Introduction
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.[1] During
his lifetime he published just one slim book, the 75-page Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921), one article, one book review
and a children's dictionary.[2]
His voluminous manuscripts were edited and published posthumously. Philosophical Investigations was the second book which he wrote. However it got
published after his death in 1953 and by the end of the century it was
considered an important modern classic.[3] Philosopher
Bertrand Russell described Wittgenstein as "the
most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived;
passionate, profound, intense, and dominating".[4] Wittgenstein’s
philosophy and his philosophical approach were of a different genre, being
against the traditional method of doing philosophy he moved ahead from it. The
key aspiration of this paper is to relate Wittgenstein’s paper with
performativity in order do that we will have to understand certain notions (a)
nature of Wittgenstein’s philosophy by focusing on his life and career and (b) continuity
in his two works so that we can get a clear understanding of performatives work
in language.
Wittgenstein’s
life and the Nature of his Philosophy
My previous paper was a
review on Tractatus Logico Philosophicus,
which is characterised as Wittgenstein’s Early philosophy by 20th
century philosophers and likewise Philosophical
Investigations is known as Wittgenstein’s later philosophy.[5]
Wittgenstein’s philosophy and thought process were highly shaped from his
life’s experiences and circumstances. He led an unusual life. He worked as a
soldier in World War I and as a hospital porter in World War II, worked as a
primary school teacher in villages of Austria. But his main interest always
remained in philosophy thus he described philosophy, however, as "the only work that gives me real
satisfaction."[6]
Wittgenstein was undoubtedly a profound philosopher but he was never mesmerised
by the name and fame that he got after he got hi first book published. He kept
a very low profile by not disclosing his identity while he worked in the
hospital. Ray Monk has thus quoted in this regard “The whole world,” “shared Wittgenstein’s madness of 1914.” Having
struggled with logic in solitude for several years on the unpublished Logik
(Notes on Logic) and battling with bouts of suicidal depression, he volunteered
to go to war.[7]
Though, he abandoned philosophy having thought that he has solved all the
problems of philosophy through Tractatus
and engaged himself in gardening. He kept himself away from all the glitters
and shine till the time he reread Tractatus
after ten years and thought that his philosophy was dogmatic and then he
started working again and came with the Philosophical
Investigation; it was a correction of
the dogmatism with a different approach of solving the problems that he had
posed in the Tractaus.[8]
Wittgenstein’s life as a whole was a very controversial one; from his
professional to personal life all were full of controversies. His sexual
orientation was ambiguous, although he was probably a gay.[9] He
was also claimed to be a frustrated soul because there were stories that he
beats his school children for not doing mathematics correctly.[10]
Keeping the pessimistic side away we can deduce that he was too much dedicated
into his work. And that’s how we can also figure out that how he would have
managed the time to write one of the finest and original works of philosophy; Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus ─book
that would influence philosophy for the rest of the century; he appears to be a
selfless person as well because when he returned, he felt the necessity, or
found the courage, to give up every cent of his family fortune.[11] A
kind of self acceptance can also be seen in him as a person while no
philosopher would ever considered his own work as dogmatic or nonsense, he
ended up highlighting his own mistake that he had committed in the Tractatus through Philosophical Investigations.
The style of his
writing in the Tractatus is
remarkable; he wrote short propositions and elucidated them wherever he felt
the necessity. His last proposition culminates this style “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”[12]
With the finality of this proposition, Wittgenstein felt he had said all
that could be said about philosophy. He left the city to pursue a life as an
elementary school teacher in rural Austria.[13]
Ray Monk writes about Wittgenstein that “in that final line of the Tractatus, the philosopher had cut out
his own work for the future: If logic could not be explained in words, than the
Tractatus itself had no point in
being written.”[14] Wittgenstein’s
philosophy was radically original; this originality was constituted by his
life’s experiences and his way of living his life per say.
