Philosophy As Therapy: An Interpretation and Defense of Wittgenstein's Later Philosophical Project (SUNY Series in Philosophy and Psychotherapy)

, I

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 1992 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address State University of New York Press, State University Plaza, Albany, N.Y. 12246 Production by Christine M. Lynch Marketing by Theresa A. Swierzowski

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

91-18277 CIP

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ABBREVIATIONS

All textual references to Wittgenstein's texts are included in the body of this book in parenthesis. I use the following abbreviations: BB = Blue and Brown Books CV = Culture and Value LC = Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology, and Religious Belief

= "A Lecture on Ethics" M = Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir, by Norman Malcolm

LE

Moore = "Wittgenstein's Lectures in 1930-33," by G. E. Moore NB

= Notebooks, 1914-1916

OC = On Certainty PI

= Philosophical Investigations

RFM = Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, revised edition, 1983, or if indicated, 1967. Rhees = "Some Developments in Wittgenstein's View of Ethics," by Rush Rhees Spengler = The Decline of the West Tractatus

= Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Z = Zettel Numerals refer to section numbers in PI, OC, and Z, propositions in the Tractatus, and page numbers in the other texts, unless otherwise indicated.

ix

Chapter 1 Philosophy as Therapy

Introduction Today the phrase 'philosophical therapy' suggests that philosophical thinking itself is an illness that needs to be cured by close inspection of the details of ordinary language. This association is as natural, given the recent history of philosophy, as it is unfortunate. The fortunes of philosophical therapy, for the most part, have followed the fortunes of certain versions of ordinary language philosophy and their heirs.! But the wider questions of the array of possible philosophical therapies and how they are to be evaluated are not addressed. 2 I wish to raise these questions to investigate the therapeutic validity of Wittgenstein's later philosophy. In this chapter I characterize what any therapy must be and what would make such a therapy philosophical. I will then use the model3 of philosophy as therapy constructed to show what basic issues are involved in the justification of any philosophical therapy. In giving an account and justification of Wittgenstein's project, I am in danger of violating its very spirit and limits. But there are important conceptual issues in thinking of philosophy as a form of therapy. For example, how do we make sense of the claim that philosophy should help to bring about health? What sort of health is at issue? What are the distinctively philosophical means by which health can be brought about? What sorts of illnesses are at issue? Left unanswered these questions can produce puzzlement, dissatisfaction, and even destructive and unnecessary resistance to the claim that philosophy should be therapy and to the specific therapeutic claims and moves the philosophical therapist makes. Moreover, in the face of alternative versions of philosophical therapy, one needs some way to sort out their competing views of health. It is simply not enough to ask such a questioner to take the cure because the truth will be revealed as he or she gets healthier. For these reasons I think it important to raise these questions. 1

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One might wonder whether it is necessary to raise these general questions about philosophical therapy to evaluate Wittgenstein's later philosophical project since it can and has been evaluated well without such a framework. I argue in Chapter 2 that the therapeutic aspects of Wittgenstein's later writings have not been adequately understood, nor have they been successfully evaluated as a distinctively therapeutic enterprise. Both of these aspects of my project require that we step back fronl Wittgenstein's texts and get a clear, prior grasp of the nature of philosophical therapy. In doing this we can determine aspects of Wittgenstein's thought that reveal the nature of his distinctive form of therapy and the issues raised by it.

Philosophical Therapy Any therapy operates from a notion of health, a related notion of illness, and presents some means for getting a person from the second to the first. The notions of health and illness will be related, but accounts will differ depending on whether health or illness is treated as definitionally basic, the other term being defined in terms of the basic term. Health might be defined as the absence of illness, but equally illness can be defined as absence or failure of health. The difference between these approaches is usually thought of as a difference between negative (absence of illness) and positive conceptions of health. 4 This difference will play an important role in my examination of the notion of health contained in Wittgenstein's later work. His therapy appears to be based on a negative notion of health as the absence of certain types of linguistic confusion, but I will argue that there is a positive notion of health to which he is committed. The phrase 'philosophy as therapy' suggests different claims about the relation between philosophy and therapy. Some may argue that philosophy is nothing but therapy of some sort. Others may claim that philosophy, of whatever sort, may have some therapeutic consequence. But I wish to defend neither of these claims. I do believe, however, that it is possible for some philosophical work to be therapeutic, to be committed to realizing some therapeutic goal as central to its project as a form of philosophy. Moreover, I think that such a project could be a good thing for sonle philosophers to do but not necessarily good for all philosophers. So 'philosophy as therapy' signifies a kind of philosophy to be distinguished from other sorts, such as philosophy as formal semantics or philosophy as examination of human existence, and so forth. How then can philosophy be therapeutic, and in what way does philosophical therapy differ from other sorts of therapy? There are dif-

'rerent types of therapy. For exa~~~~,-~~~_~~~~!_~~s_t~Il~_uish.a01ong reli- _

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gious therapy, psychological therapy, ethical therapy, cultural therapy, and philosophical therapy. What makes all of them forms of therapy is that they are practices designed to realize some ideal of health in some situation or situations in which that ideal is not realized; that is, in the face of some illness. Here 'illness' indicates an impairment of the person's ability to do certain things a healthy person ought to be able to do or an impairment of a person's ability to be a certain way a healthy person ought to be able to be. What makes these therapies different in kind rests either in the content of the therapeutic ideal they attempt to realize or in the means by which the ideal is realized. We can mean by 'drug therapy' either therapy meant to cure someone of an addiction to a drug or the pharmaceutical means by which someone is cured of some illness, for example, nlanic depression. So when we speak of philosophical therapy, we may be referring to the goals of the therapy or to the means by which some therapeutic goal is realized. Both of these aspects of philosophical therapy must be clarified. A therapy that is theistic in goal aims at removing impairments of a person's capacity to have some particular form of relationship or relationships to God. Different relationships might be counted as healthy from a theistic vantage point; for example, one could think that a healthy relationship to God requires reverence, willingness to do God's bidding, or a sense of humility. Any theistic therapy will need to make a case for its candidate for the proper relationship, and a valid theistic therapy must aim at removing impairments to the proper relationship to God, if there is only one, or to a proper relationship to God if there are many possible proper relationships. A therapy that is cultural in goal has as its aim the removal of impairments to a culture's capacity to achieve its proper aim or aims. Once again, if this cultural therapy is to be valid, it must advocate the proper conception of cultural health if there is only one or a proper conception if there are many. For example, one might maintain that cultural health requires that the culture be able to achieve a critical distance toward its dominant practices so that deficiencies in them can be revealed and changed. A therapy is psychological if it aims at removing impairments to a person's capacity to function well psychologically. One might maintain that psychological health requires that a person be able to sustain relatively rewarding interpersonal relationships over the course of one's life. The validity of a therapy pursuing this goal will depend in part on the validity of this claim about psychological health. A therapy that is ethical in the sense in which I will use the word throughout this text can be distinguished from a therapy that is theistic in the sense I just indicated. 5 An ethical therapy aims to remove impairments to realizing a certain attitude to the world. One who coun-

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sels resignation to the world or to the events of the world is in my sense recommending an ethical goal. Or one who counsels appreciation of all things is recommending an ethical goal. I distinguish ethical goals from theistic goals due to the lack of a reference to God in the former and the reference to God in the latter, even though in other respects a theistic therapy and an ethical therapy may be quite similar. As is true of the other sorts of therapy, a valid ethical therapy must promote the proper ethical goal if there is one or a proper goal if there are many. One might mention other sorts of therapeutic goals. The only constraint on the number of possible ones is the ability to show how the specific goal can be thought of as a kind of health. In what way will the goals of a philosophical therapy differ from the ones I already have mentioned? The first thing to notice is that there does not seem to be anything such as philosophical health, or at least we do not often speak that way. The reason for this is that philosophical therapy itself is not committed to any particular goal by virtue of which it is philosophical. Instead, 'philosophical' signifies in part that the therapeutic goals are characterized and defended on philosophical grounds. By 'philosophical grounds' I mean grounds arrived at in a philosophical account and justification of the ideal of health in question. To indicate that a therapy is philosophical does not tell us what sort of goal that therapy has. It merely indicates that the therapeutic goals are presented as ones that are philosophically defensible. So a philosophical therapeutic goal could be the cultural goal of developing modes of healthy cultural criticism, but it would be philosophical only if it were given philosophical articulation and defense. This does not exhaust the sense in which a therapy may be philosophical, however. In referring to a therapy as theistic, cultural, psychological, or ethical, one also can refer to the means by which the therapeutic aims are realized. In this sense, religious therapy would be therapy practiced by theistic means, for example, by prayer to God. Cultural therapy in this sense would be therapy pursued by cultural means, for example, through literature. Psychological therapy would be therapy carried on through some psychological means, such as dream interpretation or, if one is a behaviorist, through behavior modification. 6 What makes a therapeutic practice philosophical? Here we should expect some difference from the analysis of the relation of philosophical therapeutic goals to others. No amount of philosophical defense of prayer will make prayer a philosophical therapeutic method. It remains religious in character even if it is philosophically justified. We should expect some distinctively philosophical activity in a therapeutic practice if it is to be philosophical. The one I suggest is some form of dialectical exchange.

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Not all forms of dialectical exchange will work in a therapeutic context, so it is necessary to indicate features essential to therapeutic discussion. The interlocutors must acknowledge what they actually believe and not just enter in the conversation in a merely academic way. I will call this the requirement of confession to emphasize that such acknowledgments made in a therapeutic context often will require recognition that the acknowledged beliefs are mistaken and must be overcome. It is necessary to add this feature to ensure that the interlocutor's real beliefs and intuitions are expressed as a preliminary step to their being therapeuticially transformed; otherwise, the conversation will tend to be "theoretical." The second requirement is that the acknowledged belief be challenged and refuted if mistaken. The third is that the interlocutor be led to a new way of looking at things that is better than the old way; that is, which is at least a move toward the realization of the therapeutic ideal that governs the practice. Finally there must be some agreement on the goals of the therapy if the conversation is to be more than minimally successful. This agreement might exist prior to the therapeutic discussion or may emerge in the course of it. I have distinguished between philosophically defended therapeutic goals and philosophical therapeutic practice. Both of these features are necessary for any paradigmatic philosophical therapy. Therapies that have one or the other but not both still can be classed as philosophical therapies, but in the case where nonphilosophical means are used, it would be better to speak of a philosophically justified therapy carried out by other means. In the case of a therapy that has no account and justification other than the defenses of it that emerge in the philosophical conversation, we can distinguish two cases. Where it is the intention of the therapist that some genuine justifications emerge in the course of the therapy, it develops philosophical support for its goals along the way. So it is philosophical in both senses. Where the philosophical conversation reduces to a rhetoric in support of the therapeutic goals and so where no effort is made to discover whether those goals are proper goals, it would be best to think of the therapeutic practice as rhetorical rather than philosophical. To make these distinctions more concrete, consider the following cases. Imagine someone who thinks that the culture is ill and needs to be made healthy. She views the culture as sexist and is willing and able to present a clear, well-justified account of the problem. She thinks there is no obvious way to cure the culture wholesale, so she opts for a therapeutic practice of consciousness-raising in small groups. The practice of the groups is to clarify what the participants believe and subject those beliefs to critical scrutiny. When successful, the therapeutic prac-

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tice results in changes of belief and, over the course of time, changes in the behavior of the participants. Such a therapy is philosophical in both senses. Now imagine a slightly different case in which the person has not constructed a philosophical account and justification of her views. If the practice of the group is designed to intimidate and coerce changes of view, it would be reasonable to refer to the therapeutic practice as rhetorical. If the conversation were genuinely designed to raise and address serious issues, it would be reasonable to mark this difference by referring to the practice as philosophical. Therapeutic practices of the sort I discuss here are primarily therapies aimed at curing the individual. Even though someone might want to develop a cultural, philosophical therapy, it is extremely hard to see how his therapy could be anything other than a therapy of individuals. Even if such a philosopher wishes to alter Western culture, his method is to persuade individuals to reject the dominant values of their culture and to replace those values by others. If a therapy is distinctively philosophical, even if it attempts to treat a culture, the patient of the therapy will always be an individual. Any attempt to change a culture without such a therapy will be nonphilosophical in character. If a philosophical genius somehow acquires coercive power to force, without persuasion, the leaders of a culture's institutions to change those institutions, that therapeutic practice will not be philosophical, even if it results in a cure. It is reasonable, nonetheless, to admit that individuals are the bearers of their cultures. Many of our beliefs and attitudes result from having grown up and become responsible, normal members of our culture. Furthermore, by having become normal members of our culture, we have taken on the tensions and strains in the beliefs of our culture. Our moral and religious beliefs may not be consistent with our everyday practices. Our scientific theories may not be easily reconciled with our view of the world from an ethical vantage point. These strains and tensions are the strains and tensions in the beliefs and attitudes of the members of society insofar as they adopt the don1inant beliefs of their culture. When one engages in philosophical therapy, one engages in conversation with another person. The recommended treatments will arise from whatever form of illness is present in the person. Because the treatments are clarifications of key ideas and claims, one person's clarifications will not automatically be successful treatments for another person, though they certainly could be. In the same way that the doctor's prescriptions have generality to them, so do the philosopher's prescriptions; namely, another person in the exact same state of confusion will require the same treatment. However, one does not know the state of another person in advance of having a detailed conversation with that person. Two people can appear to have the same confusions without

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those confusions being the same, for the source of the mistaken ideas can be completely different. For example, I may believe in the existence of a transcendental ego, because I was taught Kant by an ardent Kantian who was not sufficiently critical about Kant's views. Another person may believe in a transcendental ego from having read the writings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The confusions here are the same only superficially. So one cannot conclude that the philosophical therapy for one person will be the same for others. It might be the same for others, but to know that requires extensive interrogation. Moreover, because a therapeutic philosophy must transform the beliefs and attitudes of the patient, the conversation must remove the confusions specific to the patient through arguments the patient will find persuasive. Therapeutic arguments begin with the interlocutor and, because they are therapeutic, are ad hominem. To be sure, common confusions may be supported by the culture in which the therapy is practiced. It may even be possible to write helpful therapeutic texts, which go some way toward removing the philosophical beliefs that impair people. Such texts cannot remove the need for individual conversation. In summary, any therapeutic philosophy will contain the following elements. There will be a specified condition of health, the lack of which is a condition of illness. Second, there will be a philosophical cure for those who are ill. The cure involves conversation, which requires what I have called a confessional acknowledgement of the interlocutors real beliefs, correction if the belief or reasoning about it is mistaken, and persuasion to a new point of view or new reasoning for the retained point of view.

Therapeutic Issues If philosophical therapy has the form I have attributed to it, then certain fundamental issues must be faced by any such therapy. A philosophical therapy must be able to present a valid defense of its thera·· peutic ideal. Whichever conception of health it proposes, it must be able to show that this conception is supported by an account of human well-being. To be healthy is either to be capable of doing the things a human being ought to be able to do or to be the sort of human being one ought to be able to be. What we ought to be able to do and how we ought to be able to be is dependent on what it is for a human being to flourish or be well off. Because we confront a multitude of possible ideals of health, failure to present an account of human well-being that supports the ideal of health being pursued is a decisive failure. A second requirement of a philosophical therapy is that it show that the restoration of the aspect of well-being which it proposes as its

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therapeutic goal means a restoration of health. It must be shown that the absence of some specific aspect of well-being the therapy seeks to restore causes an impairment of some centrally important human capacity. A third requirement is that a case be nlade for claiming that the proposed therapeutic practice indeed can bring about the desired therapeutic result. These three important issues are issues internal to the enterprise of philosophical therapy, but there is a more fundamental issue of whether philosophy should be therapeutic at all. Quine takes a characteristic stand on this issue in Theories and Things: Inspirational and edifying writing is admirable, but the place for it is in the novel, poem, the sermon, or the literary essay. Philosophers in the professional sense have no peculiar fitness for helping to get society on an even keel, though we should all do what we can. What just might fill these perpetually crying needs is wisdom: sophia yes, philosophia not necessarily. (p. 193)

But it is unclear why professional philosophy should give up the quest for wisdom through philosophy. In his influential book Word and Object, Quine lays out a conception of the philosophical enterprise that treats philosophy as continuous with natural science. This is not to say that the philosophers and the natural scientists are engaged in the same task, but rather to indicate that the philosopher is involved in the task of constructing theories, using the same intellectual tools as the natural scientist and pursuing the same sort of intellectual goals. 7 In his description of the character of perceptual evidence, Quine claims that considerations of simplicity playa role in even the most casual acts of observation (p. 19). This requirement on theory plays a second role to observation when the two conflict, but often observation is not possible and so simplicity is the "final arbiter" (p. 20). The importance of simplicity is explained as follows (p. 20). There is survival value to simpler theories. Simpler theories can be extrapolated from a smaller set of observable consequences of the theory. Moreover, a simpler theory provides for greater ease in creative imagination. Familiarity also is a desirable feature of theories insofar as it also aids creative imagination by giving us familiar principles and mechanisms to use in explaining new phenomena. However, when familiarity and simplicity conflict, simplicity wins out. Even with this set of theoretical requirements, Quine thinks that there is no such thing as "the ideal theory." Rather it is likely that no

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single theory will satisfy them (p. 23). Nonetheless we continue to take seriously our own theories until by scientific method, we find some reason to reject this or that claim in them. "Within our own total evolving doctrine, we can judge truth as earnestly and absolutely as can be; subject to correction, but that goes without saying" (p. 25). But why should these theoretical requirements and goals of natural science be the requirements and goals of philosophical theory? The only convincing answer possible is that by realizing these goals, we contribute to human well-being;8 we are better off having professional philosophers clarify the theoretical goals of science and contribute to science in whatever way they can. But it is by no means obvious that this is so. Therapeutic philosophy is committed to a project of actualizing important therapeutic ideals. Quine's project is committed just as much to realizing important human values, though in his case the values are the values pursued by science. But why should we limit ourselves to the values that underlie scientific theory? If, in its philosophizing, Quinean philosophy clarifies and realizes values, why not clarify and pursue other sorts of value? I do not think that Quine can provide a good answer to this question. But the burden will be on me to show why philosophy or some philosophy should take a therapeutic turn.

The Interpretive Project I have spelled out in the abstract the nature of philosophical therapy and the issues' involved in justifying such therapies because it is necessary to approach Wittgenstein's therapeutic project with a clear conceptual map. The need for such clarity is exacerbated in the case of Wittgenstein's later texts by the fact that his statements about his therapeutic project do not amount in any way to a systematic account of his project. By having some notion, however abstract, of the structure of any philosophical therapy, we can know more clearly in advance what we need to look for in articulating what his therapeutic project is. Were the lack of systematic account the only problem, the project of clarifying Wittgenstein's project would be great enough. It is compounded, moreover, by his principled desire to pass over such subjects in silence. At the end of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein outlined the strict method of philosophy-one that proceeds in silence about ethical and metaphysical issues about which one cannot say anything-as the method of describing the facts and pointing out the nonsense that emerges when one attempts to say something more. The ethical solution to the problem of life is to realize that where no question can be asked, none can be answered. The Tractatus violates this strict method throughout, but the Philosophical Investigations

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operates under this ideal by giving careful descriptions of linguistic facts. Wittgenstein did not adhere to the ideal strictly in the later work. His comments about the nature of his enterprise are not in any way descriptions of linguistic facts. But he did not make the strong and clear assertions about the nature of ethics in the Philosophical Investigations as he did in the Tractatus. Why not? One line of argument would be that he gave up all of the ethical views of the Tractatus as he revised his views in the middle 1930s. However, there is absolutely no evidence for this view. One does not find him giving up any of these views, whereas one does see him engage in a sustained critique of his early view of language. Furthermore, it is hard to believe that he would give up these views-views he held to encompass the central importance of his book, which he described as having an ethical point-without having presented a sustained critique of his early views. I conclude that it is reasonable to think that he retained these ethical views, felt no need to critique them because he found them not wanting, and largely passes them in silence because these views require silence. The problem with this line of argument is that it is impossible to give direct and absolutely convincing textual evidence from the later works to substantiate it. I do not think, however, that one must give up the hope of clarifying the way in which Wittgenstein's ethics give form to his later therapeutic practice. If one assumes, as I will, that the later work has an ethical importance that stems from the early ethical views, and if one assumes that this ethical view gives form to the later therapeutic project, then one can examine the later writings for evidence of the early ethical project showing up in comments and practices of the later view. This evidence, for the reasons I have just given, will not be absolutely convincing by itself. But it will show where the early and later projects coincide or are similar. It will be possible to layout the general outlines of the later ethical project, in its new therapeutic form, in just this way. One may counter that these are strong assumptions to make. But they are assumptions that can find justification in the arguments I have just given. The later writings show no evidence of revising the ethical views of the earlier project nor of rejecting the early claims of their central importance to the philosophical enterprise. Thus we can assume, with good reason, that the ethical project was continued in the later writings. At that point, the important interpretive project is to see how it shows up. I have in mind here an analogy with paleontology. One knows that one is confronting in fossil form an animal with some structure, but the whole of the structure is not present in the fossil. One has fragments of

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one sort or another. So one must construct a plausible reconstruction of the fragments. The plausibility of the proposed description of the structure rests on finding reasonable spots in the structure for all of the fragments. The justification is never cast in terms of comparing the reconstruction to the original, since no original is available. Similarly I will attempt to make sense of some passages in Wittgenstein's later writings by showing how they continue the early ethical project in the form of a therapeutic project. There are different sorts of evidence I will present from the later period of Wittgenstein's thinking. I will rely on the Philosophical Investigations in addition to a variety of materials beyond that text. Much of the evidence is from his unpublished manuscripts, many of the passages having been published in Culture and Value. I will rely as well on representations of his views in the early 1930s presented by G. E. Moore. This evidence is indirect, but given Moore's tendency to proceed with such care in his writing and thinking, I assume his accounts are reliable. Furthermore, they give evidence about Wittgenstein's thinking that I have not found elsewhere. My final apology for this approach comes in the form of an indication of what we lose if we do not proceed in some such way. If we ask for interpretive certainty in these matters, it will not be possible to assert much about the later ethical project. But I doubt that interpretive certainty is the proper ideal in matters of this sort. Because there is some reason to think that the ethical project is still intact in the later writings, the interpretive project is to try to outline what it is. Because it takes a therapeutic form, we have some additional information about what to look for. It will be necessary to find evidence where we have it, and our results will not provide unambiguous proof that an ethical project underlies the later project. These results should help us figure out what it is, given that there is one. But as I already argued, there is good reason to think that the ethical project is in place. How could these interpretive claims be criticized? One does not want to propose a method by which no claims can be falsified. Misreadings still are possible, and it should be possible also to show that the interpretations conflict with what Wittgenstein says elsewhere or with his actual practice. So even if we must reconcile ourselves to the limited character of the evidence available for this investigation, there is some evidence and a coherent method for putting it to good use. In Chapters 2-4, I present an interpretation of Wittgenstein's later philosophical therapy designed to clarify his therapeutic goals and practice to determine how well his therapeutic project satisfies the requirements I placed on philosophical therapy. I will argue (1) that Wittgenstein is engaged in an ethical therapy designed to bring one

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into agreement with the world; (2) that the basic character of his therapeutic practice is revealed in the confessional-dialectical structure of the Philosophical Investigations; and (3) that this philosophical therapy is carried out both by the critique of crucial similes, misunderstanding of which causes philosophical illness, and by the introduction of new, healthier similes and metaphors designed to persuade us of a new point of view consistent with Wittgenstein's ethical, therapeutic goal. In Chapter 5, I take up the issue of the difference between therapeutic and scientific thinking, which plays such an important role in Wittgenstein's view of therapy. Although I argue that Wittgenstein was mistaken in his claim that they are mutually exclusive, I nonetheless claim that failure to pay attention to this distinction can cause one both to criticize and defend Wittgenstein in mistaken ways. I take up the therapeutic issues in Wittgenstein's philosophy in Chapters 6 and 7 to show how his project can be defended. I conclude Chapter 7 with a discussion of who are Wittgenstein's philosophical ancestors, given that his philosophical project is therapeutic.

Chapter 2 Wittgenstein, Ethics, and Therapy

Introduction If we are to clarify the therapeutic character of Wittgenstein's later phi-

losophy, it is necessary to indicate the ideal of health underlying his project. Commentaries on Wittgenstein's later philosophy in a variety of ways do not do justice to this topic. Before turning to my own account, I would like to characterize those views and indicate why there is a need for a different sort of account. A typical move in a commentary is to acknowledge in passing that Wittgenstein's project was therapeutic and that he did not intend to give full analyses of the concepts he was discussing and then to ignore the fact that the discussions were intended to be therapeutic. Subse- ., quent interpretations layout Wittgenstein's arguments as though he were a straightforward philosophical analyst.! With such accounts, the _I: therapeutic character of his philosophy is given short shrift and there is little to integrate the realization of the therapeutic character of his project with the interpretation of specific passages. Another approach J gives the therapeutic character of the project sufficient weight, but does not fully grasp either the character of the therapeutic project or the issues involved in adopting it.2 I argue that the later therapeutic project is a development of the earlier ethical project of the Tractatus. My interpretive argument is controversial in three ways: I argue (1) that the Tractatus is best understood in terms of Wittgenstein's own characterization of it as an ethical work; (2) that an ethical orientation, in this sense, is an orientation to the world as a whole; and (3) that the therapeutic project of the later writings puts into a new form the ethical project of the early writings. Finally, I present an interpretation of the therapeutic project designed to focus on clarifying those aspects of the therapeutic project that are distinctively therapeutic and that must be subjected to critical analysis if the specific form of Wittgenstein's therapy is to be adopted. 13

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There are at least four reasons why the therapeutic character of Wittgenstein's later philosophy has not been adequately characterized. r- The first is that Wittgenstein's remarks about therapy often are metaphorical and aphoristic. Consequently he gives no clear, systematic statement of his view of therapy. The second is that the statements _).- about the therapy in which he is engaged more often are negative than positive. Clearly, we are to avoid a certain type of philosophical puzzlement and the disturbance related to it, but there is no clear state:.,. ment of the ideal of health presupposed in these claims. Third, there has been little interest in investigating the general character of philosophical therapy and the issues involved in adopting such a view of philosophy. Finally, such an evaluation appears to violate the very spirit of Wittgenstein's enterprise by raising the very sort of ethical issues he thought should be left in silence. 3

An Overview Wittgenstein's philosophical work can be understood as a progressive clarification of the presuppositions of the ethical solutions to his own life problem. While writing the Tractatus, during World War 1,4 Wittgenstein was bothered by his own sense of the meaninglessness of life and was attempting to find some way to resolve his own temptation to suicide. His conversion out of that mode of existence came in part through reading The Gospel in Brief, which was Tolstoi's attempt to make sense of the teachings of Jesus. Tolstoi felt that the presentation of Christian doctrine in the Bible was unclear and that the ideas were so powerful in themselves that all that was needed was their elucidation. How much Wittgenstein took in of Tolstoi's views is by no means clear. It is clear that Wittgenstein himself saw the task of philosophy to be clarification, not theory construction,S and the primary point of philosophical clarification to be ethical. the book's point is an ethical one. I once meant to include in the preface a sentence which is not in fact there now but which I will write out for you here, because it will perhaps be a key to the work for you. What I meant to write, then, was this: My work consists of two parts: the one presented here plus all that I have not written. And it is precisely this second part that is the important one. My book draws limits to the sphere of the ethical from the inside as it were, and I am convinced that this is the ONLY rigorous way of drawing those limits. In short, I believe that where many others today are just gassing, I have managed in my book to put everything firmly into place by being silent about it. (Prototractatus, pp. 15-16)

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In the Tractatus Wittgenstein addresses what he takes to be the interrelated problems of the meaning of life and the limits of thought, for he held that the solution to the problem of the meaning of life transcended the limits of thinking. In the course of describing the limits of"" thought and showing that the solution to the problem of life comes by a change in will, not thought, he addresses the problem of the fear of death. Earlier, he argues that the self which is of concern to philosophy is not the body, but the self that stands outside space and time and is J the limit of the world. This self is identical to the world itself, but insofar as it is the world's limit, and not something in the spatiotemporal world, the self cannot be something that passes away. In that way, we experience ourselves as in the eternal now, as in the everlasting and eternal present moment. With this experience, death, as an event in the ..J life of the self, does not exist and cannot even be imagined. The solution to the problem of death is related to the solution to the problem of the meaning of life, for to have a meaningful life is to have a certain attitude toward the world, independent of what one thinks or knows about it. Once one recognizes that oneself is the self, the limit of the world and not something in it, one sees oneself as the bearer of all of the possible states of affairs that could make up the world. As bearer of those possible states of affairs, one also is safe from any particular state of affairs, for any change in state of affairs can take place with no alteration in the self that stands outside of the world as its limit. The concern with the problem of life, the problem of the meaning of life, and so with the appropriate attitude of self to the world, is central to the whole book. The related concern with the problem of death also is central insofar as the temptation to commit suicide is related to one's sense of the meaninglessness of life. But what is interesting is how these solutions are tied essentially to Wittgenstein's thinking about the self. Once one gets clear about the self, one can solve these problems, which the self has about itself in its relation to the world. It is a central tenet of that early book that the claims about self, death, and the meaning of life are not claims about states of affairs, but rather, are about things beyond what can be said. Nonetheless Wittgenstein thinks that "insights" about these topics can be shown through the sorts of philosophical language and clarifications he presents in that difficult text. These propositions which show, but do not say, indicate how one should orient oneself toward the world. If taken up, they solve our problems about meaninglessness and death. They are presented, not as theoretically defensible claims, but as attitudes to be taken up if these problems are to find solution. The appeal to a timeless nonspatial self is central to the solutions

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of the problems of death and the meaning of life. Wittgenstein is attempting to bring about a conversion of the soul from a materialistic, scientific metaphysics to a worldview that allows for higher realities. He consequently is suspicious of any reduction of philosophy to science. In the later work, the transcendent self drops out and Wittgenstein undertakes instead an examination of human forms of life. 6 The goal is still clarification, the presentation of what he calls 'perspicuous representations'. But now the explicit problems of meaning in life and the rest do not appear. By that time Wittgenstein has seen through the limitations of the language and views he presented in the Tractatus: the Tractatus reads too much like the kinds of philosophical theories Wittgenstein is trying to get rid of. In clarifying various forms of life, Wittgenstein is attempting to give a more accurate presentation of the proper ethical relation of an individual to his or her world. What then is the difference between the early and later work? The difference rests on the issues that Wittgenstein confronted. The issue of death and the meaninglessness of life loom large in the early work. Those issues do not appear to emerge in the later work, but the issue of the nature of language is continuous over both periods. So in the later period we get corrections of the picture theory and a treatment of the r- "deep disturbances" that the early view of language creates. As I will argue, in both the early and later work, the meaning of life is seen as -K. tied to being in agreement in the first case with the world and in the , second case with one's form of life.7 So the later work is working out in a more detailed way the project of coming into agreement with the world. Although the early work shows that agreement with the world is needed to solve the problem of life, the later work attempts to resolve the problems of disagreement with the world to which the early view gives rise. The later work must then be seen as refinement of the work ,- that came before. The deep wisdom that Wittgenstein's writings show is the wisdom of coming into agreement with the world as the means of grasping the meaning of life. This agreement is brought about through clarification, and what we need to clarify depends on the type of disagreement we confront at the time. So the writings represent attempted resolutions of the various forms of disagreement with the world. s This refinement of approach to the problem of how to come into agreement with the world already is indicated in proposition 6.53 of the Tractatus, where Wittgenstein indicates that he has not so far employed the only correct method of philosophy, one in which he would describe the facts alone and show all questions not answerable by appeal to the facts to be meaningless. This strict method is not further described. r Wittgenstein gives form to this method in his return to philosophy r-

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under the influence of Oswald Spengler's comparative method of historical study, which I discuss in Chapter 4. ....J The therapeutic aspect of Wittgenstein's project becomes clear in the later work. There one finds mention of the analogy between philosophy and therapy, and philosophical problems are likened to forms of illness that are supposed to be cured. The general form of the illness is not knowing one's way about, that is, lack of clarity. This lack of clarity gives rise to deep disturbances, sometimes referred to as mental cramps. The cure comes when one finds the right way to clarify what has become puzzling and thereby bring peace to one's thoughts. In both periods silence is the mark of seeing the world aright and so of a healthy attitude toward the world. Silence is the mark because silence shows that one is not philosophically unclear or disturbed. In silence no problem of life is being posed. If this summary of Wittgenstein's project is correct, then Wittgen- I stein must be understood as setting for philosophy the task of healing individual human beings through clarification. In this way, we must see -f>< his early and later writings as sustained efforts to bring about, primarily .) in himself, the proper ethical relation to the world. Although one might be inclined to read only the later work as therapeutic, this would be a mistake. In general, any therapeutic philosophy depends on some ideal of human health. Wittgenstein's therapy is ethical in goal, as was his philosophical activity expressed in the Tractatus. Moreover, as I will argue, Wittgenstein's therapeutic project in the Philosophical Investigations can be understood only as carrying out an amended form of the ethical project of the Tractatus. 9 But the therapeutic project of curing us from posing nonsensical questions already was in place in the Tractatus even if it was not called that.

