Wittgenstein: On human nature

by P.M.S. Hacker

This essential introduction to the philosopher and his thought, combines passages from Wittgenstein with detailed interpretation. Hacker leads us into a world of philosophical investigation in which "to smell a rat is ever so much easier than to trap it". Wittgenstein defined humans as language-using creatures. The role of philosophy is to ask questions which reveal the limits and nature of language. Taking the expression, description and observation of pain as examples, Hacker explores the ingenuity with which Wittgenstein identified the rules and set the limits of language.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, German Literature, Biography

80 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Peter Hacker was born in London in 1939. He read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at The Queen's College, Oxford from 1960-63, obtaining a Congratulatory First Class degree. He was elected to a graduate studentship at St Antony's College, Oxford, where he remained from 1963-65, writing a doctoral dissertation under the supervision of H.L.A. Hart on the subject of 'Rules and Duties'. In 1965 he was elected to a Junior Research Fellowship at Balliol College. In 1966 he completed his doctorate and was granted the D. Phil.

He became a Tutorial Fellow at St John's College in 1966, a post he held until his retirement in 2006, when he was appointed to an Emeritus Research Fellowship at St John's. He was College Librarian 1986-2006, and Keeper of the College Pictures 1986-1998. In 2010 he was elected to an Honorary Fellowship at The Queen's College, Oxford.

He was a visiting lecturer at Makere College, Uganda (1968), a visiting professor at Swarthmore College, Pa., U.S.A (1973), a visiting professor at University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, U.S.A. (1974), a Milton C. Scott Visiting Professor, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario (1984). He was elected to a British Academy Research Readership in Humanities 1985-7. In 1986 he was again a visiting professor for a semester at Swarthmore College, Pa., U.S.A. He was elected to a Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowship (1991-4). From 1992 to 2010 he served as a member of the Rothschild Fellowships Academic Committee, Yad Hanadiv, Jerusalem. He was a visiting fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation at Bellagio, Italy in 2006. He was a visiting research fellow at the University of Bologna for a semester in 2009. In 2013 he was appointed Professor of philosophy at the University of Kent at Canterbury for three years.

He is an associate editor of Philosophical Investigations, and of Wittgenstein Studies. From 1997 to 2003 he was an associate editor, 20th century philosophers - Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. From 1998 to 2003 he was a Trustee of the Wittgenstein papers and Member of the Committee of Editors; since 2003 he has been a member and Secretary of the Advisory Committee of Wittgenstein Editors.

Reviews

[Leonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wittgenstein turns philosophy from searching for knowledge of reality to exposing and challenging the shared presuppositions of the disputing parties, particularly the problems of language. To him, philosophical problems arise through the difficulties and misleading features of language. And the purpose of philosophy is to find those conceptual confusions in language and clarify them. The philosophical problem will then dissolve.

"The limits of my language means the limits of my world." Ludwig Wittgenstein

For Descartes, the I in “I think therefore I am” refers to the mind. But Wittgenstein attacks this Cartesian idea of mind-body duality. For him, neither the mind nor the body experiences pain, but the entire person. Our thoughts and feelings are logically connected to our behaviors and therefore behaviors provide the logical criteria for saying a person is thinking or feeling such and such.

By rejecting the mind-body duality, he also questions the private ownership of experiences. For example, he considers the phrase “I have a pain” problematic. Being in pain is a condition of the suffering person and she does not own it as she would a pen.
He exposes the language-game, where “I have a pain” becomes a description like “I have a pen.” And he points out that the statement is an expression (the person proclaiming his condition) rather than a description (the person describing his characteristic).


Ludwig Wittgenstein

This book glimpses at some of Wittgenstein’s basic ideas. But to understand his method (the slightly Zen-flavored thought experiments), we have to delve into his works.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick read but I'm not sure it's terribly useful as a real introduction to a really difficult thinker. It's too abstract and relies to much on the author's own conclusions. He doesn't argue here or draw out the meaning from W., rather he just blurts out what he assumes the meaning is...