Continuity
of ideas from Tractatus to Philosophical Investigations and Wittgenstein’s Antiphilosophy
Philosophy, for him,
was a process in which his thoughts were constantly being revised, and discussions
were essential in the development and expression of those thoughts. He tried to
get the reader to think differently, and to grasp the preconceptions under
which ideas are framed and expressed, rather than to change the reader’s mind
on a given topic. Wittgenstein writes:
What makes a subject hard to understand
— if it’s something significant and important — is not that before you can
understand it you need to be specially trained in abstruse matters, but the
contrast between understanding the subject and what most people want to see.
Because of this the very things which are most obvious become the hardest of
all to understand. What has to be overcome is a difficulty having to do with
the will, rather than the intellect.[15]
“Wittgenstein possessed
one of the most acute philosophical minds of the 20th century”.[16]
Wittgenstein is considered to be Antiphilosophy by philosophers like Paul
Horwich[17]
and Alain Badiou[18].
Wittgenstein’s rejection of metaphysics or his metaphilosophy[19]
stance has been called antiphilosophy. Wittgenstein is against metaphysics in
the sense that he says the task of philosophy is to ‘show’ the reality as it
is, but philosophy as it is done traditionally propounds theories and ‘say’
things. Wittgenstein is very clear about ‘saying’ and ‘showing’; he says that
the task of philosophy is to ‘show’ and not to ‘say’. The philosopher’s task is
to elucidate and not to describe. As he says that:
My propositions serve as elucidations in
the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognises them as
nonsensical, when he has used them─ as steps─ to climb up beyond them. (He
must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.)[20]
One who understands
me... recognises them as nonsensical, he is trying to make a point very clear
that philosophy seeks to elucidate reality as it is and you have grasped it
with the help of the propositions the proposition itself becomes arbitrary what
remains useful is the meaning of the proposition. Philosophy
can only be understood as a conceptual or logical investigation in
Wittgenstein’s sense insofar as it concerns something we already know. That is,
only if logic or language ‘takes care of itself’ can philosophy be understood
as clarification, i.e. as not being in the business of informing us about
anything, for example, prescribing what we can or cannot say. Thus, the idea of
philosophy as helping us to grasp more clearly what we already knew remains
equally central to Wittgenstein’s later as it was to his early philosophy.[21] But
in order to grasp the correct notion of his philosophy he suggests the reader
in the preface to the Philosophical
Investigations:
...the
latter could be seen in the right light only by contrast with and against the
background of my old way of thinking.[22]
Presumably, this is so because the later work
develops further certain ideas that were present already in the Tractatus or the thoughts expressed in
the later work are in continuation with his early work. On the other hand, to
the extent that Wittgenstein in his later work moves beyond the Tractatus, the later thoughts can ‘be
seen in the right light only by contrast with’ his early thought.[23] A
key aspiration of this paper is to maintain a balance between these two aspects
of the relation of Wittgenstein’s later work to his early work. I shall present
the later Wittgenstein as developing a deeper understanding of certain central
insights of his early philosophy which then, transformed, continue to be
equally central to his later work. Thus, the relation of the later Wittgenstein
to his early philosophy is at the same time appreciative and critical.[24]
While the early work, according to him, contains something ‘good and original’
it has some flaws in it as he wrote in the preface to Philosophical Investigations
“I have been forced to recognise grave mistakes in what I wrote in that first
book”.[25]
However both and Early and Later philosophy shares same aim and seeks to
dissolve all the problems of philosophy. The idea that ‘philosophical problems
arise out of misunderstanding of logic of language is the foundation of Tractatus also appears in Philosophical Investigations:
The
problems arising through a misinterpretation of our forms of language have the
character of depth. They are deep disquietudes; their roots are as deep in us
as the form of our language and their significance is as great as the
importance of our language.[26]
In order to avoid the ambiguity in language
Wittgenstein suggests use of sign language both in Early and Later philosophy. On
a whole Wittgenstein carried his thought from his early work to his later
works. His philosophy is undoubtedly an excellent work and thus holds a strong
position in analytic philosophy, philosophy of language and linguistics.
