Sociology of Science, Rule Following and Forms of Life

Abstract

Ludwig Wittgenstein was trained as a scientist and an engineer. He received a diploma in mechanical engineering from the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg, Berlin, in 1906, after which he did several years of research on aeronautics before turning to the full-time study of logic and philosophy. Hertz, Boltzmann, Mach, Weininger, and William James, all important influences on Wittgenstein, are authors whose work was both philosophical and scientific. The relationship between everyday life, science, and philosophy, is a central concern throughout the course of his writing. He regarded philosophy, properly conducted, as an autonomous activity, a matter of clarifying our understanding of language, or investigating grammar. Wittgenstein thought philosophy should state the obvious as a way of disabusing us of the desire to formulate philosophical theories of meaning, knowledge, language, or science, and was deeply opposed to the naturalist view that philosophy is a form of science. In his later work, Wittgenstein rejected systematic approaches to understanding language and knowledge. Wittgenstein’s answer to the Socratic question about the nature of knowledge is that it has no nature, no essence, and so it is a mistake to think one can give a single systematic answer:

If I was asked what knowledge is, I would list items of knowledge and add “and suchlike.” There is no common element to be found in all of them, because there isn’t one. (Wittgenstein, MS 302, “Diktat Mr Schlick” 1931–33.)

I would like to thank the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Bielefeld for their generous support while I was writing this paper, and the audience at my IWK presentation for their constructive comments.