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Chapter 4: Action and the Pragmatic Maxim

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Wittgenstein and Pragmatism

Part of the book series: History of Analytic Philosophy ((History of Analytic Philosophy))

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Abstract

Far from simply asserting that in On Certainty Wittgenstein manifests a pragmatist strand because of the emphasis he puts on action, the author refers to the texts of the pragmatists and in particular to the ‘pragmatic maxim’, and argues that Wittgenstein explores very similar ideas, especially in a set of remarks written during what she labels Wittgenstein’s ‘pragmatist week’, in March 1951. Further inquiries are devoted to the concepts of habits, practices, and conduct. One of the results of the pragmatists’ and Wittgenstein’s approaches to action is that the latter is embedded within a habit, a stream, or a form of life and cannot be satisfactorily accounted for in terms of a single rational output of an agent stemming from a free decision.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Also in CP 5.400–402.

  2. 2.

    Also in CP 5.371.

  3. 3.

    See Misak (2004, pp. 12–14).

  4. 4.

    See CP 5.196, from ‘Pragmatism and Abduction’, 1903.

  5. 5.

    In ‘Pragmatism: The Normative Sciences’.

  6. 6.

    In ‘Three Types of Reasoning’, 1903.

  7. 7.

    In ‘Pragmatism and Abduction’, 1903.

  8. 8.

    Again in ‘‘Pragmatism and Abduction’.

  9. 9.

    In ‘What Pragmatism Is’, 1905.

  10. 10.

    See CP 5.504, from ‘Consequences of Critical Common-Sensism’, 1905.

  11. 11.

    See Calcaterra (2012) and Marchetti (2015a).

  12. 12.

    From ‘A Survey of Pragmaticism’, 1907; also in EP 2, pp. 401–402, and SW, p. 272.

  13. 13.

    Yet, in my view, the expression ‘externalism’ (like any other ‘ism’) needs qualification when referred to Wittgenstein, as his reflections cannot easily be put under this label. See in particular the remarks on the internal and the external in LW, which show a very sophisticated and unconventional outlook.

  14. 14.

    From ‘A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God’, 1908.

  15. 15.

    From ‘An Essay toward Improving our Reasoning in Security and Uberty’, prob. 1913.

  16. 16.

    From ‘Pragmatism’, 1907.

  17. 17.

    ‘What Pragmatism Is’, quoted in Hookway (2012, p. 173) from EP 2, p. 332.

  18. 18.

    But see also Wu (1994).

  19. 19.

    On this topic see also Putnam (1992a).

  20. 20.

    See for instance MT, pp. 4, 143.

  21. 21.

    See PR, §230g; BT, p. 95 and in general sec. 32 and sec. 60; PI, §§80–81, 268–269, 543, 578; RPP I, §306; LW II, pp. 81 ff.

  22. 22.

    The presence of the saying/showing distinction in OC, only in part comparable to the Tractarian distinction, is not a new topic in literature; see for instance Gill (1974), McGinn (2001), Moyal-Sharrock (2007, pp. 48, 94 ff.), Boncompagni (2014).

  23. 23.

    But see the different opinion of Chauviré (2003, p. 96), who underlines the closeness to scientific conceptions.

  24. 24.

    From MS 131, p. 70.

  25. 25.

    Originally in MS 110, p. 231 (1931), quoted in Schulte (1999, p. 318).

  26. 26.

    Notice that William James repeatedly compares truths and the banknotes of the credit system (see for instance P, p. 100), and remember his metaphor of the ‘cash value’ (P, p. 32).

  27. 27.

    On the difference between use and usefulness, see also Moyal-Sharrock (2007, p. 171).

  28. 28.

    Compare the chapter on the stream of thought in James’ PP (1890, originally appearing in 1884 as an article) with Peirce’s metaphor of thought as a melody in ‘How to Make Our Ideas Clear’ (1878), and also with Peirce’s article ‘The Law of Mind’, 1892 (W 8, pp. 126–157, CP 6.102–163, CLL, pp. 202–237).

  29. 29.

    From ‘Consequences of Critical Common-Sensism’. A similar characterization of thought can be found in ‘Some Consequences of Four Incapacities’, where Peirce affirms that the meaning of a thought is virtual and not actual (W 2, p. 227, CP 5.289). We will examine this passage in next chapter.

  30. 30.

    See for example PI, §§591, 633; PPF, sec. vi; RPP II, §§242–243.

  31. 31.

    Rhees (2003, p. 32). The original formulation of PI, §511 is in MS 110, p. 292 (1931).

  32. 32.

    Ramsey wrote about tautologies and contradictions as ‘degenerate cases’ of propositions in ‘The Foundations of Mathematics’, 1925 (see Ramsey 1990, Chap. 8).

  33. 33.

