TY - JOUR
AU - Tanney, Julia
AB - Why has Wittgenstein had so little influence in Western philosophy, especially in the philosophy of mind and language, as well as the disciplines of cognitive psychology, anthropology, and religion, about which he would have much to say? Although Wittgenstein Studies is burgeoning, particularly with the open-source availability of his Nachlass, the criticism he developed after the publication of the Tractatus of Frege’s, Russell’s, and his own views, has had no discernible effect on the trajectory of analytic and post-analytic, naturalistic philosophy. Barry Stroud’s warning of almost forty years ago resounds more forcefully today: The more empirical, ‘naturalistic’ turn in the approach of many contemporary philosophers, their search for ‘theories’ and their appeal to general ‘theoretical’ considerations apparently continuous with natural science…puts [contemporary] philosophy…farther from the spirit as well as the letter of Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophical problems. (Stroud 1983, p. 320) Alluding to Wittgenstein’s complaint (Wittgenstein 1958/1975, p. 18) that ‘philosophers in the analytic tradition continue constantly to see the method of science before their eyes, and are still irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does’, and that ‘[t]his tendency is the real source of metaphysics, and leads the philosopher into complete darkness’, Stroud concludes: A report on the main activity in the philosophy of mind in the period since [the mid-sixties when Wittgensteinian influences could still be discerned] would therefore be a report of activity within what Wittgenstein would regard as ‘darkness’; it would not be a report of developments and extensions of his own ideas during that period. (Ibid.) In response, most of us trained in the analytic tradition would respond that theory construction is our job: having abandoned the analytic-synthetic distinction, failed at the impossible task of identifying the essence of art, beauty, the good, the right, knowledge, consciousness, and so on, we must be concerned instead either to ‘naturalize’ philosophically puzzling phenomena or to replace, fictionalize, or abandon them. We must forego, that is, the temptation to posit souls or minds, the good and the beautiful, the right and the wrong, and so on, as platonic objects, or their adjectival and adverbial correlates as queer properties and processes. To accomplish this, it must be shown how the designata or referents of our mental vocabulary and our value terms are nothing but, or can been seen to be reducible to, if not the objects, then the events, properties, and processes of that which is recognizably physical or, in some appropriate way, natural. Very few philosophers today, however, seem to recognize, let alone follow, Wittgenstein (and—independently—Ryle) in rejecting the view of language taken for granted in this response; nor do they doubt that whatever puzzles them might be calmed by something other than theory construction. When counterexamples are found, a new journal article is published; the theory is tweaked, and the tweaks are tweaked again and again as the construction work continues and the articles proliferate. Philosophers today, taking the programme for granted, are often unaware of the linguistic and methodological assumptions—and of the insurmountable difficulties—of what they have inherited. If philosophical or pseudo-scientific theories are not the answer, what else might quiet our perplexity? In Wittgenstein’s Artillery: Philosophy as Poetry, James Klagge elaborates upon the range of non-theoretical—or what he calls ‘noncognitive’— devices Wittgenstein employs to still the craving for explanation that philosophical puzzles induce. It would be a mistake, he warns, to suppose that Wittgenstein’s primary aim is to ‘establish belief in a conclusion through reasoned argument’ but so too are the defenders and interpreters of Wittgenstein misunderstanding his desire to influence his students or audience by proceeding as though his ideas are obvious and that resistance to them can be combatted, as some of his admirers and proselytizers have been wont to do, by a louder or clearer restatement of the views. There is a certain aspect of philosophical reflection, Klagge insists, that takes a different path from that of reasoned argument. Klagge is onto something important here. For it is generally agreed that explanation involves—or that understanding is facilitated by—situating a surprising or ill-understood occurrence within a familiar pattern. Even those tempted to agree with Hempel that explanation requires an argument to the effect that the phenomenon to be explained is to be expected in virtue of certain facts should bear in mind that the notions of expectation and argument are fluid. What counts as understanding or as appreciating ‘the moves’ in the practices of mathematics or physical science is not the same as in the arts, social behaviour, cultural activities, religious practices, and so on. In many