinities with Wittgenstein as part of his more general move towards akind of neo‐pragmatism. From its inception, Putnam's work—notably hisfunctionalist approach to the mind—emphasized the role or function of thenotions or phenomena he investigated, as opposed to their constitutionor essence. Like Wittgenstein, he tried to elucidate so‐called analyticpropositions not by asking what they are about, but by inquiring into theirrole within human thought and discourse. Later he extended this approachto meaning and intentionality, insisting that the question of how words andconcepts are used is more illuminating than the question of what they areor what they refer to (1975: chs. 2, 4, 9; see Gaynesford 2006: 51–5). Cavelland Dreben were two driving spirits behind the so‐called New Wittgenstein,and Putnam's latest reflections on Wittgenstein gravitate towards the samedirection.

This can also be said of McDowell, who came to Pittsburgh from Oxford.Apart from participating in the debate about rule‐following, McDowell's initialcontribution to Wittgensteinian thinking was yet another gloss on criteria(1998: ch. 17). The standard approach acknowledges that criterial evidencefalls short of entailment, and is therefore defeasible. This threatens to reopenthe flood gates to skepticism about other minds. To close them, McDowellsuggested that criteria are neither defeasible nor evidential. If we see Susanscreaming and writhing, we do not infer—consciously orunconsciously—that she is in pain from behavioral evidence; we simply seeher writhing in agony. Like straightforward perception of material objects,this observation does not adduce evidence; it specifies a perceptual capacitywhich directly shows us how things are. McDowell's Mind and World (1994)employs the idea that normal perception is non‐inferential in an avowedexercise in Wittgensteinian therapy. It serves as a remedy for the excesses ofthe empiricist myth of the given, on the one hand, and rationalist approachesverging on idealism, on the other.

This Kantian theme already had strong roots in Pittsburgh, where Sellars hadcoined the dismissal phrase ‘myth of the given’ for sense‐data empiricism.Sellars may have encountered the Tractatus as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford.Or he may have become acquainted with Wittgenstein through his one‐time colleague Feigl, at Minnesota. In any event, he can be regarded asthe founding father of a semantic approach inspired by Wittgenstein that is








highly influential at present (see Sellars 1963: chs. 7 and 11). Conceptualor inferential role semantics starts out from Wittgenstein's slogan thatmeaning is use. But that slogan suffers from the fact that the notion ofmeaning is highly unspecific. Conceptual role semantics therefore refinesit by identifying a more narrowly specified kind of use: namely, its use ininferences. By contrast to some versions of conceptual role semantics, theone initiated by Sellars and further developed by Brandom also goes backto Wittgenstein in another respect: namely, its emphasis on the normativedimension of language. An expression has a meaning only insofar as itis subject to conditions of its correct application. Linguistic behavior isguided by rules of a specifically semantic (Wittgenstein would have said‘grammatical’) kind. These are only implicit in our practices and need to bemade explicit, as in the title of Brandom's blockbuster (1994).

Rules and rule‐following are also the topic of Kripke's stimulating discussionof Wittgenstein's so‐called rule‐following considerations. Kripke does notpurport to provide an accurate account of the primary texts, but to propound‘Wittgenstein's argument as it struck Kripke’ (1982: 5). As regards itscontent, Kripke's interpretation is characterized by two features. First,like Fogelin (1976) before him, he portrays Wittgenstein as constructing askeptical paradox in the style of Hume, one which questions the possibilityof distinguishing between following and violating a rule, and therebycasts doubt on the very phenomenon of meaning. Secondly, he adopts acommunitarian reading according to which rule‐following and language areinherently social. Kripke's book was the starting point for a debate about‘Kripkenstein’ onrule‐following, a debate which is now conducted largely in blissful disregardof Wittgenstein's own writings (see Miller and Wright 2002). Kripke's quasi‐interpretation provoked hostile reactions from several scholars (Bakerand Hacker 1984; Winch 1987). But while the skeptical interpretation ofWittgenstein is wrong, and the community interpretation contentious atbest, as regards the normativity of meaning Kripke has highlighted and ablydefended a genuinely Wittgensteinian idea (see section 5). In any event,Kripke's book placed rule‐following at the center of attention, and led toMalcolm's and McDowell's communitarian yet non‐skeptical readings.