Clarity and Silence as Goals Before I develop an interpretation of the ideal of health assumed in Wittgenstein's therapy, it is necessary to explain my terminology. In the Tractatus Wittgenstein uses the term 'ethics' in a peculiar way. It is clear that he thinks of ethics as being concerned with what is valuable. But there is no discussion of what ethically is required of us, either generally or in particular circumstances. In the Tractatus, and Notebooks, he is concerned, rather, with the problems of whether life has meaning, whether life is worth living, how to be happy and content in the face of the awful things one undergoes in one's life. I refer to these issues as ethical, but we must distinguish them from practical ethical issues. Ethics in this sense is about the proper attitude or orientation to the world as a whole or life in general. The ethical character of these issues

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reveals itself in the kind of solution Wittgenstein adopts to the problems presented by these issues. The solution is to come into agreement with the world and feel happy and content no matter what happens. In his "Lecture on Ethics" Wittgenstein makes explicit the wide sense of the term 'ethics' he employs. He uses Moore's already wide sense of the term and claims ethics is "the enquiry into what is good." -I. This sense is wide because it allows that some goods are not moral. Wittgenstein then stretches the meaning further and includes aesthetics L in it. He gives the following synonyms for 'ethics': enquiry into what is valuable, what is really important, what makes life worth living, or what is the right way of living (LE, 5). Only the last item on the list might include practical ethics, though this meaning is not made clear. The sort of ethical good with which Wittgenstein is centrally concerned is the good of being related to the world in the proper way independent of how one acts in particular circumstances. For example, he claims to feel safe no matter what, or he wonders at the existence of the world. I use the term 'ethics' and the adjective 'ethical' to refer to values involved in being related to the world as a whole in some ways rather than others. Any therapeutic philosophy depends in part on a distinction between health and illness. The operative notion of philosophical health depends on a conception of the human good. We should expect to find a conception of the human good underlying the notion of therapy in Wittgenstein's later philosophy. In this section, I want to show that this expectation is met and that the conception of the human good underlying his therapy derives from his Tractarian conception of the ethical solution to the problem of life. That Wittgenstein thought of philosophy as therapy in his later period is well known. The relationship of his later therapeutic project to his early ethical project, however, is less well understood. IO Even though the therapeutic intent of his philosophy is explicit only in his later work, the whole corpus in intent is therapeutic. Conversely, the whole corpus in intent is ethical. The fundamental therapeutic-ethical intent of the Philosophical Investigations will become clear, however, only when the following important statement from that book is understood: The real discovery is the one that lets me stop doing philosophy when I want to-the one that gives philosophy peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself into question.-Instead, we now demonstrate a method, by examples; and the series of examples can be broken off.-Problems are solved (difficulties eliminated), not a single problem. There is not a philosophical method, though there are indeed methods, like different therapies. (PI, 133)

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On the face of it, the statement of paragraph 133 is quite surprising. It appears to give a criterion of a real discovery. But to distinguish between real and unreal discoveries in this way is strange, for I can very well discover things (even in philosophy) that are the beginnings of philosophical puzzlement and reflection, not the end; that is, not what allows me to break off reflection. So what is being said here? Wittgenstein is indicating the goal of the sort of philosophical reflection in which he engages. But, at this point, one certainly can wonder why any distinctively philosophical project would have this goal. Furthermore, what is the goal? Two goals seem to be indicated. The first is to discover sonlething that lets him stop doing philosophy when he wants to. The second is to give philosophy peace by avoiding questions that bring it into question. This second goal is what Wittgenstein has in mind in the rest of the section. "For the clarity we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear" (PI, 133). The goal of the complete disappearance of philosophical problems echoes the goal of the Tractatus: the disappearance of the problem of life in the recognition that where there is no question, there is no answer (see Tractatus, 6.5ff. ).1 1 Even though the goal is still complete clarity and so the complete elimination of philosophical problems, Wittgenstein does not claim to be producing complete clarity here. He claims, rather, to demonstrate a nlethod that allows him to stop doing philosophy when he wants to. This method does not completely eliminate philosophical problems; it presents a way of addressing philosophical problems that brings peace when one wants it, but not complete peace. The idea here is that by pursuing a method of examining particular cases, complete clarity about the particular case is possible. And even though clarity about a single instance of some problenlatic phenomenon is not yet complete clarity about it, one can break off the examination once complete clarity about the particular is achieved. The examination of other problematic cases then can continue at some other time-when one again wants to do philosophy. Still the ultimate goal is for all philosophical problems to disappear. This goal is therapeutic. Several passages indicate the point. The concluding claim of paragraph 133 indicates the analogy to psychoanalysis: "There is not a philosophical method, though there are indeed methods, like different therapies." This passage does not prove that the goal is therapeutic. The analogy is designed to indicate one respect in which philosophy is like therapy: there are different methods of both enterprises. Nonetheless, other remarks suggest that the analogy is stronger. Wittgenstein speaks of philosophical disease (PI, 593, and Z, 69), illness (PI, 255, and RFM, 132), philosophical treatment (PI, 254).

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If philosophical confusion is likened to a disease, then the goal of philosophy must be to remove the disease and bring about health (RFM, 302 and CV, 57). Furthermore, in conversations between Rush Rhees and Wittgenstein, which took place between 1942 and 1946, Wittgenstein claimed to be a follower or disciple of Freud (LC, 41). This claim might mean any number of things. In his lectures on aesthetics in 1938, Wittgenstein indicates a similarity between his method and Freud's. If you are led by psychoanalysis to say that really you thought so and so or that really your motive was so and so, this is not a matter of discovery, but of persuasion.... I very often draw your attention to certain differences, e.g. in these classes I tried to show you that Infinity is not so mysterious as it looks. What I am doing is also persuasion. (LC, 27)

In the same way that the psychoanalyst persuades the patient to look at his or her life in a new way, Wittgenstein persuades his students to look at various apparently mysterious phenomena in a new way. In the case of psychoanalysis, the point of the persuasion is to get the patient to become resigned to or relieved about certain problematic aspects of his or her life (LC, 51). Similarly in philosophy the new perspective is designed to be one that is productive of philosophical peace, one that contributes to the disappearance of the philosophical problems or at least allows one to stop doing philosophy when one wants. One might wonder whether Wittgenstein himself really connected this idea of philosophical persuasion with the idea of the disappearance of philosophical problems. There is good reason to think that he did so. His claim to discipleship was made between 1942 and 1946. During the same period (1944), he wrote: "Thoughts that are at peace. That's what someone who philosophizes yearns for" (CV, 43). So during the period in which he, at least on some occasions, thought of himself as a follower of Freud, he saw the goal of philosophy as bringing about thoughts that are at peace. Moreover, this notion of persuasion plays a larger role in his method in the Philosophical Investigations than often is appreciated. Commentators often point out that Wittgenstein claims that his method is descriptive (PI, 124). Normally one might contrast description with persuasion. The sort of descriptions he gives, however, often are presented in terms of some simplified model that acts as an object of comparison and is optional. "The language games are set up rather as objects of comparison which are meant to throw light on facts of our language by way not only of similarities, but also of dissimilarities" (PI, 130). The descriptions one gives of some linguistic phenomenon are supplemented by objects of comparison designed to illuminate the

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described facts. But the illumination or clarity is partly a function of the optional object of comparison. Whichever objects of comparison one employs will tend to produce puzzlement or eliminate it. For example, if you think of measurement of time on the model of the measurement of length, puzzles will result. One needs to be persuaded to look at the phenomena in some new way. So the method described in the Philosophical Investigations is a method of persuasion carried out through the selection of descriptions designed to produce philosophical peace. Similarly, Wittgenstein takes psychoanalysis to be a nlethod of persuasion brought about through the selection of descriptions of feelings, behavior, and so forth, designed to allow the patient to become resigned to certain parts of his or her life (LC, 51). Finally, in an extremely important passage in Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, Wittgenstein looks at his philosophical goal in a strikingly therapeutic nlanner: The philosopher is the man who has to cure himself of many sicknesses of the understanding before he can arrive at the notions of the sound human understanding. (RFM, 302) If in the midst of life we are in death, so in sanity, we are surrounded by madness. (RFM, IV, 53)12

Here the goal of philosophy is to arrive eventually at the notions of the sound human understanding. That is the understanding in which philosophical problems completely disappear and philosophy is brought to peace. The process of cure is the process of finding perspicuous representations (PI, 122) of otherwise philosophically troublesome phenomena. The phrase 'of arriving at the notions of the sound human understanding' shows that Wittgenstein is thinking of perspicuous representations as the goal of philosophical therapy and as the essential conditions of a healthy human understanding.

The Notions of Sound Human Urlderstanding and the Human Good As Wittgenstein indicates in his lectures on Freud, anyone who says that something really is such and such is persuading the audience to look at the phenomenon in a certain way. When he says that the real discovery is the one which allows him to stop doing philosophy when he wants to, on his own account, he is persuading the reader to look at philosophy in this way. As Wittgenstein says, "I am in a sense making propaganda for one style of thinking as opposed to another. 1 am honestly disgusted with the other. Also I am trying to state what I think.

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Nevertheless I'm saying: 'For God's sake don't do this'" (LC, 28). Now if Wittgenstein indeed is making propaganda, why is he doing that? Presumably he thinks that it is better to look at philosophy and philosophical problems in one way rather than another. Even though he admits that there are different methods of doing philosophy, his persuasion presupposes his prior adoption of one style of philosophizing as better than the alternatives he was aware of. But better relative to what ends? The only sensible answer here is "the ends of human life." To speak of the notions of a sound human understanding is to speak of notions of the sort of human understanding conducive to the ends of human life. In this sense Wittgenstein's project must be seen as concerned to realize some portion of the human good. In particular he is attempting to realize an ethical good. I already argued in the preceding section that Wittgenstein's Tractarian ethics is concerned with the attitude the willing self, the bearer of good and evil, ought to have to the world. If the self has the correct attitude, then it inhabits a happy world. Otherwise it inhabits an unhappy world. The problem of ethics as Wittgenstein presents it in the Tractatus is not just to clarify happiness and unhappiness, but rather to do so in such a way that such a condition can be brought about. The last proposition (Whereof one cannot speak, one must pass over in silence) indicates in part that the point of his clarifications is to bring about a change in one's life after having used the clarifications. They are to be transcended after one has changed one's life in accordance with them. This is the point of his ladder metaphor (Tractatus, 6.54). So in his early writings, ethics concerns changing one's attitude toward the world so that it becomes a happy world. In his later discussions concerning ethics, he most often speaks of practical ethics. For example, a man is caught in a dilemma between remaining married and pursuing more intensively his research. What ethically ought he to do (See Rhees, 22-3)?13

The Tractarian notion of ethics is tied intimately in Wittgenstein's mind with the transcendental viewpoint he borrowed from Schopenhauer and Weininger. A self is aware that there is no meaning or value in the facts of the world. This awareness is called the problem of life. The problem of life is resolved when the self views the world sub specie aeternitatus. In doing that, the self becomes good, inhabits a happy world, and finds the meaning of life. (Tractatus, 6.43 and 6.521). Wittgenstein describes this ethical deed as altering the world as a limited whole, a formulation he derives from Weininger. 14 Furthermore, the self that does this is the willing self, something not in the world, but rather a limit of the world. Wittgenstein describes the will as an attitude to the world (NB, 87). In the Notebooks and "Lecture on Ethics," -------------------------

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he describes the proper ethical relationship to the world in several ways. The life of knowledge is the life that is happy in spite of the misery of the world. The only life that is happy is the life that can renounce the amenities of the world. (NB, 81) In order to live happily I must be in agreement with the world. And that is what being happy means. (NB, 75) [By the experience of the feeling of absolute safety] I mean the state of mind in which one is inclined to say "I am safe, nothing can injure me whatever happens." (LE, 8)

All of these descriptions emphasize that the attitude toward the world being specified is maintained no matter what. The will's attitude to the world is an attitude to the world as such, and so such an attitude does not change with changes in circumstances. This ethical view is teleological in that to specify the solution to the problem of life is to spell out an end or goal the reaching of which constitutes the fulfillment of human life. Wittgenstein adopted such teleological language in the Notebooks. On July 5, 1916, he wrote that good and evil willing affects the world only at its boundaries (Grenzen), not the facts. But to affect the world in this way makes the world a wholly different one; it waxes or wanes as a whole becoming in these regards either the world of the happy or unhappy man. The next day he refers to Dostoievsky: "And in this sense Dostoievsky is right when he says that the man who is happy is fulfilling the purpose of human existence. Or again we could say that the man is fulfilling the purpose of existence who no longer needs to have any purpose except to live. That is to say who is content." The person who fulfills the purpose (telos) or end of human existence is happy and content. Such a person has exercised his or her will in a way that alters the boundaries of the world so that it is a happy world. To will in this way and to achieve the corresponding result is the purpose of human existence. It is important, as I have already argued, to be aware of the centrality of ethics to the concerns Wittgenstein had in writing the Tractatus. The purpose~of the early work is ethical. This is clear from Wittgenstein's letter to the publisher, from his letter to Russell, which corrects Russell's misunderstanding of the text, and from his introduction of the book where Wittgenstein claims to be drawing a line between the sayable and the unsayable. 15 The technical discussions support his claims about where and how the line is to be drawn. Unless one has very strong grounds for rejecting Wittgenstein's statement to the pub-

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lisher, one must assume that he thought the early work and philosophy itself to have an ethical purpose. 16 A crucial question to ask in this context is, How might one expect this ethical goal to have changed given the other changes in viewpoint through which Wittgenstein's philosophy proceeded? We know that Wittgenstein gave up the transcendentalism of his early view. Is there a way in which he could give up this transcendentalism while still maintaining some form of his early project? What remains of this ethics once the transcendentalism is rejected? Wittgenstein's notion that there is one problem of life is tied to the transcendental perspective of the Tractatus. For the self is outside the world as its limit (Tractatus, 5.632) and confronts a single world, a single limited whole. So its problemaHc relation to that world is singular. If the self is viewed as the embodied human being, as it is in Philosophical Investigations, then it is difficult to claim that there is only one problem of life. What one confronts as problematic is multiple and various. In addition if we give up this transcendentalism, then we give up the idea that the world can be grasped sub specie aeternitatus. For no transcendent self, existing outside the world, can do that. Nonetheless, it would still be possible to be content or in agreement with the facts of the world one confronts. One does this, however, by finding a multiplicity of limited perspectives through which the problematic facts no longer are problematic. This goal of coming into agreement with the facts could be seen as having value because of the deep significance of these facts for the human being(s) in question. Finally, when some problem no longer is problematic, one need not continue to philosophize about it. One can pass it in silence waiting for other problems to emerge, if they will. This last paragraph describes the task of the Philosophical Investigations in the important methodological passages. In philosophy we confront a multiplicity of problems and attempt to resolve them by finding perspicuous representations of the problematic facts that bring philosophy peace and allow us to stop doing philosophy when we want (PI, 133). The problems and their solutions are significant because of the depth of the feelings we have about the facts in question (PI, 111). Once we admit that there exists a multiplicity of problems of life, we need not think that a single problem is to be solved, one that can be solved all at once. We will expect instead a multiplicity of problems with similarities and differences. The problem of life becomes a multiplicity of problems. It is cle~r that Wittgenstein writes in the Philosophical Investigations of a multiplicity of philosophical problems, not a single problem. In section 133 of the Philosophical Investigations, he claims that he, in this text, is concerned with many problems, not just one: "Probl~ms are

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solved (difficulties eliminated), not a single problem." Now why does he draw this contrast and emphasize 'single'? Who would think that there was a single philosophical problem anyhow? Well, he himself held that view. He thought that the single problem he solved in the Tractatus was the problem of setting a limit to language and thought so as to bring about a solution to the problem of life. We know this, as I already indicated, from his preface to that book and because of his description of the intent of the book in his letters to the publisher Ficker and to Russell. So in the Philosophical Investigations, he corrects this idea and claims that there exists a multiplicity of philosophical problems. It is also clear that he thinks these multiple philosophical problems were very much like the Tractarian problem of life. For example, in the "Big Typescript," which is a preliminary version of Philosophical Grammar, he describes the problems of logic as having the same character as the problems of life: If anyone should think he has solved the problem of life and feels like telling himself that everything is quite easy now, he can see that he is wrong just by recalling that there was a time when this "solution" had not been discovered; but it must have been possible to live then too and the solution which has now been discovered seems fortuitous in relation to how things were then. And it is the same in the study of logic. If there were a "solution" to the problems of logic (philosophy) we should only need caution ourselves that there was a time when they had not been solved (and even at that time people must have known how to live and think). (CV, 4)

Here he is treating problems of logic and philosophy as concerning living and thinking. Solutions to problems concerning such things in philosophy, including logic and ethics, are not discoveries. We can see that by remembering that thinking and living are possible without a solution to these problems. This echoes the Tractarian claim that the real solution of these problems is in their disappearance, not in some discovery. In 1937 he wrote The way to solve the problem you see in life is to live in a way that will make what is problematic disappear. The fact that life is problematic shows that the shape of your life does not fit into life's mould. So you must change the way you live and, once your life does fit into the mould, what is problematic will disappear. (CV, 27)

This passage is interesting in several ways. For he speaks of a problem one sees in life and this echoes his concern in the Tractatus about the

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problem of life. It is significant that he no longer speaks of the problem of life, but rather the problem one sees in life. This, of course, suggests that the problem may vary from person to person or from tin1e to time and so, in fact, be a multitude of possible problems. Furthermore, this passage indicates that the successful solution of a philosophical problem requires that it must disappear. In the Tractatus he claims that the problem disappears in the recognition that no meaningful question can express such a problem and so no possible answer can be given to such a question. At this point, however, the influence of his later thinking shows itself, for whereas in the early view he thought that one could come into agreement with the world by seeing it as a limited whole, here he thinks that the problem of life is solved by getting one's life to fit the mould of life. 'Mould' is the translator's gloss for the German word 'Form.' One must make his or her life fit the form of life. In fitting the form of life, one no longer has the problem, which had its source in living life in such a way that does not fit the form of life. If he is referring to the problem one sees in one's life in the same sense that he was concerned with it in the Tractatus (and there is no reason to assume otherwise), then we see an important shift in his conception of the solution to the problem. Whereas before he counseled seeing the world aright, now he speaks of forms of life. Whereas before the problem was to become content and happy by coming into agreement with the world, now he formulates the solution as coming into agreement with the form of one's life. Of course, the shift in formulation follows the shift from seeing language as picturing the world to seeing it as embedded in forms of life. The problem of life no longer is seen to arise from seeing the world incorrectly, but rather from living in a way that is out of agreement with the form of one's life. This shift in formulation is highly significant, for as we know the notion of forms of life plays a central role in Wittgenstein's thinking about language and the problems of philosophy in the Philosophical Investigations. He says on page 226 that "What has to be accepted, the given, is forms of life." This means that, in the solution of philosophical problems, forms of life must be accepted as given and so as the basis for their solution. We can make sense of this claim from the second half of the Investigations in terms of the methodological remarks of the first half of the book. There he says that the notion of a perspicuous representation is fundamental. The task of his thinking is to clarify puzzling linguistic phenomena by producing perspicuous representations of language designed to bring the puzzle to an end and so to bring philosophy peace. And because to imagine a language is to imagine a form of life (PI, 19), forms of life are clarified, and what seemed puzzling about a particular linguistic practice and its related form of life now is elimi-

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nated. One's perspective is changed so that one is brought into agreement with the practice and related form of life)7 If that were the end of the passage on CV, 27, it would be important on its own, but he goes on. But don't we have the feeling that someone who sees no problem in life is blind to something important, even to the most important thing of all? Don't I feel like saying that a man like that is just living aimlessly-blindly, like a mole, and that if only he could see, he would see the problem? Or shouldn't I say rather: a man who lives rightly won't experience the problem as sorrow, so for him it will not be a problem, but a joy rather; in other words for him it will be a bright halo round his life, not a dubious background. (CV, 27)

He describes the person with no problem as living rightly and experiencing the problem as a joy and a halo. Here he is taking up the ethical themes of the Tractarian descriptions of the proper orientation to the world. To solve the problems of life is to live rightly and so to experience one's life as a joy and a halo even in the face of particular problems. In seeing the world aright, one sees the world as happy no matter what. In living rightly, one lives one's life with joy no matter what problems one confronts. Does it make sense, however, to think of philosophical problems as problems of life? The way Wittgenstein describes these problems, it certainly does. He describes these puzzles as creating deep disturbances and likens them to a form of madness, mental cramps, bumps of the understanding, and so forth. And if a philosopher is looking for thoughts that are at peace, the thoughts that are not at peace may certainly constitute a problem of life. So in summary, he treats philosophical problems as problems of life. He contrasts these problems in their multiplicity with the single ethical problem he claimed was the subject of the Tractatus. He describes how life problems are solved by coming into agreement with the form of one's life; and this is exactly his description of how philosophical problems are to be solved in the Philosophical Investigations. However, more must be considered; for if we take passage CV, 27 seriously, then we must think that philosophical problems are solved through a change in one's life. But can we make any sense of this idea? Whether or not we can, Wittgenstein took the idea very seriously)8 Consider the following remarks: "The sickness of a time is cured by an alteration in the mode of life of hunlan beings, and it was possible for the sickness of philosophical problems to get cured only through a

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changed mode of thought and of life, not through a medicine invented by an individual" (RFM, 132). This passage surely shows that Wittgenstein thought that the solution of philosophical problems required a change in one's mode of life and thinking. He likened his own achievement to the development of a new style of thinking (LC, 28) and a new calculus (CV, 50). Further, he was clear that the solution of philosophical problems required change in oneself and a self-mastery. "That man will be revolutionary who can revolutionize himself" (CV, 45). He certainly does, as we have seen, consider his own thinking revolutionary. He likens the change to the change from alchemy to chemistry (CV, 48). So to revolutionize philosophy in the way that he considered he had requires a change in himself. This idea is expressed in the following passages in a different way. No one can speak the truth; if he has still not nlastered himself. He cannot speak it; but not because he is not clever enough yet. The truth can be spoken only by someone who is already at home in it; not by someone who still lives in falsehood and reaches out from falsehood towards truth on just one occasion. (CV, 35) Working in philosophy-like work in architecture in many respectsis really more a working on oneself. On one's own interpretation. On one's way of seeing things. (And what one expects of thenl.) (CV, 16)

To speak the truth at all requires mastering oneself. But what does this mean? It means living that truth, being at home in it. So to solve philosophical problems requires that one live those solutions. It requires not simply being aware of the truth but also changing one's life. In this context it requires a deep and difficult alteration in one's mode of thinking and expressing oneself (CV, 49). So his description of his philosophical achievement and his view of truth shows that he thought that both involved change in the life of the philosopher who proposes the solution of philosophical problems. To do so requires a change in one's life to make the problems disappear and the new perspective something one can articulate and operate with. There is a similarity in structure in the problems of life Wittgenstein describes in his early and later thinking. In both cases problems are presented as fears, feelings of sorrow, unhappiness. The resolution of the problems is presented in terms of coming into agreement with the world or form of one's life to remove those feelings and emotions and replace them with a positive counterpart. In the Notebooks, agreement with the world is understood as the meaning of 'happiness'. In the later thinking, agreement with one's form of life is understood as a joy that either is or accompanies the agreeme~~~~~t!I~ fO!'f!l ~f ~n_e~s Jife _

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There is no hint in Wittgenstein's writings that he gives up the belief that agreement with the world or the form of one's life involves an emotion or mood directed toward the world or form of life as such. So when he speaks of philosophers as wanting thoughts that are at peace, I suggest that peace here plays the role played earlier by happiness, contentment, and joy. It is a way of being in agreement with the world. One does that by being in agreement with one's form of life and the language games that are a part of it. This philosophical peacefulness, when replacing philosophical torment, represents a changed way of life and living from a new perspective and so from a truth that formerly was out of one's reach. The construction of perspicuous representations (PI, 122) is the means by which one renloves oneself from torment and comes to a peaceful agreement with the form of one's life. Consequently, I understand philosophical peace as a positive ethical goal for Wittgenstein's philosophy, not the negative goal of freedom from disturbance. I present indirect evidence for this interpretation in Chapter 6 by defending the claim that philosophical peace, indeed, is a human good. The philosophical problems of life come about from being conceptually puzzled about language games and so the form of one's life. To resolve those problems is to come into agreement with the form of one's life. This later description of the problem of life is the naturalistic version of the transcendental description Wittgenstein gave in the Tractatus. Just as one can proceed in silence, having come into agreement with the world, one can stop doing philosophy when one wants when one has accepted the human forms of life as given. At this point I take it that I have shown that Wittgenstein likens problems of logic to problems of life, and solutions of problems of logic to solutions of problems of life. He claims that the solution to such problems is achieved by making sure that one's life or conceptual clarifications fit the form of one's life. The importance of having one's conceptual clarifications fit the form of one's life is of central importance to the project of clarifying the grammar of our language insofar as language is embedded in our form of life (PI, 19) and philosophical investigation must take forms of life as given (PI, p. 226). These passages in their interconnection give the primary evidence I have for thinking that Wittgenstein's ethical project from the Tractatus is continued in the later writings. One might argue against this interpretation by claiming that all I have shown is that Wittgenstein thought the problems and solutions of the problems of logic are merely similar to problems of life. If the reader is convinced of this reduced position, I will not be terribly disappointed since my argument could be restated in this way without much difficulty.

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But let me indicate why I think this position is problematic. Because Wittgenstein presses therapeutic terms in his characterization of his later project, he must be thinking of philosophical problems as life problems. By pressing the way in which philosophical problems disturb, torment, and bring about feelings of shame (see Chapter 3), he really is treating philosophical "ruptures" in our intellect (CV, 57) as life problems. Furthermore he insists that life problenls can be solved only by a changed mode of living (CV, 27, quoted earlier), but this is exactly what he says about solving philosophical problems needing a changed mode of life (RFM, 132) with a changed mode of expression. In the next section I discuss Moore's presentation of Wittgenstein's lectures in the early 1930s. Moore's account presents some indirect evidence for my interpretation. As I already indicated I take the evidence presented b.y Moore to be reliable. Moreover, I know of no refutations of Moore's account by those who were present at such lectures.

