On Wittgenstein and Ethics: A Reply to Levi

Abstract

In his discussion of Wittgenstein's philosophy, Levi mentions two discrepancies in Wittgenstein's work. In an article published fifteen years ago Levi discussed one of these discrepancies, the stylistic diversity of the Tractatus and the Philosophical Investigations. The other problem (although Levi sees that the two might well be related) is the apparant incongruences in the Tractatus between the first seventy pages of logical analysis and the final three pages of ethical statement. Based on his belief in the ‘intimate relationship’ between philosophy and the conditions of philosophizing, Levi attempts in “The Sources of Wittgenstein's Ethics” to account for the second discrepancy by positing a relationship between Wittgenstein's philosophy and a certain (controversial) fact about Wittgenstein's personal life.

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