It also helped to rekindle interest in Wittgenstein's philosophy ofmathematics. Unlike Wittgenstein's philosophy of mind and language,the former immediately received a hostile reception on publication ofRemarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, from American commentators(Chihara 1961) among others. Weighing in on the opposite side, Barry






Stroud wrote a prominent response to Dummett's influential attack. Hedefended Wittgenstein in particular against the accusation of espousing a‘full‐blooded conventionalism’ according to which anything goes in novelmathematical proofs, interpreting him instead as a naturalist who detectsthe roots of logical compulsion in human nature (for an alternative, Kantianreading of Wittgenstein's invocation of forms of life, see Garver 1994).More recently, North American philosophers have defended Wittgenstein bydrawing on both the historical context and the Nachlass sources (Shanker1987; Marion 1998). Others have elaborated Wittgenstein's underlyingdenial that linguistic rules must pay heed to reality (Schwyzer 2001; Forster2004). Wittgenstein's claims about logic and mathematics are often baffling,and have been accused of containing definite technical errors. On closerscrutiny, however, the alleged errors turn out to be philosophical challengesto cherished assumptions about the nature of mathematics. But while thesechallenges are ingenious and radical, they have yet to receive a compellingjustification.

4. Wittgenstein Studies in America

American philosophers have not just debated the merits of Wittgensteinianideas; they have also contributed substantially to Wittgenstein scholarshipand philology. To Ambrose, Diamond, and Klagge we owe valuable editionsof parts of his output. To Black (1964) we owe the only commentary on theTractatus, and to Hallett (1977) the first commentary on the Investigations.American scholars have also taken a lead in important exegetical debates.5

The first readers of Philosophical Investigations were struck by the sharpcontrast with the Tractatus. This even gave rise to the postulation of twoliterary personae—early Wittgenstein, author of the Tractatus, and laterWittgenstein, author of the Investigations (Pitcher 1964). Against thisdichotomy, scholars like Fann (1969) pointed to a whole catalogue ofideas that run through Wittgenstein's entire work, notably his convictionthat philosophy is toto caelo different from science, and that it has todo with problems of language rather than matters of fact. Their handwas strengthened by the increasing availability of writings followingWittgenstein's return to Cambridge in 1929. However, instead of unifyingWittgenstein's œuvre, these discoveries lend succour to the idea of a distinct‘transition’ or ‘middle period’ (see Pitcher 1968: pp. v–vi; Arrington 1983;Stern 2005). Even more recently, the idea of a ‘Wittgenstein’ postdatingthe Investigations has been launched (Moyal‐Sharrock 2004), partly




because American interpreters like Stroll (1994) have hailed On Certainty asWittgenstein's third work of genius, and one which adopts a distinct outlook.

The alternative tack has been to deny any fundamental change. ThusHintikka has maintained that Wittgenstein continued to hold on to theineffability of semantics and the privacy of experience, merely switchingfrom a phenomenological to a physicalist language grounded in our everydaylanguage‐games (1996). An even greater continuity is assumed by theNew Wittgensteinians, who deny that the Tractatus was ever committedto any metaphysical claims from which the later Wittgenstein could havedistanced himself. In my judgment, it is best to steer a middle coursebetween the Scylla of multiplying Wittgensteins sine necessitate and theCharybdis of ‘Mono‐Wittgensteinianism’ (Conant 2007). Wittgenstein'sexplicit pronouncements, most notably in the preface of PhilosophicalInvestigations, support the impression one gets from reading his manuscriptsand typescripts in sequence, that there was a single major, though gradual,change in philosophical outlook (as opposed to manner of representationor focus of attention): namely, from the logico‐metaphysical vision of theTractatus to its dialectic demolition in the Investigations.

The most contested topic in recent American Wittgenstein scholarship ishis attitude towards reason. Was he a proponent of the claims of reason, ofrational argument, justification, and clarification? Or was he an enemy ofsuch Enlightenment ideals? Was he even a philosopher at all, or was he asage, prophet, or guru, seeking therapy or salvation rather than wisdom?

