Wittgenstein’s philosophy (or rather both of them – that contained in the Tractatus and that contained in his later writings) is unusual in that it does not set out to give answers to any of the great philosophical questions that drive most people to philosophy (including perhaps even Wittgenstein himself). ”So what?”, you might say. Wittgenstein came to see philosophy as involving a lot of conceptual confusion, so he developed a method to help people avoid confusion. In the process philosophy stops being a search for answers and because a matter of becoming more proficient at understanding how our concepts really work. It stops being grand but empty and becomes modest and practical.
From a philosophical point of view, it is quite reasonable to leave it at that. However, it is interesting to ask what drove Wittgenstein to end up with sort of conception of philosophy. Here we enter the realm of speculation about the personal, and we do of course risk projecting our own concerns onto the person we are talking about. It seems clear that Wittgenstein was a man of great inner turmoil and philosophy certainly seemed to function as an escape for him. He wanted certainty and if the price of that was bracketing out the personal, it was a price he was prepared or even happy to pay. The Tractatus sought to capture what little one could say with certainty only to conclude that this amounted to little (or possibly nothing). The structure, style and tone of the book was (like Wittgenstein’s architecture) stripped of anything personal, and yet there was a sense that the truly important was somehow in there but hidden – therefore we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent. The latter Wittgenstein’s work is not so frighteningly austere, but it involves an approach to philosophy that focusses on what no one could possibly deny. There are no great answers to learn or life-changing insights to grasp. If you only knew the latter Wittgenstein from his writings, this might change the way you think, but unlike any other great philosopher there is no danger (and no hope!) that it will change the way you live. Whether you are an atheist or a devote believer, a hedonist or an altruist, a capitalist or a communist, understanding the private language argument (or anything else Wittgenstein wrote) is not going to have implications for the views that shape your life.
There certainly is a paradox to this, since Wittgenstein was a passionate man and he had very firm beliefs about all sort of things and certainly about how people should behave. And yet his philosophy is neutral. It is as it were a holiday place – somewhere we can (in principle) escape conflict and emotion and doubt and uncertainty and just concentrate on the practical business of resolving confusions and sorting out conceptual relations. Of course, when we have done that, we are left with the real tough aspects of life with which Wittgenstein struggle as most of us do, although perhaps not all with the intensity with which he did. I do not think it makes philosophy the parlour game that Russell claimed it did, since I think it can still be a powerful and necessary tool. But it is not the kind of philosophy that those who are drawn to philosophy have dreamed of. Wittgenstein rightly had full confidence in the power of his intellect, but he had enough humility and self-doubt to hold back from presenting himself as a fount of wisdom. Perhaps appropriately, the restraint is purer and clearer in the later philosophy than in the earlier one 
I don’t know, Paul. It seems to me that Wittgenstein, in a kind of backhanded way, has presented himself in the “Tractatus” as a Sibylline prophet announcing the Gotterdamerung of philosophy, while the later Wittgenstein appears as a guide who can lead us out of the maze of philosophy. To me, his humble view of philosophy seems self-serving: it’s as if he’s the only philosopher in the history of philosophy who has seen what’s really going on. It’s the Socratic humility of “I may not be particularly wise, but I guess I’m wiser than everyone else.”
you have a point
There is certainly lots about Wittgenstein that is far from saint-like and even if he would have hesitated to present himself as a wise man, he certainly did not suffer fools gladly. And like most of us, he no doubt enjoyed telling and showing others they were wrong or feeling that he had seen what others had missed. As one of my daughters might say: Wittgenstein was a man totally lacking in aggression and arrogance, not! But perhaps that shows my error in heading off into the personal as opposed to the conceptual because I am no more comfortable there than Wittgenstein was. It is certainly not my job to judge him as a human being!
Greetings. Blogs looks very nice. I just posted a link to it in Wittgenstein’s Aftermath. See: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html
Hello – interesting site!