Wittgenstein’s work is not only marked with originality but it has various
implications such as in the field of Performance studies.[27]
Let us first understand what are Performatives and
how is it related to Wittgenstein’s philosophy or vice a versa.
Wittgenstein’s
philosophy as an explanation of Performatives
In the philosophy of language and speech acts
theory, performatives or performative utterances are sentences which are not
only describing a given reality, but also changing the social reality they are
describing. In his 1955 William James lecture series, which were later
published under the title How to Do
Things with Words, J. L. Austin[28]
argued against a positivist philosophical claim that the utterances always
"describe" or "constate" something and are thus always true
or false. After mentioning several examples of sentences which are not so used,
and not truth-evaluable (among them non-sensical sentences, interrogatives,
directives and "ethical" propositions), he introduces
"performative" sentences as another instance. In order to define
performatives, Austin refers to those sentences which conform to the old
prejudice in that they are used to describe or constate something, and which
thus are true or false; and he calls such sentences "constatives". In
contrast to them, Austin defines "performatives" as follows:
(1)
Performative utterances are not true or false, that is, not truth-evaluable;
instead when something is wrong with them then they are "unhappy",
while if nothing is wrong they are "happy".
(2)
The uttering of a performative is, or is part of, the doing of a certain kind
of action (Austin later deals with them under the name illocutionary acts), the
performance of which, again, would not normally be described as just
"saying" or "describing" something.[29]
Wittgenstein says in the Philosophical
Investigations that language is much more than just a mode of communication.
Language for him is a ‘form of life’[30],
in other words, language is related to the diverse forms of life in which we
participate as human beings living in a society. Language has diversified uses;
likewise it is an explanation of performative utterences. When we read a sign
board near a swimming pool which says ‘do not run’, what does it imply? Can it
be analysed in the terms of truth and falsity? Or the sign ‘do not run’ does
something more powerful? The thought about logic of language in Wittgenstein’s
philosophy says that language does something more powerful in this context to
which Austin holds exactly same views. ‘Do not run’ written on the sign board
is stopping people from running and thus it is taking care of the safety issues
of them. The sign is a constative in this case as Austin explains and this
sentence is neither true nor false but it a command. Wittgenstein holds the
same position as far as language is concerned he says that some sentences are
true or false but some sentences are neither true nor false but they have a
meaning in fact a stronger meaning attached to them. In our everyday life we
make use thousand of performatives which reflects our way of life as
Wittgenstein has mentioned ‘form of life’. For example sentences like ‘ a
stitch in time saves nine’, ‘where there is a will there is way’, ‘ a friend in
need is a friend indeed’, etc. These are a few sentence that we often come
across, they play very important role in our lives than merely communicating a
message. As a performative utterance these sentences can be teachings,
commands, inspirations, etc for our life time. Another example of performatives
can be ‘phrases’. Two words joined together for example ‘crystal-clear’ gives a
more powerful meaning than the word ‘clear’ would have given. Thus Wittgenstein
proclaims that language is not one uniform thing, defined in terms of a single essence
or universal logical structure. Instead, it is a host of different activities,
as we use language to do many things in life. Another stance of Performativity
or performative utterences can be found in simile of games or language games.[31]
The concept of language-games is introduced in order to account for the
multiplicity of uses and the relationship with the different contexts of their
uses likewise performative have varied uses in our lives.