Opinion on these matters divides roughly into two camps: rationalistand irrationalist interpretations. While the former detect arguments inWittgenstein's œuvre, the latter view it as a therapeutic or aestheticexercise. This division does not coincide with Chihara's division (1982; alsoStern 2005: 176–7) between ‘left‐’ and ‘right‐wing interpretations’. Somerationalists do not qualify as right‐wingers, since they acknowledge thatWittgenstein tried to avoid doctrines and theses while insisting that heengaged in rational argument, albeit of a critical and elenctic/dialecticalrather than constructive and demonstrative kind. Finally, the distinction doesnot run between analytic and continental interpretations (cp. Biletzki 2003:ch. 10). Explaining these misleading categories in a coherent manner is asubstantial task (undertaken in Glock 2008). More importantly, the label‘continental’ would be particularly misleading in our context. For manyirrationalist interpretations have prominent American roots, such as:





• Therapeutic interpretations. On account of the comparisons withpsychoanalysis, it is held that Wittgenstein's later work featuresnot conceptual clarifications but only therapeutic attempts to makeus abandon philosophical problems for the sake of intellectualtranquility (Bouwsma 1986).• Nonsense interpretations, to which I return below.• Pyrrhonian interpretations, according to which Wittgenstein doesnot just aim to overcome metaphysical philosophizing by a better,‘critical’ variety, but refuses to take a stance on any philosophicalissue whatever (Fogelin 1976: ch. 15; Stern 2004).• Genre interpretations. The Philosophical Investigations must notbe read as a philosophical treatise that contains if not theoriesor theses then at least some definite philosophical questions andarguments, but as an album or part of a ‘hypertext’ consisting ofthe whole Nachlass that is meant to inspire and resonate in whollydiverse directions (Stern 1994, 1996).• Postmodern interpretations: a position inaugurated by Rorty(1979), according to which Wittgenstein, along with Heidegger andthe pragmatists, paves the way for an ‘edifying philosophy’ in whichthe traditional concern with truth and objectivity is abandoned infavor of the hermeneutic attempt to keep a conversation going.According to Rorty, Wittgenstein supports Dewey's and Quine'sattack on the idea that philosophy is a subject distinct from theempirical sciences (1982: pp. xviii, 28).

Irrationalist interpretations are not necessarily irrational. Postmodernirrationalism is indeed postmodern: that is to say, it is entertaininglyludicrous. Given Wittgenstein's adamant and abiding separation ofphilosophical from factual problems and investigations, the suggestion thathe was keen to dissolve philosophy into science is a travesty.

The irrationalist interpretation which has made the most splash in recentyears is the nonsense interpretation. It was inspired by Cavell and Dreben,and is currently epitomized by Cora Diamond (1991, 2000) and James Conant(2001, 2002).6 Starting out from these avowedly American origins (McCarthyand Stidd 2001), it has, under the title the ‘New Wittgenstein’ (Crary andRead 2000), led to a debate which is overheated, over‐hyped and … overhere in Europe.

What sets the New Wittgensteinians apart from other irrationalist approachesare two points.7 The first is a reading of the Tractatus. In the final sections,





Wittgenstein condemns the propositions of the Tractatus itself as nonsensical(6.54–7). According to a standard interpretation, his reason was that thesepropositions try to express truths about the essence of language which, byWittgenstein's own lights, cannot be expressed in meaningful propositions,but which show themselves in logical propositions and in empiricalpropositions properly analyzed. According to the New Wittgensteinians, bycontrast, the Tractatus is meant to consist not of illuminating nonsense thattries to hint at logico‐metaphysical truths, but of ‘plain nonsense’ (Diamond1991: 181; Conant 1992: 198), nonsense in the same drastic senseas gibberish like ‘piggly tiggle wiggle’. The purpose of the exercise istherapeutic. By producing such sheer nonsense, Wittgenstein tries to unmaskthe idea of metaphysical truths (effable or ineffable) as absurd, and towean us off the temptation to engage in philosophy. The second claimis that Wittgenstein's conception of nonsense, both early and late, was‘austere’ rather than ‘substantial’ (Crary 2000: 12–13; Diamond 1991: 111–12; Conant 2002: 380–3). There is just one kind of nonsense: namely, plainnonsense. For it is illusory to suppose that a special kind of nonsense—notably metaphysical nonsense like ‘The true is the whole’—could result fromcombining meaningful words in a way that transgresses the rules of logicalsyntax or grammar.

