Wittgenstein on Mind and Language

by David G. Stern

Drawing on ten years of research on the unpublished Wittgenstein papers, Stern investigates what motivated Wittgenstein's philosophical writing and casts new light on the Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations . The book is an exposition of Wittgenstein's early conception of the nature of representation and how his later revision and criticism of that work led to a radically different way of looking at mind and language. It also explains how the unpublished manuscripts and typescripts were put together and why they often provide better evidence of the development of his ideas than can be found in his published writing. In doing so, the book traces the development of a number of central themes in Wittgenstein's philosophy, including his conception of philosophical method, the picture theory of meaning, the limits of language, the application of language to experience, his treatment of private language, and what he called the "flow of life." Arguing that Wittgenstein's views are
often much more simple (and more radical) than we have been led to believe, Wittgenstein on Mind and Language provides an overview of the development of Wittgenstein's philosophy and brings to light aspects of his philosophy that have been almost universally neglected.

Genres: Philosophy

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Searnold · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the "Philosophical Investigations", Wittgenstein writes, "We feel as if we had to penetrate phenomena...". (PI#90) Here the "late" Wittgenstein confesses to the "early" Wittgenstein's mistaken want, perhaps a lust, for a logically pure language. That is a language that banned misunderstanding; and, one that ounce freed from its ordinarily tensed moorings could penetrate and hence truly articulate what is seen in the timeless phenomena of the "Present" or the zone of "immediate experience". Although the zone (typically referred to as being consciousness) is a visible space, it is nevertheless without dimensions (dimensions after all exist only in the empirical world and are not applicable to the phenomena experienced in the zone); additionally the pure language of the zone forbids the use of pronouns. This means that there are neither "subjects" (meaning "I"s) in the zone to see, nor can that non-subject in the zone claim to "have" what it sees; nevertheless, all that that non-subject sees does inform against... "it"(?). In short and expressed in the misleading words of ordinary language, all phenomena experienced in the "Present" are about "you" and "you" are the only "subject" that can "know/see" them. Welcome to the world of Cartesian skepticism. Welcome to philosophical solipsism.

In "Wittgenstein on Mind and Language", David Stern details Wittgenstein's ultimate abandonment of his quest for an ideal language and his rejection of the "private language" that that ideal promotes. Stern accomplishes this task by using the evidence provided in Wittgenstein's war time notes, letters, the remembered conversation reported by his students and his writes and re-writes and cuts and pastes that inform works such as the "Philosophical Remarks", the proto- "Philosophical Investigations" and more. Although this book quietly stood un-read for 12 years in the row of other works of secondary literature on Wittgenstein before one had the courage to read it, one understands that delay now as a useful preparation for reading it. For upon reading it one experienced time and again those happy, "Ah, ha" moments when one plainly sees what was always plainly before one, but hadn't noticed. One such moment occurred while reading Wittgenstein's complaint about "penetrating phenomena"(PI #90). In that instant the meaning, the view of that bit, and many other bits, of the "Philosophical Investigations" became clear.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

AN INTERPRETATION THAT GOES BEYOND THE "MAJOR" PUBLISHED WORKS

David Stern is a professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa; he has also written Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations: An Introduction.

He wrote in the Introduction to this 1995 book, "This book is an exposition of Wittgenstein's early conception of the nature of representation and how his later revision and criticism of that work led to a radically different way of looking at mind and language. Most interpretations of the development of Wittgenstein's philosophy focus on the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus... the Philosophical Investigations... and the literature that has grown up around these books. In contrast, my reading of his philosophy of mind and language begins from the initial articulation of his thoughts in his first drafts, conversations, and lectures and the process of revision that led to the published works."

He points out, "Wittgenstein developed the philosophical implications of the picture theory as the basis for a theory about all meaningful discourse, drawing not on physics, but on Frege's and Russell's pioneering work in formal logic and the foundations of mathematics. In fact, Russell's lectures on logical atomism, delivered in 1918, but based on ideas he had learned from Wittgenstein in 1913-1914, make it clear that they had already discussed such a view about the nature of language before they were separated by the war." (Pg. 37)

He states, "The `cardinal problem of philosophy' is the question of the limits and nature of language, the question of what, in general, can be said, and what can only be shown. In the Preface to the Tractatus, Wittgenstein expressed his belief that he had arrived at the definitive `final solution' to the problems of philosophy. That confidence was based on his conviction that the book makes clear the limits of language by sharply demarcating what can be said---namely, factual assertion---and placing all philosophical theses about such matters as the nature of self and world, aesthetics, morality, or religion on the other side of the limit.

"The demarcation depends on a conception of language and logic that is not so much defended as presented in the text of the Tractatus, where Wittgenstein aims at an insight the lies beyond assertion, argument, or theory formation. For that reason, my exposition of the Tractatus begins with a discussion of crucial role of insight in the picture theory." (Pg. 70)

He notes, "he also spoke of `phenomenological language' in a looser sense, meaning by it any way of talking about the content of experience, and, in this sense of het term, he holds that a phenomenological language is possible but not necessary. Giving up the goal of a phenomenological language in the narrow sense meant giving up the goal of constructing an artificial philosophical language that would be capable of fully clarifying the structure of present experience, in favor of a study of the structure of the language we ordinarily speak.

"But this new project still included a study of phenomenological language in the looser sense of the term: a study of how we actually talk about experience, and how we might be misled into misunderstanding that talk. So, in this sense, Wittgenstein still thought of himself as making use of `perspicuous language' to describe experience. Thus, even after he rejected the goal of a single phenomenological language, he was still prepared to speak of himself, in a sense, as constructing phenomenological language." (Pg. 137)

This book will be of great interest to anyone studying Wittgenstein, and the development of his thought.