My Neighbour and My Neighbours

Abstract

In his excellent collection, Trying to Make Sense, Peter Winch juxtaposes two papers, ‘Eine Einstellung zur Seele’ and ‘Who is My Neighbour?’.¹ In the former, he discusses what is involved in Wittgenstein’s remark, ‘My attitude toward him is an attitude towards a soul. I am not of the opinion that he has a soul’ (Investigations II, iv). In the second, he discusses the reaction of the Good Samaritan to the man who had fallen among thieves. Winch argues that what Wittgenstein says about an attitude towards a soul throws considerable light on the Samaritan’s reaction. But what exactly does this involve? The more carefully we try to answer this question, the more doubtful Winch’s claim becomes. In fact, one may conclude that very little light is shed on the Samaritan’s reaction by Wittgenstein’s notion of an attitude towards a soul. That is the conclusion for which I shall argue in this paper.