Philosophy, Ethics, and Method So far I have argued that Wittgenstein's rejection of transcendentalism in his later thinking, nonetheless, left the fundamental ethical character of his project in place. There is an additional line of argument to support this claim. For, according to G. E. Moore, Wittgenstein held that the methods of ethics, aesthetics, and philosophy were similar. Such a claim indicates further reason to think that he held that the later philosophical investigations had an ethical import. In his description of Wittgenstein's 1933 lectures, Moore quotes Wittgenstein as saying "I have always wanted to say something about the grammar of ethical expressions, or, e.g. of the word 'God'." Moore goes on, "But in fact he said very little about the grammar of such words as 'God', and very little also about ethical expressions. What he did deal with at length was not Ethics but Aesthetics, saying, however, "Practically everything which I say about 'beautiful' applies in a slightly different way to 'good'" (Moore, 312). This passage shows that there was a close association in Wittgenstein's mind between the problems of aesthetics and ethics. This position perhaps is a modification of the Tractarian view where Wittgenstein says that ethics and aesthetics are identical (Tractatus, 6.421) and the "Lectures on Ethics" where he includes aesthetics in ethics. The problem is that it is unclear what he is committed to in saying this. In the Notebooks (83), he says something different: that ethics and aesthetics have different objects of investigation but the same methods of contemplating those different objects. Both grasp objects sub specie aeternitatus, but whereas in aesthetics one grasp~Y3!5~~]~~!!ti~g~,_~~

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ethics one grasps the world. Here Wittgenstein differentiates between the beautiful and the good as objects of inquiry in aesthetics and ethics, respectively.19 Moore describes Wittgenstein's view of the method of aesthetics as that of giving reasons. Reasons he said in Aesthetics, are "of the nature of further descriptions": e.g. you can make a person see what Brahms was driving at by showing him lots of different pieces by Brahms, or by comparing him with a contemporary author; and all that Aesthetics does is "to draw your attention to a thing," to "place things side by side." He said that if, by giving "reasons" of this sort, you make another person "see what you see" but it still "doesn't appeal to him," that is "an end" of the discussion; and that what he, Wittgenstein, had "at the back of his mind" was "the idea that aesthetic discussions were like discussions in a court of law," where you try to "clear up the circumstances" of the action which is being tried, hoping that in the end what you will say will "appeal to the judge." And he said the same sort of "reasons" were given not only in Ethics, but also in Philosophy. (Moore, 315)

This passage shows in what respect the methods of ethics, aesthetics, and philosophy are the same.· The method is to get a person to look at some phenomena in a new way, and this is accomplished by drawing comparisons designed to produce this result. One compares the opening of a Brahms piece with other pieces by him that shed light on the piece. One could do that by pointing to similar pieces or different ones. The point here is that one constructs a reason for thinking the opening correct by fitting the piece into a context that, suitably described, makes the opening seem just right. In the same way, one describes one's behavior in the best possible light in a court of law by comparing it to other clearly legal behaviors so that the judge will find the defendant not guilty. Wittgenstein goes on to claim that Freud himself engaged in this sort of activity, but confused giving reasons with giving causes. Wittgenstein said of Freud's work "It is all excellent similes, e.g. the comparison of a dream to a rebus" (Moore, 316). According to Moore, in the same set of lectures, Wittgenstein claims that a method of philosophy has been found (Moore, 322). The description of the method is slightly different from how he describes the method of aesthetics, but not at all incompatible. He claims that in philosophy we are led to ask questions because of some "vague mental uneasiness" (Moore, 323) and that in responding to these questions, one must show that the questions are not permitted, or else one must answer them. In doing either, in philosophy one does not teach us new facts, but rather tells us "things which we all know already." He thinks

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that the difficult thing is to get a 'synopsis' of these facts. Removal of uneasiness would come with just the right sort of synopsis. He says that the synopsis must be a synopsis of 'many' trivialities if it is to remove discomfort. Leaving out trivialities is precisely the cause of such discomfort. Now, presenting these 'synopses' is what he called presenting 'reasons' in his discussion of aesthetics. One gathers facts and arranges them in such a way that Brahms's opening seems just right. One does this by drawing comparisons and making contrasts until a sufficiently appealing description of Brahms's opening is constructed. In philosophy, one does the same to erase the uneasiness a philosopher has about some phenomenon. Indeed, Moore says that "it was in this respect of needing a 'synopsis' of trivialities that he thought that philosophy was similar to ethics and aesthetics" (Moore, 323). This, however, does not seem to be entirely accurate. For in aesthetics one often adduces facts of which the critic is not aware. The point is not that in both one constructs a synopsis of trivialities, but rather that in both one constructs a synopsis of facts, trivial or not, designed to make the problematic phenomenon no longer problematic. In philosophy, according to Wittgenstein, the facts are all before us, though that need not be so in aesthetics (PI, 126). Are there any additional similarities between aesthetics, philosophy, and ethics? One illuminating remark he makes about aesthetic investigations is that, in such investigations, in making aesthetic judgments, we are trying to bring something "nearer to an ideal," though we have no ideal before us that we are trying to copy; that to show what we want, we might point to another tune, which we might say is "perfectly right" (Moore, 314). If these other types of investigation are similar, then we would expect to find the same thing, an ideal that we express not by articulating it directly, but by giving examples, drawing contrasts, making comparisons, and so forth. Is this, in fact, the case? In ethics, the ideal might be expressed by the expressions 'being happy', 'being content no matter what', or 'feeling safe no matter what'; in philosophy by 'clarity' and 'peace.' In psychoanalysis, there is an ideal, too, finding relief from the existence of some troubling pattern in one's life (LC, 51). When puzzles arise about absolute value, beauty, or conceptual claims, then through the development of a synoptic or perspicuous representation the puzzlen1ent is removed and one is n10ved closer to an ideal. A revealing anecdote from Malcolm indicates how this idea of the identity of method affected his instruction of his students outside the classroom in relation to practical ethical judgment. Malcolm once claimed that he could not believe that the British had attempted to assassinate Hitler because the British were too civilized and decent, and

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their national character was incompatible with such an act. Wittgenstein became 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 to me" (M, 32). Now what connection did Wittgenstein think exists between philosophical training and the ability to assess the national character of the British and draw conclusions from such an assessment about how the British might act? That is not easy to say. The following, perhaps, explains Wittgenstein's remark. His notion of general predicates as expressing something like family resemblances requires that one not draw general conclusions about some phenomena because of its description. Rather, one must always look first insofar as disparate phenomena are often grouped under a single general term. To describe the British as decent and civilized may be accurate, but that could easily be true without ruling out the assassination plot. One would have to examine the language game of calling the people of a nation decent and civilized to see what behavior is compatible with such a description, instead of assuming in advance on the basis of dogmatic thinking that such behavior indeed was incompatible with such a description. Alternatively, assessments of British character should properly come from a detailed examination of British history rather than from impressions gleaned from academic life at Cambridge. Whatever Wittgenstein meant, it is very clear that he thought that his form of training could help one in one's thinking about practical ethical problems in their everyday context. Moreover, he thought it very important that his students apply the results of their training in that way. As Malcolm recounts, after this disagreement, Wittgenstein refused to take him on his walks prior to his biweekly lectures (M, 30). In the period between the delivery of the lectures described by Moore and the start of the writing of the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein reiterated his view that philosophy and aesthetics were similar. In 1936, he wrote, "The queer resemblance between a philosophical investigation (perhaps especially in mathematics) and an aesthetic one. (E.g. what is bad about this garment, how should it be, etc.)" (CV, 25). This passage reaffirms what he said in the earlier lectures and shows that he still held that there was a resemblance three years later. The idea that he expressed is that in philosophical investigations, where one is examining what philosophical claims a person is making, one makes judgments akin to aesthetic judgments. So one is examining a philosophical claim and indicating that this claim is not what one should say in this circumstance, not a good viewpoint, just as one makes aesthetic judgments about a garment or a piece of music. That Wittgenstein took this view quite seriously is evidenced by his return to this idea in 1949. "I may find scientific questions interesting,

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but they never really grip me. Only conceptual and aesthetic questions do that. At bottom I am indifferent to the solution of scientific problems; but not the other sort" (CV, 79). Here Wittgenstein was indicating his own relation to philosophical and aesthetic investigations and contrasting that with his feelings about scientific investigations. This passage certainly suggests that he continued to feel that philosophical and aesthetic investigations were similar in important respects. If this view of the similarity between the methods of philosophy, aesthetics, and ethics seems strange (and it may very well), it might be useful to point out how that view developed. This view clearly is a development of the Tractarian view that ethics, logic, and aesthetics are all transcendental (Tractatus, 6.421 and 6.13). What it means to call each of these transcendental is made clear in the Notebooks (83) where Wittgenstein makes it clear that each of these disciplines views its subject matter from the vantage point of eternity-the work of art is the object seen sub specie aeternitatis, the good life and the world seen sub specie aeternitatis. But the object seen from the vantage point of eternity just is the thing seen "together with the whole logical space." If seeing "the whole logical space" is what logic does, the transcendental character of ethics and aesthetics is based on the transcendental viewpoint of logic. For those who are inclined to think that logic (philosophy) is radically different from ethics, it is important to note that Wittgenstein did not hold this view. The notion of seeing things from the vantage point of eternity is replaced in the later view by the notion of having a synoptic (perspicuous) presentation of the facts. This replacement suits Wittgenstein's desire to undo his commitments to the metaphysics of the Tractatus without giving up its basic program of clarification. It is no wonder, then, that Wittgenstein held the view that the methods of ethics, aesthetics, and philosophy are similar. In summary, in both ethics and philosophy, one is attenlpting to approximate an ideal. In the one case, it is the ideal of absolute contentment or safety; and in the other, the ideal of a clarity that brings philosophical peace. In both cases one constructs a synoptic view through assembling reminders. In doing this, one spells out the connections between what otherwise might have seenled to be disparate phenomena, thereby resolving one's ethical or philosophical puzzle. Aesthetics and practical ethical thinking also exhibit the same sort of structure.

Ethics and Philosophy I have argued that Wittgenstein's ethical project in the Tractatus continued in a new fornl in the Philosophical Investigations. But one can won-

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der whether it is correct to characterize the goal of philosophical peace as ethical. The issue at this point is semantic. If ethics concerns solving the problems of life, that is, the problem of one's relation to the form of one's life, then the project of the Philosophical Investigations is ethical in this sense. The development of the notion of problems of life from the early to the later writing shows sufficient similarities to justify claiming that the later work is indeed ethical. Both address the problem or problems of life and attempt to resolve such problems through their complete disappearance. Such a resolution requires a deep change in perspective in the philosopher who resolves thenl. Such a change brings him or her in agreement with the world or with the relevant form of life. Since the problem of life in the Tractatus is ethical, so are the problems of life, the philosophical disturbances of the Philosophical Investigations. 20 Someone might want to argue that it would be better, because less tendentious and closer to the textual evidence I have adduced, to argue that I have merely demonstrated that Wittgenstein believed that the problems of philosophy are akin to ethical problems. The argument might go this way. Short of some clear declaration by Wittgenstein that he considered the problems of philosophy to be ethical, it is only reasonable to assert the weaker thesis. It would tip the scale in the direction of the stronger thesis if, in fact, it reasonably could be argued that philosophical problems as Wittgenstein conceived of them, in fact, are ethical. It can be argued that, because Wittgenstein's philosophy is consistently therapeutic, some notion of the human good must be implied in the conception of health that the therapy presupposes. Of course, this does not mean that Wittgenstein must have developed a detailed account of the human good. It means only that his therapeutic project makes sense in light of some conception of the human goOd. 21 The goods in question are the goods of peace and clarity. These goods are ideal ways to orient oneself toward one's form of life. So the goods are ethical, in my sense. This argument about the presuppositions of therapeutic philosophy combines with the previously mentioned weak and strong clainls about Wittgenstein's beliefs to allow us to claim both that Wittgenstein's project presupposes a conception of the human good and that Wittgenstein was more or less aware of the presupposition (depending on whether one is inclined to adopt the strong or weak thesis). If one wants to treat Moore's discussion as less conclusive than Wittgenstein's own text, so be it. As I have already argued, however, Wittgenstein draws an analogy between philosophical and life problems. 22 My methodological claims from the chapter make it clear that I use these texts to clarify the ethical project that the later Wittgenstein pursued largely in silence. I think that I have made a case for the likeli-

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hood that the ethical project from the Tractatus was continued in the later writings and had the form I described. From now on I will speak of Wittgenstein's ethical and therapeutic project and his related claims about the problems of life and their solution. I will leave it to the reader to realize that, even though I think this interpretation to be justified, I cannot clain1 to have proven it with absolute certainty, given Wittgenstein's principled silence on these matters and so given the limited textual evidence available.

Epistemology, Therapy, and Clarity One reason ·for the difficulty in appreciating that the value Wittgenstein accords to clarity is therapeutic, and so ethical, is the epistemology-centered approach toward philosophy that dominates much contemporary philosophical discussion. Someone who thinks of philosophy as epistemology will tend to view clarity as having epistemological value. There clarity will be understood as accuracy of representation, and clarity will be important as indicating the presence of knowledge and truth. But it is clear that Wittgenstein did not value clarity in this way. In 1930 (CV, 7), he claimed that he valued clarity in itself and not as it is valued in scientific and technological cultures, which treat it as a means to truth and knowledge. Later he qualified this claim and referred to clarity as the thoughts that bring peace. If clear thoughts bring peace, then they have that instrumental value. But it is important to see that he did not give them the importance one gives to clarity in scientific thinking. But because he holds clarity as a value in itself and clarity also has an epistemic value, it is easy to interpret his remarks as though he were committed to a quasi-scientific enterprise that needs supplementation or correction because of its inadequacies. Certainly, one can understand philosophy as producing a general sort of knowledge about the world that supplements, but is no different in kind from, scientific knowledge. Moreover, one can understand philosophy as resolving paradoxes in the course of producing that very general sort of knowledge. But Wittgenstein is not engaged in such an enterprise. 23 The clarity he aims at has as its point the production of a kind of contentment. It will be my task in the next two chapters to describe how Wittgenstein thought that this contentment could be produced. My claim that clarity is designed to promote Wittgenstein's therapeutic goal of coming into agreement with one's form of life and so not designed to present solutions to theoretical or epistemological problems might be challenged by arguing, following Williams and Lear,24 that the later writings represent a form of transcendental philosophy-

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one that is aimed at specifying the limits of thought by showing how our seeing the world the way we do depends on our having the form of life we have and by showing that no other forms of life can even make sense to us. This reading gains support from showing how the transcendental 'I' of the Tractatus becomes, in the Philosophical Investigations, the transcendental 'we'. Moreover, if one can show that Wittgenstein in mentioning other possible fornls of life never shows how to make sense of them, this shows that he is indicating transcendental limits of thought. There are some problenls with the Williams and Lear approach. At the very least it is a reconstruction of a pattern of thought and not supported by direct textual evidence from Wittgenstein's methodological remarks in Philosophical Investigations. So one might imagine the possibility of an alternative reading. Williams argues that that the prevalence of 'we' in the Philosophical Investigations shows the presence of the transcendental view n10dified from the solipsism of the Tractatus. But I will argue in Chapter 3 that the prevalence of 'we' is due to the confessional character of the text. There is a descendent of the transcendental then1e in Wittgenstein's interest in possibilities of phenomena and in nlaking concepts intelligible by appeal to general facts of nature, facts that partly constitute our form of life (PI, pp. 56 and 230). But Wittgenstein never claims that imagined alterations in forn1s of life n1ake no sense to us. In fact he uses these possibilities to undo the very sort of dogmatism the transcendental approach might support. 25 Finally, if his approach were transcendental in Williams's and Lear's sense, then we would expect to see it worked out in Philosophical Investigations 156-178, where Wittgenstein illustrates his approach to addressing the philosophical problem of the nature of understanding by exanlining the question of the nature of reading. But here the examination of alternative forms of life that we can make no sense of plays no role in the discussion. Rather, Wittgenstein shows how we are telnpted to speak about particular examples in a variety of confused ways. He attempts to get us to avoid certain natural, but nlisleading, forols of description. 26

Chapter 3 Confession and Dialogue

Introduction In Chapter 1, I argued that a therapeutic philosophy is conducted in dialectical-confessional form. So the fact that Wittgenstein's philosophy is therapeutic in character requires that it proceed in a dialectical-confessional form. In this chapter, I argue that the Philosophical Investigations has such a form. Before proceeding let me make it clear what I mean by 'confession'. In Chapter 1, I called philosophical therapeutic practice confessional because it required the interlocutors to say what they really think about the subject under discussion. I also pointed out that in a therapeutic context, the point is to challenge what the interlocutor thinks if it does not pass the test of critical scrutiny. So usually the acknowledgement sets the stage for the rejection of the claim as mistaken. But much more needs to be said to explain and justify this usage. An ordinary sense of 'confession' is the acknowledgment of some private state of mind. I confess to being irritated with someone, doubting his or her honesty, and so on. This is confession as acknowledgment. In the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein confesses to having inclinations to say certain things, temptations to do the same, and so forth. Here the acknowledgment is not to another person but to himself. He is expressing and so acknowledging to himself these states of mind. But there is a sense in which these confessions are something like a confession to a priest. There one acknowledges sin. Wittgenstein is acknowledging these inclinations as sources of philosophical confusion. But if we connect this claim with the argument of Chapter 2, we are forced to claim that these confusions themselves are ethical disturbances. They prevent us from coming into agreement with the fornl of our lives. In 1944 Wittgenstein suggests this very claim. He says that if one thinks of being mistaken as illness, one adopts a religious orientation.

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People are religious to the extent that they believe themselves to be not so much imperfect as ill. Any man who is half-way decent will think of himself as imperfect, but a religious man thinks himself wretched. (CV, 45)

Consciousness of misunderstandings as forms of illness is a religious conception. So Wittgenstein's own conceptualization of philosophical mistakenness as illness has a religious significance (M, 83). Furthermore, when he thinks of philosophical problems as torments, this suggests the recognition of these errors as forms of wretchedness. So these acknowledgments are not just acknowledgments of innocent inclinations, but of illness and forms of wretchedness that Wittgenstein is attempting to overcome. Finally, I add one more reason for using this term. Wittgenstein's text begins with a quotation from St. Augustine's Confessions. But more important, Wittgenstein's writing has some of the flavor of Augustine's confession of misunderstanding the nature of time in the Confessions. Wittgenstein cites Augustine's puzzles as models of philosophical problems (BB, 26 and PI, 89).1 Consider Augustine's remarks about time. 'Time' and 'times' are words forever on our lips. "How long did he speak?" we ask. "How long did he take to do that?" We use these words and hear others using thenl. They understand what we mean and we understand them. No words could be plainer or more commonly used. Yet their true meaning is concealed from us. We have still to find it out. (270)2

These puzzles about time threaten Augustine's relation to God, for if he cannot understand time, he cannot understand how God could have created all things including time. The problem is that if God had to create the world at some time, he could not have created time itself. My mind is burning to solve this intricate puzzle, 0 Lord my God, good Father, it is a problem at once so familiar and so mysterious, I long to find the answer. Through Christ I beseech you, do not keep it hidden away but make it clear to me. Let your mercy give me light. To whom am I to put my questions? To whom can I confess my ignorance with greater profit than you? (270)

To be sure Wittgenstein does not pray in this way. But he thinks of Augustine's appeal to God as similes designed to describe a real experience of disturbance that needs resolution (LE, 9-10, and CV, 28-29). So with his own tendency to proceed in his ethical quest without using religious simile, we get in the Philosophical Investigations what one

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might expect if we were to translate the Confessions into the more minimalistic vocabulary one finds in Wittgenstein's writings. We drop reference to God and salvation and confess our inclinations as sustainers of a wretchedness that we hope to eliminate through acknowledgment, critical scrutiny, and assimilation of a new style of thinking.

Confessional Text There are some general considerations in favor of reading the Philosophical Investigations as a confessional text.3 If you examine the preface, it is clear the primary purpose of the book is not to communicate ideas. For it is clear that Wittgenstein does not think that the book will do that. In much the same way, he indicates in the preface of the Tractatus that no one will understand what he has said unless he or she already has had the same thoughts. We could read both prefaces as indications of his feeling unable to write clearly. I would like to proceed first, however, on the hypothesis that his primary intention is not to communicate clearly a set of philosophical theses. Rather, as he says, his purpose is to demonstrate a method (PI, 133). In addition the dialogical character of the work appears confessional. For the interlocutor who shows up in Wittgenstein's writing is not some artificially contrived foil, but Wittgenstein's other self-the one he is persuading to give up his old style of thinking. Wittgenstein himself says as much: "Nearly all my writings are private conversations with myself. Things that I say to myself tete atete" (CV, 77). Moreover, it is clear that there should be a definite structure to any confessional work that is therapeutic. It should confess something problematic and then struggle for some resolution. According to Wittgenstein's own methodological dicta in the Philosophical Investigations (sections 100-33), the problems he is discussing are deep and disturbing puzzles. The real discovery, then, as he says, is the one that lets him stop doing philosophy when he wants to, the one that brings philosophy (i.e., him as philosopher) peace. The movement of the discussions is from disturbance to resolution. One might also expect that, if Wittgenstein is confessing, then there is someone to whom he must confess. But to whom is he confessing? The confession is between Wittgenstein as bewitched and lost in the paradoxes and Wittgenstein as clear, just as the early work is the attempt to show the Wittgenstein who has a problem with life how that problem is solved. Is such a confessional project coherent? I can certainly admit to myself certain of n1Y failings and intend to eliminate those failings. In such a context confessional statements mark a change in view and express the intention to keep up the change or further it if

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necessary. Wittgenstein has some such notion in mind in the following statement: "A confession has to be a part of your new life" (CV, 19). Both of these claims suggest that, given his view of philosophy as involving a work on oneself and so presumably a change of oneself, there will be much room for confession. For, in confession one will be able to mark a change between one's new life or self and one's previous life or self. Although I think that these intuitions give some reason to think the hypothesis correct, we ultimately must look for evidence in the text itself. 4 I follow the procedure of first indicating what I take the structure of a confessional text to be, then I give three sorts of evidence for the claim that the Philosophical Investigations is a confessional text. First, I indicate the presence of clear examples of confessional language. Next, I indicate patterns in the text that can be understood only in terms of the confessional project but are not in themselves clearly confessional. Finally, I argue that these confessional features are central, not peripheral, to Wittgenstein's project. I already argued that the goal of the Investigations is the sort of philosophical peace that brings one into agreement with the form of one's life. This is the ideal behind all of Wittgenstein's investigations in this book. As we have seen, Wittgenstein's writings were written largely for himself. He clain1s in the preface of both books that few, if any, would be able to understand them, and it is clear that he is concerned to demonstrate a method. He wants, then, secondarily to show others an approach to philosophy that is distinctively ethical and therapeutic, not the only approach. The role of the interlocutor is to give voice to the thoughts Wittgenstein is trying to remove from his philosophical thinking. The interlocutor in Wittgenstein's writings seems to indicate, then, the very form of thinking contrary to the ideal and in need of elimination if that ideal is to be achieved.

Temptations and Inclinations We must now turn to examples of the clearly confessional language of the text. Anyone expecting to read a standard philosophical text in reading the Philosophical Investigations can be only surprised and puzzled by the mention of various temptations, seductions, bewitchments, and inclinations that one is shown how to avoid in one way or another. Wittgenstein also speaks of confusions, puzzles, and misunderstandings. To speak of philosophical failures in this mode is not in itself confessional; however, when these confusions and puzzles are thought of as the things into which one gets bewitched, tempted, and seduced, they are being placed in a confessional context.

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I concentrate on examining Wittgenstein's use of the language of temptation, since this term occurs more than the others I have grouped with it. The theme of temptation occurs throughout the Investigations, but is concentrated between pages 91 and 116. This section of the text is a part of the discussion of the nature and possibility of a private language. The first mention of temptations is an extremely important methodological claim about how temptations are to be treated in philosophy: "What we 'are tempted to say' in such a case is, of course, not philosophy; but it is its raw material. Thus, for example what a mathematician is inclined to say about objectivity and reality of mathematical facts, is not a philosophy of mathematics, but something for philosophical treatment" (PI, 254). Here we get an identification of temptations with inclinations to say one thing or another. I will discuss this identification later. The important point is that Wittgenstein identifies this material of philosophy with temptations. These are things to be treated. What this shows is the way in which Wittgenstein identifies and uses interchangeably the language of therapy with the language of confession. Now what we are to treat is our temptations to speak or philosophize in certain ways. Here Wittgenstein is mentioning the mathematician's tendency to say certain things about mathematical facts, but the example is meant to illuminate the tendency in philosophy to shift from the use of 'identical' to 'same' in philosophical discussions and in particular where one is talking about whether you and I can have the same pain. The temptation to make this move is something to be discussed in philosophy and treated. In his discussion of whether there might be an ambiguity in the meaning of color words, some referring to publicly experienced colors and others to private impressions not accessible to anyone else, Wittgenstein says: 277. But how is it even possible for us to be tempted to think that we use a word to mean at one time the color known to everyone-and at another the 'visual impression' which I am getting now? How can there be so much as a temptation here?-I don't turn the same kind of attention on the color in the two cases. When I mean the color impression that (as I should like to say) belongs to me alone I immerse myself in the color-rather like when I "cannot get my fill of a color." Hence it is easier to produce this experience when one is looking at a bright color, or an impressive color-scheme [my underlines]. 278. "I know how the color green looks to me"-surely that makes sensei-Certainly: what use of the proposition are you thinking of?

This passage illuminates further how Wittgenstein wants to treat temptations to say things. For his therapeutic requirement is to get

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clear about the role of such statements in ordinary contexts where they have some clear meaning. So having gotten the interlocutor to indicate his temptation to say that color words have two meanings, and his further temptation to support his view that sometimes color words refer to private impressions with the claim that "I know how the color green looks to me," Wittgenstein submits these temptations to the proper treatment. The treatment is to see how such a claim as "I know how the color green looks to me" is used. So he examines some ordinary uses of such a claim to show that in no case that we can construct does the interlocutor's claim have a meaning that will support his conclusion. What the interlocutor is brought to is clarity about the use of his sentence in the hope that he can be brought to an acceptance of his form of life and the language characteristic to that form of life. On page ninety-nine, Wittgenstein discusses the possibility of doubting whether what one has now is pain if one knows what 'pain' means. Wittgenstein claims that the language game cannot accommodate such a statement, but that the temptation to speak that way can be explained: "My temptation to say that one might take a sensation for something other than what it is arises from this: if I assume the abrogation of the normal language game with the expression of sensation, I need a criterion of identity for the sensation; and then the possibility of error also exists" [my italics] (PI, 288). So this inclination is treated as a temptation that can be explained. Wittgenstein proceeds, then, by engaging in philosophical treatment of such a temptation. The other use of this word and its variants is similar to what I have indicated so far. The strategy is sometimes to dissuade the interlocutor of his temptations and at other times to give him his temptation and then try to clarify how he is using the sentence that tempts him. In both cases, the aim is for sufficient clarity to eliminate puzzlement. This second strategy is clear from 374 where Wittgenstein is discussing the temptation to view thinking as an inner n1ental process: "And the best I can propose is that we should yield to the temptation to use this picture, but then investigate how the application of the picture goes." In the case of the temptation arising in paragraph 288, the picture governing the temptation is the picture of sensations as mental objects, differing from physical objects only by being in the mind. I can be mistaken about which kind of physical object I am perceiving. I may not know for sure whether this animal is a mouse or a gerbil. I must check it against the criteria for both. Similarly the model of pain as otherwise like a physical object demands that there be criteria for being in pain and that the criteria sometimes might be applied wrongly. This picture of pain as a mental object tempts us. We are then inclined to say things about pain that we normally would not. Paragraph 374, however, makes it clear that

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the picture itself is not the problem; rather, our misunderstanding of the picture and its significance. If we can get clear about how the picture gets applied, say, in the language game of pain, then we would not be inclined to think of mental objects as otherwise just like physical objects. As I already indicated, these temptations also are referred to as inclinations. Discourse about inclinations mayor may not be confessional. Insofar as Wittgenstein treats some inclinations in the same way he treats temptations, we must conclude, however, that Wittgenstein does use 'inclination' confessionally. In the section to which I have confined my discussion of 'temptation', the use clearly is confessional, for the inclinations referred to are ones to be treated by philosophy. Consider 298 and 299. 298. The very fact that we should so much like to say: "This is the important thing"-while we point privately to the sensation-is enough to show how much we are inclined to say something which gives no information. 299. Being unable-when we surrender ourselves to philosophical thought-to help saying such and such; being irresistibly inclined to say it-does not mean being forced into an assumption, or having an inlmediate perception or knowledge of a state of affairs.

In these passages, Wittgenstein characterizes philosophical thoughts as things we are irresistibly inclined to assert and unable to help saying in certain contexts. His language seems even stronger than talk of tenlptations, for inclinations of this sort sometimes are such that we are helpless against them. What does this examination show about Wittgenstein's project? The project is to treat a set of inclinations and temptations to have philosophical thoughts of a certain sort. Whose temptations are discussed? I think that we must say that they are primarily Wittgenstein's own inclinations and temptations. One theme in the book, however, is that these inclinations are not private but are inclinations into which anyone can and will fall, given a certain misunderstanding. Even though the driving motive of the writing is to address Wittgenstein's own temptations, these are temptations that could be had by anyone. So there is an interesting play in the text between talking about me, us, and you. It is to this feature of the text that I turn next.