I’m not sure I’d agree that Wittgenstein’s philosophy cannot bring about a change in your life. True, it’s not like reading (eg) “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists” – it’s not a call to arms and has nothing substantive to say on vital issues. And yet…. What it does do is take apart the general concepts on which these issues grow, examine them and put them back together again. Everything is left as it was, but at the same time (and in a way which is difficult to describe) our attitude towards those concepts has undergone a change.
Personally, for example, I am extremely wary of bold scientific claims that “contrary to what we’ve always believed, the world is like X” (you can’t get through a TV science documentary without hearing at least one of these statements). Such claims usually mark the point where the scientist has unwittingly moved away from science itself and into the realms of philosophy – frequently with lamentable results.
Moreover, this is one trivial example of a significant “spirit” in our age: what you might call a kind of neo-Positivism. From Richard Dawkins on God, to targets in health care provision, to the basic assumptions about human beings that lurk behind free-market economic theories – it’s a philosophical mindset of tremendous importance in the world today. And most of the people who share it have no idea that they are influenced by philosophy; for them it’s just “obviously true”.
I believe that my antipathy towards this mindset has been massively influenced by my reading of Wittgenstein. He once said that his philosophy was a kind of “propaganda” against the spirit of his age (sorry, I can’t find the quote – it’s in Ray Monk’s biography, I think). I was puzzled when I first read that but I’m increasingly coming to see what he meant.
Anyway, hope you keep the blog up and look forward to further posts.
Finally (with apologies), a bit to spam: I’ve just started my own blog commenting on Wittgenstein’s later philosophy and the Investigations in particular. Any comments/feedback welcome. It’s at: http://lwpi.blogspot.com/
Cheers,
Phil
Many thanks, Philip. I know what you mean and I agree. I was trying to get at the fact that whereas we might expect philosophers to try in some way or other to shed light on the “meaning of life” (or something like that), Wittgenstein is clearly not trying to do that. On the other hand, his commitment to rigour and clarity (which is related to what you might call his moral seriousness) certainly can impact the way people think and try to act and then as you say, there are certain types of superficial or confused ways of thinking that are very prevalent in our culture that after reading Wittgenstein you are likely to be much more sceptical about
There is something terribly wrong about the phrase ‘we might expect philosophers to try [..] to shed light on the meaning of life’. Do notice that Wittgenstein didn’t seek some kind of explanation about what that ‘meaning’ could be. To radicalize that point, if a philosopher would say that such and such is to be (an aspect of) the meaning of life, one could always response with ‘so what?!’. We’re always in need of some “force” to actually live up to that particular ‘meaning’.
Now what is then that “force”? Where does this “force” comes from? According to Wittgenstein we sense this “force” not by knowing it, or by understanding it. If you think that that is the case, than you’re simply confused. Obviously I’m not saying that, following Wittgenstein, that knowledge and understanding aren’t relevant in sensing the “force” to pursuit the meaning of life. Although necessary, the human cognition is not sufficient to create intention towards this particular ‘meaning’. Hurting others is bad, but why should I obey to that rule?
An avid reader of late Wittgenstein should recognize how daunting this last question can be. I would say, there is a reason why Wittgenstein thematize his rule-following considerations into his PI. That is to cure us from confusions, and let us sense (or feel) the “force” from within ourselves. We do not obey a rule due to rigorous analytic investigation in order to reveal the normative ground of our actions, sometimes we simply know and have to accept the rule as a “force” of our (inherited and natural) perspective to the world. But sometimes, we can interpret a rule in a way which is up to us; that is by seeing the meaning of the rule according to one’s own perspective. The “force” is created when we actually forced by ourselves to pursuit the meaning of this particular rule which matters for us.
Wittgenstein, therefore, didn’t want to tell anyone what this “meaning of life” is, one just has to feel the “force” as soon as one comes to see what has to be accepted and what can AND must be created.