cases, acquiring an understanding or appreciation of these practices requires nothing more rigorous than their being placed in a different light, say, by analogy or comparison with something more familiar. Rather than our puzzlement about exotic behaviour or peregrine practices being quieted by proffering theories (or worse, attributing knowledge of or belief in such theories to the participants in these practices) it may be quieted by placing it in a familiar context—perhaps by comparing it with instincts, tendencies, and feelings that we, ourselves, possess. To appreciate a phrase of music, we might, for example and as Wittgenstein has suggested, compare it with the conclusion of an argument or with a gesture. ‘Look at it like this…’, we might say, when offering comparisons. By expanding our conception as to what counts as a familiar pattern in which to situate that which perplexes us, we may resolve our puzzlement or disquiet by a method that no demonstrative argument or theory could touch. The early Wittgenstein of the Tractatus seems not to have cared whether he was understood or not— Klagge dubs this his ‘esoteric’ period. As Wittgenstein begins teaching in the 1930s and having discussions with his students—including the young Turing—he tries to reach, and even influence, his audience. This led him, Klagge argues, toward an ‘evangelist’ style of writing that culminated in the Philosophical Investigations. Noting a likeness between Wittgenstein’s post as a forward artillery spotter on the Eastern front in 1916, and his related interest in the efficiency of artillery barrages, Klagge draws attention to Wittgenstein’s own pessimism about his attempts to reach his audience—what would the readers of MIND make of it, he wonders— and his resignation to, at best, provoke ‘a whole lot of garbage’ to be written in response to his stimulus. For, by Wittgenstein’s lights, [t]he difficulty of philosophy [is] not the intellectual difficulty of the sciences, but the difficulty of a change in attitude. Resistances of the will must be overcome. As I have often said, philosophy does not lead me to any renunciation, since I do not abstain from saying something, but rather abandon a certain combination of words as senseless. In another sense, however, philosophy requires a resignation, but one of feeling and not of intellect. And maybe that is what makes it so difficult for many. (Wittgenstein 1933, chapter entitled ‘Philosophy’; referenced by Klagge, p. 79) Wittgenstein’s evangelistic period sees him begin to experiment with ‘quite different artillery’, as he once put it (Wittgenstein 1980, p. 62; referenced by Klagge, p. 5), to combat that which tends to influence individuals in philosophy. Discomfited and disturbed by the ‘prevailing European and American civilization’ and the ‘typical western scientist’, Wittgenstein was roused to confront this mindset when teaching his own students in the thirties and forties. Faced with regular feedback either in the form of questions or the silence of incomprehension, Klagge argues, Wittgenstein came to see how those with the typical western (scientistic) bent responded to his teachings. He began to anticipate these responses by scrutinizing how we look at, or represent things; by acknowledging the ‘pictures’ that force themselves upon us, hold us captive, demand an answer; pictures that we are tempted, seduced, or bewitched by; those which suggests themselves, strike us, or look to us; and those we find surprising, convincing, senseless—given our compulsions, needs, urges, tendencies, inclinations, expectations, or prejudices. If the difficulty of philosophy is not a matter of intellect, but instead requires a change of attitude, then the appropriate ‘artillery’ should be honed to respect this objective. Klagge (joining others) assigns the word poetry (an admittedly imperfect translation of the German word Dichtung) to yeoman service for a range of inventive devices that Wittgenstein employs to bring about this turn. These devices function as encouragements to relinquish the inclination to theorize. They include similes, analogies, parables, aphorisms, primitive language games and other imaginary scenarios, as well as perspicuous representations (übersichtlichen Darstellung) or the assemblage of puzzling phenomena with the more familiar to facilitate the examination of the similarities and differences on a case-by-case basis. As is to be expected, the marvel of Klagge’s forty-some years of original scholarship in Wittgenstein Studies—beginning in his first year of graduate work—takes centre stage in Wittgenstein’s Artillery, a third of which comprises notes. We learn about the man and his life—with a view toward understanding his work—by, among other things, fragments of his correspondence, details from his original notes and notebooks (which Klagge occasionally serves up to criticize Wittgenstein’s early editors for misrepresenting his views); a discussion of the role of poetry, including Wittgenstein’s own attempts and others; the works