Abstract
The third phase of Analytical Philosophy, which is considered by its advocates as the real revolution in philosophy58, was decisively influenced by the thoughts of the later Wittgenstein, which were first recorded by students from his lectures in 1933–35 in the so-called Blue and Brown Books, published in 1958. A short perusal of these notes as well as the Philosophical Investigations, which were published posthumously in 1953, suffices to confirm our expectation that Analytical Philosophy, having forsaken the idea of a universal language, had to turn to the hermeneutics of ‘meaning intentions’, i.e. to the problems of traditional Geisteswissenschaften.
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References
Cf. G. A. Paul about Wittgenstein in The Revolution in Philosophy (A. J. Ayer ed.), London 1955; also cf. J. Hartnack, Wittgenstein and Modern Philosophy, London 1965.
G. Ryle, The Concept of Mind, London 1949, Ch. I, ‘Descartes’ Myth’.
Wittgenstein, Phil. Inv., I, §§ 154, 179, 180, 321.
Phil. Inv., § 577.
Cf. Winch, op. cit., pp. 28 and 63; see also Wittgenstein, Phil. Inv., I, § 225.
Cf. P. Winch, op.cit., pp. 3 ff.
Op. cit., p. 40.
Cf. Blue and Brown Books, p. 69: “The use of the word in practice is its meaning.” And in the Philosophical Investigations, when Wittgenstein analyzes the language game of construction workers (I, § 6): “Don’t you understand the call ‘slab!’ if you act upon it in such and such a way?” Cf. also Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, III, § 32: “What interests me is not the immediate realization of a truth, but the phenomenon of immediate realization. Not indeed as a special mental phenomenon, but as one of human action. I am asking: what is the characteristic demeanour of human beings who ‘realize’ something ‘immediately’, whatever the practical result of this realizing is?” For a possible different interpretation see, however, Phil. Inv., I, §§ 197, 307, 308.
Winch, op. cit., p. 43.
Cf. Winch, op. cit., III and IV.
Cf. Tract. 4.1121.
A typical expression of this view in regard to the history of philosophy is found in the historical account Formale Logik by the Neo-Thomist Bocheński (Freiburg-München, 1956). English translation: Formal Logic (tr. Ivo Thomas), Notre Dame, Ind.
See footnote 55. Typical for this way of thinking is the following remark by Carnap in his article ‘Die Methoden der logischen Analyse’ (Actes du sème Congrès International de Philosophie à Prague, 1934, Prague 1936, pp. 142–45): “We think that there is no third kind of sentences next to empirical and analytic sentences. The idea of a third kind seems to be the result of a confusion of psychological and logical questions. We believe that Phenomenology in the last analysis has not yet overcome the psychologism which it has been fighting so strongly.” Meanwhile Carnap in his constructive semantics as well as Wittgenstein in his analysis of language games have, each in his own way, rediscovered the problems of a synthesis a priori of structures of meaning: because these problems are inherent in the design of a language game i.e. in the “depth grammar” (Wittgenstein) which in a way constitutes its objects, as well as in the construction of an only pragmatically justifiable, quasi-ontological framework of language, within which questions about empirical or logical sentences can then be asked. (Cf. R. Carnap’s Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology.) About the conventional character of a spontaneous “projection” of a language game, Wittgenstein says in his Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, I, § 74: “But here one would like to retort: there is no greater difference than that between a proposition about the depth of the essence and one about — a mere convention. But what if I reply: to the depth that we see in the essence there corresponds the deep need for the convention.” Cf. to this Heidegger’s juxtaposition of “Weltentwurf” and “Schickung des Seins” (= “Zur-Sprache-kommen des Seins”).
Cf. E. Stenius, op. cit., and A. Maslow, A Study in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1961, pp. XIII f.
Cf. E. K. Specht, Die sprachphilosophischen und ontologischen Grundlagen im Spätwerk Ludwig Wittgensteins, Köln 1963.
Cf. the famous sentence from Dilthey’s preface to his Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften (Collected Works, I, p. XIII): “In the veins of the knowing subject, as constructed by Locke, Hume and Kant, no real blood is flowing, but the diluted juice of ‘reason’ as the mere activity of thinking”.
We have contrasted here for the sake of clarity Winch’s and Dilthey’s terminologies and viewpoints; cf. for this also Winch’s discussion of M. Weber, op. cit., p. 111.
Op. cit., p. 100.
