The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics: Making Sense of Things (67 page)

2
And note in particular n. 7 of that section.

3
In Wittgenstein’s own metaphor, language, in such cases, ‘goes on holiday’ (§38).

4
This is not to deny, incidentally, that there are circumstances in which it would be appropriate for someone to say, ‘I know that I have been hurt.’ (Section 278 is relevant here. Cf. also nn. 11 and 14 of the previous chapter.)

5
Cf., in the case of the
Tractatus
, 3.263 and 4.112. And in the case of the
Investigations
, see esp. §128.

6
For examples of the former use, see §§126–128. For examples of the latter use, see §§303, 348, 436, 520, 593, and 598. And cf. n. 15 of the previous chapter.

7
See further §4 below. For remarks on the importance of the italicization of the pronoun, see Baker (
2004b
), p. 93, and (
2004e
), p. 242.

8
There are further uses of ‘metaphysical’ and its cognates in the
Blue Book
. They accord with this usage, though they also signal a broader conception of the form that bad philosophy can take: see pp. 18, 35, 46, 49, 55, and 66. For discussion, including discussion of Wittgenstein’s use of the term ‘everyday’, see Baker (
2004b
). This is also very pertinent to the issue raised in the next note.

9
Is Wittgenstein an ‘ordinary language’ philosopher, then? (Cf. §§108 and 402.) It depends, of course, on what is meant by ordinary language philosophy. On one fairly standard characterization, ordinary language philosophy certainly shares the Wittgensteinian conviction that philosophical puzzles are a result of our mishandling our own language. But it involves a second conviction too: that we mishandle our own language whenever we use it in any other than an ‘ordinary’ way. That second conviction, insofar as it is clear what counts as ordinary, is not Wittgensteinian (see e.g. §132). In fact, as I pointed out in §6 of the Introduction, it is crazy. It is crazy even when attention is confined to language that
has
an ordinary use. Thus physicists do not mishandle language when they confer a technical sense on ‘force’ or ‘work’. Using language in an ordinary way is not a necessary condition of using it properly. Nor indeed is it a sufficient condition. There is no guarantee that the ordinary use of any given expression is free of the confusions of bad philosophy. (This relates to problems to which we shall return in §5.) That said, I am not at all sure that this characterization of ordinary language philosophy, however standard it may be, is fair to those who are typically classified as ordinary language philosophers. It is certainly not fair to J.L. Austin, who is perhaps the arch-example. See again the quotation in n. 21 of the Introduction, in which he captures well the extent of his own deference to the ordinary. For sympathetic treatments of ordinary language philosophy, from a distinctly Wittgensteinian perspective, see Cavell (
2002
) and Hacker (
1996
),
Ch. 8
, §1 – the former illuminatingly discussed in Mulhall (
1994
), Introduction. For an interesting remark on Wittgenstein’s relation to ordinary language, see Quine (
1960
), p. 261. For discussion of some of the issues that arise here, particularly concerning the extent of Wittgenstein’s conservatism, see below, §6.

10
For three very helpful accounts of Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy, see Hacker (
1986
),
Ch. 6
; Pears (
1971
),
Ch. 6
; and McGinn (
1997
),
Ch. 1
. Also of very great interest are Baker (
2004b
) and (
2004c
).

11
See e.g. §§1–88, 143–242, and 525–546. (The idea that this is the view we already have provides a clear echo of Plato’s
Meno
, 81ff.)

12
Is it consistent with his insistence that philosophy must be descriptive, not explanatory? Yes, because the diagnoses themselves need not involve extrapolation beyond what is visible in the circumstances of our confusion.

13
Cf. Kant (
1998
), A297/B353–354 and A642/B670. There is even a hint that Wittgenstein is prepared to give a Kantian diagnosis of many of our ills, namely our craving for unity and completeness in the sense we make of things: see, in Kant, ibid., A307–309/B364–366, and, in Wittgenstein, §§97–108 and 183, and
Blue Book
, pp. 17–19. For further comparisons between Kant and Wittgenstein, see Bird (
2006
), Ch. 24, §2. (Especially noteworthy is the comparison between A485–486/B513–514 and §133.)

14
Note that the distinction drawn in the
Tractatus
between senselessness and nonsense is no longer operative (see §3 of the previous chapter). Wittgenstein is referring to that which straightforwardly lacks meaning: that which is to be ‘excluded from the language’ (§500).

15
The comparison with Kant, particularly with ‘The Antithetic of Pure Reason’ in Kant (
1998
), where Kant presents as forcefully as he can arguments that he takes to have universal appeal but that he wants eventually to expose, continues to impress itself. Note that, the contrast with the
Tractatus
notwithstanding, there is at least
this
much indirection in the
Investigations
(to the extent, in fact, that it is by no means always obvious when Wittgenstein is playing the interlocutor and when he is speaking in his own voice). Note also that the clarity that Wittgenstein seeks, combined with the struggle that he has to attain it, forces him to recognize a deep distinction between what is
simple
and what is
easy
: cf.
Philosophical Remarks
, §2, and
Zettel
, §452.