I, You, and We There is a surprisingly large number of occurrences of the words 'I', 'we', and 'you' in the Philosophical Investigations. The word 'I' occurs

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1994 times; 'we', 1000; and 'you', 676. If we treat the text as having 232 pages, then we see that there are more than eight occurrences of '1' per page; more than four of 'we'; and almost three of 'you'. Most standard philosophical texts do not have this number. For example, in Anthony Kenny's "Cartesian Privacy," on the average, there are five occurrences of 'I'; one of 'we'; and less than one of 'you'. But this is not the whole story. If we distinguish between first- and second-order occurrences of these pronouns, where a first-order occurrence is part of a description of or question about some hypothetical circumstance and a second-order occurrence is part of a description of or question about what we would be inclined to say about the hypothetical circumstance, then we find that there is a surprisingly large number of second-order occurrences of these pronouns. To simplify my analysis, I concentrate on one section of the text, pages 61-72. I picked this section because it is one in which Wittgenstein is instructing us in his method of philosophy. This section discusses the nature of reading to show how we might fruitfully discuss the nature of understanding. In this section of the text there are 113 occurrences of 'I'; 74 of 'we'; and 46 of 'you'. The averages in this section are higher than in the text as a whole: ten, six, and four, respectively. This is only to be expected if the passage is intended to present a paradigm of the method being demonstrated. It is inlportant, however, to notice the large number of second-order occurrences of these pronouns. There are thirty second-order occurrences of 'I'; twenty-one of 'we'; and five of 'you'. There are none in the Kenny text. Over 25 percent of the occurrences of these pronouns are second-order. What is to be made of this fact? What does it show about the nature of this text? Before I am able to give an answer to these questions, it will be necessary to look at some characteristic passages. What 1 hope to show through this textual examination is that in most cases, the 'l's and 'we's could be interchanged. What Wittgenstein represents as what I am inclined to say is no different from what he represents as what we are inclined to say. Consider section 165: But surely-we should like to say-reading is quite a particular process! Read a page of print and you can see that something special is going on, something highly characteristic.-Well, what does go on when I read the page? I see printed words and I say words out loud. But, of course, that is not all, for I nlight see printed words and say words out loud and still not be reading. Even if the words which I say are those which, going by an existing alphabet, are supposed to be read off from the printed ones.-And if you say that reading is a particular experience, then it becomes quite unimportant whether or not you read according to some generally recognized alphabetical rule.-

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And what does the characteristic thing about experience of reading consist in?-Here I should like to say: "The words I utter come in a special way." [my underline]

Notice that what we should like to say-reading is a quite particular process-is just what I should like to say-"The words come in a special way." Both claims are different ways of trying to express what one wants to say about reading when one is making philosophical claims about what distinguishes real reading from the appearance of reading. This sort of shift from 'I' to 'we' occurs over and over again throughout this section. In fact only on one occasion is what I want to say distinguished from what we want to say. In section 156, Wittgenstein distinguishes the general conclusion of the section (what I want to say) from what we (including himself) should like to say: But I want to say: we have to admit that-as far as concerns uttering anyone of the printed words-the same thing may take place in the consciousness of the pupil who is 'pretending' to read, as in that of the practiced reader who is 'reading' it. The word "to read" is applied differently when we speak of the beginner and of the practiced reader.Now we should of course like to say: What goes on in that practiced reader and in the beginner when they utter the word can't be the same.

Why does Wittgenstein shift back and forth fron1 '1' to 'we'? What he is discussing in these sections is the things that one is inclined to say when under the spell of a particular philosophical picture. To indicate what I am inclined to say is not just to say something about myself, for it also might indicate what anyone who falls under the spell of that picture would be inclined to say in such a case. In the same way, one might confess having inclinations to covet something that one does not own by speaking of either what I or we illegitimately are inclined to want. In the one case, Wittgenstein emphasizes that it is his own inclination; in the other, that it is one shared by a class of people. As the text moves continuously back and forth between these modes, Wittgenstein is taking the personal confessions as exemplary and the examples as also personal. Furthermore, because one could use either pronoun exclusively, or one more than the other, the number of occurrences should indicate how far the confessions are viewed as personal. Clearly, the larger number of second-order occurrences of '1' indicates a tendency to view the enterprise as personal. The pronoun 'you' in second-order occurrences is used to ask questions and in all such cases one can think of the one addressed as either Wittgenstein or the reader who is being included in the class of philosophically minded thinkers inclined to say the things that Wittgenstein is attempting to treat.

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So far I have argued that the interlocutor represents Wittgenstein in dialogue with himself and that a pattern of discourse in the text speaks of temptations, bewitchments, and seductions and that such talk is confessional. Moreover, there is a large number of second-order occurrences of the pronouns 'I' and 'we' in which Wittgenstein also identifies what we are inclined to say as a kind of temptation such as in PI 159. "But when we think the matter over we are tempted to say: the one real criterion for anybody's reading is the conscious act of reading, the act of reading the sounds off from the letters." So there is good reason to think of these second-order occurrences of what we are inclined to say as expressions of the temptations that are being confessed. For anyone not convinced by this move, I would ask what else are these second-order occurrences doing? Contrary to what Cavell argues in "The Availability of Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy" (pp. 177-78), they are not indications of our knowledge or our ordinary linguistic practices. Wittgenstein indicates that these things we are inclined to say are the unordinary philosophical claims that require treatment. His concern, as we have seen, is to treat what we are inclined and tempted and seduced into saying and thinking. And contrary to what Williams argues, they are not expression of Wittgenstein's transcendental idealism (see my remarks in the last section of Chapter 2).

Torment and Disturbance Now I want to indicate which wretched states of mind Wittgenstein is attempting to avoid and what sort of treatment he proposes. I begin by indicating the pattern of his discussion of this issue throughout the text and then return to see how this pattern is exemplified in the section under discussion. It is clear that Wittgenstein's project is designed to deliver him (us) from torment. "The real discovery is the one that makes me capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want to.-The one that gives philosophy peace so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself in question" (PI, 133). The torment here cannot be philosophy's torment in any literal sense. For if there is torment, it is the torment of philosophers doing philosophy. So the project is to get us from torment to peace in our philosophical endeavor. There is even a stronger version of this view in Remarks on Colour: "Lack of clarity in philosophy is tormenting. It is felt as shameful" (p. 21). What is the source of the torment of which Wittgenstein speaks? Before answering this question it will be useful to catalog the things that Wittgenstein says about the tormented state from which he is trying to renlove himself (us). He refers to the problems of philosophers as

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'deep disquietudes' (PI, 111). He calls these disquietudes 'bumps' that the understanding has gotten by running up against the limits of language (PI, 119). In the Blue Book he uses the term 'mental cramp'. The source of these disturbances is the similes that have been absorbed in language (PI, 112). One form of speaking about something strikes us as paradigmatic so that we treat the paradigm as definitive for all occurrences of the thing. For example, if we think of measurement in terms of the model of measurement of length, then we will see measurement of time as being the same sort of thing as the measurement of length. But then there will be numerous puzzles about how it is even possible to measure time since we obviously cannot measure it in the way we measure length. But if we are captured by the picture of measurement with a ruler, we will feel both that measurement must be of that sort and that it cannot be, since we obviously do measure time and we do not do so in the way we measure length. "A simile that has been absorbed in the forms of our language produces a false appearance, and this disquiets us. 'But this isn't how it is! '-we say. 'Yet this is how it has to be!'" (PI, 112). Now why does this disquiet us? It does so because who we are as human beings and souls is determined by our forms of life and so our forms of language. When a simile produces disquiet, it forces us to come into conflict with ourselves insofar as we do engage in the practice of measurement of time and know this, but are forced by our mistaken thinking to deny it. Thus, we do not know "our way about" (PI, 123). This conflict between our practice and our thinking causes very deep disturbance because, on the one hand, we can give up neither measuring nor our ordinary ways of speaking about it. On the other hand, in the face of philosophical dissatisfaction with our ordinary ways of speaking, we engage in those practices and ways of speaking either as outsiders or as confused and disturbed insiders. The whole notion of depth in this context is by no means clear. Wittgenstein says of these disquietudes that "their roots are as deep in us as the forms of our language and their significance is as great as the importance of our language" (PI, 111). A passage in Culture and Value helps shed some light on on Wittgenstein's thinking here. Getting hold of the difficulty deep down is what is hard. Because it is grasped near the surface it simply remains the difficulty it was. It has to be pulled out by the roots; and that involves our beginning to think about these things in a new way. The change is as decisive as, for example, that from alchemical to chemical way of thinking. The new way of thinking is so hard to establish. Once the new way of thinking has been established, the old problems vanish; indeed they become hard to recapture. For they go with our

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way of expressing ourselves and, if we clothe ourselves in a new form of expression, the old problems are discarded along with the old garment. (CV, 48)

So the tendencies of thought that he is trying to cure are very deep-seated. What the metaphor of depth indicates is that these tendencies are customary and very difficult to change. The metaphor of the roots indicates that these ways of thinking are not simply single items, but rather part of a whole style of thinking that forms the basis of our philosophical thought. Of course, Wittgenstein thinks that the problems with our style of thinking are essential features of it. One cannot solve the problems that this style poses; one must get rid of the -style entirely. But, because this style is so deeply embedded in our ways of thinking and expressing ourselves, this change is extremely difficult. Nevertheless, if one feels that the problems must be solved, the change becomes all the more important. And if the problems are the problems of life that lead us, as Wittgenstein thought of the problem of life in the Tractatus, to feel that life is meaningless, they must be solved. The way out of these problems is found in clarification of the forms of language and life, the misunderstanding of which has caused the torment. We are tempted, seduced, and bewitched by our forms of language, and in giving into the temptations, a "false appearance" (PI, 112) is produced that ultimately disquiets us. The temptations arise out of a misunderstanding of the pictures embedded in our language. This misunderstanding is the by-product of a style of thinking that encourages us to interpret these pictures literally. The way out of the problem then comes when we are either relieved of the temptation by being persuaded to give up the picture and ultimately by being persuaded to give up the style of thinking that supports it or by giving into the temptation, having it made clear how we are applying the picture. In either case, we solve the problem by getting clear about the role in the human forms of life of the language in question. Clarification is the treatment. "The concept of a perspicuous representation is of fundamental significance for us. It earmarks the form of account we give, the way we look at things" (PI, 122). And how much clarification are we looking for? We are looking for a complete cessation of torment and disquiet: "For the clarity we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear" (PI, 133). So the goal is the complete elimination of disquiet caused by giving in to philosophical temptations. In place of these temptations we foster a style of thinking that brings peace (CV, 93). Achieving thoughts that are at peace requires much struggle. Most of the struggle comes in showing the unwarranted assumptions and

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incoherent forms of thinking involved in what we are inclined to say under the tempting influence of a philosophical picture. Much of the Philosophical Investigations is taken up with the project of diagnosing and arguing against misapplications of philosophical pictures. Take, for example, paragraph 173, in which the philosophical picture of being guided in reading is diagnosed and criticized: "'But being guided is surely a particular experience!'-The answer to this is: you are now thinking of a particular experience of being guided" (PI, 173). Here the interlocutor pipes up. He wants to say that being guided is a particular experience and that Wittgenstein's attempts to see guiding as a family resemblance word is mistaken. Wittgenstein's dialectical challenge to the interlocutor, who, as I have indicated, is just Wittgenstein himself challenging his own temptations, is that one who says this has fallen under the influence of some particular experience, which one then mistakenly treats as revealing the essence of being guided. Take another example where, in contrast, there is no use of the interlocutor, yet the same sort of dialectical exchange takes place. The passage occurs in the section discussing whether I can doubt whether the sensation I have is pain: 290. What I do is not, of course, to identify nlY sensation by criteria: but to repeat an expression. But this is not the end of the language-game: it is the beginning. But isn't the beginning the sensation-which I describe?-Perhaps this word "describes" tricks us here. I say "I describe my state of mind" and "I describe my room." You need to call to mind the differences between the language-games.

Here even though the interlocutor does not pipe up in the standard way with an interruption in quotation marks, the effect is the same. An objection is posed against the language game view of pain talk. Wittgenstein challenges the objection by pointing out that describing a state of mind is not like describing a room. These arguments are not presented as parts of an academic essay designed to prove some thesis. They are presented, rather, as particular responses to the temptations that guide the thinking of the interlocutor. That is, they are presented as arguments against the deep-seated temptations Wittgenstein felt. As I argued, the shift in pronouns suggests that Wittgenstein saw these pictures as exerting an unfortunate influence on others as well. The discussion is designed to articulate these temptations and to show how they can be critically challenged. Once we have confessed our inclinations to say this or that and challenged these temptations, then the task is to get clear about the

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language game in which that claim is at home. This task requires a new kind of thinking, one sensitive to context and to the details of particular cases. Often it will require the presentation of new similes that support a clear representation of the language one finds troublesome. The old style of thinking must be replaced by a new one. I discuss the character of this new style of thinking in the next chapter. I have pointed out the presence of inner dialogue through the device of the interlocutor, confessional language, and also the large number of second-order uses of pronouns. Furthermore, I indicated in what way the temptations and inclinations that are confessed are thought of as bad and how the project of confessing plays a role in the elimination of this bad state of affairs. Ultimately, though, this interpretation cannot be divorced from the arguments of Chapter 2 concerning the ethical import of the Philosophical Investigations, for we can be convinced that these inclinations are important to avoid only if we think that they are illnesses to be treated.

Cavell on Confession It would be hard in this context not to say something about Cavell's view of the confessional character of Wittgenstein's text. Of the commentators on Wittgenstein, he is nlore sensitive than most to the confessional character of Wittgenstein's philosophy. He also is concerned to practice that form of philosophy in his own way; The Claim ofReason is a type of confessional text in its own right. Nonetheless, some of Cavell's characterizations of Wittgenstein's confessional projects are mistaken. In the beginning chapter of The Claim of Reason, "Criteria and Judgment," Cavell claims that the introduction of the sample of ordinary language by the phrase 'We say ... ' "is an invitation for you to see whether you have such a sample, or can accept mine as a sound one" (19). If you do not accept mine, then there may be no way to get you to come into agreement with me. The role of expressing what we say is to find out how far there is some community in which we are both members. "The philosophical appeal to what we say, and the search for our criteria on the basis of which we say what we say, are claims to community" (20). The goal of this confessional activity is represented by Cavell as a search for the basis of community. This claim is pressed in a different way later when Cavell explains the importance of convention and acceptance of forms of life by indicating that both notions close the gap between mind and the world. Cavell says, "This implies that the sense of gap originates in an attempt, or wish, to escape (to remain 'stranger' to, 'alienated' from) those shared forms of life, to give up the responsibility of their maintenance" (109).

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This notion of maintaining shared forms of life is important to Cavell. Philosophy attempts to get us to confess estrangement to enable us to maintain our shared forms of life. But I do not find textual evidence for this claim. I do not think that maintaining our shared forms of life is a primary goal of Wittgenstein's philosophy. It is fair to say that Wittgenstein is concerned to counter the sort of estrangement that comes from philosophical puzzlement. But he is not concerned to maintain forms of community even if that might in some way be a result of his method. As I indicated earlier, he thought of his writing as primarily private. This text is dialogical, but the dialogue is between Wittgenstein and himself. The others show up only as an indication that these tendencies of mind might be shared by others, but then again they may not. What drives Wittgenstein's thinking is the pursuit of clarity and acceptance of human forms of life. Maintenance of forms of community is, at best, a secondary goal, if it is a goal at all. Indeed, an examination of Wittgenstein's attitude toward philosophical thinking reveals that he is not concerned with the way in which philosophical thinking might destroy our shared culture, but his therapy is intended to treat the ways in which the philosopher is out of agreement with the world or his of her form of life. The claim that, in sanity, there is madness shows that the philosopher's distorted forms of thinking do not undercut ordinary, healthy forms of thinking. It would be better to say that he is aiming at maintenance of oneself, not maintenance of community. Roger A. Shiner in, "Canfield, Cavell, and Criteria," develops an interpretation of Wittgenstein's philosophical project similar to Cavell's. He claims that no interpreter of Wittgenstein since Wisdom except Cavell has understood the "ambivalence of the image of philosophy as therapy" (pp. 270-71). He means by this phrase that philosophy brings peace of mind, but only by recognizing and accepting the permanent threat of philosophical perplexity and so of skepticism and then by learning to live with it. This claim certainly is correct, but the consequences that Shiner draws from it are less certain. He argues, much like an existentialist, that the threat of skepticism is permanent and that our responsibility is to "care for and n1aintain" the grammatical truths by which we live. His sale textual evidence for this claim (p. 271) is a statement in On Certainty: "It is our acting, which lies at the bottom of the language game" (OC, 204). But there is no reason to infer from this passage his strong claim that humans must become agents who "actively accept, actively acknowledge their own responsibility for the maintenance of community, and their own natural attunement of judgements." I take it that Wittgenstein's point here is to show that there is no epistemological foundation for our language games. We

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just act the way we do. He is not, in making this point, recommending that we take care of our language games. Of course, I say all of this in face of the fact that Wittgenstein's later philosophy is concerned with the social basis of human thinking. His concern with human forms of life easily could be taken up in a new way by someone interested in the social goal of maintaining forms of community or other social goals. But the plausibility of this type of therapeutic philosophy does not give reason to adopt a distorted vision of Wittgenstein's goals. If Cavell gets the character of Wittgensteinian confession wrong, it is because he gets the ethical goal of Wittgenstein's philosophy wrong. The confessional character of a therapeutic philosophy is dependent on the therapeutic goal of the project. If you get the one wrong, you will get the other wrong in a related way. Cavell points out the important confessional character of Wittgenstein's philosophy and does nlore than any other writer I know of to attempt to practice a form of philosophical confession. His project is, nevertheless, not Wittgenstein's.

Chapter 4 The Role of Similes in Illness and Health

Introduction Any therapeutic philosophy must be concerned to generate forms of description that are transformative. A philosophy without a transformative character, at best, will either indicate how things are or construct reasonable theories about how things are, but it will not bring about psychic health. In this section, I intend to explain Wittgenstein's view of the nature of therapeutic transformation. His view, connected with his claims about the nature of human beings, language, and human forms of life, is deeply influenced by Spengler. I discuss these general issues in this section and in the next turn to an examination of the source of Wittgenstein's thinking in Spengler's discussion of the cycles of culture. Then, I examine the forms of optimism and pessimism in the thought of the two thinkers and conclude with a description of the therapeutic significance of simile. So far I have argued that the Philosophical Investigations should be read as a continuation of the ethical project of the Tractatus. In what way was the project incomplete? So far I have argued that the solution to the problem of life, in Wittgenstein's view, requires coming into agreement with the world. He views coming into agreement as depending on the recognition that the self is the limit of the world, not some particular in it. The solution he proposes, however, does not work because it clearly ignores that he is an individual embodied self. In fact he goes so far as to speak of an embodied self in the Notebooks in language characteristic of the Philosophical Investigations only to reject his formulation: Now is it true (following the psycho-physical conception) that my character is expressed only in the build of my body or brain and not equally in the build of the whole rest of the world? This contains a salient point. (NB, 85)

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He then goes on to reject this claim by arguing that there is a spirit common to all things: "Only remember that the spirit of the snake, of the lion, is your spirit. For it is only from yourself that you are acquainted with spirit at all." I understand his claim here to be an expression of the identification of self with world I discussed earlier. If the self is the same as the world, then my spirit is the same as the spirit of the things in the world. Here Wittgenstein is developing Schopenhauer's view that there is one will (or spirit) common to all spatially and temporally discrete beings. In adopting this view, Wittgenstein ignores the special relationship of the person to his or her own body. It is not that he thinks that there is no body. Rather, he thinks that the body is not philosophically important. So the role of the body in picturing the world, drawing inferences, and solving the problem of life by looking at the world from a new perspective has been ignored. If, however, a more complete agreement with the world is to be achieved, it must be through a clarification and acceptance of the presence and role of the human body as a central feature of what it is to be a self. Relatedly, he ignores the central role of others who, along with oneself, have a common form of life. Perhaps, then, it is no surprise to discover that Wittgenstein stops referring to himself as the self in the Philosophical Investigations. There he refers to human beings and souls instead. Because individual living human bodies are thought to be ensouled, that term becomes the appropriate replacement for the term self that had come to refer to mind or a transcendent ego. So if what I have said is correct, then we should see the Investigations as attempting to find a more adequate understanding of human beings and life than was available within the transcendental framework of the Tractatus. How is the notion of the soul used in the Philosophical Investigations? Consider the following statement from the Philosophical Investigations: "The human body is the best picture of the human soul" (p. 178). The first thing to note is that this remark is an antidote to the proposition in the Tractatus in which Wittgenstein claims that the body plays no role in philosophy (Tractatus, 5.641). This remark implies more than is suggested at first sight. If my body is the best picture of my soul, then one might also suppose that my body's activities are the best picture of the soul's activities. In fact, this supposition seems to be the very one Wittgenstein n1akes. The human forms of life are the sum of actual and, perhaps, possible human behavior. So human forms of life themselves are a picture of the activities of the soul. The Philosophical Investigations as a study of language and the human form of life, therefore, is an investigation of the human soul and its activities. If

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those inferences go through, then the Philosophical Investigations must be read as an attempt to fashion an adequate picture of the soul, its form, and activities. This comment on the relationship between the body and the soul plays an important role in the section on the private language argument where Wittgenstein points out that only something like a human being, "or," as he says, "a soul which some body has," can have pain (PI, 283). In paragraph 422, he raises the following question: "What am I believing in when I believe that men have souls? What am I believing in when I believe that this substance contains two carbon rings? In both cases there is a picture in the foreground, but the sense lies far in the background; that is, the application of the picture is not easy to survey." The statement that the best picture of the soul is the human body, then, appears to be a solution Wittgenstein gives to this difficulty of not being able to be clear about the application of the picture of the soul. But once one sees how one has made the application of the picture of the soul clear, then one sees that the application of the picture of the soul really is the central thing being clarified in these investigations, for the states of mind discussed throughout are consistently states of a soul; these states are confusing to us because of our misunderstandings of the picture we have of the soul and of its inner processes (PI, 305). The soul expresses itself in its forms of life. These forms of life are bound up with language. Whichever languages and forms of life are characteristic for a soul are ordinary for it, and what is ordinary language for one soul need not be ordinary for another. But for any particular soul, the language ordinary for it will be of central significance to it because that language is the one in which the soul expresses itself. Such a language is quite complicated. In the present context it will be sufficient to point out sonle of its features. We already know that such a language is an aspect of a form of life. Such a language also has as components pictures and images. For example, Wittgenstein admits at paragraph 300 that the image of pain enters the language game of pain "in some sense." But just such an image tends to confuse us. For we tend to treat the image as a picture, that is, as a representation, of the inner state of pain, but, as Wittgenstein says, this image does not enter the game as a picture. 1 Now this claim can be generalized. Many pictures enter into their respective language games in some sense, but not as representations of what the language is about. This is what gives rise to our confusions, for we mistake the pictures for actual descriptions of what is going on, when the pictures themselves suggest applications to which the pictures, in fact, do not conform. So such a language has a pictorial or imagistic component. This idea

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is present in a slightly different form in On Certainty, 162. Wittgenstein also claims (94 and elsewhere) that there is a background set of beliefs that are not true or false in terms of which we come to accept other beliefs as true or false. His argument is that if something is used to determine whether something is true or false, then that thing cannot itself be true or false because it cannot determine truth or falsehood in its own case but only in the case of other beliefs. He likens this background to a nlythology and to a picture of the world (Oe, 95-97). One might connect the claims of the two books as follows: any language contains a set of pictures or images. The combinations of these pictures is one's picture of the world. Each picture, then, is a component of one's mythology. Such a mythology is inescapable insofar as any language in which one discriminates truth from falsehood must be based on a background set of beliefs, containing such pictures and being neither true nor false. So these pictures do not enter the language as pictures, that is, as representatives of facts, but as components of a background set of beliefs in terms of which truth and falsehood are distinguished. Some interesting references to mythology in the Philosophical Investigations also suggest that the view in On Certainty already is there in Wittgenstein's mind. In discussing how we talk about possible movenlents of a machine in philosophical contexts, he says: "We mind about the kind of expression we use concerning these things; we do not understand them, however, but misinterpret them. When we do philosophy we are like savages, primitive people, who hear the expression of civilized men, put false interpretation on them, and then draw the queerest conclusions from it" (PI, 194). What sort of interpretation do we give? It is mythological and leads to wrong inferences. In reference to the philosophical claim that one is inclined to make in reference to what it is like to follow a rule, viz., I obey the rule blindly, Wittgenstein says 220. But what is the purpose of this symbolical expression? It was supposed to bring into prominence a difference between being causally determined and being logically determined. 221. My symbolical expression was really a mythological description of the use of a rule.

What he is getting at is that a picture forces itself on us in the context of philosophical thought; that is, a myth forces itself on us. There is nothing wrong with such a myth; the problem is that we can be misled by it. So the pictures in our language constitute a mythology, which we tend to misunderstand in the same way that savages misunderstand the claims of civilized people (PI, 194). When we characterize language, we must include both the behav-

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ioral component of the language (form of life) and the pictorial component (picture, image, myth). Both are deeply embedded in our language and consequently are deeply significant to us (PI, 111). Moreover, the application of these pictures is not easy to survey. Wittgenstein's characterization of human beings as expressing themselves in language and forms of life, which are in part mythological, is an important feature of his therapeutic thinking. Distinctively philosophical illness has its source in myths and pictures that are bewitching and confusing. We can clarify Wittgenstein's view of this mythic element in language and its role in illness and therapy by examining his claims about simile. For these mythic elements are referred to by him as similes that have led us astray in our thinking. It will be necessary to clarify the illness-producing character of similes, their therapeutic character, and the ideal role of simile in human life. The misunderstanding of the similes embedded in our language is the source of philosophical disturbance: "A simile that has been absorbed into the forms of our language produces a false appearance, and this disquiets us. 'But this isn't how it is'?-we say. 'Yet this is how it has to be!'" (PI, 112). The antidote to this sort of conflict is the development of a "perspicuous representation" of the phenornenon in question. A main source of our failure to understand is that we do not command a clear view of the use of our words.-Our grammar is lacking in this sort of perspicuity. A perspicuous representation produces just that understanding which consists in 'seeing connexions'. Hence the importance of finding and inventing intermediate cases. The concept of a perspicuous representation is of fundamental significance for us. It earmarks the form of account, the way we look at things. (Is this a 'Weltanshauung'?) (PI, 122)

The German word for perspicuity is Obersichlichkeit. It means at bottom the quality of something of being able to take all of it in at a glance. A teacher's representation of English grammar rules has Ubersichlichkeit or "surveyability" if the student can grasp the rules as an ordered whole through the representation. Wittgenstein's point is that the grammar of a language lacks this sort of feature. Similarities and differences between uses, for example, of the word 'know' are not clear to a speaker of English just by virtue of knowing the grammar of English; that is, knowing how to speak English. On the contrary, similes are absorbed in the language in such a way that this sort of clarity is extremely difficult to achieve (PI, 112). What is the form of the unclarity? A simile so absorbed forces us to see two uses of a word as the

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same when, in fact, they are different. For example, our talk about time nlirrors talk about space. We speak of a length of time just as we speak of the length of a particular space. This certainly makes it seem as though measuring time and space would be the same sort of activity. But they are not the same. They indeed are quite different. So the simile embedded in the grammar leads us to think that they must be the same, but practice shows that they are not (PI, 112). It is a "perspicuous representation" that resolves such a tension between the misleading simile embedded in our speech and the actual practice. We need to see clearly what the practice is and then propose a clear description of it that allows us to survey the practice in such a way that no philosophical puzzlement arises. We move from an unclear representation embedded in our forms of speech to a clear representation of those forms. But the movement from confusing simile to clarity is not the move from some simile to no simile. 2 When Wittgenstein characterizes language and human forms of life in ways that aid in the resolution of puzzlement, he employs new similes.3 It was this ability to present similes that Wittgenstein admired in Freud's thinking and that he expressed in his characterization of Freud's views as "wonderful representations" (Moore, 316). He thought of his own ability to create new similes as his important contribution to philosophy (CV, 19)0 So the movement is from a simile that is unclear and disquieting to a presentation through novel similes of the linguistic facts that is clear and so allows one to take in all of the linguistic facts in a glance. By including all of the relevant facts, such a presentation eliminates disquiet (Moore, 323). This view of philosophy is deeply embedded in Wittgenstein's way of thinking.