Op. cit., p. 123.
Op. cit., p. 126.
Cf. Wittgenstein, Phil. Inv., I, §§ 197 ff.
Cf. for this the following ‘remarks’ by Wittgenstein: § 199: “Is what we call ‘obeying a rule’ something that it would be possible for only one man to do, and to do only once in his life? ... It is not possible that there should have been only one occasion on which a report was made, an order given or understood; and so on. To obey a rule, to make a report, to give an order, to play a game of chess, are customs (uses, institutions). To understand a sentence means to understand a language. To understand a language means to be master of a technique.”
Furthermore § 243: ‘... could we ... imagine a language in which a person could write down or give vocal expression to his inner experiences — his feelings, moods, and the rest — for his private use? — Well, can’t we do so in our ordinary language? — But that is not what I mean. The individual words of this language are to refer to what can only be known to the person speaking; to his immediate private sensations. So another person cannot understand the language.” Wittgenstein hints at the answer in the following paragraphs, so in § 256: “Now, what about the language which describes my inner experiences and which only I myself can understand? How do I use words to stand for my sensations? — As we ordinarily do? Then are my words for sensations tied up with my natural expressions of sensation? — In that case my language is not a ‘private’ one. Someone else might understand it as well.” Cf. also § 257: “What would it be like if human beings shewed no outward signs of pain (did not groan, grimace, etc.)? Then it would be impossible to teach a child the use of the word ‘tooth-ache’.”
Op. cit., p. 29.
Op. cit., p. 30.
Cf. Wittgenstein, Phil Inv., § 198 and§ 328.
Winch, op. cit., p. 119. For a very similar way of refuting the methodical solipsism of the theory of understanding (and of modern epistemology in general) cf. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, § 26 and § 31.
The difference to 19th-century Hermeneutics becomes apparent when we compare Winch’s theory with the following passage of Dilthey in his Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften, 1883, where he argues against sociology: “Much of the goal directed interrelations in a society can be explained by reference to social relations as such. But something like the development of philosophy, for example, is grounded and has its purpose not only in society but in the individual as such. This ‘double foundation’ is even more obvious in the case of religion and art. If we were to think of a single human being existing on earth, he would, provided only that he lived long enough, develop these different mental activities all on his own, though living in total isolation” (op. cit., pp. 422–423). Dilthey’s last sentence at least we will no longer be able to accept as expressing a meaningful fictitious model, since Wittgenstein showed the impossibility of a private language. Compare for this also A. Gehlen’s polemic against Dilthey in his ‘Philosophie der Institutionen’ (Urmensch und Spätkultur, Bonn 1956). Gehlen’s “constitution of human consciousness and self-understanding via institutions” comes close to Winch’s ideas in many respects. However, also the later Dilthey, who, to correct his earlier psychologism, used Hegel’s concept of the “objective mind”, did express ideas quite similar to those of Gehlen and Winch. Cf. e.g. Gesammelte Schriften, VII, pp. 146 f.: “Every single human expression represents something that is common to many and therefore part of the realm of the objective mind. Every word, or sentence, every gesture or form of politeness, every work of art and every historical deed are only understandable, because the person expressing himself and the one understanding him are connected through something they have in common; the individual always thinks, experiences and acts as well as understands in this ‘common sphere’.”
Winch, op. cit., p. 57.
Cf. Phil. Inv., I, § 219; cf. also §§ 198, 206, 217.
Cf. Winch, op. cit., pp. 55 ff., who quotes Lewis Caroll on what the tortoise said to Achilles, Complete Works, Nonesuch Press.
Winch, op. cit., p. 58.
Op. cit., pp. 58 f. Winch can refer, in support of this view, to Wittgenstein’s own analysis in the Phil. Inv., I, § 143.
Op. cit., p. 62 and p. 65.
Op. cit., p. 63 and Wittgenstein, Phil. Inv., § 225.
Cf. H.-G. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode, Tübingen 1960; also of particular interest, Gadamer, ‘Zur Problematik des Selbstverständnisses’, in Einsichten. Festschrift für G. Krüger, Frankfurt/M 1962. Also Gadamer, ‘Vom Zirkel des Verstehens’, in Festschrift für M. Heidegger, Pfullingen 1959, pp. 24–34.
Cf. H.-G. Gadamer on the concept of “language game” in: Philosophische Rundschau, 11 (1963) 42 ff.
