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Wittgenstein on Philosophy and Science

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Part of the book series: Synthese Library ((SYLI,volume 245))

Abstract

In this paper I shall discuss the question, “How did Wittgenstein see the relation between philosophy and science?” This is not a question about his philosophy of science. It is not, for example, directly concerned with the brief account of scientific theories that he gave in the Tractatus.1 My inquiry is a more fundamental one. I want to uncover his view of the relation between science and philosophy. If he showed scientific discourse, and, more generally, factual discourse on the same map as philosophical discourse, how would he place them? And at how many points did he see a risk of our unwittingly crossing the frontier which divides them?

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Notes

  1. See Tractatus logico-philosophicus (TLP), ed. by D. F. Pears & B. F. McGuinness, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1961, 6.3–6.372.

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  2. TLP, 4.11.

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  3. TLP, 6.32–6.36.

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  4. TLP, 3.262 and 3.326–3.27

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  5. I.e. science in the narrow sense, in which it does not include the whole of factual discourse.

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  6. TLP, 6.342.

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  7. TLP, 6.372.

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  8. TLP, 6.124.

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  9. Which are identified with the senses of sentences in TLP. See 2.202–2.221.

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  10. See Wittgenstein, ‘Blue Book’, pp. 63ff., in The Blue and Brown Books, ed. and with a Preface by R. Rhees, B. Blackwell, Oxford 1958.

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  11. See his remarks on the nature of philosophy in Vermischte Bemerkungen. Culture and Value (CV), ed. by G. H. von Wright in collaboration with H. Nyman. Trans. by P. Winch, B. Blackwell, Oxford 1980, e.g. pp. 14–17.

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  12. TLP, 6.124.

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  13. TLP, 3.342.

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  14. Zettel (Z), ed. by G. E. M. Anscombe & G. H. von Wright, B. Blackwell, Oxford 1967, § 610. See Bemerkungen über die Philosophie der Psychologie. Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology,Vol. I (RPP I), ed. by G. E. M. Anscombe & G. H. von Wright. Trans. by G. E. M. Anscombe, B. Blackwell, Oxford 1980, § 905.

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  15. Z, § 608. See RPP I, § 903.

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  16. See Philosophische Untersuchungen. Philosophical Investigations (PI),ed. by G. E. M. Anscombe & R. Rhees. Trans. by G. E. M. Anscombe, B. Blackwell, Oxford 1953, I, § 18.

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  17. PI I, §§ 139–141.

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  18. PI I, §§ 217; 485.

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  19. PI I, §§ 218–219, 1st paragraph.

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  20. See above, p. 24.

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  21. See above, p. 32.

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  22. CV, p. 31.

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© 1995 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Pears, D. (1995). Wittgenstein on Philosophy and Science. In: Egidi, R. (eds) Wittgenstein: Mind and Language. Synthese Library, vol 245. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3691-6_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3691-6_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-4475-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-017-3691-6

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