The ‘plain nonsense’ interpretation finds some support from the text, andit promises to rescue the Tractatus from the charge of being self‐defeating.Alas, it has fatal drawbacks, which have been pointed out by Americanscholars, among others (Proops 2001; Williams 2004; see also Hacker 2001:ch. 4).8 It is at odds with the external evidence, writings and conversationsin which Wittgenstein states that the Tractatus is committed to the idea ofineffable insights. Secondly, unlike the illuminating nonsense detected byorthodox interpretations, sheer gibberish cannot be in any way superiorto the philosophical nonsense resulting from ‘misunderstanding the logicof our language’ (4.003). Consequently, if the pronouncements of theTractatus were meant to be mere nonsense, Wittgenstein would have to beneutral between, for example, Frege's and Russell's idea that propositionsare names of objects and the idea that they differ from names in sayingsomething, or between their claim that the propositions of logic describeabstract objects and the claim that they are tautologies. In fact, however,Wittgenstein continued to defend the latter ideas even after abandoning theTractatus. Finally, the nonsense interpretation employs hermeneutical doublestandards. On the one hand, it must reject as deliberate nonsense remarkswhich insist that





philosophical propositions are attempts to say something that can only beshown. On the other hand, it must accept as genuine those remarks thatprovide the rationale for declaring philosophical pronouncements to beillegitimate. Yet these two types of remarks are inextricably interwoven in thetext. Furthermore, any concession that some parts of the book furnish thestandards by which the Tractatus in particular, and metaphysics in general,qualify as nonsense reintroduces a distinction between illuminating andnon‐illuminating nonsense, a distinction which the New Wittgensteinianscondemn as ‘irresolute’ (Goldfarb 1997: 64) or even a case of ‘chickeningout’ (Diamond 1991: 181, 194). The only consistent interpretation is onewhich acknowledges the text itself to be inconsistent, because it consciouslyadvances sentences which, by its own standards, cannot make sense.Hence, if we are resolutely committed to consistency ourselves, this is theinterpretation we are bound to accept.

Whereas most orthodox interpreters do not condone the position theydetect in the Tractatus, the New Wittgensteinians not only ascribe theaforementioned views to Wittgenstein, they also subscribe to them.They endorse the austere conception of nonsense.9 They also think thatthe statements of the Tractatus are indeed gibberish, yet nonethelesscapable of establishing the futile nature of all philosophy. How precisely thiscombination is to be effected remains unclear. For gibberish cannot statea reason for anything, least of all for dismissing a venerable intellectualenterprise like philosophy. Indeed, if Wittgenstein had intended to producehokum and succeeded, this fact would provide a reason for abandoning notphilosophy but the philosophical study of his writings.10

The rational line for both rationalist and irrationalist interpreters is toacknowledge that Wittgenstein's work combines rationalist and irrationalistelements. The rational line for philosophers is to explore the arguments,insights, and instructive errors it has to offer. This exhortation presupposes,of course, that philosophy is an enterprise based on reasoning. But since onecannot reason against this presupposition without self‐refutation, it is one towhich we should commit.

5. Wittgenstein and American Philosophy

But what is the relation between Wittgenstein's contributions to rationalphilosophizing and those of distinctively American modes of philosophizing?

Wittgenstein has often been associated with pragmatism. Yet the Americanpragmatists were not a major positive influence on his thought. Wittgenstein




was impressed by James's Variety of Religious Experience (Monk 1990:112); yet it left no mark, even on his occasional ruminations about religion.Admittedly, James's Principles of Psychology is one of the few works hediscusses frequently, but mainly to attack its introspectionist methodologyand its empiricist account of the will.

American pragmatists and neo‐pragmatists are famous for their ‘debunkingof dualisms' (Rorty 1986: 333, 339), including distinctions dear toWittgenstein, like that between empirical and a priori propositions, andbetween philosophy and science. After all, one of Wittgenstein's mottoeswas Lear’s ‘I'll teach you differences’. Like the pragmatists, Wittgensteinrepudiated distinctions without a difference, notably those invoked inskeptical scenarios. His complaint was not, however, that it makes nopractical difference, for instance, whether the world has existed for billionsof years or whether it was created five minutes ago, complete with recordsof the past. Instead, he objects that the purported difference lacks genuinesemantic content. Insofar as pragmatism sidesteps skeptical doubts asimpractical, he regarded it as a Weltanschauung to be avoided (1975: §422).For better or worse, his anti‐skeptical strategy is more verificationist thanutilitarian. And his conception of truth is deflationary, and precludes anydefinition by reference to consensus or utility (Glock 1996: 365–8, 382–5;2006).