Cf. Winch, op. cit., pp. 9 f., 15–18, 71 f., 83–86.
Cf. the following sentences from the Phil. Inv.: “What looks as if it had to exist, is part of the language” (§ 50); “Grammar tells what kind of object anything is” (§ 373); “Essence is expressed by grammar” (§ 371). It would be worthwhile to compare this with what the later Heidegger says about language as “house of being” and “domicile of the human being” (cf. Brief über den Humanismus, Bern 1947).
Winch, op. cit., p. 89.
See above p. 11 f.
Wittgenstein, Phil. Inv., II, XI.
Winch, op. cit., p. 41.
This program is very similar to the one of E. Cassirer as developed in his Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (Yale University Press, New Haven 1966) the difference being, however, that Winch emphasizes that the ‘forms’ of human understanding to be investigated have to be taken as rules which are followed “...in the context of interhuman relationships in a society” (op. cit., p. 40). According to Winch, all former philosophy of language neglected the fact “...that those very categories of meaning, etc., are logically dependent for their sense on social interaction between men.”
Winch, op. cit., p. 50.
Winch, op. cit., p. 82.
This kind of experience has been described as “encounter” (“Begegnung”) in the existentialist literature of pedagogics and Geisteswissenschaften, which was strongly influenced by M. Buber (Ich und Du, 1922), but also by the rediscovered Feuerbach (K. Löwith, Das Individuum in der Rolle des Mitmenschen, Munich 1928). Cf. also Fr. Bollnow, Existenzphilosophie und Pädagogik, Stuttgart 1959, Chap. VI.
Winch, op. cit., p. 114.
Op. cit., pp. 114 and 118.
W. Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften, VII, p. 145.
Cf. footnote 92.
Cf. also Joh. Lohmann, ‘Die Entfaltung des menschlichen Bewußtseins als Sprache’, in Freiburger Dies Universitatis, Bd. 11, 1963–64.
Winch, op. cit., pp. 102 f., and Wittgenstein, Phil. Inv., I, § 124.
For the development of German Geisteswissenschaften out of the “Historische Schule” cf. E. Rothacker, Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften, 1920.
The last sentence is meant as an objection to Gadamer’s critique of the comparative methods in the Geisteswissenschaften, though I have followed closely his ideas in the last paragraphs (cf. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode, p. 220 and p. 380).
Cf. Winch, op. cit., p. 102: “... connected with the realisation that intelligibility takes many and varied forms is the realisation that reality has no key.”
Cf. Winch, op. cit., Ch. IV, 1 (countering Pareto).
In the terminology of the later Wittgenstein we could say: objective “explanation” and “understanding of motives” are two different language games, which corréspond to different forms of behavior. Hempel’s theory of historical explanation has in fact been criticized from this point of view by Analytic philosophers of the Oxford school. B. P. Gardiner (The Nature of Historical Explanation, Oxford 1952), for example, admits besides causal explanation the “explanation by a motive”, which is what a detective does, who imagines himself in the position of the probable culprit in order to understand his possible ways of acting in the given situation. Gardiner thus arrives at the concept of “explanation in terms of ‘intentions’ and ‘plans’” (op. cit., pp. 49 f.), which is differentiated from Dilthey’s and M. Weber’s concept of understanding only insofar as the metaphysical background of an Idealist Philosophy of the Mind is missing. For a further critique of the Neopositivist theory of “historical explanation” cf.
W. H. Walsh, Philosophy of History, London 1960, and
W. Dray, Laws and Explanations in History, Oxford 1957. Dray, besides the “explanation by laws”, speaks of an “explanation by the goal”, calling the latter “understanding” and stressing that it is not merely a heuristic method serving the explanation by laws. The historian, he says, must “revive, re-enact, rethink, re-experience the hopes, fears, plans, desires, views, intentions, etc. of those he seeks to understand” (op. cit., p. 119).
G. Winch, op. cit., p. 107 and p. 109.
For this concept see A. Gehlen, Urmensch und Spätkultur.
We have quoted the Tractatus in the translation by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness; Philosophical Investigations and Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics in the G. E. M. Anscombe translation.
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Apel, KO. (1967). The resolution of the ambivalence in the third phase in favor of a “methodological intersubjectivism” — and the remaining problem of a dialectical mediation between intersubjective ‘understanding’ and objective ‘explanation’. In: Analytic Philosophy of Language and the Geisteswissenschaften. Foundations of Language. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-6316-5_4
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