''The New Wittgenstein'' (2000) is a book containing a family of interpretations of the work of philosopher

Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian- British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is consi ...

. In particular, those associated with this interpretation, such as

Cora Diamond Cora Diamond (born 1937) is an American philosopher who works on Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gottlob Frege, moral philosophy, animal ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of language, and philosophy and literature. Diamond is the Kenan Professor ...

, Alice Crary, and

James F. Conant James Ferguson Conant (born June 10, 1958) is an American philosopher at the University of Chicago who has written extensively on topics in philosophy of language, ethics, and metaphilosophy. He is perhaps best known for his writings on Wittgenste ...

, understand Wittgenstein to have avoided putting forth a "positive"

metaphysical Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

program, and understand him to be advocating philosophy as a form of "therapy." Under this interpretation, Wittgenstein's program is dominated by the idea that philosophical problems are symptoms of illusions or "bewitchments by language," and that attempts at a "narrow" solution to philosophical problems, that do not take into account larger questions of how the questioner conducts her life, interacts with other people, and uses language generally, are doomed to failure.

Overview

According to the introduction to the anthology ''The New Wittgenstein'' ():

Wittgenstein's primary aim in philosophy is – to use a word he himself employs in characterizing his later philosophical procedures – a ''therapeutic'' one. These papers have in common an understanding of Wittgenstein as aspiring, not to advance metaphysical theories, but rather to help us work ourselves out of confusions we become entangled in when philosophizing.

While many philosophers have suggested variants of such ideas in readings of the work of later Wittgenstein, namely the author of '' Philosophical Investigations'', a notable aspect of the New Wittgenstein interpretation is a view that the work of

early Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrians, Austrian-British people, British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy o ...

, exemplified by the ''

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus The ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'' (widely abbreviated and cited as TLP) is a book-length philosophical work by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein which deals with the relationship between language and reality and aims to define th ...

'', and the ''Investigations'', are actually more deeply connected, and in less opposition, to each other than usually understood. This view is in direct conflict with the long-standing, if somewhat old-fashioned, interpretation of the ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'' advocated by the

logical positivists Logical positivism, later called logical empiricism, and both of which together are also known as neopositivism, is a movement in Western philosophy whose central thesis was the verification principle (also known as the verifiability criterion of ...

associated with the Vienna Circle. The therapeutic approach of the New Wittgenstein scholars is not without critics:

Hans-Johann Glock Hans-Johann Glock (born 12 February 1960, Freudenstadt) is a German philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of Zurich. Biography Glock studied philosophy, German studies, and mathematics at University of Tübingen, University ...

argues that the "plain nonsense" reading of the ''Tractatus'' "is at odds with the external evidence, writings and conversations in which Wittgenstein states that the ''Tractatus'' is committed to the idea of ineffable insight". There is no unitary "New Wittgenstein" interpretation, and proponents differ deeply amongst themselves. Philosophers often associated with the interpretation include a number of influential philosophers, mostly associated with (although sometimes antagonistic to) the traditions of

analytic philosophy Analytic philosophy is a branch and tradition of philosophy using analysis, popular in the Western world and particularly the Anglosphere, which began around the turn of the 20th century in the contemporary era in the United Kingdom, United ...

, including Stanley Cavell,

John McDowell John Henry McDowell, FBA (born 7 March 1942) is a South African philosopher, formerly a fellow of University College, Oxford, and now university professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Although he has written on metaphysics, epistemolo ...

, Matthew B. Ostrow, Thomas Ricketts,

Warren Goldfarb Warren David Goldfarb (born 1949) is Walter Beverly Pearson Professor of Modern Mathematics and Mathematical Logic at Harvard University. He specializes in the history of analytic philosophy and in logic, most notably the classical decision proble ...

, Hilary Putnam,

Stephen Mulhall Stephen Mulhall (; born 1962) is a British philosopher and Fellow of New College, Oxford. His main research areas are Ludwig Wittgenstein and post-Kantian philosophy. Education and career Stephen Mulhall received a BA in Philosophy, Politics, an ...

, Alice Crary, and

. Explicit critics of the "New Wittgenstein" interpretation include P. M. S. Hacker, Ian Proops and Genia Schönbaumsfeld.

Overview

References

Further reading