Abstract
In recent years, philosophers have used expressions of Wittgenstein’s (e.g., ‘language-games,’ ‘form of life,’ and ‘family resemblance’) in attempts to conceive of the discipline of philosophy in a broad, open, and perhaps global way. These Wittgenstein-inspired approaches indicate an awareness of the importance of cultural and historical diversity for approaching philosophical questions. While some philosophers have taken inspiration from Wittgenstein in embracing contextualism in philosophical hermeneutics, Wittgenstein himself was more instrumental than contextual in his treatment of other philosophers; his focus in his writings was on his own philosophical problems. Does this mean that Wittgensteinian philosophy is a poor resource after all for comparative, cross-cultural, or globally engaged philosophy (i.e., if it is properly Wittgensteinian)? In this article, I examine the relevance of Wittgenstein to contextually sensitive philosophy through studies of his conceptions of history and culture, his interest in Spengler’s philosophy of history, and recent scholarship by Hans-Johann Glock and Hans Sluga on the place of contextualism in Wittgenstein’s analysis of philosophical problems. Ultimately, this article advances the view that there are strong resources in Wittgenstein’s philosophy for those seeking a more globally engaged approach to the field.
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Notes
For the purpose of this article, I refer to ‘comparative,’ ‘cross-cultural,’ and ‘globally engaged’ philosophy roughly interchangeably. Globally engaged philosophy will at times be both comparative and cross-cultural; comparative philosophy is also cross-cultural and may be globally engaged. Cross-cultural philosophy should be open to the broad family of philosophical traditions (hence, globally engaged). Throughout the article, I will alternate among the expressions; but at all times, one might imagine the three together.
On this, see Sluga 1998; Sluga 2013; and Glock 2006. Wittgenstein was interested in other thinkers because they helped him think through his own problems; this is particularly visible with respect to his use of Plato (Perissinotto 2013 and Kienzler 2013), especially in connection with distinguishing what he was doing as philosophy from what Plato did (Perissinotto 2013, 49). Wittgenstein gravitated to thinkers with whom he shared a sense of ethical seriousness or sincerity (e.g., Augustine and Kierkegaard). M. F. Burnyeat argues that Wittgenstein may well have known that Augustine’s considered views on language and naming bore resemblances to Wittgenstein’s and thus that Wittgenstein may have seen a resemblance between his own philosophical project and that of Augustine (Burnyeat 1987, 24). Wittgenstein found Augustine useful for thinking through aspects of the phenomenology of the will (Richter 2018) while he also found Kierkegaard helpful for considering his own views on Christianity and the overarching ethical dynamics of his own approach to philosophy (Schönbaumsfeld 2007). While Wittgenstein did not write about other philosophers in a contextually sensitive way, he did gesture towards it in some writings—especially to counter shallow interpretations of temporally or culturally distant cultural practices (and, perhaps, thinkers); this is seen most strongly in the “Remarks of Frazer’s Golden Bough” (Wittgenstein 1993).
John Clayton demurred at points in mentioning Wittgenstein’s name in his cross-cultural philosophy of religion (Clayton 2006, 3).
Wittgenstein’s references to Augustine to Philosophical Investigations are not exegetical and problematize Augustine’s words, and this has led some interpreters to conclude that Wittgenstein was not sympathetic to Augustine’s philosophical aims (despite Wittgenstein’s evident admiration for him). Cavell, for example, writes that Wittgenstein finds Augustine’s account of learning to speak “important but unsatisfactory” (Cavell 1966, 183). Philosophical Investigations is frequently read as depicting Augustine as a foil against which Wittgenstein develops his own view of language (i.e., the “use theory” of meaning over against the “picture theory” of meaning). Yet, some readers of Wittgenstein have challenged this view and offered a more nuanced reading of the Augustine quotation and its role in Philosophical Investigations. For example, David G. Stern writes (of Warren Goldfarb’s reading of the Augustine passages): “[T]he aim of these opening words is not to show us that Augustine’s conception of language is wrong and Wittgenstein’s right, but to throw us off balance, and so get us to see the unclarity of the very idea of what it is to have a conception of language, that the same words can be understood in both a commonplace and a philosophical way…For Augustine’s words can also be read as intimating a number of different conceptions of how language works, conceptions that can provide a starting point for philosophical theorizing about language and meaning.” (Stern 2002, 436)
Consider also remark 77 from Remarks on the Foundation of Mathematics, qtd. in Winch (1964: 314).
In a remark from 1931, Wittgenstein lists a number of figures who have influenced him. Spengler is there alongside physicists like Ludwig Boltzmann and Heinrich Hertz and fellow philosophers Bertrand Russell and Gottlob Frege (Wittgenstein 1998b, 16).
Clack writes, ‘Wittgenstein’s transformation of philosophy into a method for destroying metaphysics seems, then, to have been enacted on Spenglerian advice. And if Wittgenstein’s view of the nature of philosophy was dictated by his reading of Spengler, then it is not unlikely that he would have been of the opinion that religion too is at the mercy of culture’s decline, and that faith was no longer a living option in “the darkness of this time,” a time in which science dominates and sends our wondering spirit to sleep’ (Clack 1999, 129). For more on the notion of ‘decline’ in Wittgenstein’s philosophy, see Cavell 1989, Clack 1999, and DeAngelis 2007.