Spengler and the Importance of Simile This view of philosophy clearly was in Wittgenstein's mind as early as 1931 as was the similarity between philosophy and psychoanalysis. In the "Big Typescript," from which the Philosophical Grammar was derived, an extensive section on the nature of philosophy includes many of the remarks that he made on philosophy and its methodology in the Philosophical Investigations and the early sections now published as Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough. These early remarks on methodology are interesting in that they shed light on Wittgenstein's view of philosophy and also on the source of his ideas. 4 In the context of my present concern with 'perspicuity', important insights can be derived from the early version of what became PI, 122. For there Wittgenstein expresses his debt to Oswald Spengler. An examination of Spengler's The Decline of the West sheds light on

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Wittgenstein's therapeutic goals and methods. This investigation is fruitful because it clarifies what Wittgenstein has in mind in asserting that all philosophical problems must completely disappear (PI, 133) and why he thinks that similes playa central role in the production and elimination of philosophical illness. s The clearest debt to Spengler can be seen by tracing the development of the remark in PI, 122, which I already discussed. That remark appears in a different form in the "Big Typescript." In the PI version the text reads: "The concept of a perspicuous representation is of fundamental significance for us. It earmarks the form of account we give, the way we look at things. (Is this a 'Weltanshauung'?)" In the manuscript the sentence in parentheses is "A kind of 'Weltanschauung' which is apparently typical for our time. Spengler" (Remarks on Frazer's 'Golden Bough, p. 9). The reference to Spengler is ambiguous. It could indicate a debt to Spengler; he is the source of this idea. But, it is not clear which of two ideas are indicated here. The claim that this 'Weltanschauung' is typical for our time could be derived from Spengler. Or Spengler could be an example of someone who employs this typical 'Weltanschauung'. In fact Spengler employs such a 'Weltanschauung' and at the same time argues that such a worldview must and will come into being at this point in Western culture. How exactly does Spengler give the same sort of account of things Wittgenstein gives? Wittgenstein says that"A perspicuous representation produces just that understanding which consists in 'seeing connexions'. Hence the importance of finding and inventing intermediate cases" (PI, 122). I take it that this first sentence indicates in part what Wittgenstein means by a 'perspicuous representation'. Wittgenstein himself, in the lectures he gave in English, uses the word 'synopsis' (Moore, 323). This seems a better rendition than what is given in the standard translations in that 'synopsis' indicates what sort of clarity is intended. A synopsis is a clear presentation of the totality of relevant facts. Intermediate cases show how to connect the extremes by showing how the extremes are similar to some other case. So intermediate cases help to produce a clear survey of cases. Now how does Spengler employ 'synoptic presentations'? Spengler claims that the inner structure of every culture is the sanle and "that there is not a single phenomenon of deep philosophic importance in the record of one for which we could not find a counterpart in the record of every other" (Spengler, 112). So what he thinks needs to be discovered is the inner structure of each culture through an examination of these corresponding parts. This approach he thinks will allow us the possibility of "Reconstructing long-vanished and unknown epochs,

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even whole Cultures of the past, by means of morphological connexions, in much the same way as modern paleontology deduces far-reaching and trustworthy conclusions as to skeletal structure and species from a single unearthed skull fragment" (Spengler, 113). Here the analogy with paleontology is interesting, for just as one can posit a complete skeleton based on a fragment, so one can posit an intermediate species given two different fragments sufficiently different in form. It is this second analogy with paleontology that Wittgenstein has in mind in his reference to 'intermediate connexions'. Of course, Wittgenstein is not engaged in either history or paleontology. What concerns him is forms of language. So the method is applied to a study of language games to resolve certain forms of philosophical puzzlement. Spengler derives this method from Goethe's studies of nature. Goethe's project is to grasp the organic, living character of natural phenon1ena. Consequently he rejects descriptions in mechanical, causal terms as inadequate to that end. What needs to be grasped is the "prime phenomenon" or the idea manifest in particular organic forms. Spengler describes this notion in its application to the organic, historical examination of history as follows: Thus Destiny is seen to be the true existence mode of the prime phenomenon, that in which the living idea of becoming unfolds itself immediately to the intuitive vision. And therefore the Destiny-idea dominates the whole world-picture of history, while causality, which is the existence mode of objects and stamps out of the world of sensations a set of well-distinguished and well-defined things, properties, and relations, dominates and penetrates, as the form of the understanding, the Nature-world that is the understanding's "alter ego." (Spengler, 121)

The prime phenomenon of anything is "that in which the idea of [its] becoming is presented net" (Spengler, 105). For example, the leaf is considered by Goethe to be the prime form of the plant, and the metamorphosis of plants the prime phenomenon of all organic change. Then this prime phenomenon becomes central in understanding organic life. Goethe says, "The highest to which man can attain is wonder; and if the prime phenomenon makes him wonder, let him be content; nothing higher can it give him, and nothing further should he seek for behind it; here is the limit" (Spengler, 105). In understanding an organic phenomenon as organic, therefore, one must grasp the prime phenomenon and nothing else hidden besides. So what is this unhidden "prime phenomenon"? Spengler calls it the "primitive form" that underlies the multiplicity of examples of the phenomenon. Speaking of cultures, Spengl~~_~~l~_

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And if we set free their shapes, till now hidden all too deep under the surface of a trite "history of human progress," and let them march past us in the spirit, it cannot but be that we shall succeed in distinguishing amidst all that is special or unessential, the primitive culture-form, the Culture that underlies as ideal all the individual Cultures. (Spengler, 104)

The prime phenomenon is a primitive ideal. The claim that the prime phenomenon underlies particulars is by no means clear, especially if the prime phenomenon is nothing hidden. This claim may indicate that the ideal is central to all the phenomena, without being hidden behind or beyond it. How is such an ideal grasped? There seems to be no mechanical method beyond Spengler's indication that "It is the method of feeling into (erfuhlen) the object, as opposed to dissecting it" (Spengler, 105). But what does this 'feeling into it' produce? Spengler emphasizes that it is itself a creative, living grasp of the object in question (Spengler, 118). He claims that ultimately life (Destiny as opposed to Causality) cannot be described but only felt through portraiture, tragedy, and music (Spengler, 118). But, nonetheless, it can in some sense be conveyed. In one of his most illuminating descriptions of the elements employed in such a form of understanding, Spengler says that such intuitions, "such as illumination, inspiration, artistic flair, experience of life, the power of 'sizing men up' (Goethe's 'exact percipient fancy')... are imparted by means of analogy, picture, symbol," whereas acquired knowledge is imparted by "formula, law, and scheme" (Spengler, 55-56). We can describe Spengler's method, then, as the intuitive, creative grasp of the primitive ideals essential to a phenomenon, the grasping of which allows one to "feel into it." These ideas can be conveyed and imparted by analogy, picture, and symbol. The comparative method is essential to this approach. For, in using such a method, one is attempting to grasp the essential ideal that underlies a multiplicity of living things. This grasp requires the sort of comparison that does not force the phenomenon into particular categories, but allows the phenomenon to speak for itself (Spengler, 97 and 105). As such the investigator must "cease to think." He lets the "impressions of the world about him work merely upon his senses, absorbs these impressions as a whole, feels the become in its becoming" (Spengler, 118-19). By grasping the whole in a way that expresses the organic character of the object, the primitive ideal underlying it is revealed. Then the multiplicity of phenomena can be usefully compared, the analogous features of things being readily apparent given the relation of these features to the underlying essential ideal.

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Four points of similarity between Spengler and Wittgenstein deserve mentioning in this context. First, both thinkers treat life as something not understandable through laws or formulas. Wittgenstein insists that language is not governed by strict rules nor understood through the discovery of scientific mechanisms (BB, 5-6). Second, both think that forms of life are to be understood through a comparative method and through similes. Wittgenstein emphasizes comparison, but also mentions the role of similes, not only as causes of confusion, but as the source of clarity (Moore, 316). This point is important because it seems to govern much of his thinking. When he claims that language is to be understood as a game or understanding as an ability to do something, these clearly are not analyses of the necessary or sufficient conditions of language and understanding, but similes designed to eliminate fundamental philosophical confusions. As we have seen he claims to be persuading us to look at things in a new way, not to be describing the essence of things (LC, 27). Third, because the proper method of philosophy is to convey the living character of language, not to construct theories about language, one must look, not think (PI, 66). Finally, because what are being described are our language and forms of life, there is a great depth of feeling about the sort of descriptions we accept. By constructing descriptions that bring peace, we show that we have adequately described the phenomena by not leaving out anything and thereby causing disquiet. The appeal to simile as the primary form of representation is important. The kind of understanding that Goethe and Spengler are trying to achieve is a feel for the object studied. One needs to feel into (erfuhlen) it to understand it, not just capture its features in some formula. The way to get this sort of appreciation of the object is through simile and metaphor. This sort of understanding is what Wittgenstein seeks. If I can get the right sort of feel for particular, problematic language games and the forms of life in which they are embedded, I will be able to come into a felt, peaceful agreement with those forms of life. Without a feeling for the language game, the desired therapeutic result will not be achieved. Given the clear line of influence, the crucial questions are, Why did Wittgenstein drop the reference to Spengler and why did he step back from affirming the claim that his form of account was a Weltanschauung? It is very hard to answer these questions. There are no textual clues. However, there is a tension between Spengler's project and Wittgenstein's that may have caused some dissatisfaction. It is a reasonable hypothesis that Wittgenstein derived much of his thinking about his later project from Spengler but was able to see his disagreements with him only as he worked through his ideas over a period of years.

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There are two disagreements in particular that derive from a difference between Wittgenstein's vision of philosophical investigation and that of Spengler. Spengler's vision of history is that decline is inevitable and that the West must face up to that fact (Spengler, 40). Wittgenstein rejects this approach in two ways. By taking the comparative method further than Spengler had, he rejects the idea that an underlying essence of life forms can be discovered. His ideals are presented as nothing but models, not the way things must be (PI, 131 and CV, 14). Consequently, he cannot accept the historical determinism of Spengler's analyses. Furthermore, although deeply disturbed by the "darkness of the times" (PI, x ), he hopes for a change in culture that might bring about the elimination of philosophical disease.

Optimism or Pessimism? As I have already indicated, Wittgenstein's view of the relation of ideals to their phenomena is different from the Goethean idea that Spengler accepts. Wittgenstein takes Spengler's project of comparison very seriously, but feels that even ideals had to be given the status of objects of comparison (PI, 131, and CV, 14). Thus, they are not thought of as the essence of the phenomenon under investigation as Spengler thought. They are "investigative" ideals, objects of comparison formulated to shed light on the phenomena, but not to reveal its essence. Wittgenstein rejects the notion that general predicates are such by virtue of introducing a single essential property. But in his discussion of this claim, his claims about "family resemblance" as a simile for how general predicates function, it is clear that general predicates do not necessarily introduce any nontrivial necessary conditions. Therefore, there are no nontrivial necessary conditions of any general predicate, and thus no nontrivial essential property that such predicates introduce. When a model language game is introduced, it is not to reveal an underlying essence of the phenomenon clarified; rather, it clarifies the phenomena by way of both similarity and difference. The comparative method of Spengler assumes that there are discoverable essences, which any coherent comparative investigation of culture seeks to discover and which gives that investigation form. And even if he thinks that the primitive ideal or "prime phenomenon" is not hidden, it does exist even to the point where he thinks that we can reasonably predict the general course of the history of Western culture. Of course we might not be able to predict the details of such a history, but we can know what the trends are. Spengler was so confident of having grasped the essence of culture that he constructed tables of the progress of culture that showed how Western culture would develop

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through its decline (Spengler, 112 and Tables 1-3). He also claims that, even if there had been no revolution in France, there would have been some event in perhaps some other place and form that would have expressed the idea. This event marked the transition from culture to civilization in which the culture has come to maturity and starts to wane. This idea, as he says, was "necessary, and the nloment of its occurrence was also necessary" (Spengler, 149). When Wittgenstein indicates that his models are not "a preconceived idea to which reality must correspond," he rejects the very ground on which Spengler's investigations proceed. I have argued that Wittgenstein took Spengler's comparative method very seriously and even took the method of comparison much further than Spengler did in his willingness to assume the similarity of all cultures, not their identity in underlying form. Nonetheless, an additional influence of Spengler on Wittgenstein is just as crucial for understanding deep-seated attitudes Wittgenstein held toward philosophy and that gave form to his notion of therapy. Wittgenstein claims that philosophical problems should completely disappear and that what is required is complete clarity (PI, 133). It will become abundantly clear that his philosophical ideal derives from Spengler's ideal of culture. Consider the preliminary preface to Philosophical Remarks. This book is written for those who are in sympathy with the spirit in which it is written. This is not, I believe, the spirit of the main current of European and American civilization. The spirit of this civilization makes itself manifest in the industry, architecture, and music of our time, in its fascism and socialism, and it is alien and uncongenial to the author. This is not a value judgment. It is not, it is true, as though he accepted what nowadays passes for architecture as architecture or did not approach what is called modern music with the greatest suspicion (though without understanding its language), but still, the disappearance of the arts does not justify judging disparagingly the human beings who make up this civilization. For in times like these, genuine strong characters simply leave the arts aside and turn to other things and somehow the worth of the individual man finds expression. Not, to be sure, in the way it would at a time of high culture. A culture is like a big organization which assigns each of its members a place where he can work in the spirit of the whole; and it is perfectly fair for his power to be measured by the contribution he succeeds in making the whole enterprise. In an age without culture on the other hand forces become fragmented and the power of an individual man is used up in overcoming opposing forces and frictional resistances; it does not show in the distance he travels but perhaps only in the heat he generates in overcoming friction. But energy is still energy and even

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the spectacle which our age affords us is not the formation of a great cultural work, with the best men contributing to the same great end, so much as the unimpressive spectacle of a crowd whose best members work for purely private ends still we must not forget that the spectacle is not what matters. I realize then that the disappearance of a culture does not signify the disappearance of human value, but simply of certain means of expressing this value, yet the fact remains that I have no sympathy for the current of European civilization and do not understand its goals, if it has any. So I am really writing for friends who are scattered throughout the corners of the globe. It is all one to me whether or not the typical western scientist understands or appreciates my work, since he will not in any case understand the spirit in which I write. Our civilization is characterized by the word 'progress'. Progress is its form rather than making progress one of its features. Typically it constructs. It is occupied with building an ever more complicated structure. And even clarity is sought only as a means to this end, not as an end in itself. For me on the contrary clarity, perspicuity, are valuable in themselves. I am not interested in constructing a building, so much as having a perspicuous view of the foundations of possible buildings. So I am not aiming at the same target as the scientists and my way of thinking is different from theirs. (CV, 6-7, my emphases)

The distinction between culture and civilization that is essential to the point being made here is derived fronl Spengler. Spengler views cultures as individual organisms, which go through stages of growth similar to those of an individual human being. A high culture is a culture still in its creative period. Once a culture has exhausted its creative potential, it begins to stagnate. Such a stagnation is referred to by Spengler as civilization, and he thought that the civilization phase of Western culture began around 1800. He characterizes the difference as follows: Culture and Civilization-the living body of a soul and the mummy of it. For Western existence the distinction lies at about 1800-on the one side of the frontier life in fullness and sureness of itself, formed by growth from within, in one great uninterrupted evolution from gothic childhood to Goethe and Napoleon, and on the other the autumnal, artificial, rootless life of our great cities under forms fashioned by the intellect. ... That which the one feels as Destiny the other understands as a linkage of causes and effects, and thenceforward he is a materialist-in the sense of the word valid for, and only for, Civilization-whether he wills it or no, and whether Buddhist, Stoic or Socialist doctrines wear the garb of religion or not. (Spengler, 353)

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So the distinction between a culture at its height and the decaying artificial civilization ruled by intellect that matures out of it is the essential distinction Wittgenstein is employing in his rejection of Western civilization. This distinction is clearly Spengler's. Furthermore, Spengler rejects the notion of progress that is a central symptom of a declining culture (Spengler, 352 and 361) as he rejects the attempt to understand life in a purely scientific, mechanistic fashion, as indicated earlier (Spengler, 21). Furthermore, Wittgenstein's notion that civilization frustrates, whereas culture frees, its members for self-expression also derives from Spengler. To the Gothic and Doric men, Ionic and Baroque men, the whole vast form world of art religion, custom, state, knowledge, social life was easy. They could carry it and actualize it without "knowing" it. They had over the symbolism of the culture that unstrained mastery that Mozart possessed in music. Culture is the self-evident. The feeling of strangeness in these fornls, the idea that they are a burden fronl which creative freedom requires to be relieved, the impulse to overhaul the stock in order by the light of reason to turn it to better account, the fatal imposition of thought upon the inscrutable quality of creativeness, are all symptoms of a soul that is beginning to tire. Only the sick man feels his limbs. (Spengler, 353)

This passage reveals much about the distinction between culture at its height and civilization. The tendency in a high culture is to accept the values and procedures of the culture as self-evident. One masters those forms and uses them without them being brought into question. Civilization is marked by a tendency to reject those forms as inadequate and a desire to replace thenl with something more adequate. The lack of self-evidence is manifested as a feeling that the forms are strange. As culture becomes strange, the culture and the souls in it begin to tire and feel its sickness. Clearly, Wittgenstein agrees with Spengler's view of the nature of civilization and the idea that Western culture had reached its civilization stage. He also agrees with Spengler that this cultural development produced a cultural sickness. The tendency to find our forms of speech puzzling and disquieting is an expression of this sort of illness. Any disagreement about this idea shows up in Wittgenstein's later claims about the possibility of a cure. Spengler clearly feels that no cure is possible. Decline is as necessary for a culture as death is to an individual. We must accept our fate. We cannot help it if we are born as men of the early winter of full Civilization, instead of on the golden summit of a ripe Culture, in a Phidias

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or a Mozart time. Everything depends on our seeing our own position, our destiny clearly, on our realizing that though we may lie to ourselves about it we cannot evade it. He who does not acknowledge this in his heart, ceases to be counted a man of his generation, and remains either a simpleton, a charlatan, or a pedant. (Spengler, 44)

Wittgenstein seems to take this warning seriously in the unpublished preface to Philosophical Remarks. He seems reconciled to being not taken seriously and isolated from the scientists and those intellects who take science seriously. But this approach does not remain. For he undertakes a therapeutic task of the sort that Spengler claims is impossible. Around the same time that Wittgenstein writes this preface, he already sees that there is a similarity between psychoanalysis and philosophy. In the "Big Typescript" in the section on philosophy he compares the practice of correcting a reader's philosophical mistakes with the practice of psychoanalysis (409-10). In the same way that the patient must recognize a certain description of himself as the correct one so that he can change his thinking about himself, a reader can correct certain mistakes only when recognizing as correct certain expressions of her feelings. She nlust recognize the mistaken train of philosophical thought as her own before other mistakes of hers can be corrected. This meager comparison turns out to be quite pregnant for Wittgenstein. He returned to the comparison with psychoanalysis many times and even claimed later to be a follower of Freud. To follow Freud is to take the project of therapy seriously, whereas Spengler rejects the very idea. For Spengler a culture fallen ill due to maturity is in an inevitable decline. No cure is possible. If this notion is correct, what form does Wittgenstein think that the cure should take? Four passages reveal what he has in mind. In PI, 133, he announces, as we have seen, that the clarity he is seeking must be complete clarity and that all of the problems must disappear. Second, in a passage from RFM, which I already discussed, he says: The sickness of a time is cured by an alteration in the mode of life of human beings, and it was possible for the sickness of philosophical problems to get cured only through a changed mode of thought and of life, not through a medicine invented by an individual. Suppose the use of the motor-ear produces or encourages certain illnesses, and mankind is plagued by such illness until, from son1e cause or other, as the result of some development or other, it abandons the habit of driving. (RFM, 132)

The sickness of a time can be cured provided that some development occurs to cause the source of the illness to disappear. Now what

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does he have in mind here? Remen1ber, the sickness is the sickness of finding the expressions of one's culture strange. Wittgenstein demonstrates a method of resolving philosophical puzzlement, but what he wants is the complete elimination of such puzzles, not a medicine given by an individual to an individual. Third, in 1947, he writes: "I am by no means sure that 1 should prefer a continuation of my work by others to a change in the way people live which would make all these questions superfluous. (For this reason 1 could never found a school.)" (CV, 61). This remark echoes the claim in RFM, but is stronger. Here he makes clear his preference that a cultural change take place which n1akes the questions superfluous. To found a school gives the questions an importance he wishes them not to have. But, nonetheless, he seems to think that a cure is possible. Finally, he suggests earlier that if a new way of thinking were introduced, the problems would disappear. "Once the new way of thinking has been established, the old problems vanish; indeed they become hard to recapture. For they go with our way of expressing ourselves and, if we clothe ourselves in a new form of expression, the old problems are discarded along with the old garment" (CV, 48). So if a new way of thinking were established, the problems would disappear. What is uncertain is whether Wittgenstein is confident that his own work constitutes the necessary change. For he prefers a vanishing of the problems to having someone carryon his work. He wants to found no school that would perpetuate itself and so the questions it was capable of answering. Furthermore, in his description of the change (CV, 61), he appears to be describing a change into a great culture where the sickness of philosophical questioning does not exist. This call is for a return to the youth and vigor of the self-evidence of high culture. But this return is expressly what Spengler thinks impossible and Wittgenstein unlikely. Wittgenstein's rejection of Spengler's dogmatism made such a viewpoint possible. For, if there is no essential character to history and organic life, then there is no way which things, from the vantage point of history, must turn out. And with that insight in place, it becomes possible to address the sickness of an age as something it is possible to cure. Nonetheless, another dilemma faces him. For he could either perpetuate the problems by encouraging followers or hope for some change in culture by which the problems would vanish. This latter hope seems to be behind his early version of the preface to the Philosophical Investigations in which he says of his book: "May it soon-this is what I wish for it-be completely forgotten by the philosophical journalists, and so be preserved perhaps for a better sort of reader" (CV, 66). A better sort of reader would be one who could change his or her way of

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thinking to the point where the problems did indeed disappear or who could appreciate that intention without violating it the way a professional philosopher would. It is clear that this pessimism places doubt on the ability of philosophy to effect the sort of cure Wittgenstein most hopes for. One could work for some clarity with the hope that in the meantime a new culture and better reader might appear.

The Significance of Simile In addition to the influence of Spengler in developing Wittgenstein's idea that a sound form of understanding [RFM (1967), IV, 53] is to be fostered through simile, not through formulas, causal laws, or mechanisms, Wittgenstein also was influenced by Paul Ernst's notion that our language itself contains a mythology. Similes and analogies already are embedded in our language. The difficulty in philosophy is to be able to articulate the mythology underlying our thinking and to be able to come to understand it for what it is-myth, not an inchoate theory about the world. So there are two roles that Wittgenstein attributes to simile-they already are present in our language and constitutive of our world picture-and we tend to misunderstand them. That misunderstanding derives from the fact that the pictures in our language suggest certain linguistic practices that in fact do not obtain in ordinary language. But in addition, there is a tendency for philosophers to understand these pictures as depicting facts-or a special sort of superfact. The antidote to this form of mistake is to see how the pictures in our language in fact are applied by examining the multiplicity of cases in which the picture is applied. Furthermore, there is a need to put forth a set of similes sufficiently powerful to guide our thinking away from the tendency to fall into philosophical confusion (Moore, p. 316 ). This must take place globally and in terms of specific pieces of language. 6 In this interpretation, I emphasize the connections Moore claims Wittgenstein sees between philosophy and aesthetics. In both, the resolution of puzzlement comes from getting a 'synopsis' of the facts, but he also emphasizes that in aesthetics what one gets is "good descriptions or good similes" (Moore, 316). Freud gave "wonderful representation(s)" (Moore, 316) and in doing so was able to bring into a clear arrangement an "enormous field of psychical facts" (Moore, 316). Of course, what Freud accomplished here is what Wittgenstein claims philosophy ought to accomplish. We cannot underestimate the role of good description or good similes in thinking of Wittgenstein's method and the way in which it is purely descriptive (PI, 124) and at the same time, as in aesthetics and psychoanalysis, persuasive (LC, 27).

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We need to understand language on the model of a game, not a picture. We need to understand predicates on the model of family resemblance, not on the model of a name of a single property. Furthermore, we need to understand specific pieces of language in terms of similes that clarify the variety of uses of the specific terms. We need to be able to survey the range of things called reading to come up with a simile that allows us to take in the uses of the word at a glance. We need to understand understanding itself in terms of being able to do something, not grasping something in a flash of insight. Wittgenstein insists, nevertheless, that we must not fall into dogmatism. We cannot avoid the necessity of thinking of the model language games and the grammatical insights and similes offered along the way as comparative, designed to shed light by way of both similarity and difference. The model example of diagnosis he presents in the Philosophical Investigations is his discussion of understanding. "The grammar of the word 'knows' is evidently closely related to that of 'can', 'is able to'. But also closely related to that of 'understands'. ('Mastery' of a technique.)" (PI, 150). It is clear that this important grammatical remark is phrased to indicate something less than identity or a reduction of one type to another. These terms are said to be "closely related." One can appreciate their relations only by examining a range of particular cases to see how far and in what respect they are similar or different. Similes can lead us astray and also can correct our understanding. But what was Wittgenstein claiming about them? Was he claiming that such similes are necessary for any thinking at all? Was he claiming that it is preferable to think in terms of simile? Or was he claiming that as a matter of fact similes can and often do influence our thinking in ways philosophers ought to appreciate better? His view appears to be that similes guide our thinking and lead to philosophical puzzles when our expectations of what the simile means are not met in actual linguistic practice. The practice indicates one application of the picture and the philosophical interpretation indicates that another set of applications is required. What is required in philosophy is to unearth the simile and the particular expectations to which it gives rise. In the examination of reading, Wittgenstein claims that there are a variety of activities called reading that are related in a variety of ways. But a particular experience of being guided in the act of reading suggests itself to us and forces us to think that there must be a particular experience of being guided common to all cases of reading. What exists instead is a variety of cases of being guided (PI, 172) and a variety of things called reading. The particular picture of being guided suggests itself to us. But this picture is nothing more than a simile embedded in our language, a particular form of expression that forces itself on

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us (PI, 113, 178, and 607). We think that reading must be a certain way, not because it always is but because the particular picture forces itself on us in the way it does. It is possible, however, to understand the problems of philosophy in some other way. For example, Wittgenstein realizes a difference between his thinking and the work of Bertrand Russell and H. G. Wells (Z, 456). These thinkers do not recognize the existence of deep problems, problems deeply felt. These deeply felt problems have their source in the similes embedded in our language. Wittgenstein presents a philosophical practice that begins with such deeply felt problems and clarifies the similes bewitching us. Such clarification comes about by way of articulating what we are inclined to say under a simile's influence .and how it is applied correctly in some cases and incorrectly in other cases. Such a practice allows us both to clarify how things seem under the influence of the simile and to see the limitations of it. In the course of the investigation either we lose our tendency to view all of some phenomena through the simile or else we become clear about about the way in which we have extended usage beyond how we normally speak.7 Proposing pictures that compete with the ones naturally suggested to us by ordinary language results in a new set of comparisons in which deeply felt paradoxes do not arise. So to claim that the words 'Now I can go on' might be better called a 'signal' than a 'description of a mental state' puts forth a new comparison, designed to resolve the puzzle that arises when one thinks of the meaning of a word as its use and then attempts to reconcile that with the idea that one can understand the meaning of a word in a flash of understanding (PI, 138). If the statement 'Now I understand' or 'Now I can go on' is a signal of one's feeling able to go on with a formula or with a way of speaking, then there is no conflict between these two claims, for the signal is a signal that one is able to use the word properly. Philosophy practiced in this way does not ignore feelings one might have about a form of expression that suggests itself in such investigations. Like the sort of aesthetic and anthropological investigations Wittgenstein was interested in, these investigations begin with inchoate, inarticulate feelings, and attempt to understand how things seem and so what the simile is that is guiding our intuitions. It also proposes alterations in simile to resolve deeply felt disturbance. Several claims are being made about similes, then. They exist embedded in our language, presenting a mythology or world picture. They give rise to puzzles by failing to give a perspicuous representation of the grammar of our language and by being understood to give a complete and correct account of the grammar of the part of language

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with which they are associated. Such puzzles can be deeply felt due to the force of these similes in human life, for they can be bewitching because of (1) the role they play in our world picture and form of life, (2) the deep feelings that attach to that picture for those operating with it, and (3) our tendency as philosophers to misunderstand that role.

Conclusion In summary, there are two important lines of influence here. It is not just his comparative method that influences Wittgenstein, but also Spengler's notion that there are two different forms of understanding, the one higher and healthier than the other. The one comes about through similes and images, the other through the posit of causal laws and formulas. Wittgenstein, by the time he will have read Spengler, already will have claimed in the Tractatus that there is a distinction between the problems of life and the problems of science. Each type of problem requires a different type of solution. What he derives from Spengler is an idea of how that distinction could be maintained without appeal to a transcendental distinction between what is in the world and the limit of the world. Life problems come to be understood as problems that arise from misunderstanding similes or images. The deeply felt character of the problems of life, then, derives from the deeply felt character of these similes and images and are as persistent as they are because of this source. Problems of philosophy represent one type of such problem. Also, on the positive side, such images and similes give us a deeply felt understanding of things. The solution to these philosophical, life problems comes from the clarification of the similes, pictures, their influence, and their proper application as well as from the presentation of alternative similes capable of producing a deeply felt transformation in one's habits of thoughts and view of the world. Philosophy that ignores the problems generated by similes and pictures ignores the problems of life that are distinctively philosophical. Such a philosophical project is not able to produce for us a "feeling for" our language in which we can come into agreement with the form of our lives. Consequently, such a philosophy ignores the ethical dimension of thinking, the point of therapeutic, philosophical thought. It is possible in light of these considerations about similes to shed light on Wittgenstein's claim that "The philosopher is the man who has to cure himself of many sicknesses of the understanding before he can arrive at the notions of the sound human understanding" (RFM, 302). What a philosopher must cure hinlself of is the intellectual bewitchment brought about by being under the intellectual influence of a simile that does not give us a perspicuous representation of particular

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regions of our language and of their role in the human form of life. The importance of similes for generating a philosophical outlook is made clear by Wittgenstein. "It is sometimes said that a man's philosophy is a matter of temperament, and there is something in this. A preference for certain similes could be called a matter of temperament and it underlies far more disagreements than you might think" (CV, 20). But these similes can be sound or not. And the unsound simile is a sickness of the understanding that must be healed. The mathematician too can wonder at the miracles (the crystal) of nature of course; but can he do so once a problem has arisen about what it actually is he is contemplating? Is it really possible as long as the object that he finds astonishing and gazes at with awe is shrouded in a philosophical fog? I could imagine somebody might admire not only real trees, but also the shadows or reflections that they cast, taking thenl too for trees. But once he has told himself that these are not really trees after all and has come to be puzzled at what they are, or how they are related to trees, his admiration will have suffered a rupture that will need healing. (CV, 57)

These ruptures are caused by a lack of clarity due to being under the influence of an unsound simile. But it is central to Wittgenstein's descriptions that these ruptures, these intellectual puzzles caused by a lack of clarity, are thought of as "ruptures," "sicknesses of the understanding," or as "deformities" (CV, 19) that need healing. So it is clear that Wittgenstein thinks of intellectual puzzlements as "sicknesses of the understanding," but what does this phrase mean and in what sense can we think of these bewitchments as illnesses? An illness is an impairment. If I have some particular illness such as bronchitis, then I am limited in my ability to engage in otherwise normal and unproblematic activities. For example, I cannot run and I may not even be able to walk quickly. If the bronchitis is painful, I may not even be able to read. But it is also true that sicknesses often are curable. The impairment can be removed. Wittgenstein's crucial thesis, then, is that bewitching similes that present inadequate representations of the grammar of our language and so of our form of life (see PI, 19-to imagine a language game is to inlagine a form of life) impair us. The impairment is not physical-these are impairments in our understanding. They are impairments in our ability to have a clear vision of our human form of life, a vision that does not present our form of life as a problem. It must wait until Chapter 6 to explain why and in what way this sort of perspicuity is a requirement for human health.

