The New Wittgenstein

by Alice Crary (Editor), Rupert Read (Editor)

This text offers major re-evaluation of Wittgenstein's thinking. It is a collection of essays that presents a significantly different portrait of Wittgenstein. The essays clarify Wittgenstein's modes of philosophical criticism and shed light on the relation between his thought and different philosophical traditions and areas of human concern. With essays by Stanley Cavell, James Conant, Cora Diamond, Peter Winch and Hilary Putnam, we see the emergence of a new way of understanding Wittgenstein's thought. This is a controversial collection, with essays by highly regarded Wittgenstein scholars that may change the way we look at Wittgenstein's body of work.

Genres: Philosophy, Essays, Nonfiction

414 pages, Hardcover

First published March 31, 2000

About the author

Alice Marguerite Crary

Reviews

[V. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The “New Wittgenstein” school of philosophers, among them, Stanley Cavell, Hilary Putnam, John McDowell, Cora Diamond, and James Conant, break with orthodoxy’s picture of Wittgenstein as having, by the time he'd written his Philosophical Investigations, renounced his work in the Tractatus. These thinkers have in common an interpretation of Wittgenstein on which the Tractatus and the Investigations are not mutually inconsistent, but rather, compatible parts of the same philosophical project. That project, they argue, is not to put forward any metaphysical theories, but rather to advance a kind of therapy for the confusions we sometimes get ourselves into through the practice of philosophy. On this view, the aphorisms of the Tractatus, aside from a few which are instructions on how to read the bulk of its sentences, are not propositions with a sense that can be found out. Rather, they are unintelligible strings of nonsense--but therapeutic nonsense, nonsense that is capable of loosening philosophical tangles. In this, adherents of the New Wittgenstein interpretation take quite seriously Wittgenstein’s claim that his “propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them—as steps—to climb up beyond them” (Tractatus, 6.54).

This volume brings together essays representing some of the most important thinkers in the New Wittgenstein school. It is of great value to anyone interested in grappling with this way of understanding Wittgenstein's project.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this 20 or so years ago and have just re-read the first half, which broadly focuses on the later stuff, different aspects of.
Alice Crary herself is one of several contributors here apparently unable to write straight. Among other vices, she has a weird occasional tic of putting commas and dashes just a word off from where they should be. Thus on p.141: "But I want to close - not by exploring this issue directly, but - by describing an approach to Rorty's practical question [blah blah...]". See that closing dash?! Luckily (for me), her paper has to do with people's placings of Wittgenstein politically, which I could hardly care less about.

She and others (McDowell, Finkelstein) have more generally the academic's bad habit of writing as they might deliver a paper to peers who share in detail their areas of focus, using ultra-shorthand labels, crammed into long and convoluted sentences, rendering the argument all but incomprehensible to an even slightly wider public, and utterly without any effort at a pleasing style.

This laziness is not necessary, helpful or wise. If they want to communicate their thoughts to an intelligent public they need to up their language game radically. And if they don't, why not just circulate these texts as photocopies among colleagues and save the rest of the world the displeasure?

Honourable exceptions: Stanley Cavell and Martin Stone. The latter's paper "Wittgenstein on deconstruction", while a reasonably demanding read, repays the effort. I'd be interested to read similarly thoughtful responses to that from various sides.

[Kaidi Pan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection.

[Michael I · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great analysis of the tractatus and PI. I really appreciated them including a PMS Hacker as a dissenting voice. Ultimately, I agree generally with the resolute reading of the tractatus and the inviolability reading of the PI.