An interpretive puzzle thus arises when considering Spengler’s use of the word “evolution” and its variants. Spengler sometimes criticizes “evolution” (likely with a law-like theory in mind), but elsewhere writes of the growth inherent to cultural life as involving “evolution”. Perhaps the latter expressions are presented as alternatives to conceiving of a culture as inherently possessing a particular trait or nature selecting on behalf of the culture for that trait—as if to avoid both essentialism and the nature-centered (natural law) teleology. These references display a complex stance with respect to language and theories of change over time. Perhaps they also reflect the multivalence of terms relating to “evolution” and “Darwinism” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.(c.f. Richards 1992)
Related to this point, consider Kevin Cahill on Wittgenstein’s critical reception of Spengler (in connection with Rudolf Haller): “As Haller also makes clear, Wittgenstein not only appropriates aspects of Spengler’s method, ‘He reproaches Spengler for repeatedly making the mistake of extending the scope of statements true of the archetype of contemplation to the objects of contemplation.’ (Haller 1988, p. 84) This idea is particularly significant for what we might want to call the later Wittgenstein’s ‘descriptive morphology’ of language games. What this means is that for Wittgenstein, when we let something function as a prototype (Urbild) or paradigm (Paradigma) for a language game, then statements about the prototype are not ordinary assertions, but rather grammatical remarks that present to us the form of our discussion.” (Cahill 2001)
Consider here Wittgenstein’s response to Norman Malcolm regarding a supposed British plot to assassinate Hitler, which Malcom remarked was against Britain’s ‘national character.’ Malcolm records that ‘My remark made Wittgenstein extremely angry. He considered it to be a great stupidity and also an indication that I was not learning anything from the philosophical training that he was trying to give me.’ (Malcolm 2001, 30)
Xiaomei Yang (2008) explores the history of debates over the religion-status of Confucianism from the Rites Controversy between Catholic missionaries and the Chinese Imperial court in the 17th and 18th centuries, to the State Religion Controversy in the late nineteenth century, to twentieth century debates over whether Confucianism is a secular philosophy or a religious (or potentially religious) aspect of traditional Chinese societies that runs counter to goals of Chinese Marxist philosophy. Anna Sun (2013) investigates further the history of classifications of Confucianism, both among Chinese and international scholars. One takeaway from these studies is the critical relevance of the different concepts of religion and religiosity in play as well as the legacy of Western imperial ambitions in East Asia on what may be at stake within classifications of Confucianism.
I encounter this sort of strong historicism frequently among students in China.
In relation to Wittgenstein’s ‘Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough,’ Burley writes, ‘Wittgenstein’s point is not that our understanding of a ritual cannot be enhanced by further contextual information; on the contrary, adding contextual layers is exactly what thick description involves. The point, rather, is to draw a distinction between description and explanation: to urge caution about assuming that what understanding a ritual consists in must be the crafting of an explanatory account, perhaps couched in terms of what the ritual participants intend to achieve. At least in many instances, Wittgenstein is suggesting such purported explanations may in fact deflect our attention from what is most significant in the ritual, leading us to characterize what is going on in unduly intellectualized terms, as seeking to fulfill an instrumental goal that is external to the ritual itself.’ (2018, 13)
Brent Nongbri (2013) examines the local uses of terms (e.g., ‘religio,’ ‘thrēskeia,’ and ‘dīn’) found in ancient texts that are frequently translated today as ‘religion,’ arguing that it is misleading to project back in time the modern concept of a religion into the ancient texts. Nongbri writes, ‘The very idea of “being religious” requires a companion notion of what it would mean to be “not religious,” and this dichotomy was not part of the ancient world. To be sure, ancient people had words to describe proper reverence to the gods, but these terms were not what modern people would describe as strictly “religious”’ (Nongbri 2013, 4). For more on challenges to clarity when it comes to use of the term religion, see also Harrison 2006 and Schilbrack 2014.
This topic invites numerous interpretations, and whether, for example, perspicuous representations are thought of as elucidatory or therapeutic could have significant implications for Wittgenstein’s relevance to comparative philosophy. Either or both approaches might well have their helpful uses in comparative philosophy. For the purposes of this article, I set aside this issue. See, for example, Baker 2004, Hutchison and Read 2008, and Martin 2016.
The vast majority of students I have taught in China strongly reject any idea of Confucianism being a religion. That there are Chinese academic works on the topic comes as a surprise.
See Defoort 2001.
See Nylan 2016.
See Sato 2003.
Kwame Anthony Appiah writes, ‘The problem of cross-cultural communication can seem immensely difficult in theory, when we are trying to imagine making sense of a stranger in the abstract. But the great lesson of anthropology is that when the stranger is no longer imaginary, but real and present, sharing a human social life, you may like or dislike him, you may agree or disagree; but, if it is what you both want, you can make sense of each other in the end’ (Appiah 2006, pp. 88–9).
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Carroll, T.D. ‘Grasping the Difficulty in its Depth’: Wittgenstein and Globally Engaged Philosophy. SOPHIA 60, 1–18 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-019-00742-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-019-00742-y