Listening to the guys and Philosophy Bro on the last episode, I want to interject that actually I see Wittgenstein as a bridge between analytic and continental philosophy for reasons beyond his being Austrian. What he brackets out and why is crucial to his project, which does become "anti-philosophical" in a broad sense. Anti-philosophy is defined by both Alain Badiou and Boris Groys both, separately, definite anti-philosophy as a philosophical critique of a philosophical enterprise through other means.
Badiou compares Wittgenstein to Nietzsche in that his anti-philosophy is based on three operations (from Wittgenstein's Antiphilosophy,
1. A linguistic, logical, genealogical critique of the statement of philosophy; a deposing of the category of truth, an unraveling of pretensions of philosophy to constitute itself as theory. In order to do so, antiphilosophy often delves into the resources the sophists exploit as well. In the case of Nietzsche, this operation bears the name "overturning of all values," struggle against the Plato-disease, combatant grammar of signs and types.
2. The recognition of the fact that philosophy, in the final instance, cannot be reduced to its discursive appearance, its proportions, its fallacious theoretical exterior. Philosophy is an act, of which the fabulations about "truth" are the clothing, the propaganda, the lies...
3. The appeal made, against the philosophical act, to another, radically new act, which will either be called philosophical as well, thereby creating an equivocation (through which the little philosopher" consents with delight to the spit that covers his body) or else, more honestly, supraphilosophical or even aphilosophical. This act without precedent destroys the philosophical act, all the while clarifying its noxious character. . .
Can we recognize these three operations in Wittgenstein's oeurve?"
While the title of the book gives Badiou's opinion: I can't decide if I really believe Wittgenstein actually does think that all philosophy is null, epistemology is needless, and it's just language games. For all the complaints about Derrida's obscurantism and sophistic textual take on philosophy, if that is who we take Wittgenstein in the final instance, Wittgenstein is much more of a deconstructionist than Derrida or Nietzsche. Yet, I don't know if even Wittgenstein thinks the fly will ever totally be out of the bottle.
What do you readers think? Is Badiou on to something? Is Wittgenstein anti-philosophical? If the claim that Wittgenstein ended philosophy as it was known then is true, perhaps there is more than a little hint of truth in Badiou's claim.
I haven’t read Badiou’s book but read Henry Staten’s ‘Wittgenstein and Derrida’ some years ago. The ‘Tractatus’ can be read as a deconstruction of analytic philosophy and as a negative theology … Derrida alludes to Wittgenstein in his essay ‘How to Avoid Speaking’ … if you read Wittgenstein in this way then the, in my view false, distinction between first and second Wittgenstein becomes blurred and he seems decidedly over-rated. As a giant of the anglo-saxon tradition he certainly can be seen as a bridge between the continental and analytic schools.
I’ve not read Badiou either but yes, “anti-philosophical” seems like a pretty good description. In the movie we see a portrayal of Bertrand Russell, with raised eyebrows, asking Wittgenstein if he means to say that “there are no genuinely philosophical problems”. The main idea being that philosophical problems are just a result of misusing language, of playing the wrong language game. It’s all just a mistake that happens when “language goes on holiday”. But I’d like to think that Wittgenstein was being meta-philosophical rather than anti-philosophical.
There’s another way to say that. I’d like to think he was opposed to something more specific within philosophy rather than condemning the whole thing. It’s true that the whole thing is a footnote to Plato and epistemology has traditionally sought Truth with a capital “T”, I still think we ought not define philosophy in terms of these failed projects. As Teed Rockwell (Yes, it’s Teed, not Ted) said about Rorty’s rejection of epistemology, that’s like saying we ought to give up on astronomy because telescopes never could locate those crystalline spheres or the seventh heaven. In other words, Wittgenstein’s criticism should be used to move philosophy in new directions, not to kill it.
Nope. I don’t think Badiou is on to something. This book is a hilarious mess.
The three operations are a sad relay of Badiou’s paranoia over the stability of what he considers the Real in the world. Which I think he supposes the only anchor for Truth. This is is an ethical manoeuvre before it is epistemological. Hence, his solemn pronouncements about the Event. Ah, hindsight.