    See MS 153, p. 40v (1931); MS 116, p. 51 (circa 1937–1938); MS 119, p. 87v (1937); the same themes can be found in some typescripts: TS 211, pp. 521, 529 (1932); BT, p. 340; TS 228, p. 10 (1945–1946); TS 233, p. 56 (1945–1946).

  34. 34.

    Russell (1921), Ogden and Richards (1960), first edition 1923.

  35. 35.

    See Egidi (1983). On Russell’s book and Wittgenstein see Engelmann (2012).

  36. 36.

    BT, p. 155. See also BT, sec. 10 and LCL, pp. 63–64.

  37. 37.

    Faust is mentioned again in the PP chapter on the will; other quotes can be found for instance in ‘Reflex Action and Theism’ (WB, p. 61), in ‘The Sentiment of Rationality’ (WB, p. 90), in VRE. On Goethe and James cf. Richardson (2006, sec. 12).

  38. 38.

    The same quote is in MS 119, p. 47 (then in CV, p. 31), but many citations appear in his notes, from the 1930s until the last manuscripts. On Goethe and Wittgenstein, see Andronico (1998), McGuinness (2002), and Breithaupt et al. (2003).

  39. 39.

    It is not by chance that in Goethe one can find what we may call a ‘proto-pragmatic maxim’ like this: ‘Indeed, strictly speaking, it is useless to attempt to express the nature of a thing abstractedly. Effects we can perceive, and a complete history of those effects would, in fact, sufficiently define the nature of the thing itself. We should try in vain to describe a man’s character, but let his acts be collected and an idea of the character will be presented to us’. This is in the Preface of the Theory of Colors (Goethe 1840), which Wittgenstein knew very well (McGuinness 2012, pp. 456–458).

  40. 40.

    Originally published in 1881, then in WB.

  41. 41.

    Originally published in 1884, then in WB.

  42. 42.

    Published in 1896 as an article, it also gives the title to the collection of essays WB, which appeared the following year with a dedication to Peirce.

  43. 43.

    He announces this in the Preface of WB.

  44. 44.

    From ‘What Pragmatism Is’, 1905.

  45. 45.

    From ‘Mind and Matter’, 1893.

  46. 46.

    Action’s belonging to habit, we may add, is not alien to James either, especially considering the relevance that the education of the will has for him. See Franzese (2008, Chap. 3) and Marchetti (2015b).

  47. 47.

    According to Coliva (2013), the pragmatic acceptation of a certainty, also and chiefly if it has a normative nature, requires that the content of the norm be grasped; in this sense, it is only because we have grasped its content, that a certainty can work as a practical platitude not subject to doubt.

  48. 48.

    An idea we could perhaps compare to Peirce’s concept of instinctive insight, CP 5.604. For other aspects, the idea Moyal-Sharrock gleans from Wittgenstein could be put side by side with James’ description of rationality in ‘The Sentiment of Rationality’ (in WB).

  49. 49.

    Quoted in Schulte (1993, pp. 22, 167).

  50. 50.

    See Pihlström (2012).

  51. 51.

    James’ relevance is clear for example in BBB, pp. 150–151, PI §§611–631, LPP, pp. 157–158 and 202–204, RPP I, §§759 ff. See also Citron (2015a), pp. 20–22. Goodman’s work is very detailed on these issues.

  52. 52.

    Shusterman (2008, Chap. 4); see also Shusterman (2012a) and (2012b, Chap. 2), the latter are essentially the same.

  53. 53.

    From MS 110, p. 12. Quoted here with the translation used in Shusterman (2008, p. 126). Original text: ‘Die Musik scheint manchem eine primitive Kunst zu sein mit ihren wenigen Tönen & Rythmen. Aber einfach ist nur ihre Oberfläche [ihr Vordergrund] während der Körper der die Deutung dieses manifesten Inhalts ermöglicht die ganze unendliche Komplexität besitzt die wir in dem Äußeren der anderen Künsten angedeutet finden & die die Musik verschweigt. Sie ist in gewissem Sinne raffinierteste aller Künste’.

  54. 54.

    The recent perspectives of enactivism in philosophy of mind, an alternative to the cognitivist paradigm, can be read as a development of this kind of approach, a development also suggested by John Dewey; see Hutto and Myn (2013, pp. 14, 50), Steiner (2013), and Boncompagni (2013).

  55. 55.

    Also in Z, §567; originally in MS 137, p. 54a, June 1948, then in TS 232, pp. 753–754.

  56. 56.

    See Marchetti (2015b) on this.

  57. 57.

    This was pointed out to me by an anonymous reviewer, who referred chiefly to Peirce.

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  1. University of Florence, Florence, Italy

    Anna Boncompagni

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Boncompagni, A. (2016). Chapter 4: Action and the Pragmatic Maxim. In: Wittgenstein and Pragmatism. History of Analytic Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58847-0_5

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