Conclusion
In essence, Wittgenstein’s philosophy is closely
related to J.L. Austin in terms of integrating language and to Judith Butler’s
performativity in gender[32]
also people’s everyday lives such performativity can be seen in a person who is
a father and acts like a father, or acts according to the notion of a father
which he would have learned since his child hood or may he is trying to act
like his own father. This behaviour can be inevitable in man’s nature or can be
intentional. Intentional performativity can be referred to the role played by
an actor in the theatre or in a movie. Interestingly, his philosophy becomes an
explanantion of performativity. He delved into the nuances of the way in which
the society defines the specific roles individuals play in their day-to-day lives
and how they make use of language to define their roles to each other and to
society. These views were exemplified in his earlier work Tractatus and later got articulated in Philosophical Investigations. Refuting the traditional
philosophers, he emphatically argued in his writings about ‘wrong use of language’
as a source of philosophical confusion. Arguing against metaphysics, he opined
that philosophers make a big mistake of abstracting language from its contexts in
the process of understanding the essence of things; metaphysicians go on to
propound theories which should not be their task. Thus, in Wittgenstein’s works
there was an attempt at the dissolution of the philosophical problems by
putting an end to the trajectory of theorising. His life undoubtedly played a
major role to shape up his thoughts which we read as his two profound works, he
however led a life somewhat close to a loner or maybe he was a loner. James C. Klagges in fact considers him ‘philosopher in exile’.[33]
Never the less we might
conclude that Wittgenstein did not want to do away with philosophy so much as
he wanted to reinvent it.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books:
Ø Anscombe, G. E. M., Von, Wright, G. H.
(eds.), Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, Vol-1, Oxford: Blackwell,
1980.
Ø Badiou, A. Wittgenstein’s
Antiphilosophy, Verso, London, 2009.
Ø Cook, J. Wittgenstein’s Metaphysics, Cambridge, 1994.
Ø Lackey, D. What Are the Modern Classics? The Baruch Poll of Great Philosophy in
the Twentieth Century, Philosophical Forum, 1999.
Ø McGuinness, Brian. Wittgenstein: A Life: Young Ludwig 1889–1921, University of
California Press, 1988
Ø Mcginn. M., Oskari Kuusela, (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein, Oxford
University Press (2011).
Ø Monk, R., How to read Wittgenstein, W.W. Norton & Company, 2005.
Ø Monk, R. The Duty of Genius, Penguine
U.S.A., (11/1/1991).
Ø
Wittgenstein,
Philosophical Investigations, trans.
G.E.M. Anscombe, Basil Blackwell Publisher Ltd., 1958.
Ø Wittgenstein, L., Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, trans. D.F. Pears & McGuinness,
Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1963
Ø Von Wright, G.H. (ed.), Letters to Russell Keynes and Moore, Ithaca,
Cornell University Press, 1974.
Ø Black, Max, A Companion to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1964.
Ø Wittgenstein. L., Preliminary Studies for the “Philosophical Investigations”, Oxford,
Basil Blackwell, 1958.
Articles:
Ø Dennett, Daniel, ‘Ludwig Wittgenstein:
Philosopher Time 100: Scientists and Thinkers issue’, Time Magazine, 29
November 2011.
Ø Nellickappilly. Sreekumar, ‘Aspects of
western Philosophy, Wittgenstein: language games and forms of life’, 2010.
Further Readings:
Ø http//:plato.stanford.edu/entries/Wittgenstein
Ø http://www.iep.utm.edu/wittgens/.
Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy
Ø http//:uea.ac.uk/polopoly
Ø http://www.iep.utm.edu/wittgenstein
Ø International
Journal of Philosophical Studies, vol. 14(1).
http//:tandf.co.uk/journals
Ø Proops.
I. ‘The New Wittgenstein: A Critique’,
http://philosophy.uchicago.edu, accessed on 11/30/14
Ø
Trenton
A. Jerde, ‘The Alien Wittgenstein: A Review of James C. Klagge’s Wittgenstein
in Exile’, Cognitive Critique, Vol 5, New York, June 19, 2012.
Ø Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Stanford Of
Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, Spring 2014 Edition.
[3] Lackey, D. What Are the
Modern Classics, ‘The Baruch Poll of Great Philosophy in the Twentieth
Century’, Philosophical Forum. 1999,
30 (4).
[4] McGuinness, Brian. Wittgenstein:
A Life : Young Ludwig 1889–1921. University of California Press, 1988, p.
118.