At the same time there are grand‐strategic similarities: the resistance tometaphysical myths, the aspiration to overcome philosophical problemsby reference to human practice, the stress on the social dimension of thatpractice, and a holistic conception of language.

Quine credits Dewey with having anticipated Wittgenstein's slogan ‘meaningis use’.11 It is undeniable that while Wittgenstein was still trying to rescue thepicture theory, Dewey and Mead had already rejected the idea of languageas a medium for picturing reality, and replaced it by the view that languageis predominantly an instrument or tool serving social purposes. Similarly, thepragmatists rejected Cartesianism long before Wittgenstein. But the route israther different. Pragmatists like James and Dewey often operated throughmore or less dogmatic assertion and utility considerations.

In comparison, Wittgenstein's dialectical procedure of teasing out conceptualconfusions and tensions inherent in philosophical problems and theoriesis subtle to a fault. Nor is the destination always the same. Like thepragmatists, Wittgenstein sought the solution to the puzzle of meaning inlinguistic practice. But his account is less behaviorist than that of Dewey




and Mead. He did not subscribe to a causal theory of meaning by identifyingthe meaning of a word with either the causes or the effects of its utterance.Similarly, his comparison of words to tools notwithstanding, his conception ofmeaning was not genuinely instrumentalist. He was not concerned with thepractical effects of the use of a word, but with the role or function that it haswithin a system of rules.

This normativist perspective on language sets him apart from strongnaturalistic tendencies within American philosophy in the wake of Quine.Even Davidson, who professes sympathy for Wittgenstein's slogan thatmeaning is use and for the repudiation of the idea of a private language,rejects the idea that language is an activity guided by shared conventions(Glock 2003b: chs. 3 and 5).

At the same time, there is an equally impressive normativist strand bothin American pragmatism and in contemporary American philosophy.Peirce's semiotic distinction between index, icon, and symbol is congenialto Wittgenstein's claim that signs acquire a genuine linguistic meaningthrough the roles they play in a conventional practice.12 Norms are alsopivotal for current attempts to avoid both epistemological naturalism, theview that there is no knowledge outside natural science, and ontologicalsupernaturalism, the view that there are supernatural entities such as God,Platonic Forms, or Cartesian souls (in addition to Sellars, Brandom, McDowell,and Putnam, see Williams 1999). The basic idea is that human beings arespecial not because they are connected to a reality beyond the physicalworld of space, time, and matter, but because they can only be adequatelyunderstood from anormative perspective alien to the natural sciences. For this reason, there isknowledge outside natural science—knowledge of language and meaning, forexample—even though it does not deal with supernatural entities.

This ‘third way’ goes back to Wittgenstein's comparison of language to agame like chess. On the one hand, a chess‐piece is a piece of wood whoseconstitution can be described by physics. On the other hand, one cannotexplain what a chess‐piece or what the game of chess is in purely physicalterms. Yet the difference between a chess‐piece and a simple piece of woodis not that the former is associated with an abstract entity or with a processin a separate mental realm. Rather, it is that the chess‐piece has a role in arule‐guided practice (1953: §108).

That practice in turn presupposes agents with special and distinctivelyhuman capacities. Yet, while these capacities cannot be adequately






characterized in physical terms, they do not transcend the natural world.They are perfectly intelligible features of animals of a unique kind; andtheir causal prerequisites and evolutionary emergence can be explained byscience. In spelling out this inspiration, American proponents of the thirdway will face severe challenges from both Quinean naturalists and Kripkeanmetaphysicians.13 But that will help to keep them on their toes.

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—— (1985). ‘Reply to Quine on Events’. In E. Lepore and B. McLaughlin (eds.),Actions and Events: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson,Oxford: Blackwell, 172–6.Find This Resource


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—— (ed.) (2001). Wittgenstein: A Critical Reader. Oxford: Blackwell.Find This Resource


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—— (2008). What is Analytic Philosophy? Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.Find This Resource


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Lackey, D. (1999). ‘What are the Modern Classics? The Baruch Poll of GreatPhilosophy in the Twentieth Century’. Philosophical Forum, 4: 329–46.Find This Resource


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—— (1984). Wittgenstein—A Memoir. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Find This Resource


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McDowell, J. (1994). Mind and World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress.Find This Resource

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—— (1998). Mind, Value and Reality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress.Find This Resource


Miller, A., and Wright, C. (eds.) (2002). Rule‐Following and Meaning.Chesham: Acumen.Find This Resource


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—— (ed.) (1968). The Philosophical Investigations. London: Macmillan.Find This Resource


Proops, I. (2001). ‘The New Wittgenstein: A Critique’. European Journal ofPhilosophy, 9: 375–404.Find This Resource


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Notes:

I gratefully acknowledge help from Jack Canfield, Max de Gaynesford, JohnHyman, Javier Kalhat, Cheryl Misak, and David Stern.