of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gottfried Keller, Goethe; the Platonic dialogues, the writings of Kierkegaard, and other philosophical works that Wittgenstein was known to have or most probably would have read; comments from his sister, friends, colleagues, students, and so on. This impressive assortment of biographical details presents us not simply with a more complete view of the man, but, more importantly, with a cultural-historical perspective that shows us what was ‘in the air’ and arguably influential to Wittgenstein as his views developed. Rather than making anything resembling a causal claim, Klagge’s approach, like the one it is undertaken to expose, invites us to ‘look at it like this’ or ‘compare it to such-and-such’: it thus gives us a second-order perspicuous representation of the many devices Wittgenstein employs. In following Wittgenstein in experimenting with an array of second-order devices of his own, Klagge offers his readers a very unusual perspective on how to tackle material that all too often seems impenetrable. If the development of the interlacing themes in Wittgenstein’s Artillery highlights Wittgenstein’s journey as a metaphorical ‘spotter’ cum teacher and communicator, the denouement of the work explores the artillery or Dichtung employed to press upon his readers what Klagge discerns as Wittgenstein’s major aims. Although it would be difficult to disagree that this list captures, in the form of advice, the major ‘take-aways’ from a study of the Investigations, it is interesting and, I think, relevant that Wittgenstein does not announce them as such. I shall come back to this. Let us first consider this advice: Resist the temptation to insist that all concepts have essences, or something in common by which we call a thing by the same name; Resist the craving for generality, the temptation to theorize or to apply the methods of science when considering a set of similar phenomena; Explanations, reasons, justifications, grounds, doubts, definitions, tests, and interpretations all come to an end. Thus we must resist the temptation to continue the search for explanation, and so on, and let description take its place: give it the right place in our considerations; A proper understanding of some phenomenon depends upon its context or the circumstances; Look for the basis of a rule not in some sort of metaphysical space but in the regularity of human practices; Resist the temptation to assume that nouns or substantives are names for some sort of entity—if not physical, then abstract; Escape the fly-bottle. Since the therapeutic devices Wittgenstein employs are tailored to address particular intellectual-temperamental cramps, they are not expected to work for everyone. Hence, we learn that Wittgenstein’s reaction to Anscombe’s insistence that she could not help but see the colour blue there (presumably in, or as a property of, a specified object) was to hush the snickering from fellow students, and to pause and think about what ‘medicine’ she might need. The suggestion ‘Suppose we had the word “painy” for the property of some surfaces’ was effective in Anscombe’s case, as she reported later. (Does it work for you, reader?) This anecdote, Klagge submits, illustrates that the medicine administered must suit the needs of the patient, who must be honest in admitting and describing her philosophical ailment. Throughout the book, and especially in the final chapters, Klagge employs his own devices to encourage a change in attitude. Here, we arrive at the most personal aspects of the book as Klagge contributes his own attempts to do philosophy as poetry, including die Gleichnisse or allegories, similes, parables, and analogies in the style of Wittgenstein, while referring to, among others, the Gospels, Alice in Wonderland, Greek myths, and Winnie the Pooh. He discusses poetry at length, and even contributes his own writing, aphoristic-style, on the meaning of life as well as dialogues published in op-ed pieces on contemporary topics including climate change and taking the knee. Though highly unusual, this personal aspect comports with the idea that the comparisons, analogies, or other ways to ‘look at it like this’ are supposed to be custom-fit. Those that work for some readers may leave others unmoved. Indeed, towards the end, Klagge invites his readers to come up with some of their own Dichtung to induce a change in attitude. So before addressing some quibbles, I shall take up Klagge’s suggestion and offer two. The first, if not an example of Dichtung, is at least a strategy that was suggested to this reviewer—an undergraduate at the time—by Philippa Foot, when asked for advice on how to tackle the Investigations (after it was made clear—for reasons that are now evident—that neither Foot nor her colleague, Rogers Albritton, were able to recommend any secondary source material that might be helpful). H) ‘Answer the questions Wittgenstein poses: do not suppose they are rhetorical’. Indeed. For though some of the questions Wittgenstein or his interlocutor puts forward for