[Paul Johnston · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book, although it is not an introductory text for someone who knows little about philosophy and nothing about Wittgenstein. However, if you have read a reasonable amount of philosophy, then it conveys a really important argument in a clear and reasonably accessible way. We live in a world where virtually everyone believes that life consists in a mysterious stream of conscious experiences that take place in our heads and that we cannot be fully sure that other people also "possess consciousness". This is deeply confused and Hacker shows how Wittgenstein destroyed this misleading way of thinking about things. But the problem is not just consciousness. Descartes created this idea of two worlds - the world of the mind and the world of matter - and people have been struggling with it ever since - some claiming that everything is fundamentally mental, others that only the world of matter exists. Scientists have, of course, thronged to the latter camp with neuroscientists rushing to demonstrate that the mind is in fact the brain. But this too is confused. It is misleading to suggest that there are two worlds - and the claims the idealists make about the world of the mind are as confused as the claims the materialists make about the world of matter. It is not our brains that have ideas, intentions and feelings. It is people who have them. Our lives do not consist of private experiences in our heads. They consist of living in an amazing world of objects where there are beautiful sunsets and sights that are difficult to see and where there are people who we interact with including some who know what we mean when we share our most intimate thoughts and feelings.

[Rafael Parisi Abdouch · Rating 3 out of 5]

O livro pretende trazer uma introdução ao pensamento de Wittgenstein e, de fato, passa pelos mais importantes temas da obra do autor. Acho, porém, acho que não cumpre tão bem o papel de introdução e, às vezes, deixa de comentar temas importantes como o “seguir uma regra”, a compreensão e a interpretação e mesmo uma explicação suficiente dos “jogos de linguagem”. A linguagem é complexa para quem não conhece nada de Wittgenstein e mais ainda para quem não tem os fundamentos de filosofia. A tradução brasileira, pela editora Unesp, é primorosa, feita pelo professor João Vergílio Cuter, que dedica sua carreira ao estudo da filosofia analítica e da linguagem. Feitas essas ressalvas, vale a leitura.

[Anderson Paz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Esse livreto não é nem uma introdução, nem uma discussão aprofundada sobre a noção de natureza humana em Wittgenstein. O texto começa com uma excelente explicação da noção de jogos de linguagem e a importância da crítica das Investigações de Wittgenstein. Mas logo em seguida, o texto se dedica a tratar da crítica de Witt à noção de mente, corpo e comportamento na filosofia clássica.
O resto do texto é uma discussão sobre a relação entre experiência e linguagem em que Witt defende que os comportamentos naturais, como sentir dor, precedem o aprendizado dos jogos de linguagem em que se expressam manifestações. Basicamente, "alegações de dor são extensões aprendidas de comportamentos expressivos naturais". Sinceramente, pareceu uma discussão um tanto estéril.

[Hinch]

Interesting analysis/exegesis of the crux of /Wittgenstein’s later thought as it relates to the philosophy of mind/ but as a general introduction to Wittgenstein?; It doesn’t touch on his early thought, and doesn’t make clear from the beginning that it will not be a general overview. It’s difficult, unsurprising given its subject matter, but good at explaining what it’s trying to

[H.d. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brevíssima introdução à obra de Wittgenstein, escrita por outro grande filósofo. Não se engane com o limitado volume, aproveite como uma oportunidade de rápida apresentação e leia de um só fôlego! "No começo era o ato"!

[Adam F · Rating 3 out of 5]

The back of my copy says this is an easily accessible introduction to Wittgenstein. That cannot be further from the truth. Hacker assumes the reader knows philosophy of mind and the general method of analytic philosophy. Nevertheless, his argument on the later Wittgenstein is compelling but short.

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

A useful brief look. Wittgenstein rejected mind-body duality and the idea that I can know something of my inner state but only believe something about yours; it is the visible behavior of me or you that provides the logical basis of philosophical concepts. Without behavior it would seem there is nothing (thus computers cannot think because they do not have behaviors).