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Let me review the main points of the argument of the first four chapters. I argued in Chapter 1 that any therapeutic philosophy must operate from a conception of health, a related conception of illness, and must present a philosophical form of treatment. The treatment, to be philosophical, must include a confessional acknowledgment of what one really thinks about some problematic phenomenon, critical scrutiny of those thoughts, and a persuasive presentation of a new point of view. In Chapter 2, I argued that Wittgenstein presents coming into agreement with the form of one's life as an ideal of health. The ideal presents an ethical good, which as ethical specifies the proper attitude toward one's form of life as such. I claimed that this ethical good has to be understood as a part of the human good. In Chapter 3, I argued that Wittgenstein's writing in the Philosophical Investigations is confessional and dialectical in a way that is required of philosophical therapy. The confession presents acknowledgments of what one is inclined to say under the influence of a philosophical picture, and the dialectic counters the influence of the picture and the whole style of thinking in which misunderstandings of such a picture occurs. I argued in Chapter 4 that a new style of thinking is introduced with a new set of similes designed both to take the place of the old ones and support a new style of thinking, one that brings us into agreement with the forms of our lives. In the next chapter, I take up the question of the relation of science to this form of philosophical therapy.

Chapter 5 The Conflict between Philosophy and Science

Introduction In this chapter, I examine the conflict, as Wittgenstein understands it, between philosophy and science. Because his concern in his later writings is to clarify the deep-seated similes that give rise to philosophical puzzlement, it is appropriate to examine his view of the conflict between his own philosophical project and scientific psychology and linguistics, for he conceived of his enterprise as competing with the enterprise of science and his project is concerned with phenomena studied in these disciplines. To this end, I have examined his criticisms of Freud, in which he distinguishes Freud's therapeutic enterprise from the enterprise of science. Freud claims to be scientific whereas, according to Wittgenstein, what he really is doing is more akin to what an aesthetician does. I do not think that the full weight of Wittgenstein's argument usually is appreciated. If Wittgenstein is, as he claims, a disciple of Freud, then his own work must be understood as akin to what he takes Freud to do: his thinking must be both criticized and defended from that vantage point. Later in the chapter, I show how Wittgenstein's critics and defenders have misunderstood his claims by failing to be clear about the character of his therapeutic enterprise. It will not be my purpose to give a complete airing of the very large issues in cognitive science between the Wittgensteinians and the scientists. Rather, I am concerned to show what kind of claims Wittgenstein is making and consequently, what types of criticism and defense of his claims are out of place.

Freud: Science, Myth, and Therapy In examining the ethical and therapeutic intention enlbodied in Wittgenstein's early and late work, it becomes clear that he thought that science is not able to solve the problem or problems of life. 77

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Accordingly, philosophical reflection turns away from science and attempts to solve the problem(s) through a sustained critique of scientific pretension. In the early view, we get shown how a solution is to come about-through viewing the world as a limited whole. In the later view, we are trained to accept the given, forms of life, through the development of perspicuous representations of those forms. Thus, the perspicuous representations give us a way of seeing that removes philosophical puzzlement and brings us to a peaceful agreement with the forms of our lives. The common thread here is that neither approach to the problem(s) has anything to do with science. Wittgenstein claimed to be a "follower" of Freud (LC, 41). Given his views of the limitations of science and Freud's claims to have established psychoanalysis as a science, he can have been only an ambivalent follower. Indeed, he criticizes Freud for the very reason that Freud claims that psychoanalysis is scientific. It is both necessary and possible to clarify in what sense Wittgenstein was a follower of Freud. He thought that, even though Freud misunderstood the character of therapy, he nonetheless was quite adept at the therapy he practiced. In the Blue Book Wittgenstein criticizes psychoanalysts in two

It isn't wrong, according to our new convention, to say "I have unconscious toothache". For what more can you ask of your notation than that it should distinguish between a bad tooth which doesn't give you toothache and one which does? But the new expression misleads us by calling up pictures and analogies which make it difficult for us to go through with our convention. And it is extremely difficult to discard these pictures unless we are constantly watchful; particularly difficult when, in philosophizing, we contemplate what we say about things. Thus, by the expression "unconscious toothache" you nlay either be misled into thinking that a stupendous discovery has been made, a discovery which in a sense altogether bewilders our understanding; or else you may be extremely puzzled by the expression (the puzzlement of philosophy) and perhaps ask such a question as "How is unconscious toothache possible?" You may then be tempted to deny the possibility of unconscious toothache; but the scientist will tell you that it is a proved fact that there is such a thing, and he will say it like a man destroying a common prejudice. He will say: surely it's quite simple; there are other things which you don't know of. It is just a new discovery". You won't be satisfied, but you won't know what to answer. This situation constantly arises between the scientist and the philosopher. (BB, 23)

analysis of what is supposed to be going on in this dispute comes in the text:

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The idea of there being unconscious thoughts has revolted many people. Others again have said that these were wrong in supposing that there could only be conscious thoughts, and that the psychoanalysis had discovered unconscious ones. The objectors to unconscious thought did not see that they were not objecting to a newly discovered psychological reactions, but to the way in which they were described. The psychoanalysts on the other hand were misled by their own way of expression into thinking that tl)ey had done more than discover new psychological reactions; they had, in a sense, discovered conscious thoughts which were unconscious. The first could have stated their objection by saying "We don't wish to use the phrase 'unconscious thoughts'; we wish to reserve the word 'thought' for what you call 'conscious thoughts'" They state their case wrongly when they say: "There can only be conscious thoughts and no unconscious ones. For if they don't wish to talk of "unconscious thought" they should not use the phrase "conscious thought," either. (BB, 57-58)

The mistake of the psychoanalyst comes when the analyst thinks that the new psychoanalytic notation, which contains the phrase 'unconscious thought', expresses a discovery; viz., the discovery that there are unconscious thoughts. Wittgenstein's claim is that all the psychoanalyst has done in this case is to offer a new notation. Because notations express points of view (BB, 28), the pyschoanalyst has propounded a new point of view on psychological reactions, not discovered the unconscious. The first objection that comes to mind is that psychoanalysts claim more for the language of the unconscious than that it is just a notation. Psychoanalysts argue that only by appeal to unconscious mechanisms can the relevant psychological phenomena be explained. Wittgenstein does not raise or discuss this objection in direct connection with this criticism. The issue does come up, however, in The Blue Book. Owing to the obscurity of the text and the lack of obvious transitions from one topic to the next, it would not be unreasonable to think that the earlier discussions of psychological explanation may have been in Wittgenstein's mind throughout these criticisms. The initial discussion of psychological explanation is to be found on page 5. There Wittgenstein attempts to diagnose the tendency to think that the meaning of signs is a function of their relation to some "occult sphere." He claims that we mistakenly understand the question of the mind's contribution to the meaning of signs as the sanle type as the question of how the protoplasm of a cell is able to result in the behavior of an amoeba. But drawing such an analogy is a mistake. "For what struck us as being queer about thought and thinking was not at all that it had curious effects which we were not yet able to explain

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(causally). Our problem, in other words, was not a scientific one; but a muddle felt as a problem." He goes on to claim that mind-models have a role in psychological theory-to explain and summarize observed mental activities. He rejects the claim that such models are of philosophical interest. Supposing we tried to construct a mind-model as a result of psychological investigation, a model which, as we should say, would explain the action of mind. This model would be part of a psychological theory in the way in which a mechanical model of the ether can be part of a theory of electricity... But this aspect of the mind does not interest us. The problems which it may set are psychological problems, and the nlethod of their solution is that of natural science. Now if it is not the causal connections which we are concerned with, then the activities of the nlind lie open before us. And when we are worried about the nature of thinking, the puzzlement which we wrongly interpret to be one about the nature of a medium is a puzzlement caused by the mystifying use of our language. (BB, 5)

There are philosophical problems distinct from problems of natural science.! What is the difference? Philosophical problems arise when one reflects under the compulsive influence of similes on something that is otherwise familiar and unproblematic. Here Wittgenstein harks back to that earlier discussion in claiming that because our concerns are not scientific, "the activities of the mind lie open before us." The mind, or more accurately, mental phenomena as characterized in everyday discourse are entirely open to us. So the appeal to mental mechanisms to explain meaning, for example, embodies two nlistakes. On the one hand, one loses one's sense of the familiar nature of meaning something, and on the other hand, one confuses this problem with a scientific one. How plausible is this analysis of the nature of the philosophical question about meaning? In particular, do we really want to claim that psychological theories about mental processes will not be able to shed light on philosophical claims about the nature of meaning? It is important to see what Wittgenstein is doing in this passage. In drawing the distinction between science and philosophy in the way he does, he implies that philosophy is limited to puzzlement about things open (familiar) to us. Why does he adopt such a view? There is no argument in the text. I already argued that his adherence to this view must be explained in terms of his earlier views that philosophy is concerned with problems of life that cannot be solved by appeal to scientific discovery and explanation. The later view, as we have seen, claims

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that philosophical problems arise through reflection that does not allow one's familiar understanding to be clear. Just as the early view claims that the problem of life is to be solved through the correct orientation to the world (viewing it as a limited whole), the later view counsels that one ought to accept human forms of life (see Chapter 2). The question of how unconscious thoughts are possible is a philosophical question. The puzzle derives from not being clear about the grammar of the phrase 'unconscious thoughts'. Psychoanalysts fail to understand the grammar of this phrase when they claim that unconscious thoughts have been "discovered," for they assume that they have discovered a new species of thought and fail to see that they have invented a new way of speaking. The critic of psychoanalysis argues that no such thoughts are possible and in so doing fails to see that it is possible to invent new notations. So the philosophical problems arise, in this case, from a failure to understand the linguistic practice of notational invention, which is familiar and open to inspection. The claim that psychoanalysis gives us a new notation and no new facts is extremely important, for Wittgenstein's claim that a notation embodies a point of view indicates how he thinks psychoanalysis functions. The claim that the unconscious exists presents a new point of view, but not a newly discovered fact. In the Tractatus the problem of life is to be solved by grasping the world, the facts, as a limited whole. At this later period, the notion of grasping facts as a limited whole has changed into the idea of grasping them in a perspicuous representation. He claims that there exist a multiplicity of points of view, which he sometimes refers to as mythologies, notations, or pictures. Some of them satisfy us in a way in which the ordinary notation does not (BB, 58). So philosophical problems are dissolved by the adoption of new notations or acceptance of the ordinary one, not by viewing the world as a limited whole. Psychoanalysis, in providing a new notation, allows one to draw analogies and view people from a more comfortable point of view. Therefore, its function is philosophical. It solves some puzzles or problems of life. It is a mistake, therefore, to understand psychoanalysis to be explaining or discovering anything. The second discussion in The Blue Book that sheds light on Wittgenstein's criticism of psychoanalysis is the discussion of the difference between reasons and causes. Wittgenstein claims that giving a reason for an action is to give "a way which leads to the action" (BB, 14). To indicate a cause of the action, however, is to make a hypothesis that, if correct, rests on agreement with a number of similar experiences. This agreement marks the difference between the causes and reasons: "In order to know the reason which you had for making a certain statement, for acting in a particular way, etc., no number of agreeing experi-

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ences is necessary, and the statenlent of your reason is not an hypothesis" (BB, 15). Insofar as psychoanalysis provides us with a new way of viewing human beings, it can be said to provide a specification of its way of coming to view people as it does, but not causes of human behavior. So Freud's interpretations of dreams do not, as he clainls, give the causes of the dreams, but a specification of how he came to view the dreams the way he did. Both of these explanations of Wittgenstein's criticism of psychoanalysis get at the same idea. Psychoanalysis provides one with a new point of view that solves some problem of life. Insofar as it is successful in doing that, it proposes good sinliles or wonderful representations of disturbing phenomena (Moore, 316), which allow one to overconle the feeling of disturbance or else resign oneself to it (LC, 51). So Wittgenstein understands psychoanalysis and philosophy to be engaged in similar enterprises. Both propose to solve some problem in one's life through prompting a change in viewpoint that brings one into agreement with one's life. Wittgenstein's point is that Freud's therapy is philosophical (see Chapter 1), not scientific. So the appeal to mental mechanisms as justifying these new points of view is misplaced. In a fundamental way the problems of psychoanalysis are philosophical, not psychological.2 This reading of Wittgenstein's critique gains support from an extremely illuminating passage from Alice Ambrose's notes of Wittgenstein's lectures in the year (1932-1933) prior to the dictation of

The Blue Book. When we laugh without knowing why, Freud claims that by psychoanalysis we can find out. I see a muddle here between a cause and a reason. Being clear why you laugh is not being clear about a cause. If it were, then agreement to the analysis given of the joke as explaining why you laugh would not be a means of detecting it. The success of the analysis is supposed to be shown by the person's agreement. There is nothing corresponding to this in physics. Of course we can give causes for our laughter, but whether these are in fact the causes is not shown by the person's agreeing that they are. A cause is found experimentally. The psychoanalytic way of finding why a person laughs is analogous to an aesthetic [my emphasis] investigation. For the correctness of an aesthetic analysis must be agreement of the person to whom the analysis is given. The difference between a reason and a cause is brought out as follows: the investigation of a reason entails as an essential part one's agreement with it, whereas the investigation of a cause is carried out experimentally. Of course the person who agrees to the reason was not conscious at the time of its being his reason. But it is a way of speaking to say the reason was subconscious. It may be expedient to speak in this way, but the subconscious is a hypothetical entity which gets its meaning from the verification these propositions have. What Freud says

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about the subconscious sounds like science, but in fact it is just a means of representation. New regions of the soul have not been discovered as his writings suggest. The display of elements of a dream, for example, a hat (which may mean practically anything) is a display of similes. As in aesthetics, things are placed side by side so as to exhibit certain features. These throw light on our way of looking at the dreanl; they are reasons for the dream. (139-40)

This passage is illuminating since it is clear that Wittgenstein wants to identify the giving of reasons with aesthetic investigation. Such investigations are designed to get one to see objects in a certain way through making comparisons. Freud's reasoning is more akin to aesthetic reasoning than it is to scientific reasoning about causes. It is the fact that Freud relies on the patient's agreement, as does the aesthetic critic, and does not experiment that leads Wittgenstein to this conclusion. But if Freud is engaging in something similar to aesthetic thinking, and if such thinking itself is similar to or the same as Wittgenstein's philosophical thinking (see Chapter 2), then Freud's thought in important ways is sinlilar to Wittgenstein's. If the argument of the previous chapter is accepted and if one accepts the claim that aesthetic thinking and its analogues generate new similes, then the identification of philosophical and aesthetic thinking certainly must be accepted, for philosophical thinking is defined partly by the production of perspicuous representations; that is, perspicuous similes. The problem with psychoanalysis is that it is quasi-aesthetic thinking in scientific clothing. Because it is misunderstood by critics and proponents to be making scientific claims, illegitimate claims are made for and against it. An examination of The Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology, and Religion will further substantiate the claim that Wittgenstein viewed psychoanalysis as an aesthetic enterprise and also provide evidence that Wittgenstein viewed it as an ethical enterprise as well. In Wittgenstein's published lectures on aesthetics, in discussing the nature of aesthetic thinking and the crucial distinction between reason and causes, he turns to a discussion of Freud and indicates that in the same way that aesthetic explanation does not appeal to causes, neither does Freud in his explanations (LC, 18).3 In the subsequent discussions in that lecture and in the section on Freud, he returns again and again to the criticism that psychoanalysis does not reveal causal mechanisms, but gives expression to aesthetic or quasi-aesthetic description. At the same time that Wittgenstein was critical of the scientific pretension of psychoanalysis, he also thought that, as a solution to life problems, it was likely to be harmful.

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Analysis is likely to do harm. Because although one may discover in the course of it various things about oneself, one must have a very strong and keen and persistent criticism in order to recognize and see through the mythology that is offered or imposed on one. There is an inducement to say, 'Yes, of course, it must be like that'. A powerful mythology. (LC, 51-52)

This quotation helps give some sense to Wittgenstein's remark that psychoanalysis poses new problems. "In a way having oneself psychoanalysed is like eating from the tree of knowledge. The knowledge acquired sets us (new) ethical problems; but contributes nothing to their solution" (CV, 34). So although it can solve some life problems, psychoanalysis creates new ones by failing to see its aesthetic character and by being dogmatic about the sort of analogies and comparisons it exploits. In both respects, it is like traditional philosophical theories that claim some scientific (or metaphysical and epistemological) status and consequently fail to see that they have done no more than present one among many possible representations of the world (PI, 401 and 402). Such approaches as solutions to the problem(s) of life are necessarily deficient. They give rise to philosophical puzzlement, which it is necessary to resolve before the theories in question can bring any peace. So the peace they offer can never be reached, for so long as the theories are claimed to be the only correct ones, they will give rise to intellectual debate that will frustrate their goals of achieving peace. It should be clear what Wittgenstein's criticism is and what is motivating it. The fundamental issue of Wittgenstein's critique remains. Can Wittgenstein's distinction between scientific and philosophical thinking (and the related distinction between reasons and causes) be made out? The set of distinctions that define Wittgenstein's philosophical task center around the fact-value distinction. As the early view undergoes transformation, this distinction changes. In The Blue Book, the operative distinctions are between notation and fact and reasons and causes. If the distinction between reasons and aesthetic thinking and causes and scientific thinking is legitimate, then it will provide support for Wittgenstein's critique of Freud and for the philosophical project of removing philosophical problems through a form of aesthetic-ethical thinking. The style and manner of philosophizing initiated by Wittgenstein has undergone hard times in the last few years. Important distinctions have been introduced to undermine the appeal to "what we say" as the final court of appeal. So it is a surprise to see an article of John V. Canfield supporting the distinction using a line of arguments and examples

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that are essentially the same as Wittgenstein's.4 It is useful to examine this argument because of the way it reproduces Wittgenstein's claim and also fails to grasp the overall character of Wittgenstein's project. The language-game of giving a reason by stating what one had in mind does not contain the move of doubting or questioning the agent's stated reason (except in the special kind of circumstances illustrated above). This is one of the important ways in which this language-game differs from the language-game of stating causes. In the latter it is always open to probe, question, doubt, or reject, on the basis of evidence of a certain kind, a claimed causal connection. This just shows that in giving a reason the agent is not advancing a causal hypothesis; for the agent's reason statement is immune to this kind of probing and rejection. ("Calculations, Reasons, and Causes," 184).

One who is going to articulate a Wittgensteinian position ought to be aware of what that means. Distinctions between reason and causes can be made by appeal to objects of comparison (PI, 132). So we must construct a model of a reason and a model of a cause. But note that in doing so we cannot claim that these models are the only ones possible (PI, 132). The model of giving reasons is the model of making something a reason by saying that it is a reason (BBM, 194). By appeal to this model the so-called privileged access to our reasons is explained. In this sort of language game, asking whether one is certain that what one says is the reason is really the reason, indeed, makes no sense, for there is no reason other than the one made up. On the other hand, the model of causal thinking is the model of proving that something is the case by appeal to evidence, counterevidence, and so on. The important point to emphasize is that these models are not the only ones. So we should not fall into the kind of dogmatism that comes from using only one model and that Wittgenstein's philosophy is an attempt to counter. How else might we think of this distinction? We can construct an alternative model of the language of causal hypothesis with the result that causal hypothesizing and aesthetic reason giving end up appearing similar. We can think of some causal thinking on the model of a black box problem. We know the input and output of the box; the problem is to determine the structure inside the box that yields the output given the input. Furthermore, if we have some idea of the internal structure of the box, certain hypotheses can be ruled out as impossible even if they can describe the output given the input. We can then say that the cause of the output is such and such a structure or one of many such structures that we can describe. In solving a black box problem, one has to describe a way of representing the input and output so that they are correlated. In doi~~_~~~_~~~_~ep~~l~

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to analogies. If input A is analogous to output B, then one might treat B as a transformation of A, and so forth. This form of thinking, standard in science, is quite similar to what Wittgenstein calls giving a reason or aesthetic thinking; one is given a way of organizing the material. Note that, depending on the nature of the box, no experimentation or other evidence gathering may be possible to determine whether one's hypotheses are correct. The evidence underdetermines the theory. However one had better not rule out such thinking for this reason. If theories are always so underdetermined, we want to include that as a feature of scientific thinking. If we use this object of comparison, then citing causes is a lot like giving reasons. In fact it would not be wrong to say that citing reasons is a way of citing causes! By appeal to Wittgenstein's methodological dicta, Canfield's argument is rejected. Wittgenstein's own position appears in doubt because the separation between reason and causes, aesthetics and science now seems to have vanished. Wittgenstein himself seems aware of these complicating factors. For example, he admits (BB, 6) that a mind-model in a psychological theory has the function of dressing up the theory and allowing one to take the theory in at a glance. But of course this is what "wonderful representations" allow us to do in aesthetics-to take things in at a glance. Furthermore, the black box model reflects Freud's own n1ethodological statements. 5 Does this argument result in a rejection of Wittgenstein's conclusions about the status of Freud's claims? In Taylor's version of a lecture on Freud (LC, 25) occurs the following statement: "An explanation in a different sense often. Its attractiveness is important, more important than in the case of an explanation in physics." What this statement suggests is that the sort of "aesthetic" charm found in psychoanalysis also is present in physics. If so, then it also contains quasi-aesthetic thinking. To charge Freud with being unscientific appears possible only in a limited model of what science is. This criticism of Wittgenstein does not vitiate his project, however, for insofar as we allow that philosophy is concerned with the construction of perspicuous representations, it does what is also a part of the work of the natural sciences. Furthermore, if we admit that scientific theories are underdetermined by their evidence, it should always be possible to discover alternatives to the perspiscuous representations that form a part of its theory. Given that there are such alternatives and given that the perspicuous representations of a theory, as representations, can either present or solve life problems, it would be the province of philosophy to examine them and pose alternatives, if necessary. If what I have said is correct, then Wittgenstein's criticisn1s of Freud can be reformulated in a better way, for we need not claim that

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psychoanalysis is not in its procedures scientific. What needs to be emphasized is that, due to its subject matter, the representations it exploits provide one, in a way in which the theory of gases does not, with solutions to one's life problems. So its significance and what it aspires to do differ from other scientific theories. A critique of the dogmatism of psychoanalysis and of the philosophical puzzles to which it gives rise is still appropriate. If we take seriously Wittgenstein's claim that his objects of comparison are not the only possible ones, then we must justify use of the models that playa role in his critique. The most plausible suggestion is that by presenting objects of comparison that separate scientific concerns from philosophical ones, he has opened a space for the kind of philosophical reflection that he practiced. With that point in mind, we easily can set his own models aside, for that practice is not in any way limited by the differentiation of reasons and causes or by the recognition that psychoanalysis is not scientific. 6 If the ethical critique of Freud is central to Wittgenstein's discussion, then the following point must be emphasized. Wittgenstein's concern to show that psychoanalysis is not scientific rests on his desire to show that part of psychoanalytic thinking is ethical and aesthetic in character. For him, this means that Freud is proposing a way of looking at things that is not based entirely on experiment but that psychoanalysts mistakenly tend to understand their discipline in a narrowly scientific way. Note the parallel between Wittgenstein's use of objects of comparison here and in his discussion of Freud. In both cases he argues that the use of mental language is outside any theoretical, explanatory context. Because he identifies scientific contexts with experimental contexts, his models incline him to view all nonexperimental contexts as involving games and practices that are essentially nonscientific. Because Wittgenstein is attempting to remind us of those modes of understanding that are pretheoretical, he is inclined to exaggerate the differences between scientific and nonscientific thinking and not to see the continuity and similarities in addition to the dissimilarities he emphasizes. It is more important to see the point of his description of psychoanalysis than it is to accept the particular description he gives, for it is possible to make the point in another way, as I have earlier. Wittgenstein's discipleship of Freud is based on Freud's ability to give us "wonderful representations." Wittgenstein is giving us what he himself takes to be "wonderful representations" of a variety of disturbing, puzzling phenomena. What appears correct in his criticisms of Freud and scientific philosophy is that it is possible to detach the project of description from the project of science itself, and this is possible because wonderful descriptions and explanatory descriptions are conceptually distinct. But

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they are not mutually exclusive. Wittgenstein's mistake is that it is not always necessary for then1 to be different. Scientific descriptions may sometimes themselves be wonderful descriptions, and wonderful descriptions may be just what is needed in the construction of theoretical models. An example of this phenomenon can be found in Fritjof Capra's comparison of Eastern thought with that of contemporary physics. He claims that both forms of thought share a similar view of the world in their emphasis of the mutual dependency of all things. 7 My point is that this picture of the universe emerges in both forms of thinking, though it is put to a theoretical use in physics and an ethical use in Buddhism. So the forms of representation found in natural science need not be excluded from use in therapeutic philosophy. Nor are we compelled to think that a scientific form of representation must not be really scientific if it has some therapeutic use. A single picture may have a use in both forms of thinking, but not the same use. So what remains as positive in this critique of Freud is the idea that we must realize that therapeutic descriptions are therapeutic because of the simile proposed in the context, not because they are theoretically correct. Sometimes therapeutic correctness and theoretical correctness may coincide in the same description, but they are never the same thing.

How Not to Criticize Wittgenstein: Chihara and Fodor Much philosophy done in the name of Wittgenstein has missed the point of his philosophical project. In the same way that the philosophers of the Vienna Circle downplayed the ethical character of the Tractatus, the later Wittgensteinians have missed the ethical character of his later writings. The result has been disastrous for Wittgensteinian philosophy, for most of the philosophy done in that mode appears quaint and dogmatic. Simple appeal to what we would say misses the point of Wittgenstein's philosophizing. Furthermore, Wittgenstein's ideas have fallen on bad times. A good indication of this is Daniel Dennet's review of the philosophical literature in the philosophy of mindS in which he places the definitive rejection of Wittgenstein's views of mind in the middle 1960s with the publication of a critical essay by Chihara and Fodor, "Operationalism and Ordinary Language: A Critique of Wittgenstein." But the hard times this article initiated are possible only because of the narrow interpretation of Wittgenstein's philosophy. The significance of the therapeutic project in which he is engaged is lost. Consequently the fundamental issues that his writings raise do not even get addressed, and the issues that are addressed have nothing to do with Wittgenstein's concerns.

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In this section, I defend Wittgenstein against some of his key critics. Because I do not think that his so-called defenders have done justice to his work, I also will defend him against their defense of him. Using my discussion of Wittgenstein's criticisms of Freud as a model, I would like to examine some recent Wittgensteinian critiques of the project of cognitive psychology. These critiques are based on a misreading of Wittgenstein's later project. Moreover, these critiques are easy to refute. What I will show is that the fallacies of these critiques rest on the misreading of Wittgenstein. Furthermore, I will argue that, once the Wittgensteinian critiques are formulated in accordance with Wittgenstein's intentions, these weaknesses disappear. If my argument is successful, then I will have given further reasons for taking seriously the reading of Wittgenstein that I proposed. Before I begin my discussion let me summarize the main points of my argument so far that bear on the issues I will discuss. Wittgenstein's project is therapeutic. Illness is identified with philosophical puzzlement and disturbance that comes from not being able to resolve puzzlement and arrive at thoughts that are at peace. Health is identified with arriving at thoughts that are at peace. The source of puzzlement is in similes deeply embedded in our language that suggest that language works one way when, in fact, it works in some other way. Therapy consists in a confessional articulation of inclinations and temptations to describe phenomena in a way that supports puzzlement, followed by a description of the simile that supports those inclinations. An inspection of a multiplicity of cases of the puzzling phenomenon detaches the patient from the earlier inclinations and eventually gives rise to grammatical insights productive of alternative descriptions of the phenomena. These alternative descriptions are perspicuous, giving a synoptic presentation of the workings of a language or specific language games. Synoptic presentations introduce new comparisons or new similes in the form of grammatical remarks. In doing so, these presentations assimilate puzzling areas of language to nonpuzzling areas in such a way that one comes into agreement with the form of one's life. One certainly can imagine grounds for rejecting such a project. But there is a need to keep in mind that Wittgenstein's claims must be interpreted in light of such a project. Criticisms of Wittgenstein that fail to take this project into account will be mistaken in that way. Defenses of Wittgensteinian themes, especially if they are not on their own as compelling as they would be if placed in this philosophical context, likewise are subject to criticism. If the line of argument that I developed is substantially correct, then it becomes possible to see how Wittgenstein's later work can be defended against the crucially important critique of Chihara and

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Fodor. Chihara and Fodor begin their argument with the following synopsis: This paper explores some lines of argument in Wittgenstein's post- Traetatus writings in order to indicate the relations between Wittgenstein's philosophical psychology on the one hand and his philosophy of language, his epistemology, and his doctrines about the nature of philosophical analysis on the other. We shall hold that the later writings of Wittgenstein express a coherent doctrine in which an operational analysis of confirmation and language supports a philosophical psychology of a type we shall call "logical behaviorism." (281) We shall also maintain that there are good grounds for rejecting the philosophical theory implicit in Wittgenstein's other works. In particular we shall first argue that Wittgenstein's position leads to some implausible conclusions concerning the nature of language and psychology; second, we shall maintain that the arguments Wittgenstein provides are inconclusive; and third, we shall try to sketch an alternative position which avoids many of the difficulties implicit in Wittgenstein's philosophy. (281)

The problem with this paper becomes clear in these beginning paragraphs, for the suggestion is that Wittgenstein proposes "lines of argument" in defense of "his doctrines about the nature of philosophical analysis," "an operational analysis of confirmation and language," which "supports a philosophical psychology." I contend that as long as Wittgenstein is read in this way, it is no surprise that his "position leads to some implausible conclusions concerning the nature of language and psychology" or that his "arguments are inconclusive." The first thing to emphasize once again is that Wittgenstein is not proposing a theory about meaning, nor one about the nature of confirmation or language. Rather, he is presenting what he calls reminders of things with which we are all familiar. We are not familiar with the "nature" of language where that is something which becomes revealed through some theory. That is something hidden. Wittgenstein is concerned to remind us of what we already know about language by virtue of our everyday linguistic activities. He is not claiming that language is in its essence a game. Rather, he is using the notion of a game as a possible object of comparison that would illuminate those familiar aspects of language in such a way that would generate a "real discovery," one that "lets one stop doing philosophy when [one] wants to." Because the objects of comparison are adopted in particular contexts to remove whatever puzzlement one has, different problems can give rise to different objects of comparison. There is no attempt to defend a particular view of analysis, confirmation, or the nature of language and psychology.

