New Wittgenstein
| Author | Alice Crary and Rupert J. Read |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Non-fiction |
| Published | 2000 |
| Publisher | Blackwell |
| ISBN |
The New Wittgenstein (2000) is a book containing a family of interpretations of the work of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. In particular, those associated with this interpretation, such as Cora Diamond, Alice Crary, and James F. Conant, understand Wittgenstein to have avoided putting forth a "positive" metaphysical 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 his life, interacts with other people, and uses language generally, are doomed to failure.
According to the introduction to the anthology The New Wittgenstein (ISBN ):
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.
- Alice Crary, "Introduction", The New Wittgenstein, Routledge, 2000, p. 1
While many philosophers have suggested variants of such ideas in readings of Wittgenstein's "late" work, associated with the Philosophical Investigations, a notable aspect of the New Wittgenstein interpretation is a view that Wittgenstein's early work, exemplified by the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 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 associated with the Vienna Circle.
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