consideration he answers himself—even at some distance from the question (cf. the lengthy ‘reading passages’ in Wittgenstein 1953, §§156-179 that interrupt the discussion of rule-following and set the scene for the ‘conclusion’ of the argument)—many, if not most, seem designed to be answered by the reader. Attempting to answer these questions is important, since it gives the reader a measure by which she may gauge her understanding in the light of what Wittgenstein goes on to develop. Next, another strategy—perhaps something closer to a Poetry (in the extended sense)—developed over several years while teaching the first third of the Investigations in a mixed-level course: I) Consider the text as an exercise book. Engage with or ‘play’ the language games and compare them with invented variants. One theme with many incarnations, for example, is the application of a rule. These rules take the form of a colour chart; a spoken order; the pointing gesture; a ruler made of rubber; the standard meter in the Louvre; and so on. (Klagge discusses the wood-pile game, which plays on the notion of payment and measurement.) Experimenting with virtual reality animations of these language games and introducing variations (for example, thought-bubbles with pictures of various stones, when playing the Slab game), students were invited to discuss the relevance of mental images; discover what is problematic in ‘predicating of a thing that which lies in its method of representation’; elaborate upon the different things we count as, for example, ‘reading’, ‘describing’, ‘standing roughly there’ and so on; discover for themselves that the pointing gesture in ostensive definition or explanation is dependent upon the context; and offer their own examples and demonstrations of ever-ascending steps in rule-following activities, the exercise of which sheds light on the idea that ‘there is a way of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation’ and helps to explain why, ‘hence, obeying a rule is a practice’. This brings us to why Wittgenstein does not adumbrate his major aims or advice. Klagge is clearly right that Wittgenstein’s goal is evangelical during his later period. Part of the hard work involved in understanding, however, seems to require coming to see the answers to the questions he poses, which the exercises of the language games and their variants reveal. Indeed, this gels with Wittgenstein’s comment, in the introduction to Frazer’s Golden Bough (and reiterated by Klagge, p. 50) that, ‘to convince someone of the truth, it is not enough to state it, but rather one must find the path [Weg] from error to truth’. For arriving at a destination by traveling a path which is partly of one’s own making is arguably more meaningful or enlightening (perhaps in Klagge’s sense of ‘noncognitive’) than being informed of the destination ahead of time. Moreover, this approach may offer the students or readers of Wittgenstein their own ‘artillery’ to explain and defend the path travelled to others. Exploring the Investigations with budding philosophers is one thing: attempting to convince colleagues by these methods is another. What to do when temperaments are well beyond the point of influencing? One cannot, as Klagge quotes Aristotle, ‘remove by argument the traits that have long since been incorporated in the character’ (Nicomachean Ethics, 1179b4-18; cited by Klagge, p. 62) Nonetheless, one would hope that philosophers would be wary of reductio ad absurdum arguments that (as Ryle was keen to point out) hark at least back to Plato’s Parmenides; in particular, the danger posed to their theories by regresses. Unfortunately, many are not. Fodor’s (1975, p. 67) glib response to the private language argument that ‘explanation has to stop somewhere, but it doesn’t have to…stop here’ fails to address the logical point that these regresses are explanatorily vicious. Dennett’s (1978, p. 102) dismissal of the objection that computers do not contain real representations—that ‘unless one views this as a rather modest bit of lexicographical purism, one risks discarding one of the most promising conceptual advances ever to fall into philosophical hands’—misses the same point. (What is the problem with vicious regresses? Look at it like this: how could installing smaller and smaller iterations of idling engines permit the vehicle to run?) Klagge’s elaboration of a selection of Wittgenstein’s ‘poems’—including the Parable of the Seeds, The Lion (who can talk), The Woodsellers, 5 O’Clock on the Sun, and Bububu—introduces Klagge’s own similes, analogies, and narratives based upon his own wide reading to some of the more famous passages, again revealing a personal touch unusual in philosophy. With these elaborations, there is much to think about as well as some disagreements to be found. Klagge is critical, for example of the comment ‘If a lion could talk, we would not be able to understand it’, on the grounds that if we could not understand it, we could not know it could talk. Suppose this is true. Is it relevant? Does the passage