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(1) There is also a North American Wittgenstein Society founded by MerrillRing, <http://www.humboldt.edu/∼jwp2/naws>.

(2) In analyzing vernacular constructions, Davidson deliberately sticks tothe predicate calculus because he forswears intensional notions like thoseemployed in modal logic. This inveterate extensionalism is immediately owedto Quine. But it continues the Tractatus’s ‘thesis of extensionality’, accordingto which simple propositions occur in a complex one only in such a way thatthe truth‐value of the latter depends solely on those of the former (5, 5.54).

(3) For a qualified defense of Malcolm's own approach, see Schroeder 1997.

(4) Cavell pioneered an ‘unruly’ reading, which downplays or qualifiesWittgenstein's talk of language as constituted by ‘grammatical rules’. Seealso sects. 4 and 5.

(5) For a more comprehensive survey of exegetical controversies, see Glock2007.

(6) One can distinguish different branches of New Wittgensteinianism.There is a Cavellian branch, which assimilates Wittgenstein to continentalthinkers, especially Kierkegaard, and a Drebenian branch—which includesGoldfarb (1997) and Ricketts (1996)—which reads Wittgenstein as reacting todifficulties inherent in Frege's conception of logic.

(7) Claims to the contrary notwithstanding, it is neither the stress on thetherapeutic character of the Investigations nor the non‐metaphysical pictureof the Tractatus that distinguishes the New Wittgensteinians, but exclusivelythe issue of nonsense. By contrast to metaphysical readings of the Tractatus(e.g. Malcolm 1986), ‘linguistic’ interpreters like Ishiguro (2001) treat the so‐called essence of reality as a mere projection of the structure of language.But they differ from the New Wittgensteinians in that they portray the bookas committed to the idea that the essence of linguistic representation cannotbe said but can be shown.

(8) Hacker (2003: 1) further complains that unlike the ‘Old AmericanWittgensteinians’ the ‘New American Wittgensteinians’ tend to bepreoccupied with a relatively narrow range of issues evolving aroundnonsense. He has a point with respect to theoretical philosophy, the branchwith which Wittgenstein's writings are almost exclusively concerned. On theother hand, the New Wittgensteinians have been in the forefront of applyingWittgenstein's ideas to ethics (e.g. Crary 2007). But a ‘practical’ interest in


http://www.humboldt.edu/?jwp2/naws

http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199219315.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199219315-e-18#oxfordhb-9780199219315-bibItem-867










Wittgenstein is evident among Old American Wittgensteinians as well. ThusArrington (1989) has done pioneering work on how moral relativism can beimproved through Wittgenstein's idea of the autonomy of grammar.

(9) On the basis of semantic doctrines which I have argued to be untenableand at odds with Wittgenstein's own later insights (Glock 2004).

(10) One might then pass on the baton to psychopathological investigationsof Wittgenstein's frame of mind (Sass 2001; Hintikka and Hintikka 2002).From amnesia to Asperger's, from dyslexia to schizophrenia, there is hardly amental disorder that he has not been diagnosed with. Lack of acquaintancewith the patient is no obstacle, it would appear, which just goes to show thatwhile armchair philosophy is regarded as dubious, armchair psychology is athriving discipline.

(11) Quine 1969: 27. On the relationship between Wittgenstein and Quine,see Arrington and Glock 1996.

(12) Both approaches can be combined to combat Fodor's idea that there isa ‘language of thought’ involving signs the tokens of which are neural firingsthat are not and cannot be employed by speakers or hearers and which arenot subject to convention and interpretation by cognitive subjects (Glock2003a).

(13) The relation of Wittgensteinian ideas to the new theory of referencespearheaded by Kripke need not be antagonistic through and through, asWettstein (2004) shows.










the influence of wittgenstein on american philosophy

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