Subjectivity After Descartes: Wittgenstein as a Pedagogical Philosopher

Abstract

This brief introduction is designed to introduce the reader to the man and his work through a reading that emphasizes a broadly cultural approach to his intellectual background , context , and life, recording the influence his thought has exerted on the disciplines, including education and pedagogy . The introductory chapter makes the case for reading Wittgenstein as a pedagogical philosopher that points to a non-foundational approach to traditional philosophical problems that does not proceed by trying to discover essences or eternal forms but rather progresses through commanding a clear view of our concepts and by raising interesting questions. It is therefore an approach that deviates from the foundations of modern philosophy in that it does not base itself on the cogito, in the individual thinking; insofar as it avoids this centered Cartesian figure of the subject and of subjectivity the approach adopts an anti-foundationalist stance, an anti-epistemological standpoint and entertains a suspicion of transcendental arguments preferring instead to accept a naturalism grounded in culture and social convention—in what we do and what we say.

A shorter version appears in the Wittgenstein section of the Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory (Springer, 2016), co-edited by Nicholas Burbules & Jeff Stickney (Michael A. Peters, Chief Editor).