not invite us to reflect upon what would be necessary for understanding the (supposed) language of a creature whose way of life is so different from ours? After all, Wittgenstein mentions a lion, not a domestic cat or dog. More important is Klagge’s reticence to engage in the debate about whether our concepts have essences or whether they can in principle be explicated by definitions expressing necessary and sufficient conditions for their applications. He sidesteps this issue at first by maintaining merely that Wittgenstein thinks we can do with less: we need not insist that our concepts do have essences. Later (p. 134), he even goes as far as to express sympathy with the definition ‘Playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome necessary obstacles’ and suggests that, even if exceptions can be found, there may be plausible alternatives lurking around the corner. He underlines the point that we cannot prove that there are not better definitions that would accommodate the exceptions, and it is for this reason that he demurs from taking a stronger stance. This is difficult to understand, for several reasons. First, the definition he deems plausible has obvious exceptions, for example, by virture of its appeal to voluntariness. Second, it is so general that one would not be able to find one’s way back from the definiens to the definiendum. Wittgenstein anticipates and rejects this sort of move when he belittles as uninformative the proposal (Wittgenstein 1953, §14, emphasis in orginal) that ‘All tools serve to modify something’. Third, each of the terms in the proposed definition will also be subject to scrutiny, leading to an argument about the different things that count as ‘voluntary’, ‘to modify’, and so on. Obviously, any attempt to clear this up by giving these terms definitions of their own will lead to the same problems, and so forth and so on: back to the vicious regresses. Crucially, however, the notion of essence harks back to the platonic view that (as Ryle puts it) our concepts exist in ‘isolated splendour’. As Klagge nicely explains earlier (p. 67), ‘A Form seems to be…a metaphysical embodiment and satisfaction of the Socratic (insistence on the) search for a definition’. According to this direction of travel, our apprehension of a concept’s rules explains our ability to apply them in our linguistic activities, and this quickly invites explanatory regresses we were encouraged to resist. Suppose concepts are understood, more profitably, not as things or objectified rules but rather as abstractions or discernible differences and similarities between elements in the employment of sentences which, in particular circumstances, say the same thing. Understood thus, the direction of travel proceeds from the practice to the abstraction and, in certain cases, to learning a (circumstance-dependent) rule of application. This picture shields us from essences that suggest priority or necessity. (Look at it like this: even if we were to happen upon a (presumably newly invented, say, technical) concept that could be thus defined, it would be like finding a tool that only has one use; that is, one that has been invented or discovered for a particular job and has not yet been adapted for other purposes.) This reading, unlike the other, is compatible with the aim that we should look toward human practices rather than metaphysics to understand our normative practices. In conclusion, there is much to admire, to debate, to generate surprise and even some discomfort: Wittgenstein’s Artillery is astonishing both for its scholarship and its courage. In laying bare the ‘poetic’ devices Wittgenstein employs in his ‘evangelistic’ stage to facilitate a change of attitude, Klagge shows us why the later, as well as the early, Wittgenstein would have had reason to wonder what the readers of MIND would make of his ideas. Indeed, Klagge might well wonder the same thing. 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( Oxford : Blackwell ) Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Wittgenstein Ludwig 1958 /1975, The Blue and Brown Books ( Oxford : Blackwell ) Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Wittgenstein Ludwig 1979 , Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough/ Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough . Ed. Rhees Rush, Miles A.C., and revised by Rush Rhees ( Her efordshire : Brynmill Press ) Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Wittgenstein Ludwig 1980 , Culture and Value . Ed. von Wright G.H., Nyman Heikki, and trans. Peter Winch (Oxford: Blackwell) Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC © Mind Association 2022 This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model) © Mind Association 2022
TI - Wittgenstein's Artillery: Philosophy as Poetry, by James C. Klagge
JF - Mind
DO - 10.1093/mind/fzac017
DA - 2022-05-25
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/wittgenstein-s-artillery-philosophy-as-poetry-by-james-c-klagge-sD2JaWVLNc
SP - 834
EP - 842
VL - 133
IS - 531
DP - DeepDyve
ER -