W certainly does believe in the importance of Truth. That’s why he asks if questions like “what is love?” make sense. He is asking for clarification, to pin it down a little (notably not forever), not reject the question entirely. Back to the rough ground. Ask a platonist for clarification and they will call you all sorts of bad names, especially sophist.
There are many connections between the Tractatus and the later philosophy, but there is one essential difference. In the earlier work, W says that to see the world as a limited whole is what is mystical. The later work refuses to see the world as a limited whole. This not just antiphilosophy but blasphemy if you have spent a great deal of time finely tuning Real reality and its access to Truth. W admits that philosophers are generalists, which is why many scientists don’t think much of them, and philosophers likewise often have science envy. Ol’ Badiou has maths and science envy in spades.
Your comment is insightful Nick, thanks. I might add that the subject of Wittgenstein’s thoughts on philosophy is very clearly discussed by Marie McGinn in an article in the Harvard Review of Philosophy IX 2001, starting on page 24, “Saying and Showing and the Continuity of Wittgenstein’s Thought.” I think I’ll by pass the Badiou even though I know French well.
I’m happy to see non-professionals discussing philosophy. I was once on an academic track to a phd in philosophy, but I reached a breaking point when I saw that I was interested in philosophy as an activity, a demanding form of independent critical thinking, not as a culture to defend and preserve by living it like a monk. That said, I admire and respect academic philosophers who do do this important work of transferring the living material of a culture to an ever-changing mass of experience coming of age. As my ‘violin d’Ingres’ I think philosophy in favorite authors like Wittgenstein, Barry Stroud (UC Berkeley) and Arthur Fine (U of O, Eugene, especially important on the philosophical implications of science.).
When you speak of Badiou’s agenda regarding “the Real”, I link this to W’s remarks on G.E. Moore’s common sense view in “On Certainty”, at the end of the present edition of the Investigations. Some have wished to make more than perhaps W would want of the idea of a “hinge proposition”, speaking to Moore’s act of raising his hand to prove the existence of the external world. W. is not ridiculing Moore, he just wants to unpack what we “do’ with the word “know’. He’s pointing out that we go about in our everyday way without constantly keeping alive “believing acts’ such “an external world” or “I live at a certain distance from the center of the Earth.” What More “proves’ about an external world is expressed in a proposition that is not truth functional: whatever it is our thought and remark are “about”‘ regarding a said “external world” is something that just presented itself to us. After I have learned to ride a bike, and ‘just do it’, there’s a lot I can’t explain to you about what I do, but I can show what I do.
By implication, I think it is safe to say W rejects the way he goes about associating the truth-making of expressing true propositions with a world made whole by contingent facts. In Investigations, it is our mastery of the practice of language through exercising language games that makes truth a “practitioner’ makes by application of language practice in a game-like context. When I shout “check-mate” in a game of chess, I, the practicing chess player, is the “winner” under the governance of the game.
For those who see a connection between W. and the Naturalism of Hume, similar remarks as those above can be made about his anti-idealistic view of perception (anti-Berkeley) under the rubric “naive realism.” As a non-academic, I feel free to create heuristics, and to mind-trip on implications, without fear of having to get in the ring with the academics. I also read P.F. Strawson, Bernard Williams, and M.G.F Martin (now at Oxford). Frege and Russell must also be read as founding fathers of language-linked philosophical work.
Just saw this:
“. That’s why he asks if questions like “what is love?” make sense.”
Where does Wittgenstein ask this? I’d be fascinated to see that discussion.
Thanks.
Two more questions – sorry if it’s bad form to do multiple messages but perhaps these are questions other people would also like answered:
(1) Duncan, where is this Derrida text “How to avoid speaking?”
(2) David Buchanan, what movie are you talking about?
Thanks again.
We have become so addicted to language and conceptual blather that we will probably become extinct from thier poisons before developing sufficient perspective to save ourselves. We are like painters who having painted rather delicious looking food have decided to eat our paintings instead of the real thing. Too bad we have become such great artists with our words, but want to avoid the real world and live in some self created cosmos that can never really exist except in our minds,,,