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One might want to argue that nonetheless Wittgenstein's descriptions of phenomena compete with the descriptions that would be given in psychological or linguistic theory, and if the latter descriptions are correct, Wittgenstein's descriptions are incorrect. But what is considered correct or not depends on the context and purpose of the description. Wittgenstein never claims to give the only correct description, but rather descriptions appropriate to his therapeutic enterprise. If Chihara and Fodor are this far from a correct reading of Wittgenstein's "other writings," there is no way that their criticism can be sound. The interpretive prenlises on which it is based are false. I want, nonetheless, to examine some of their claims in detail to clarify my point. First, I will examine their claim that Wittgenstein's "logical behaviorism" does not refute skepticism as Wittgenstein intends that it should; second, their claim that Wittgenstein's view of meanings leads to counterintuitive claims about the meaning of the word 'dream'; finally, their claim that Wittgenstein's "logical behaviorism" ought to be replaced by a view that treats mental predicates as part of a prescientific theory that posits mental entities and processes to explain behavior. Chihara and Fodor argue that Wittgenstein's logical behaviorism begs the question. The charge arises in the following way. According to thenl Wittgenstein claims that "one recognizes that another is in a certain mental state, Y, on the basis of something, say, X" where X ultimately must be the outward behavioral criterion of Y. The problem is that such a view assumes that such predicates sometimes are applied justifiably, and this is exactly what the skeptic denies. Wittgenstein's counter to this claim, then, is that the skeptic's position is self-refuting, for "if the skeptic were right, the preconditions for teaching the meaning of the mental predicates of our ordinary language could not be satisfied" (288). Obviously such teaching takes place, and even the skeptic presupposes that the meanings of the terms are taught insofar as it uses those terms. So the skeptical position must be false and self-refuting. Could this be a correct reading of what Wittgenstein is doing? An illunlinating remark in On Certainty reveals what Wittgenstein's attitude to skepticism is. He claims what he is doing is attempting to look at language as something beyond being justified and unjustified, as something animal (Oe, 359). This would mean that he is not concerned to justify the application of mental predicates. That is what he is getting at when he claims that he is concerned simply to "describe" how language is used (PI, 124). There is no attempt to refute the skeptic, but rather to formulate reminders sufficient to relieve the skeptics of their qualms. Insofar as the skeptic could be gotten to accept the given, forms of life, the trouble he or she has would be

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removed, not by refutation, but by getting him or her to accept our everyday use of mental predicates. The project, as I have described it, is to get the skeptic to understand the underlying similes that have led him or her to that philosophical view or to substitute alternative similes that do not give rise to skeptical inclinations or both. Of course, nothing guarantees that the skeptic will follow Wittgenstein's suggestion. For Wittgenstein to present an argument against skepticism would require that he see the skeptical challenge as something to be met with refutation. But he thinks that it needs to be met with a cure. Perhaps something is mistaken about the very enterprise of therapeutic philosophy, but if that is so it needs to be shown. It is not shown in this criticism. Chihara and Fodor say that Wittgenstein's claims about meaning and his comments about the meaning of 'dream' lead to counterintuitive results. I will not comment on their discussion of Malcolm's dream article, which they assume expresses the same view as Wittgenstein's. They attribute the following view to Wittgenstein: According to Wittgenstein, we are to understand the concept of dreaming in terms of the language game(s) in which "dream" plays a role and, in particular, in terms of the language of dream telling. For, to master the use of the word "dream" is precisely to learn what it is to find out that someone has dreamed, to tell what someone has dreamed, to reports one's own dreams, and so on. (289)

Chihara and Fodor claim that this view 1. "entails that no sense can be made of such statements as 'Jones totally forgot the dream he had last night' since we seem to have no criteria for determining the truth of such a statement" (289). 2. leads to "an unnatural way of counting concepts" (290) insofar as it leads us to claim that dream attributions based on reports express a different meaning of 'dream' from the one expressed in dream attributions based on behavior during sleep. 3. finally, cannot explain why it was a rational expectation that there is a correlation between dreams and EEG measurement. For the correlation is neither criterial nor is it symptomatic prior to establishing the correlation (290). The first point to make is that Wittgenstein's discussion of dreams is presented in a part of the Philosophical Investigations that was not completed for publication. Even if this were not the case, one must keep in mind that all Wittgenstein is doing in describing the language game of

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dreaming is proposing an object of comparison. So it is compatible with his view that some uses of 'dream' not confornl to his supposition that reporting is criterial for applying 'dream.' Furthermore, any sensitive reading of his claims about family resemblance would show that he would not want to claim that there is only one criterion. So one nlight expect that he would allow that claims of having forgotten dreams do have a use. Chihara and Fodor give no argument for claiming that Wittgenstein's way of counting concepts is unnatural. Even if there were such an argument, it is clear that Wittgenstein does not want to claim that there is anyone way to count concepts. How one counts is relative to one's purposes (BB, 58). There is nothing sacred about the distinction between criteria and symptoms. Wittgenstein never claims that the distinction is exhaustive. In fact, in a passage frool the The Blue Book, discussed by Chihara and Fodor, in which Wittgenstein discusses this distinction, Wittgenstein claims that language is not a calculus which can be thought to be understood in terms of this distinction. "In practice, if you were asked which phenomenon is the defining criterion and which is a symptom, you would in most cases be unable to answer this question.... For remember in general, we don't use language according to strict rules" (BB, 25 ). Insofar as he is not wedded to the claims about criterion and symptoms that Chihara and Fodor attribute to hinl, he is not subject to the criticism they make. Finally, Chihara and Fodor argue that the problems of Wittgenstein's position are overcome by their rival view of mental predication, that holds that mental concepts form a system which is explanatory of human behavior. "We may instead form complex conceptual connections which interrelate a wide variety of mental states. It is to such a conceptual system that we appeal when we attempt to explain someone's behavior by reference to his nlotives, intentions, beliefs, desires, or sensations" (292). Chihara and Fodor present this view to replace Wittgenstein's view that there are criterial connections that allow us to apply mental predicates with justification. In this alternative view the explanatory success of the predications count as evidence that the predicated mental processes exist (293). So against Wittgenstein's model of mental language as functioning as a game that employs criterial rules, Chihara and Fodor present the model of mental language as forming a psychological theory in which hypotheses are put forth and justified by appeal to behavioral evidence and explanatory success. If we take Wittgenstein's methodological claims seriously, then his claims about any specific criterial relation have to be seen as a model and not as how things must be. If there are cases in which mental predication functions in the way Chihara and Fodor claim, then he would have to accept them as a human form of life. But contrary to what they

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argue, Wittgenstein might maintain that not all cases of mental predication fit their model. For example, do we want to claim that small children are engaged in theory construction in the course of learning how to use mental predicates? In a clear sense, they are not. They cannot formulate hypotheses; they have not learned methods of testing hypotheses; and so forth. In fact they may not even have a concept of a hypothesis. One might try to claim that such processes take place unconsciously. And although such a move may be justifiable in the context of psychological theory, Wittgenstein wants to maintain that the problems of psychology and philosophy are logically distinct. If our purpose is to resolve puzzlement and produce thoughts that are at peace, we must do that by finding perspicuous models and similes. Of course, Wittgenstein maintains that causal explanations cannot express thoughts that bring peace. I have challenged that claim in the last section, but accepted the weaker claim that philosophy is not required to follow in the footsteps of scientific theory if its goals are therapeutic. Any description Chihara and Fodor can present with justification in the context of psychological theory is not one that Wittgenstein is required to accept in the context of his radically different philosophical project. When Chihara and Fodor themselves present evidence against Wittgenstein, they appeal to the psychological studies of Bartlett, Piaget, and Bruner (295). That is, they are appealing to explanatory psychological theories that attempt to explain how the learning of psychological language takes place. Insofar as they appeal to psychological theory they are engaged in a project radically at odds with Wittgenstein's ethical project of reminding us of those familiar aspects of our everyday practices, aspects available to us outside the web of scientific conjecture and hypothesis. In Wittgenstein's context, what Chihara and Fodor say is certainly wrong, for in any clear model of hypothesizing and theory construction, the child obviously does not do that. As a psychological hypothesis about what takes place in the mind or brain to explain the child's language acquisition, it may be correct, however. This way of reading Wittgenstein's project has not been taken seriously by his defenders, who tend to appeal dogmatically to clain1s about ordinary language. I would like to examine one such defender's critique of cognitivism to expose the weakness of this way of reading Wittgenstein and this way of defending his views.

How Not to Defend Wittgenstein: Hunter Jeffrey Hunter presents criticisms of the project of generative linguistics in his essay "How Do We Talk?"9 There are three points in which I am particularly interested:

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1. Hunter attributes to Katz and the generative grammarians the assumption that human beings contain a "talking machine." The project of linguistics, then, is to indicate the nature and mechanisms of such a machine. Hunter claims that the need for an explanation of our ability to talk would not arise were it not for this assumption (150). 2. It is a central assumption of the linguist's problem that there exist inner thoughts that the machine in some way translates into uttered sentences. flunter suggests that "instead of treating language as a strange thing, a kind of code into which we cast our thoughts, explains how, for a being that is intelligent, alive, and a member of a species with a long history of language use, thought and its expression may make their appearance together; saying something can be our first reaction" (169, my emphasis). 3. A talking machine, which the linguists claim to be a rule-following device, cannot be claimed to follow rules in any normal sense of that term, and such a claim appears not to make sense (165). Each of these points is related to the others. Hunter attempts to show that no talking machine hypothesis can explain how we are able to talk, because there is no way in such a framework to verify what rules the machine follows. This result is a function of the claim (3) that it makes no sense to claim that such a machine follows rules. The claim that we contain a talking machine, then, is thought of as something "strange," to be removed therapeutically and replaced with the claim (2), that there are no inner meanings that need to get translated into a linguistic code. So once we adopt this sort of view, we see that we do not need the sort of explanation that the talking machine hypothesis attempts to give. Let me discuss each of these points in turn. 1. It is simply not true that the question of how we are able to talk only arises if we assume that the human being contains a talking machine. Hunter attempts to support his point with a series of arguments designed to show that 'How are we able' questions are requests for instruction. Consequently there is no sensible question to ask unless we already have assumed that we contain a talking machine. If Hunter is appealing to ordinary language, then what he is arguing is incorrect. I can ask, How am I able to run more quickly?

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One answer would be that I need to run at least eleven minutes a day, five days a week. However, one can also be requesting a physiological explanation of how the training effect is brought about. In other places, Hunter quotes Wittgenstein concerning a need to avoid a one-sided diet of examples. He has violated his own requirements in this case. 2. The position that Hunter suggests is defended in more detail in his essay "How Do You Mean?" He attempts to show in this essay that no discriminable inner state or process of meaning something accompanies or precedes saying something. The investigations he undertakes in this essay are attempts to reproduce similar claims made by Wittgenstein. What we find are various reminders of what takes place when we say that we mean or meant such and such. I will call such an investigation an examination of our familiar everyday linguistic practices. What does such an examination show? Does it show that the competing assumptions of linguistic theory about the nature of communication are incorrect? Is it a requirement of linguistic theory that its view of communication should conform to the results of an examination of our familiar everyday practices? It would appear to be no more of a requirement of linguistics that its concepts should conform to our everyday usage than it is of natural science that its view of physical objects should conform to everyday usage. Because it is clear that progress in science often comes from a reconstruction of our ordinary concepts, this move would appear to be equally legitimate in this case. The success of the revision rests on the eventual success of the explanatory theory of which it is a part. There is no a priori reason for excluding revision. 3. A similar criticism can be made of Hunter's claims about rules. Hunter takes as a model of a rule, rules of chess or golf. It is because he is wedded to this model that he is led to the following argument: The rules that philosophers offer to explain how we do it are not like old friends to us; we do not upon having them propounded to us immediately realize that we use them a hundred times a day; nor do we show any significant facility at understanding their application. And they are not generally rules that are part of any standard program of linguistic instruction. (158 59)

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This leads the generative grammarian to claim that the rules are tacit, features of the nervous system. Hunter rejects the claim that a device like the nervous system could follow rules. Such a device operates in a certain way; but why should we say that it follows a rule? It neither remembers nor forgets the rule, neither understands nor nlisunderstands its application, neither applies it carefully nor carelessly. It is not even clear what part of the mechanism is the rule. If I want a machine to follow the rule 'Whenever one revolution of this wheel is completed, turn the wheel through ten degrees,' and I rig it with a tripping device, then the machine will perform as the rule prescribes, but the rule itself is no part of its design. (166)

Once again Hunter requires that any concept of a rule that the linguist employs conform to the one embedded in our ordinary linguistic practices. This argument is no more legitimate in this context than it was in the previous context. If this line of argument is the most one can derive from the writings of the later Wittgenstein, then those writings only can be expression of a conceptual conservatism, which has little to defend it. 10 Implicit in this whole line of argument is the identification of linguistic theorizing as a mistaken mode of philosophical reflection. But why can we not claim that what a linguist does is something distinct from what a philosopher does? What is the basis on which Hunter claims that linguistics must conform conceptually to a philosophical reflection on everyday linguistic practices? The standard approach of many Wittgensteinians to psychology is to argue that psychology, linguistics, and so on. must conform conceptually to everyday linguistic practices. I assume that it is thought that Wittgenstein held such a view, but why suppose that he did? In The Blue Book, he distinguishes between philosophical problems and psychological problems (BB, 55). If psychological problems are different from philosophical ones, then the one may require a different set of concepts. Furthermore, in The Blue Book, Wittgenstein adopts a notational pluralism to which he adheres throughout the rest of his work. New notations are to be accepted. One must be clear how they are employed, however, so as not to think that they express newly discovered facts. In the Philosophical Investigations, he claims that his own language games, objects of comparison for our familiar linguistic activities, are not the only correct ones. Whereas one object of comparison may get us to see that the utterance 'I meant such and such' does not

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refer to a private mental event, another may get us to see how much like reference to an event (a hidden event) such an utterance is. But if what I am saying is correct (and I already argued that this reading of Wittgenstein's project is correct), why does Wittgenstein always exploit the comparisons that get us to view mental predicates as not referring to mental events and processes? The impulse behind Wittgenstein's work is to detach us from the dominant way of thinking of the relationship between thought and language. The reason for this feature of his project is that this dominant view causes us to be philosophically troubled. The way out of the trouble is through a novel set of comparisons that remove the troubles. The motive for the removal is not to arrive at some final, definitive set of conceptual analyses, but rather to bring us back to the familiar everyday practices as something to be accepted. There is no suggestion in Wittgenstein that ordinary language cannot be changed. Quite the contrary, in On Certainty (97), he claims that the stock of fundamental concepts and background beliefs shifts slowly. His philosophical task, however, is to bring about an acceptance of what is given, forms of life, for only on such an acceptance are the problems of life solved. This leaves psychology to fend for itself. His difficulty with psychology as a science is that the conceptual confusions of the tradition of Western philosophy are inherited by psychology without any clear idea that the confusions are confusions, nor consequently with any idea how to solve them. Psychology proceeds confidently with experimental methods, not realizing that these are insufficient to resolve conceptual confusions (PI, p. 232). The weakness of Hunter's argument rests on his failure to see what Wittgenstein's philosophical project is. He, as it were, sees the trees, but not the forest, for Wittgenstein's project is not to define the proper concepts for psychology nor to argue that their concepts must be the ordinary ones. His project is to get one to accept the given, forms of life. What would such a project be for a Wittgensteinian confronting the work of the generative grammarians? It would be to solve whatever conceptual confusions arise from the enterprise. If the grammarian claims that his or her notion of meaning is the only correct one, that would give rise to puzzles and paradoxes about our ordinary ways of speaking. The Wittgensteinian would then indicate the family resemblances between the meanings of 'meaning' in these two contexts. Even if Hunter's critique of linguistics appears unsound and not at all to capture the substance of Wittgenstein's concerns, it still can be wondered whether a genuine Wittgensteinian critique of the generative grammarian's project is possible. What Wittgenstein attempts to do in the later work is combat the rejection of everyday practices and the forms of understanding they embody. Is there any way in which gener-

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ative grammar rejects these? It certainly appears to, for the view of communication and grammar that they presuppose is not the ordinary one. On the other hand, one could very well admit that the ordinary talk about grammar and communication is not a theory and so ought not to be viewed as a theory deficient relative to the more rigorous and precise linguistic theory. So, if there is a problem of this sort, it certainly is not essential to the linguist's enterprise. Alternatively, does the linguist's theory frustrate the solution to the problem of life? Again, it could if one felt compelled by it to reject ordinary language and the familiar practices in which it is ernbedded. Or one might be thrown into a conceptual confusion by the conflict. None of these is a problem that could not be resolved by drawing distinctions between descriptions in linguistics and descriptions in philosophy. It is not necessary that one reject the claims of linguistics to avoid such conceptual conflicts. I have been arguing in this discussion of Wittgenstein's defenders and critics that both fail to appreciate the ethical and therapeutic character of Wittgenstein's later work. As a result, both see Wittgenstein's claims as competing with those of a certain form of psychology. No such competition exists, as is clear from Wittgenstein's distinction between scientific and philosophical problems defended at the time he wrote the Tractatus and the later distinction clearly found in The Blue Book between philosophical and psychological problems. Given the reading of his project that I defended, such distinctions are partially definitive of the philosophical project in which he is engaged. The ongoing failure to understand this point has led to dogmatic claims on the part of the Wittgensteinians and total misunderstanding on the part of Wittgenstein's critics. It has also and most important led to a failure to see Wittgenstein's most important and challenging thesis; viz., that philosophy ought to promote a form of self-understanding radically at odds with one that would be pronloted by science alone. This central claim must be understood if any adequate reflection on Wittgenstein's later philosophy is to take place. Recent scholarship shows no clear resolution to the problem that I pose. If one understands Wittgenstein's later views as simply a form of ordinary language philosophy that eschews linguistic innovation or as a form of transcendental philosophy that lays out the forms of what it is and is not sensible to think or say, then there will be well-deserved skepticism from those who defend the insights and novel concepts introduced by natural science and dogmatic defenses of ordinary language arguments by those who see no other approach to defending Wittgenstein's claims. A case in point is G. P. Baker and P. M. S. Hacker's Language, Sense, and Nonsense, with its impassioned 11 criticism of

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contemporary truth-conditional semantics and generative linguistics. This work attempts to show that the claims of these forms of discourse are nonsensical. Even though they claim to avoid simple appeals to what the man in the street says, they base their arguments on what it makes sense to say from the vantage point of ordinary language. At best, they succeed in pointing out confusions based on running together ordinary and technical conceptions, say, of truth and knowledge. When done well these sorts of critique are extremely helpful. But, when the arguments attempt to show that technical claims are nonsense because they fail to conform to the canons of ordinary discourse, they fail. Furthermore this sort of argument perpetuates the weak version of Wittgensteinian thinking, one extren1ely difficult to defend. Consider Norbert Hornstein's perceptive remark about this problem: 12 In the work of the later Wittgenstein one can often detect two competing forces. One strain derides the vacuity of scientific pretensions of philosophical theories of meaning. This Wittgenstein tries to get us to see that much of what poses as rigorous theory is little more than puffed up metaphysics of dubious explanatory value. However there is also a dark side to the later Wittgenstein. This Wittgenstein seems to oppose all theoretical inquiry into language as a matter of philosophical principle.

Hornstein goes on to criticize this san1e dark side of Baker and Hacker's views. This dark side of the position is conceptually conservative because it insists that language lies open to view and requires no theory to understand it and so no conceptual innovations a theory might introduce. It is dark because it is unconvincing, and if it caught on it might be destructive of scientific progress. But I do not think that this dark side is essential to Wittgenstein's central concerns. I realize that I am presenting an unusual account of Wittgenstein's view.!3 But I do not think that there is unambiguous textual evidence for the standard view. PI, 577 should give defenders of the standard view pause for thought. There Wittgenstein describes possible reformations of our ordinary psychological concepts for the purpose of "understanding psychology." I take him to mean that such reform would suit the purposes of a scientific psychology. And the famous charge that psychology embodies conceptual confusions and experimental methods shows no hostility toward all forms of psychology. If psychologists are confused, then they are and nothing more is to be said. But Wittgenstein distinguishes philosophical and psychological questions in this passage, and he clearly indicates that the psychological methods cannot be used to solve problems that trouble "us"; that is, those of us interested in philosophical investigations. He never claims that psychology is to

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be rejected altogether. Finally, he claims that the confusion and barrenness of psychology is not to be explained by calling it a "young science." But he never says that, in addition to its confusion and barreness, it is not also in fact a young science. With the weakness in the textual evidence, one might nonetheless want to attribute such a view to Wittgenstein out of charity. But I do not think that such a position could be defended. There is good reason to think that Wittgenstein's view is weakened by being strapped with this interpretation. 14 James Klagge argues that Wittgenstein holds a thesis that philosophy is insulated from science and that his own views of the possibility of conceptual innovation and change are incompatible with this thesis. For it is perfectly possible that scientific innovation might produce conceptual change that would eliminate certain forms of conceptual puzzlement. IS No doubt this criticism is correct, but what I argue is that, once the deep motives behind the insulation thesis are understood, the linguistic conservatism that seems to follow from the insulation thesis no longer will be such a consequence. I understand the rationale for the insulation thesis in the following way. Because philosophy of the sort Wittgenstein practiced (not all kinds of philosophy) is designed to resolve puzzlement and bring one into agreenlent with one's from of life through a kind of aesthetic grasp of the puzzling phenomenon, scientific concepts will not necessarily or even usually succeed in doing that. As I argued in this chapter, the problem with this view so understood is that it exaggerates the differences between science and nonscientific thinking. Therefore, the strong form of the thesis-the claim that philosophical problems can never be resolved by conceptual contributions of science-is not only false but also unnecessary to support the philosophical therapy Wittgenstein is engaged in. Consequently a weaker form of the insulation thesis-the claim that the sort of thinking done in a scientific theory will not necessarily present the sort of therapeutic clarification one wants in philosophy-makes good sense. This weaker thesis is more defensible and, if accepted as the best understanding of what Wittgenstein must have been getting at, resolves the problem of the essential conceptual conservatism of his position. For he can be construed as claiming that therapeutic thinking may proceed without the aid of science even if science is free to proceed on its own, developing whatever concepts it needs to develop. In this reading the weaker version of the insulation thesis might be better called 'themostly-indifferent thesis'. Philosophy can proceed mostly indifferent to the conceptual changes introduce by science since it is free to present perspicuous representations for its own purposes, but it is free to appeal to scientific concepts if they serve those purposes.

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If we read Wittgenstein's claims about therapy in this way, then we should claim that scientific and philosophical clarification do not compete. They aim to accomplish different tasks. If the goal of therapeutic philosophy of this sort is to bring one into agreement with his or her form of life, then justified claims of science will not usually or necessarily help. But clarified representations of ordinary language will not be suitable for all of the theoretical tasks one requires of an empirical theory of language. To be sure, a Wittgensteinian philosophy of language may help prevent common misunderstandings and confusions on the part of theorists who adopt and change ordinary terms. But once we realize that the specific goals of this form of therapy are to clarify human forms of life and the language games embedded in them, then science can be freed to develop as it will. In fact, conceptual change in the hands of natural science is one aspect of our human form of life that we need to clarify and accept. Once this therapeutic aspect of Wittgenstein's philosophy is given the prominent role I think that it ought to get, it will not be necessary to challenge it on the grounds of its hostility to science. For this form of philosophy will be understood to be designed to bring about a healthy acceptance of forms of life and so will be offering us "wonderful representations" for this limited purpose. Then the key issue will be whether and how far these representations conduce to the ethical health of those who take them up. It is no wonder that this sort of interpretive and critical move has not been adopted by parties to these disputes. The hope of philosophy has always been to present the standards and tests of intelligibility for all other forms of thought. But Wittgenstein's therapeutic project is not concerned primarily with this task, but with the task-easy to confuse with this one-of clarifying language games and bringing us into agreement with our form of life. It is to the defense of this therapeutic project that I turn to in the next chapter.

Chapter 6 An Evaluation of Wittgenstein's Therapeutic Project I

Introduction In this chapter I would like to investigate the two central issues that arise when one makes the sort of therapeutic claims that Wittgenstein makes. The first is the issue of whether it is reasonable to think that coming into agreement with forms of life is an ideal of health. The second is the issue of whether philosophical thinking that fails to do this is a form of illness. If we cannot make any sense of the claim that Wittgensteinian perspicuity, which brings one into agreement with one's form of life, is a kind of health, then there is no good reason for thinking of his forn1 of philosophy as therapy. And if we can make no good sense of the claim that philosophical thinking that fails to bring one into agreement with the form of one's life is a kind of illness, then equally the notion that philosophy is therapy must be rejected. I will investigate these questions by clarifying further the notion of form of life that Wittgenstein is employing and the sense in which philosophy might seek to aim at agreement with a form of life. Then I will present Lennart Nordenfelt's analysis of the notion of health to show how agreement with forms of life is a kind of health. I will conclude by showing that Wittgenstein's therapeutic thought is not essentially conservative.

The Form or Forms of Life? The notion of forms of life is extremely important for Wittgenstein's therapeutic project. This is true despite the fact that the term occurs only five times in Philosophical Investigations and needs more development. Based on CV 27, I argued that the notion of a form of life, about which one can have a problem, takes the place of the Tractarian notion of a problem of life in one's attitude toward the world. In both cases Wittgenstein argues that the problem must be solved by coming into 103

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agreement with that which is problematic. This view makes no sense unless one sees the problematic thing (world or life) as unchangeable. For it would make sense to entertain the possibility of changing that which is problematic and changeable. The very idea that we solve these life problems by coming into agreement with the form of life or with the world presupposes that what is problematic cannot be made unproblen1atic by being changed. So the notion of form of life must be understood as unchangeable aspects of life. The notion of a form of life is internally related to unchangeable aspects of life and those problematic features of a life that must be made unproblematic through their acceptance. What aspects of human life are these? There are two ways one might construe the notion of a human form of life. Some comnlentators take the notion to be singular; there is only one human form of life. 1 Others take there to be a multiplicity of fornls of life. 2 Textual evidence points toward both readings. 3 F'Of example, in responding to the charge by the interlocutor that Wittgenstein is claiming that opinion decides what is true and false, he says, "It is what human beings say that is true and false; they agree in the language they use. That is not agreement in opinions but in form of life" (PI, 241). But he also claims that what has to be accepted, the given, is "forms of life" (PI, p. 226). The problem is to make some sense out of the relation between the plural and singular uses of this notion as they playa role in Wittgenstein's therapeutic project. I would like to develop a solution to this question of the relationship between these two notions by appealing to my interpretive claim that the notion of a form of life is internally related to the notions of unchangeable aspects of life and aspects that ought to be accepted. When we speak of the human form of life we do so in contradistinction to the forms of life of dogs, fish, and so forth. To clainl that there is the human form of life would be to claim that there are unchangeable features of human life that distinguish it from these other forms. There is no doubt that Wittgenstein held such a view. He speaks of the common behavior of mankind as the reference by which we understand other cultures (PI, 206) and denies that other animals (lions) have enough of this human behavior in their own life for us to understand a language if they had one (PI, p. 223). It is the common behavior of mankind to which a philosopher appeals in clarifying the grammar of language. Wittgenstein's dictum that "to imagine a language game is to imagine a form of life" puts forth an interpretive requirement on those engaged in his therapeutic project. It is to nlake sense of the use of language in terms of the role of the language in the life of those who use it. But that requires that we make sense of language games in terms of the common behavior of mankind.

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Wittgenstein makes two typical moves in his interpretations. The first to notice is that he understands meanings of words in terms of primitive language games. These primitive language games are simplified models used to shed light on more complicated language games. The primitive models show the relation between language and the common behaviors of mankind. For example, he indicates the sorts of behaviors interwoven into the slab language and developments of it in the opening passages of Philosophical Investigations. But more than this, Wittgenstein often points out even prelinguistic human behavior that plays a role in learning a language or is replaced by language games designed in a more complicated way to take over and give new form to the prelinguistic behavior (CV, 31). Consider his discussion of the natural expressions of pain in their relation to pain language (PI, 244) and his discussion of the instinctive fear of being hurt in relation to the language of certainty (PI, 480). Concepts and language games are intelligible in terms of these general features of human life. If we imagine the general facts of human life to change we would imagine corresponding changes in our concepts and language. (PI, pp. 230 and 56) No doubt there are also different human forms of life. Even though language games and concepts are intelligible in their relation to common behaviors of mankind, these common behaviors can be developed variously. The primitive human behaviors that make our language games intelligible can be developed into different language games. Wittgenstein's best examples of these differences come in his discussions of tribal rituals in his Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough. We see that these people think differently than we do but we nonetheless can associate their language games with our own. Furthermore, conversion from their language games and forms of life to our own is possible (OC, 92). But this possibility presupposes the common behavior. Now, if conversion is a possibility, then the problem one sees in a specific form that human life takes could be solved by a change in form of life. But of course this is a change from one of the many forms of human life to another, not a change from the human form of life to another. This interpretation can be challenged. When Wittgenstein claims that forms of life are to be accepted as given, he uses the term in the plural, but I have argued that only the human form of life must be accepted as given. Human forms of life need not be accepted but can be altered if they are problematic. The problen1 can be resolved by making it clear what role this dictum plays in Wittgenstein's project. To accept forms of life as given is to treat them as that in terms of which concepts and language games are intelligible. What he is attempting to avoid is ways of thinking that treat forms of life as problematic or as something whose intelligibility

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must be derived from something different from it, from hidden ideals or causal mechanisms. Nonetheless, the intelligibility of forms of life derives from their relation to the common behavior of mankind. So it is true that forms of life must be accepted as given (that is, that forms of life do not derive their intelligibility from anything other than human life itself), but it is also true that the common behavior of mankind is the ultimate appeal in terms of intelligibility of language games and concepts. This interpretation is supported by PI, 654~56: 654. Our mistake is to look for an explanation where we ought to look at what happens as a 'proto-phenonlenon'. That is where we ought to have said: this language-game is played. 655. The question is not one of explaining a language-game by nleans of our experiences but of noting a language-game. 656. What is the purpose of telling someone that a time ago I had such-and-such a wish?-Look on the language-game as the primary thing. And look on feelings, etc. as you look on a way of regarding the language-game as interpretation. It might be asked: how did human beings ever come to make the verbal utterances which we call reports of past wishes or past intentions.

