Wittgenstein and Gadamer : towards a post-analytic philosophy of language

180 Pages·2006·9.14 MB·English

by  Lawn

Wittgenstein and Gadamer
Forthcoming from Continuum:
Deconstruction and Democracy, Alex Thomson (Continuum Studies in
Continental Philosophy)
Hegel and Critical Theory, Alex Thomson (Continuum Studies in
German Philosophy)
Wittgenstein and
Gadamer
Towards a post-analytic
philosophy of language
Chris Lawn
Continuum Studies in German Philosophy
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© Chris Lawn 2004
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ISBN: 978 0 826 49377 4
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Contents
Preface vii
Abbreviations x
Introduction xi
1 The Nature of Language: Two Philosophical Traditions 1
2 Gadamer and Wittgenstein: Contrasts and Commonalities 19
3 Gadamer9s Philosophical Hermeneutics and the Ontology of
Language 41
4 Wittgenstein and the Logics of Language 65
5 (What has history to do with me?': Language and I as Historicality 89
6 A Competition of Interpretations: Wittgenstein and Gadamer
Read Augustine 106
7 Ordinary and Extraordinary Language: the Hermeneutics of the
Poetic Word 125
Conclusion 150
Bibliography 153
Index 160
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Preface
For many years now the thought that the later writings of Wittgenstein have
received far too restrictive a treatment by analytic philosophers has haunted
me. Countless excellent studies find their way into print but I felt, and I see
little recent evidence to persuade me otherwise, the focus of attention is fre-
quently sharp but excessively narrow and restricted to the analytic idiom. At
bottom my reservations about much recent exegetical work stems from antip-
athy to the treatment of the Philosophical Investigations, and the other post-
humous writings, as though they exclusively address issues in the analytic
tradition and, further, are best interrogated in the same style. The issues per-
vading much modern Anglophone philosophy spring from a basic interest in
philosophy of mind and a desire to locate all philosophical themes, including
that of language, within its limited purview. In his later writings, Wittgen-
stein, if anything sought to move well away from this now familiar terrain, as
his work became progressively broader and more obviously defined by the
cultural and social practices undergirding language-games. Admittedly much
of the later work illuminates aspects of mind, but throughout the primary
concern is the way we talk about these things, and further, it is always within
the context of the practices and ceremonies we daily enact within the munda-
nities of everyday life. The motif of language, explorations in the uses and
misuses of words, and language's capacity to infiltrate, illuminate, and fre-
quently mislead every aspect of our social lives seem to me to be the key
issues treated with great urgency in the later writings. To read the Philoso-
phical Investigations as a narrow forensic exploration of mental concepts
misses the enormous richness of this and subsequently published works.
Whether Wittgenstein focuses on minds, souls, or duck-rabbits he constantly
attests to the inventiveness of language and the central part it plays in the
various forms of life.
I get a strong sense of the later work as a laboratory of experimentation in
ideas, styles of writing and approaches to the familiar and the unfamiliar.
Throughout this work we witness an attempt to escape the rigidity and form-
alism of the early work of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, a struggle to
viii Wittgenstein and Gadamer
free up language and see it in its broadest light, in its inventiveness, its
endless diversity. What is daring and bold - and occasionally misguided - on
the actuality of language is often tamed and neutralized by reducing his work
to a sequence of arguments about other minds and private languages.
The omnipresence of the written and spoken word, the extent to which we
are totally immersed in linguisticality, is a key feature of the later Wittgen-
stein. This thought came back to me with increased intensity when I worked
on Hans-Georg Gadamer for my MA thesis. I began to read Gadamer
because he addressed, in interesting ways, concerns I had about the history of
philosophy and how a coherent historiographical narrative could be con-
structed. The question of historicality always seemed to me to be inade-
quately explored in Wittgenstein whereas it takes centre stage in Gadamer's
philosophical hermeneutics. On general questions of the nature of language
Gadamer seemed to be working the same street as Wittgenstein, and yet his
explorations of the historical, or rather temporal, dimension to communica-
tion exposed a blind spot to history one senses in Wittgenstein. For all his
widening of the domain within which ordinary language is encountered this
failure to reckon with the historical is a glaring lacuna.
Beyond a general failure to confront questions of history and temporality
there is a problem about linking up Wittgenstein to the body of work called
the history of philosophy. Reading the philosophical canon as a dialogical
narrative, as one does with Gadamer, is intriguing and the history of philoso-
phy started to make sense for me in a way it never seemed to when seen as
the doxographical gallery of heroes (and villains) presented in the analytic
history of philosophy. The move from historiography to a more wilful
concern for language was easy. The more Gadamer I read the more I came to
see, especially when I struggled with the neglected last third of Truth and
Method, how central linguisticality is in his work. This started me thinking
about a possible comparison with Wittgenstein.
The suggestion of a comparison is not initially promising. Gadamer's 'Hei-
degger ianism with a human face', to coin a phrase, reaches back into a philo-
sophical and philological tradition quite alien to Wittgenstein's analytic and
intuitive but deeply original approach to philosophical thought. And there is
not only the difference in academic background and approach there is also
the astonishing contrast in style. Gadamer's scholarly academic prose,
studded with endless references to ancient and modern learning, is nothing
like the snippets of ordinary language, the brief and frequently enigmatic and
disjointed remarks of Wittgenstein's later writing. Yet there is much that
brings them together - not to speak with one voice but to show, in their
various ways, how everything participates in linguisticality.
This study started out life as a doctoral thesis for the National University
Preface ix
of Ireland (University College, Dublin). Various people read bits of it at
various times and their helpful assistance should not pass unrecorded.
Richard Kearney was a constant source of support and encouragement. I also
want to thank Andrew Bowie, Bruce Krajewski, Anthony Harrison-Barbet,
John Hayes, Colin Dibben, Niall Keane, Mary Fox, and Tim Mooney for
their critical but constructive comments on sections of this work. It goes
without saying that whatever infelicities and misjudgements the book con-
tains are entirely my own.
Special thanks are due to the patience of the staff at the Jesuit Library,
Milltown Institute, Dublin, and the quiet efficiency of Phyllis Conran at the
Mary Immaculate Library in Limerick.
This work would never have seen the light of day had it not been for the
sustaining friendship and forbearance of Margaret Allen.
Parts of Chapters 5 and 7 appeared as articles in Philosophy and Social Cri-
ticism and Philosophy and Literature.
Chris Lawn, Desert Cross, Enniskeane, County Cork, Ireland
March 2004