Notes from the book:
The task of philosophy is to resolve or dissolve philosophical problems by clarification of what makes sense... There can be no discoveries in philosophy, for everything that is relevant to a philosophical problem lies open to view in our rule-governed use of words... Philosophical problems are symptoms of conceptual entanglement in the web of language... To have a pain is no more to own anything, logically or otherwise, than is to have a bus to catch...

We construe the mind as an inner world to which only its 'owner' has access... But private ownership of experience is an illusion. Epistemic privacy is also illusory... In repudiating the idea of privileged, direct access to our own mental states, Wittgenstein was not affirming the idea that we have unprivileged, indirect access. In denying that we always know what mental states we are in, he was not claiming that we are sometimes ignorant that we are, for example, in pain... it and its negation alike are nonsense or, at least, do not mean what philosophical reflection takes them to mean... We mistakenly construe a grammatical connection or exclusion of words for an empirical or metaphysical connection or exclusion determining the essential nature of the mind...

an ascription of knowledge is supposed to be an empirical proposition which is informative in so far as it excludes an alternative... 'I know I am in pain' can be a claim to know something only if 'I do not know whether I am in pain' is intelligible... Where we speak of knowing that p, we can also speak of guessing, surmising and conjecturing that p. But it makes no sense to guess that one is in pain. In short, our conception of epistemic privacy of experience confuses the grammatical exclusion of ignorance with the presence of knowledge...

In place of the descriptivist, cognitivist, conception, Wittgenstein proposes a completely different picture - an expressivist, naturalist one... A child who wants his teddy reaches for it and cries out in frustration - we teach him the use of 'I want'. In reaching for his teddy, he does not first introspectively identify his inner state as volitional, and he no more does so when he says, 'I want teddy'... primitive forms of natural behaviour are antecedent to our learnt language-games... Spontaneous expressions of emotion, 'I like', 'I love', 'I hate,' are manifestations of affective attitudes. And like the natural forms of behaviour which these learnt utterances replace, such verbal forms of behaviour are logical criteria for corresponding third-person ascriptions of sensation, desire and emotion...

'I think' and 'I believe' are not learnt or used to describe an inner state which we observe within ourselves and then describe for the benefit of others. Rather, they are used to qualify a claim about how things are - to signify that we are not in a position to guarantee the sequel... The pegs upon which different psychological terms hang are various, but the differences do not reinstate the classical picture of the inner...

The complement of the misconception of privileged access is that we can know how things are with others only indirectly, that the 'inner' is hidden behind the 'outer' (ie, mere behavioural externalities - bodily movements and the sound of speech). This, too, Wittgenstein argued, is a misconception - but not because the inner is, as the behaviourists argued, a fiction... Joy, distress or amusement are not hidden behind the face that manifests them, but visible on it. What we so misleadingly call 'the inner' infuses the outer...

The thought that another person can only surmise that I am in pain (whereas I know I am) is wrong. "If we are using the word 'know' as it is normally used (and how else are we to use it?), then other people very often know when I am in pain."...

"The human body is the best picture of the human soul." (PI, p. 178)

Our psychological concepts are logically connected with the behaviour that manifests the inner. For it is the behaviour of a human being that constitutes the logical criteria for saying of him that he is perceiving or feeling something, thinking or recollecting, joyful or sad...

if it is nonsense to say 'my brain has a toothache', it is nonsense on stilts to claim that the brain poses questions and answers them, constructs hypotheses or understands arguments... Brains do not have opinions, argue, hypothesize or conjecture. It is we who do so. To be sure, we could not do so if our brain were destroyed; but then we could not have toothache or walk without a brain either - yet it is not the brain that has toothache and walks to the dentist.

[Roberto Ferreira · Rating 1 out of 5]

A ideia de que a linguagem molda nossa forma de pensar parece válida, mas a coerência do filosofia de Wittgenstein para por aí.

