Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-hgkh8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T08:48:37.584Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Wittgenstein and Social Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

Extract

The work of the later Wittgenstein has had a vast influence in the field of social science. This is hardly surprising as the effect of that philosophy has been an emphasis on the priority of the social. Empiricist philosophy started with the private experience of the individual and from there built up an inter-subjective picture of the world. Wittgenstein, on the other hand, began with the rule-governed practices of a community. Both the nature of private experience, and of an objective world, was deemed to depend on concepts all could share. Society is the source of such concepts and thus becomes the key notion in our understanding of ourselves and our relation to the world.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)