Kadin Nguyen > Recent Status Updates

Worked my way through rather drab sections on Loos, Schönberg, Hofmannsthal, and Musil, the “cultural critics” of fin de siècle Vienna. Then, Janik and Toulmin presumably begin to trace the origin of concerns about language, ethics, and the metaphysical (as it relates to science) up to Wittgenstein. They begin with Mauthner, then Mach, Hertz, Boltzmann, the critical philosophy of Kant, and next Schopenhauer.

Decided to skip Ch. 7 by Cora Diamond as well, but I will definitely be returning to her work in the future. I will most likely read Ch. 8 by Stanley Cavell.

Skipped: Ch. 5 by Steven Gerrard and Ch. 6 by Hans-Johann Glock. Neither caught my fancy. Going to try out Ch. 7 by Cora Diamond.

Read Ch. 4 by David G. Stern—basically a meta-commentary on how the “middle period” of Wittgenstein should be interpreted. He presents the case of Robert Fogelin using something W said in the Nachlass during this middle period to work at the problem of intentionality in rule-following in the later PI, and whether this is an accepted move or not.

Skipped: Ch. 2 by Thomas Ricketts
Read: Ch. 3 by Kevin Cahill
I intend to read Ch. 4 on the “Middle Wittgenstein” by David G. Stern.

Read the first essay by Robert Fogelin that talks about certain problems in the PI related to names, rules, and language-games. There’s nothing over-arching in nature to really give me much satisfaction to have read it. Fogelin’s main goal is to show that Wittgenstein was thoroughly anti-referentialist which leads to the problems of language prodded at through language-games.

I truly underestimated how much emphasis is placed on Wittgenstein’s influences instead of how it influenced the man himself. It’s strange because I don’t yet see how the history of fin de siècle Vienna, the satirist Karl Kraus, or the Austrian secession influenced Wittgenstein’s thought. I must have underestimated the aim of this book then, but I’ll read on.

Introduction is very good. Didn’t contain much that I didn’t already know but Sluga puts heavy emphasis on historicism as it relates to a reason go Wittgenstein without spouting his own doctrine. Looking forward to reading his essay later on in the Companion.