[Bremer]

Excuse my grammar during this review. It does not come from "my mind," which I don't mean in the same way it's normally used. But already, there is ownership and the duality of mind/body; the distinctions are arising before I begin. As you see, these Cartesian ghosts wail through my language. They cling onto assumptions in order to exist after death.

"I do know that I had a pain" while I read this book would be nonsensical. How do I know I was in pain as opposed to not knowing I had a pain while having it? Some words do not have the purpose they appear to have, especially when holding up philosophical structures. But luckily, we can walk through those thorn bushes and hack them away with machetes. Then we can sit at the coconut shack, eating bananas and drinking lemonade.

But back to that pain. I'm expressing it, yes, if I'm sincere and not lying, but am I truly describing it? Am I the one, in a first-person consciousness, telling of my inner-world after introspection of my perceptual state(s)? Hold on. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. Maybe I need to understand what is meant by description. Then I need to find out if having a pain is equivalent to other forms of grammar, before I get wrapped up in these language tricks. I need to learn the context of those words, their tone and purpose and intention, and on, and so on. It could be that my pain is just a reaction of my other states of being, other behaviors. Maybe it's just a replacement, not an actual description. A way to manifest my primitive emotions, using what I have learned in these rules of language. These rules are a graft, overlaying the pain-behavior as an extension in expression. And my pains do not have to be identified as a part of my inner-self, but rather, can be related to what's alive as opposed to what's dead, to whom rather than to a thing. The pains are the sufferer, to my entirety as a human rather than in a part of myself. But still, did I have a pain while reading this book?

[Luca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hacker, neste livro, proporciona uma síntese do trabalho de Wittgenstein, através deste e de outras obras relativas à este.
Apesar de meu pouco conhecimento de Wittgenstein antes de ler o livro, vi aqui um claro e bem-elaborado livro de base para o seu pensamento. Passando por toda a questão da percepção de "realidade", das asserções lógicas que dominam nossos paradigmas, Hacker ilustra o pensamento de Wittgenstein de forma bem objetiva, por muitas vezes citando trechos do próprio autor, e sintetizando brevemente suas idéias em suas observações.
Apesar de não se adentrar demais nos temas como Wittgenstein o fez, e igualmente seus estudiosos, Hacker dá uma excelente "pincelada" nos temas principais, deixando o leitor com uma primeira impressão precisa e um breve conhecimento de Wittgenstein e suas abstrações, para incentivar um possível estudo aprofundado.

___________________________

-English-

Hacker, in this book, provides us with a sinthesis of Wittgenstein's work, through that and other authors works on it.
Although my knowledge of Wittgenstein's thought were very little before I read this book, I saw here an well-elaborated and objective basis for his ideas. Passing through all matters of "reality's" perception, and logical assertions that dominates our paragons, Hacker illustrates Wittgenstein's thoughts in a very objective way, quoting the philosopher's own words fitfully and sinthesizing his thoughts in his observations.
He doesn't gets too much "inside" Wittgenstein's themes like other authors, as his objective in this book, as I said, is for a brief basis on this philosopher's ideas. But he does it in a great manner, putting a precise first sight, and providing the best of Wittgenstein's abstractions in these 61 pages (63 in the english version), and providing an enormous incentive to a possible deep research.

[Caio Kauffmann · Rating 2 out of 5]

My first read on Wittgenstein and while it describes what I believe to be some of the key concepts of his philosophy, I feel that there was quite a lot that was left behind in favor of the Author's thesis, presented in the last chapter.

[James Koehler · Rating 5 out of 5]

It could have focused more on explaining core concepts without wandering off sometimes, but it still is an incredibly well written summary of one of the most important philosophers to grace this Earth.

[Jana · Rating 3 out of 5]

A helpful introduction/summary.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

The human body is the best picture of the human soul.

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-read of an extremely useful 55 page summary of aspects of Wittgenstein's thinking by an author who has written compelling tomes on LW.

[Lancen Davis Harms · Rating 5 out of 5]

can one truly HAVE a toothache?