[5] "Ludwig Wittgenstein", The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), www.plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/wittgenstein/
accessed on 11/30/2014.
[6] Proops. I. ‘The New
Wittgenstein: A Critique’, http://philosophy.uchicago.edu, accessed on 11/30/14.
[11]Monk, R. The
Duty of Genius, Penguine U.S.A., (11/1/1991), p. 17.
[12] Monk, R. The Duty of Genius, Penguine U.S.A.,
(11/1/1991), p. 17. The actual quotation appears in Wittgenstein, 7, L., Tractatus Logico Philosophicus , trans.
D.F. Pears & McGuinness, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1963, p. 151.
[15] Quoted in Trenton A. Jerde, ‘The Alien Wittgenstein: A Review of
James C. Klagge’s Wittgenstein in Exile’, Cognitive Critique, Vol 5, New York,
June 19, 2012, p. 119.
[17] http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com Paul Horwich, ‘Was Wittgenstein Right?’, The
New York Times, accessed on 11/30/2014. Paul Horwich (born 1947) is a British
analytic philosopher at New York University, whose work includes writings on
causality, the philosophy of language (especially truth, and meaning) and
Wittgenstein's later philosophy.
[18] Badiou, A., Wittgenstein’s Antiphilosophy, Verso,
London (2009). Antiphilosophy has been
used as a denigrating word but recently it has acquired more positive
connotations as an opposition to more traditional philosophy. The views of
Ludwig Wittgenstein, specifically his metaphilosophy, could be said to be
antiphilosophy. Alien Badiou is a French Philosopher has also written about the
concept of Being, Truth and the Subject in a way that he claims is, neither
Postmodern nor simply a repetition of Modernity.
[19] Metaphilosophy is ‘the investigation of the nature of philosophy’
or philosophy of philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu , accessed on 11/30/2014.
[20] Wittgenstein, 6.54,
L., Tractatus Logico Philosophicus ,
trans. D.F. Pears & McGuinness, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1963, p.
151.
[21]Mcginn. M. The
Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein, edt. Oskari Kuusela, Oxford University
Press (2011), ch. 26, pp. 604-606.
[22] Wittgenstein. L, Philosophical Investigations, trans.
G.E.M. Anscombe, Basil Blackwell Publisher Ltd., 1958, preface.
[23] Mcginn. M. The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein, edt.
Oskari Kuusela, Oxford University Press (2011), ch. 26, pp. 598-606.
[24]Ibid.
[26] Wittgenstein, L., 111,
Philosophical Investigations, trans.
G.E.M. Anscombe, Basil Blackwell Publisher Ltd., 1958, p. 47.
[27] Performance studies is the academic field concerned with the study
of performance in any of its various forms. The term 'performance' is broad,
and can include artistic and aesthetic performances like concerts, theatrical
events, and performance art; sporting events; social, political and religious
events like rituals, ceremonies, proclamations and public decisions; certain
kinds of language use; and those components of identity which require someone
to do, rather than just be, something. Consequently, performance studies is
interdisciplinary, drawing from theories of the performing arts, anthropology
and sociology, literary theory, and legal studies.
[28] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/austin-john/
accessed on 1/12/2014. John Langshaw J. L. Austin (26 March 1911 – 8 February
1960) was a British philosopher of language. He is remembered primarily as the
developer of the theory of speech acts. How
to Do Things With Words is perhaps Austin's most influential work.
[30] Wittgenstein, L. 19, Philosophical Investigations, trans.
G.E.M. Anscombe, Basil Blackwell Publisher Ltd., 1958, p. 8e.
[31] Wittgenstein, L. 243, Philosophical Investigations, G.E.M.
Anscombe, Basil Blackwell Publisher Ltd., 1958, p. 7.
[33] Quoted in Trenton A. Jerde, ‘The Alien Wittgenstein: A Review of
James C. Klagge’s Wittgenstein in Exile’, Cognitive Critique, Vol 5, New York,
June 19, 2012, p. 119.
No comments:
Post a Comment