Online research in philosophy

This book provides a novel interpretation of the ideas about language in Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. Travis places the "private language argument" in the context of wider themes in the Investigations, and thereby develops a picture of what it is for words to bear the meaning they do. He elaborates two versions of a private language argument, and shows the consequences of these for current trends in the philosophical theory of meaning.

Wittgenstein claims that the concept of a synoptic representation (übersichtliche Darstellung) is of fundamental significance for him (PI 122). In the first two sections of this chapter it is argued that what he had in mind as synoptic representations are simplified language-games, like the one of the builders in PI 2. Section 3 turns to the Private Language Discussion: the lack of a synoptic view of Wittgenstein’s strategy in these passages makes them notoriously difficult to understand. Section 4 attempts to provide such a synoptic view by clarifying the target of Wittgenstein’s attack, and its corollaries, and by characterizing the kinds of moves he makes against it. The famous private diary language-game (PI 258ff.) is interpreted as an instance of a synoptic representation (of the kind mentioned in PI 122). Finally, some reasons are suggested why in the Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein did not present his views in a more perspicuous manner.

Abstract: “Resolute readings” initially started life as a radical new approach to Wittgenstein's early philosophy, but are now starting to take root as a way of interpreting the later writings as well—a trend exemplified by Stephen Mulhall's Wittgenstein's Private Language (2007) as well as by Phil Hutchinson's “What's the Point of Elucidation?” (2007) and Rom Harré's “Grammatical Therapy and the Third Wittgenstein” (2008). The present article shows that there are neither good philosophical nor compelling exegetical grounds for accepting a resolute reading of the later Wittgenstein's work. It is possible to make sense of Wittgenstein's philosophical method without either ascribing to him an incoherent conception of “substantial nonsense” or espousing the resolute readers' preferred option of nonsense austerity. If the interpretation here is correct, it allows us to recognize Wittgenstein's radical break with the philosophical tradition without having to characterize his achievements in purely therapeutic fashion.

The primary concern of Stephen Mulhall's book is to investigate an interpretation of Wittgenstein's remarks on private language, associated paradigmatically with Norman Malcolm. On this reading, the grammar of our ordinary concepts of language, reference, meaning, rule, etc. is held to prohibit or exclude the idea of a private language. The attempt to give expression to the idea is held to result in a violation of the grammar of these concepts, which connects them essentially with the idea of public criteria that are accepted as establishing that a word has been correctly used. Something that philosophers have been inclined to regard as a possibility is shown to be excluded: the attempt to describe it results in ..

Stephen Mulhall offers a new way of interpreting one of the most famous and contested texts in modern philosophy: remarks on "private language" in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. He sheds new light on a central controversy concerning Wittgenstein's early work by showing its relevance to a proper understanding of the later work.