Online research in philosophy

Wittgenstein at Work: Method in the Philosophical Investigations explores the least well-understood aspect of Wittgenstein's later work: his aims and methods. Specially-commissioned papers by twelve of the world's leading Wittgenstein scholars analyze the way he approached key topics such as rule-following and private language, and examine his remarks on clarification, nonsense and other central notions of his methodology. Many contributors touch on the therapeutic aspects Wittgenstein's approach, the focus of much current debate. Wittgenstein at Work provides both students and specialist with a much-needed methodological companion to one of the greatest philosophical works of the twentieth century.

Published in 1953, Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations had a deeply unsettling effect upon our most basic philosophical ideas concerning thought, sensation, and language. Its claim that philosophical questions of meaning necessitate a close analysis of the way we use language continues to influence Anglo-American philosophy today. However, its compressed and dialogic prose is not always easy to follow. This collection of essays deepens but also challenges our understanding of the work's major themes, such as the connection between meaning and use, the nature of concepts, thought and intentionality, and language games. Bringing together leading philosophers and Wittgenstein scholars, it offers a genuinely critical approach, developing new perspectives and demonstrating Wittgenstein's relevance for contemporary philosophy. This volume will appeal to readers interested in the later Wittgenstein, in addition to those interested in the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind, metaphysics and epistemology.

Unfortunately, Wittgenstein has entered the philosophical canon , an entrance that has served to reify interpretations of his work. In this essay I refer to recent books by Richard Eldridge (1997) and Phillip Shields (1998) which allow us again to see The Philosophical Investigations as something more than a stultifying relic. Specifically, these authors, by reading Wittgenstein's work not merely as text but also as performance, allow us to enact our own liberating performances of that work. To engage in such enactments of freedom is the essence of philosophical education in the sense established by extra-canonical writers such as Socrates and the Stoics, on the one hand, and Emerson and James, on the other. At least this is so if my use of the work of classicist Pierre Hadot, on the one hand, and brief reference to literary critic Richard Poirier, on the other, is at all successful in illuminating theses from Eldridge and Shields on the nature of Wittgensteinian philosophy.

The growing implications of Wittgenstein's later writings both inside as well as outside philosophy have become one of the major features of the past few years. His impact on ideas of theory and the philosophy of language is increasingly evident. Yet there remains much difficulty in understanding much of Wittgenstein's thought due to the often-unclear nature of his arguments. Oswald Hanfling, a leading commentator on Wittgenstein, offers a much-needed exploration of Wittgenstein's thought, ranging from the problem of other minds, the philosophy of language and questions on humanity to the role of art. One of the most important criticisms levied against Wittgenstein is that he raises more questions than he answers, and this has caused many readers to attribute him positions contrary to his intentions and methods. Hanfling challenges this view and proposes that Wittgenstein's approach can lead to a proper understanding of the problems in question. Throughout, Wittgenstein and the Theory of the Arts offers a critical reading and interpretation of Wittgenstein's writings and their impact for our ways of thinking. Most importantly it presents Wittgenstein's unique approach to the question of being human.

These lectures by one of the most influential and original philosophers of the twentieth century constitute a sustained argument for the philosophical basis of romanticism, particularly in its American rendering. Through his examination of such authors as Emerson, Thoreau, Poe, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, Stanley Cavell shows that romanticism and American transcendentalism represent a serious philosophical response to the challenge of skepticism that underlies the writings of Wittgenstein and Austin on ordinary language.

Philosophical Romanticism is one of the first books to address the relationship between philosophy and romanticism, an area which is currently undergoing a major revival. This collection of specially-written articles by world-class philosophers explores the contribution of romantic thought to topics such as freedom, autonomy and subjectivity; memory and imagination; pluralism and practical reason; modernism, scepticism and irony; art and ethics; and cosmology, time and technology. While the roots of romanticism are to be found in early German idealism, Philosophical Romanticism shows that it is not a purely European phenomenon: the development of romanticism can be traced through to North American philosophy in the era of Emerson and Dewey, and up to the current work of Stanley Cavell and Richard Rorty. The articles in this collection suggest that philosophical romanticism offers a compelling alternative to both the reductionist tendencies of the naturalism in "analytic" philosophy, and the deconstruction and other forms of scepticism found in "continental" philosophy. The thinkers and writers studied in Philosophical Romanticism include Proust, Goethe, Heidegger, Novalis, Deleuze, Holderlin, Wittgenstein and Wordsworth.

The concept of intentionality — what Brentano called ‘the mind’s direction on its obj ects’ — has been a preoccupation of many of the most significant twentieth century philosophers. The purpose of this essay is to examine the place of the concept of intentionality in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, and to criticize one aspect of his treatment of intentionality. Although the word ‘intentionality’ is not (to my knowledge) used in Wittgenstein’s philosophical writings, the idea it expresses was central at all stages of his philosophical development. This should be obvious on a little reflection, not least because the philosophical notion of intentionality is closely related to the notion of meaning, and questions about meaning are, of course, central to both the T ractatus and Wittgenstein’s later work.‘ A full treatment of Wittgenstein’s views on meaning is not a task for a single essay. Instead, what I want to do here is to narrow the focus and discuss some specific claims in Wittgenstein’s middle and later work about the role of the notion of grammar in his attempts to solve (or dissolve) some quite specific problems of intentionality. In particular, I want to restrict myself to the discussion his later remarks about the relationship between expectation and fulfillment, and the..

Philosophical romanticism is the view that, in maintaining out forms of life, we are engaged in the endless task of “acknowledging the human” in reading and being read by others. Winch's discussions of “human nature” and the principle of universalizability in ethics should discourage us from imputing such romanticism to his work. On the other hand, his discussions of generality in “the human” and the human neighbourhood might tempt one to do so. Winch's contemplative conception of philosophy should, in the end, count against this temptation. His work is a passionate example of doing conceptual justice to different readings of “the human”.

These challenging essays defend Romanticism against its critics. They argue that Romantic thought, interpreted as the pursuit of freedom in concrete contexts, remains a central and exemplary form of both artistic work and philosophical understanding. Marshalling a wide range of texts from literature, philosophy and criticism, Richard Eldridge traces the central themes and stylistic features of Romantic thinking in the work of Kant, Hölderlin, Wordsworth, Hardy, Wittgenstein, Cavell and Updike. Through his analysis he shows that Romanticism is neither emptily literary and escapist nor dogmatically optimistic and sentimental. This is the first serious philosophical defense of the ethical ideals of Romanticism and will appeal particularly to all professionals and students in philosophy, literature and aesthetics who are interested in what, philosophically, literature can show that philosophy cannot say.