16
For discussion, see Hacker (
1986
),
Ch. 5
, §1, and Marion (
1998
),
Ch. 5
, §1.

17
Cf.
Tractatus
, 2.0211–2.0212, 3.23, and 4.023.

18
I shall return to this issue in the Conclusion, §3, Interlude.

19
Bernard Williams writes, in a different connection: ‘It may be said that it does not make sense to assert or deny greenness of a prime number. But there is something unsatisfactory about such formulations: they express a doctrine which should surely be about sense, in terms of reference…. [What] we should more accurately say is not that “green” cannot sensibly be ascribed to a prime number, but that “green and a prime number” cannot sensibly be ascribed to anything, because it does not make sense’ (Williams (
1973b
), p. 67). As far as the alleged unsatisfactoriness of formulating such doctrines in terms of reference is concerned, I think Wittgenstein would disagree. I think he would say that, if you are thinking of the number seven, and if you utter the sentence, ‘What I am thinking of is green,’ then your use of the word ‘green’ is as infelicitous as it would have been if you had uttered the sentence, ‘Seven is green.’ But in fact the early Wittgenstein would have reason to say this too. The difference between them is a difference about how much, in a successful attempt to say something true or false, is part of what is said.

20
Even such interest as he showed in asking questions was very much parasitic on his interest in providing their answers: see e.g. 5.551 and 6.5–6.52.

21
And he reminds us of the variety that there is even within what we count as saying something true or false: cf. §136 and
Remarks
, Pt I, App. III, §§1–4.

22
In §23 he revealingly says, ‘It is interesting to compare the multiplicity of the tools in language and of the ways they are used, the multiplicity of kinds of word and sentence, with what logicians have said about the structure of language. (Including the author of the
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
.)’ This is one of several points at which he targets his earlier self: see also §§59ff., 97ff., 114, and 134ff. The fact that many of these sections occur within the very stretch already identified as harbouring a fundamental continuity between the early work and the later work will seem paradoxical only when we forget the peculiar nature of the early work.

23
For a reference to the last of these, see §464.

24
See further Moore (
2003b
), §VI.

25
Cf. Pears (
1971
), pp. 106ff.; Diamond (
1991a
), §§II and IV; Kuusela (
2005
); and McGinn (
2006
),
Ch. 12
.

26
I am in any case talking about the nature of the enterprise, as Descartes conceived it, not about the views he arrived at, to which, again, there could scarcely be a fiercer opponent than Wittgenstein. (For Wittgenstein’s assault on Descartes’ mind/body dualism, see §§243–317 and 398–421; and
Blue Book
, pp. 46–74.)

27
Not that either Cartesian metaphysics or Wittgensteinian clarification of concepts consists exclusively in the pursuit of such truths. A linchpin of the former is the recognition on the part of each metaphysician of his or her own existence, which, though indubitable, is contingent. And Wittgenstein too is much exercised by propositions that are both exempt from doubt and yet contingent: see e.g.
On Certainty
, §§340–344. (I shall have more to say about such propositions in
Ch. 19
, §3(d).)

28
Cf. n. 21.

29
Cf.
Remarks
, p. 238.

30
This chapter in Hacker (
1986
), esp. §3, is generally very helpful for the present section. See also Garver (
1994
),
Ch. 14
, and Garver (
1996
).

31
Intriguingly, and suggestively, Wittgenstein adds in parenthesis, ‘Theology as grammar.’

32
This in turn enables him to sidestep any equivalent of Descartes’ Reflective Question with respect to such a truth (
Ch. 1
, §3).

33
Actually, where sophisticated and politically sensitive rules are concerned, this is just false, though the context makes plain that Wittgenstein has in mind something more elemental. To what extent the existence of contested rule-following of a less elemental kind is a threat to him is a matter for debate; I shall not pursue it here.

34
For an interesting case in point, see
Zettel
, §309.

35
Hilary Putnam adverts to Wittgenstein’s conception, specifically in application to mathematics, and comments, ‘If [it] is right, then it is the greatest philosophical discovery of all time’ (Putnam (
1983
), p. 117). Unfortunately, just prior to this, he characterizes the conception in the very way that I have been resisting, as the view that ‘it is human nature and forms of life that
explain
mathematical truth and necessity’ (ibid., emphasis in original).

36
But note that Wittgenstein is no longer hostile, as he was when he wrote the
Tractatus
, to the idea of the synthetic
a priori
(though he perhaps has his own idiosyncratic understanding of the idea): see
Philosophical Grammar
, p. 404, and
Remarks
, Pt IV, §43.

37
And cf. §79, the final sentence in parenthesis;
Blue Book
, pp. 24–25; and
On Certainty
, §§95–99.

38
For some extremely helpful material on the ideas in this paragraph, based on comparisons between Wittgenstein and Quine, see Hacker (
1996
),
Ch. 7
, and Hookway (
1996
). For Quine’s own views, see
Ch. 12
, §4.

39
Wittgenstein’s attitude to natural science is a complex matter. Bernard Williams has suggested that Wittgenstein’s undoubted ‘hatred of the cockiness of natural science … [is] not easy … to distinguish from a hatred of natural science’ (Williams (
2006k
), p. 375). That is surely an exaggeration. We nevertheless see something of what Williams has in mind when we read such passages as
Zettel
, §§607–613. Be that as it may, there is nothing in Wittgenstein to impugn whatever claim natural science has to be an attempt to arrive at truths about the world.

40
Cf. Hacker (
1986
), p. 204.