The last paragraph points out that, whereas we want to note a language game, we also want to clarify its role in the human form of life and the purposes served by such language games. That is not to look for an explanation, but for the very general facts that make our language games intelligible (PI, pp. 230 and 56). I argued that we must understand human forms of life as forms in terms of their relation to common behavior of mankind. Even though forms of life in the plural can be changed, the form of life cannot. Nonetheless the philosophical problem one sees in any of the many forms of life would be resolved by coming into agreement with the form, by clarifying its relation to the conlmon behavior of mankind. Some nonphilosophical problem with a specific form of life could be resolved in some other way; for example, by proposal of a particular reform (PI, 132) or by conversion to another specific form of life with its own distinctive language games (OC, 92). I think that this account coheres with Wittgenstein's claims and practice, but it also resolves what otherwise might be a serious problem for his view. Traditional philosophical discourse takes place within the human form of life, and so should be clarifiable as intelligible within the same approach Wittgenstein uses for all concepts and language games. So one might argue that it is inconsistent of him to accept forms of life as given, but to reject the language games of philosophy and so the form of life in which they are embedded.

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Wittgenstein speaks of the "modes of thinking" of traditional philosophy and claims that they are related to and supported by "modes of living" (RFM, p. 132, and CV, 61). But certainly these modes of thinking are language games that could be made intelligible as embedded in the human form of life and so as developments of the common behavior of mankind. 4 But Wittgenstein calls for an alteration in the modes of living that support these modes of thinking. Why does he use the term 'mode' and in German the terms 'Art' and 'Weise' rather than 'Form' in discussing what underlies philosophical thought (RFM, p. 132, and CV, 61)? Here he emphasizes the undesirability of the specific forms of life that support traditional philosophical thinking. Therefore, he calls for an intellectual conversion and change in form of life that would leave behind these language games and forms of thinking. Were he interested simply in clarifying these modes of thinking and living to reveal their intelligibility, it would have been appropriate to refer to them as forms of life. So I suggest the following readings of these key terms. The hunlan form of life is the common, intentionally unchangeable, behavior of mankind, some of it linguistic, some not. Human forms of life are the various developments of these common behaviors through the vehicle of language games. Here 'form' is used to indicate that these language games and modes of thought are intelligible in their relation to the human form of life. To refer to something as a "mode" of living, on the other hand, emphasizes that it is changeable through conversion to some alternative mode of life. This reading also resolves another problem that otherwise might arise in this view. If there are only human forms of life, then there would appear no way for Wittgenstein to counter the charge of relativism. Each form of life would be intelligible on its own. As intelligible on its own, there would be no way to show that a particular form of life was mistaken in its basic claims. But the presence in Wittgenstein's position of the human form of life provides some basis, albeit indirect, for resolving such a problem. For, given any two incompatible forms of life, it should be possible to evaluate them as developments of the human form of life. Viewed as such, one may be seen to be a higher form than the other. When Wittgenstein rejects traditional philosophy and the mode of life that supports it, it is because he views it as deficient relative to another mode of living and thinking. I explore the basis of this evaluation later in this chapter. 5

Agreement in Forms of Life Now what sense is to be made of seeking agreement with one's fornl of life? There is some sense in which one cannot fail to be in agreement

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with one's form of life. For if the form indeed is the form of one's life, then it must be a form of one's actual everyday life. How could one be out of agreement with that? Wittgenstein's attempts to make this clear are not entirely successful. What looms large in Wittgenstein's mind is the problem of bewitchment that shows up in philosophical puzzles in the form of "It must be that way, but cannot be that way!" Here one is out of agreement in the sense that one's representation of some of the grammar of one's language is too narrow. This narrowness is based on some bewitching picture that one cannot easily shake off. But there is a further sense in which such a philosopher can be in disagreement with his or her form of life. Such a puzzle, or better yet a series of such puzzles, may lead one to reject the ordinary and familiar aspects of ordinary language and life as merely an appearance of some underlying ideal. But even if one does not respond to one's bewitchment in that way, one may still be indifferent to the phenomena of ordinary language and everyday life. One may be more interested in grasping some theoretical structure that underlies the phenomenon of everyday life. To be in agreement with one's form of life in a weak sense, one that Wittgenstein often emphasizes, is to avoid puzzlement and the related rejection of the familiar aspects of language and our life as deficient relative to some hidden ideal. But to be out of agreement in a stronger sense, one that comes to the fore when Wittgenstein emphasizes the parallels he sees between philosophy and aesthetics, is to fail to have a representation of the phenomenon providing one a synoptic grasp that allows one to have a feel for the phenomenon. Accordingly, sometimes he criticizes scientific forms of thinking for producing confusion but at other times rejects them as uninteresting. So to be in agreement with one's form of life is either not to be in puzzlen1ent or not to be rejecting the familiar reality of everyday language and life in favor of some hidden ideal or to have a perspicuous, aesthetic grasp of the various aspects of one's form of life.

Agreement in Forms of Life as an Ideal of Health So far I have explained what is meant by forms of life and agreement with a form of life. Why think of such agreement as healthy? I will begin by introducing and explaining an analysis of health offered by Lennart Nordenfelt in On the Nature of Health. Nordenfelt presents the following analysis of a welfare theory of health: "A is healthy if, and only if, A is able, given standard circumstances in his environment, to fulfill those goals which are necessary and jointly sufficient for his minimal happiness" (79). Nordenfelt presents this analysis to solve problems with two other holistic views of health,

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views that "consider the human being as a socially integrated agent who performs a great number of daily activities and is involved in many personal and institutional relations"(35).6 The theories he rejects are the vital goals theory, which claims that "The fulfillment of basic needs is a necessary condition for the survival of the individual (or the species) or for the health of the individual" (62) and the subject goal theory, which claims "A is in health if, and only if, A, given standard circumstances, has the ability to realize at least those goals set by himself" (70). Nordenfelt rejects the vital goals theory because it leaves the notion of basic goods undefined and it establishes too low a level for health by defining it in terms of mere survival (77). On the other hand, the subject goal theory cannot explain what is meant by the health of nonhuman species and allows one to be healthy in cases where very low and damaging goals are set. Nordenfelt's account avoids these problems both by not defining health in terms of satisfaction of basic needs and by defining health in terms of capacity to fulfill goals that are necessary and jointly sufficient for happiness. This standard of health is higher than the fulfillment of basic needs for survival. It solves the problems of the subject goal conception by acknowledging that real human happiness is not just whatever someone thinks it is. Real human happiness requires satisfying goals of minimum subtlety and complexity. Consequently not all forms of goal satisfaction will produce real happiness. Moreover, with the sort of account he constructs, Nordenfelt also is able to construct related definitions of health for infants and nonhumans. He presents the following definition of infant health: "Infant I is in health if, and only if, the internal constitution and development of I is such that, given standard adult support, the necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for l's minimal happiness are realized" (104) and the following definition of health for lower plants and animals: "A lower animal or plant LP is in health if, and only if, the inner constitution and development of LP is such that, given standard circumstances, the necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for LP's welfare are fulfilled" (141). Some crucial additional features of this account are worth mentioning. The first is that Nordenfelt treats health as a cluster concept and so does not do violence to the idea, which would be attractive to Wittgenstein, that health is a family resemblance term. Rather than present a single definition of health, he presents a core concept of adult human health and then variations on that core concept for plants and infants. Nothing rules out extending the definitions to define, for example, cultural and moral health. Nordenfelt defines health minimally in terms of the capacity to satisfy some, but not all, of one's goals. One could define optimal health in terms of the capacity to satisfy all of one's

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goals. He defines mental health negatively: one is nlentally healthy provided that one's health is not compromised by any mental factors. Similarly one is physically healthy provided that one's health is not compromised by any physical factors. Nordenfelt also distinguishes between happiness as an emotion and happiness as a mood. Emotions have objects. I am glad about something. Similarly I can be happy at receiving an award or happy with my job. In both cases I am happy because these objects are wanted by me. More generally I can be happy about my whole life situation. In this case, my whole life situation would be the sort that I want. These are emotional states, but I can also just be happy abollt no particlar thing. I can be in a happy mood entirely independent of what my life situation is or what wants of mine are satisfied. This analysis gives a good framework for making some crucial claims about the presupposition of Wittgenstein's therapy. I have distinguished between the negative therapeutic goal and the positive therapeutic goal of Wittgenstein's therapeutic practice. Negatively he aims at the removal of puzzlement. Positively he aims at coming into agreement with one's form of life and so at the sort of philosophical peace that comes from having a perspicuous representation of one's form of life. If these goals are ideals of health, then it should be possible to show a relation between the pursuit of these ideals and happiness. One can imagine two possible relationships. Philosophical disturbance may interfere with one's nonphilosophical pursuits and so prevent one from becoming minimally happy. Therefore, we could assert the following: A. Being in agreement with one's form of life is necessary, given standard circumstances in one's environment, for fulfillment of those goals that are necessary and jointly sufficient for one's minimal happiness. On the other hand, the sort of happiness that underlies Wittgenstein's therapeutic ideal may be a form of happiness that arises from being in agreement with one's form of life and so may be a joy or happiness no matter what else is true. We can call this sort 'ethical happiness' because it comes from one's orientation toward one's form of life. Therefore, we could assert the following: B. Being in agreement with one's form of life is necessary and sufficient for one's complete or ethical happiness. We also would claim that one is ethically healthy so long as one is not impaired from being happy by any ethical factor. Therefore, we can assert the following: C. If one is in disagreement with one's form of life and consequently prevented from being completely or ethically happy, one is ethically unhealthy. Wittgenstein's therapeutic practice stands or falls with the truth or falsity of these claims.

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There are, then, two versions of Wittgenstein's vision of health. He operates with a notion of health tied to the claim that health is the capacity to bring about minimal happiness, and its absence the incapacity to bring about happiness. This claim appears to govern the references to therapy in the later writings where therapy is characterized mostly as the removal of puzzlement.? But beneath this level, he also operates with a notion of optimal, ethical health that involves being happy with the world or life no matter what. Philosophical illness is illness in that is an impairment of a person's ability to be either minimally happy or else ethically happy.

Individual Versus Cultural Health If we take up the claims about the relation between agreement with forms of life and health, there is room for skepticism about how far these claims can be justified. Some people may find that they pursue philosophical thinking so obsessively that they cannot do other things necessary for their happiness. But such people are few in number. Also, those philosophers who are tormented by philosophical puzzlement also probably are few in number. So, if the justification for philosophical therapy rests on the fact that such a therapy is to combat obsession and torment to free philosophers for other sorts of activities, then the project will be of limited interest. Furthermore, if we examine the goal of an optimal ethical health pursued through getting joy or peace-producing synoptic presentations of unchanging features of one's form of life, then this project also will be of limited interest. Optimal forms of health clearly are options some people may desire to pursue. For example, some people may be interested in being able to compete in triathlons. Clearly they will be pursuing an optimal ideal of health, but it would be unwise to require everyone to pursue this ideal. So if a defense of Wittgensteinian therapy rests on the pursuit of an optimal ethical health, it will equally be of limited interest. In fact arguments like these are the very ones that appear to be crucial stumbling blocks to any justification of the Wittgensteinian ideal as an ideal of health that would be of any widespread interest. Many philosophers philosophize without feeling the torment, without becoming obsessed with the problems, and without any interest in coming into the sort of optimal ethical agreement Wittgenstein recommends. How can this therapeutic project find a justification? It is necessary to turn to the theme of Wittgenstein's cultural ideal for a solution. 8 The theme can be found throughout Wittgenstein's writings, though it is not easy to determine what sort of weight he gives

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it. I will indicate what the ideal comes to as an ideal of health and show why it should be treated as centrally important to Wittgenstein's therapeutic project. Let me proceed by presenting a characterization of cultural health that parallels the characterizations of health given earlier. The intuition I am operating with is that the health of a culture is a function of the health of its members. So I propose the following analysis: A culture is healthy if, and only if, the members of that culture (or almost all of the members of that culture) are able, given standard circumstances in their environment, to fulfill those goals that are jointly necessary and sufficient for their minimal happiness. Accordingly one could place the following requirement on philosophical thinking. One could claim that philosophers ought never provide philosophical accounts that in any way contribute to cultural illness. One could recommend also that philosophers give accounts of things that promote cultural health. Then, to make out that un-Wittgensteinian philosophies are destructive to the health of the culture, we would need to show the way in which these accounts prevent minimal happiness of the members of the culture. I take it from the discussion of Wittgenstein in relation to Spengler that Wittgenstein would hold that a healthy culture is one whose members are in agreement with the form of life of the culture and can function within cultural practices without bringing those practices into philosophical doubt. This is not to say that the practices cannot be criticized for this or that problem and amended to resolve the problem; rather, they cannot be criticized wholesale and rejected as illegitimate on the sorts of philosophical grounds that would call the basic, unavoidable beliefs and practices of the culture into question. The reason for this restriction is that such a philosophy would produce a lack of confidence in the members of the culture about their practices and basic beliefs without providing any way to solve the problems posed by those doubts. Such views could sufficiently erode confidence in the beliefs and practices of the culture so as ta impair the member's ability to become minimally happy. But even if the philosophical views do not have this dire effect, they might prevent the nlerrlbers af the culture from being completely happy. This latter claim perhaps is easier to defend because it is reasonable to hold that of two people in two different cultures each equally well off in other respects, the one in a self-confident culture would be happier than the other. 9 So we can conclude that a culture that supports philosophical views that undermine the confidence of the culture in its basic beliefs and practices is less healthy, other things being equal, than one that does not support such beliefs. Furthermore, a culture that is able to articulate and support the basic beliefs and practices of the culture is better off than one that is not. So even if some~~~_JJJ~~

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Russell were not, from his own individual vantage point, interested in philosophical therapy, either in its minimal or maximal ethical form, we could argue that he ought not approach philosophy in the way he did because of the impact of that sort of philosophy on the culture as a whole. One can understand in these terms why Wittgenstein was looking for a form of thinking that could avoid unresolvable paradox, appeals to hidden mechanisms that 111ay or may not be discoverable, appeals to hidden ideals whose proof is questionable, forms of thinking that bring everyday forms of life into question, and forms of scientistic thinking that challenge nonscientific modes of thought just because they are nonscientific. All these forms of thought support a skepticism about forms of life. Even if an individual does not suffer from obsession, philosophical torment, or desire to pursue an optimal ethical health, there is good reason to require that his or her philosophical thinking not be destructive of the confident participation in forms of life members of his culture cannot avoid. This would place a strong constraint on philosophical thinking or a high standard for evaluating philosophical work. It also would present philosophers with a positive goal for contributing to cultural health. Philosophers should engage in the sort of thinking and writing that clarifies and gives members of a culture a confident feel for differing parts of their form of life. It should be possible then to formulate this thesis about cultural health in the form of individual health, and it is important to do so since it presents what is at the center of these various claims about the relation between agreement with forms of life and health. I suggest the following formulation. A person A's confidence in his or her forms of life is a necessary condition of minimal happiness. If one imagines someone who otherwise is happy, but who thinks and feels that his or her life is fundamentally deficient or meaningless, such a person will not be happy. There are strategies of self-deception that might minimize this sort of difficulty but not eliminate it. It is central to Wittgensteinian therapy that philosophy can contribute to or be destructive of a person's confidence in his or her form of life. It is also central that such confidence is necessary for one's minimal happiness. Wittgenstein's own writings tend to focus on his own personal concerns-to avoid torment and obsession and to pursue an optimal ethical health. But this underlying theme of cultural health, one that emerges in a variety of remarks, and the underlying theme of confident participation in one's form of life are central to the justification of his therapeutic project. I can conclude only that, had he bothered to try to spell out and justify his therapeutic project, h_~_~9_l.!lg

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have given much more weight to these ideas than he seems to have, given their lack of development within the body of his writings.l°

The Therapy Fully Clarified When Wittgenstein claims that philosophy leaves everything as it is (PI, 124), he in fact has exaggerated. He proposes a new way of thinking and so does not want to leave everything as is. He proposes a change. But when he says this, he means that philosophy must leave the human form of life as it is. Nonetheless, philosophy proposes an alteration in our mode of life. What that means is that philosophy aims at a kind of health. I argued that it would make more sense to think of the therapeutic goals that justify Wittgenstein's therapy as cultural. Clarifications of language and concepts that give members of culture a confidence in their language games and forms of thinking contribute to their happiness. But why limit the therapy to the sorts of clarifications Wittgenstein seeks? Because Wittgenstein does indeed propose changes, not just seek clarification, it might be useful to see what such proposals entail for his therapeutic project. In suggesting that we change our mode of living, Wittgenstein proposes a way to improve the health of our culture. He does so by clarifying the way in which traditional philosophical thinking puts us at odds with intentionally unchangeable aspects of human life. So the human good is served by such a change. But why cannot philosophy propose and promote other changes? So far I argued that the mode of living that supports traditional philosophy puts us in disagreement with the human form of life. So being in agreement with the human form of life has been treated as a good because it is the only reasonable way to solve the problem one sees in the human form of life and because it supports a healthy confidence and clarity about one's specific form of life. Philosophy also proposes that some forms of life are higher developments of the human form of life than others. But why should it be restricted to the alteration Wittgenstein proposes? Of two forms of life supporting and making intelligible two different forms of scientific thinking, philosophy could clarify these forms in relation to the human form of life to show one to be higher than the other. For example, Wittgenstein points out that we are persuaded by the fact that a worldview is simpler, more aesthetically pleasing, and so on. (OC, 92). These desiderata are parts of the human form of life that support conversion from one form to another. So some forms may be higher realizations of ideals embedded in the human form of life than others. Philosophy, in its clarification of the human form of life and the ideals embedded in it, can help make

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judgments about which forms of life best realize these ideals. Similarly, if two different ethical forms of life are in conflict, philosophical clarification of the intelligibility of these forms of life can help us clarify how to rank these forms. What these inferences show is that therapeutic philosophy must be centrally concerned with clarifying the goods embedded in the human form of life to determine how best to realize those goods within the limitations of the possible forms of life available to us. Some forms of life must be seen as impairing us in relation to the goods important to us, others as promoting human flourishing. It is hard to see what would justify restricting philosophical concerns in the way Wittgenstein does. If his practice requires justification in terms of an account of cultural health and that is given in terms of how a culture can aid its men1bers' realization of human goods, then why stop with the good of being in agreement with the human form? Because there are other goods Wittgenstein mentions that are equally goods realizable by philosophical thinking and thinking in general, there is room for explicitly extending the range of philosophical therapeutic reflection. Such reflection will require determining in particular contexts and in the face of particular problems which forms of life will best resolve difficulties and promote human happiness. What sort of philosophical position is this? It clearly is not neo-Kantian. I already argued that this view does not accept the claim that there are necessary features of our beliefs about the world. Even if the hun1an form of life is intentionally unchangeable, it does undergo change. Furthermore, Wittgenstein does not argue that mind a priori structures the world. Finally, the appeal to the human form of life serves the purpose of showing the intelligibility of concepts and language games. But these appeals are not to the forms of intelligibility as such, but to the modes of intelligibility embedded in the human fornl of life at the moment. Finally, the human form of life is constituted by behaviors; however, these are not separate from and prior to the world but embedded in it. ll This view is also not a neopragmatism. Wittgenstein holds that there is a set of common behaviors that make concepts intelligible. Furthermore, it would be out of character and inconsistent with his strong recommendations to take him to present an ironic approach to his recommendation to bring traditional philosophy to an end. 12 It is not a form of essentialism, where that view holds that there is a single essential feature to things by virtue of which they are what they are. Wittgenstein holds that there are a multiplicity of human forms of life, and it is not clear that he took any of the behaviors that are common to mankind as essential in this sense. Nor is it so clear that he

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would take the set as a whole as essential, since he allows for the possibility of change in these behaviors over the course of time)3 He also is no praexiological foundationalist. 14 To think of the form of life as serving as a kind of foundation for knowledge, in the standard sense of self-evident basis for knowledge, would seem mistaken. For it is clear that the form of life by itself provides no epistemological warrant for any particular set of beliefs, since it is possible for the form of life to develop in various ways. Furthermore, any particular form of life may be deemed deficient relative to the ideals we use for evaluating forms of life. So justification of language games and concepts will not rest on clarifications of the human form of life by itself, nor on clarification of forms of life by themselves, but on the consideration of which forms of life better solve problems we confront on the road to human flourishing. Finally it also is not a form of relativism, since constraints on any possible fornl of life are given by the human form of life and not all forms of life are seen as equally good.l 5 Nevertheless, this view will tend to get misunderstood in terms of these standard contrasts. Neopragmatists will tend to see the view as a form of essentialism when they realize that the view does not attribute the same importance to contingency that they do and that the view does not promote irony about our philosophical views. Essentialists will tend to read the view as a form of pragmatism because there is no appeal in any strong sense to essences. Neo-Kantians will tend to see the position as a form of relativism because it allows for no strong transcendental constraints on knowledge; and relativists will tend to read the view as a form of foundationalism because it presents more constraints than they are willing to countenance. The difficulty is to hold onto the the central notion that philosophy is being viewed as a therapeutic clarification of the human form of life to bring us into agreement with it and, in my extension following Wittgenstein's suggestions for cultural reform, to further cultural and ethical health through proposed reformations of our modes of living.

The Question of Conservatism I argued in Chapter 5 that Wittgenstein's therapeutic project does not commit him to conceptual conservatism and that he is concerned to clarify the grammar of ordinary language to bring about a therapeutic acceptance of one's forms of life. As a result he rejects scientific thinking as solving the sort of philosophical problem he confronts. It now is possible to nlake my claims more precise. 16 The two senses of form of life, once again, are the broad concep-

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tion of a form of life shared by all human beings and the narrow conception of a specific mode of life of a particular culture at a particular time. Wittgenstein's counsel to accept forms of life as given is not conservative if we have in mind the broad conception. For even though we can imagine alternatives to this form, we would not be able to bring about such a change. For if features of human life are deep and relatively enduring, then they are not likely to be changeable even though they might change eventually. The narrow conception of form of life, if it has features that are not expressions of the broader form of life, is more likely to be changeable at just those points where its features are idiosyncratic. But the fact that some features are idiosyncratic does not guarantee changeability. It is obvious that a religious form of life is a form of life in this narrow sense, since not every form of life has a religious component to it. But it is not true that any religious form of life can be changed in any fundamental way or easily eliminated. But even if such a form of life were easy to change, Wittgenstein's counsel to philosophical therapists is to clarify it to bring about a philosophical acceptance of it. A philosophical acceptance of a form of life comes about from clarifying it as to its very possibility (PI, 90). Still, reform for some particular purpose is possible, but Wittgenstein does not see such reform as a concern of philosophers as philosophers. I have argued that this point is mistaken. If a philosopher could discover a conceptual reform that would increase the health of a culture and so of its members, why should he or she not do so? In fact, that seems to be what Wittgenstein himself is doing. By presenting conceptual revisions of our philosophical notions of meaning, language, understanding, and so forth, he thinks that he is contributing to the health of our culture or at least of specific individuals. These revisions aid in our coming into agreement with our form of life, if Wittgenstein is right, but demand an alteration of our philosophical practices. So here is a part of our mode of life that Wittgenstein himself seeks to reform. It is clear, therefore, that Wittgenstein is no conservative. A conservative would counsel not changing those aspects of our lives that could be changed. But Wittgenstein's counsel to accept our form of life in the broad sense is not conservative because such a form of life cannot be intentionally changed. Nor would he necessarily be conservative if he were to counsel not changing some specific aspect of a narrow form of life that is not an expression of our broader human form of life. For, if that aspect could not be changed, then his failure to recommend change also would not make him conservative. He would be conservative only if he were to tend to refuse to counsel change whenever change is possible.

Chapter 7 An Evaluation of Wittgenstein's Therapeutic Project II

Introduction Philosophy pursues goals different from science. This thesis is common to both the early and late thought of Wittgenstein. In both periods he held that scientific claims could not solve philosophical problems. I argued in Chapter 5 that this claim is mistaken even though Wittgenstein was right to think that his therapeutic philosophy should not be governed by standards of scientific reasoning and problem solving. Scientific claims can be put to philosophical use just as philosophical claims can be put to scientific use. But it is not necessary that a claim from one realm be used or usable in the other. Nonetheless, this defense of the autonomy of philosophical thinking only goes so far. As soon as one speaks of philosophy as therapy, one is making claims about the causes of illness and the elimination of illness. Moreover, some philosophers, most notably Quine, are not prepared to adnlit that philosophers ought to pursue the sort of ethical therapy, motivated by a concern for the ethical health of the culture, in which Wittgenstein engages. It is these criticisms that I examine in this chapter. Many of these criticisms about the scientific character of therapeutic claims and consequent need to justify these claims in accordance with scientific standards can be found in B. A. Farrell's "An Appraisal of Therapeutic Positivism," which was presented in 1946 as a critique of Wittgensteinian therapy as practiced by students of Wittgenstein. Farrell, of course, did not have access to Wittgenstein's writings on this subject. But Farrell's challenge makes sense just insofar as it makes sense to claim that therapeutic claims are causal claims and so the province of psychology. Wittgenstein read Farrell's article and rejected the criticisms, saying of his philosophy and psychoanalytic psychology that the techniques were not the same (Malcolm, 57). But it is not at all 119

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clear how this response answers these objections. Jungian psychology and Freudian psychology use different techniques but are governed by the same standards when they make causal claims. The issue behind Farrell's and Quine's critiques is that of the character and autonomy of philosophy as a discipline. In this chapter, I clarify the challenges to the claim that therapeutic philosophy is independent of natural science. I defend the claim that therapeutic philosophy of the sort I have attributed to Wittgenstein is largely, though not completely, independent of natural science. I conclude by showing that there are precedents for this view of philosophy as therapy.

The Problem ofJustifying the Therapeutic Method A therapist of any sort who claims that a cure for a particular illness is y, is nlaking or implying some causal claim. If y is the cure of x, then y or some feature of y causes x to exist no longer. If my cold is cured by taking an antiviral drug, then some feature of that drug causes my cold to disappear. If Wittgenstein proposes a cure for philosophical illness, then he is making or implying a causal claim. But he denies that philosophy n1akes causal claims and he does not attempt to verify the claims he makes. In addition one might want to challenge specific causal claims made or implied by Wittgenstein. For example, one may wonder whether puzzlement really is the source or cause of philosophical torment. It is easy to recall cases in which a philosopher was puzzled but not tormented. It is important to address these criticisms because, if they are correct, Wittgenstein's claim that philosophy is autonomous is false, and he has failed to substantiate causal claims he makes and implies. Wittgenstein clearly was more interested in getting on with the project of clarification than in justifying his therapeutic goals or his method of cure. The method can be justified in a rough and ready way by appeal to one's own experience of thinking through and helping others think through philosophical problems. On the other hand, there is some clear point in examining how far certain sorts of failure to come into agreement with forms of life impair a person and how far introduction of various forms of clarifying representations remove the impairment. Such an investigation would be desirable especially in an intellectual context in which this sort of therapeutic project appears suspicious. Wittgenstein probably would think that such a project would reinforce bad tendencies of thought in our culture that give too much weight to scientific thinking; but it need not. Such investigations, used in such a way as to make us more confident of the correctness of our basic enterprise and the best ways bring us into agreemen!_~i!~~~~ !o_r!J1_s _~f}~f~,

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might very well support the project of philosophical therapy. Nonetheless, one can overemphasize the need for such investigations.

Aesthetics as the Model for Therapy As I already indicated, Wittgenstein's response to Farrell's critique was that philosophy is only like psychoanalysis; the techniques are different. What might this remark mean and how far does it go in responding to the criticism? The way to get at Wittgenstein's comment is to clarify the way in which philosophical therapy is different from psychological therapies. I will proceed by spelling out Wittgenstein's analogy between philosophy and aesthetics, which I discussed in Chapter 2, by presenting an example of aesthetic criticism of a poem to show the way in which these challenges to Wittgenstein's project are mostly, though not entirely, misplaced. I have written a poem expressing my feelings of mortality, which arose from watching a sunset. I put it away, and upon rereading, I see that the images of springtime conflict with the purpose of the poem. Furthermore, the rhymes make the poem sound too playful given the theme. I feel a tension between the theme and the image and rhyme. In disappointment, I set out to rewrite the poem. The following claim is true in this context. The conflict between the image and theme causes my feeling that there is a tension between them. But this is not the only cause. Were I a less sensitive reader, I would feel no tension. So if I were to construct a more complete explanation of the feeling, I would appeal both to the properties of the poem and my sensibility as a reader of literature. But even a literary analysis of my sensibility might not be thought of as complete. One might push even further for some anthropological and psychological explanations of the development of my sensibility or for some explanation at the biological level. Nevertheless, in a literary critical context, the background sensibility is taken for granted. These deeper forms of explanation are not relevant to the literary critical enterprise even though they may be relevant to a "complete" account of the matter. The properties of the poem are taken to cause the response to it. My task as writer is to remove the cause of my response. We do not think that I should change my sensibility if I am already a sensitive reader. Rather, we focus on the problematic aspects of the poem. We focus on those aspects because the goal of aesthetic critique is to improve the poem and our sensitivity as readers, not simply to eliminate our feelings of tension and disappointment with the poem. So I decide to change the images and the rhyme. I rewrite the poem and remove the offensive features of it.

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Now imagine the following complaints: You have not shown that the features of the poem are the sole causes of your feelings of disappointment. You have not shown that the way in which you suggested that you improve the poem is the most effective of the alternatives present. These challenges are out of place. They import into the situation a set of theoretical considerations that are not appropriate to the problems and concerns addressed in the context. My goal as the writer of this poem is to express appropriately the mood and ideas intrinsic to the experience of the sunset. This goal is related internally to those causes of my disappointment in the poem proper to an aesthetic investigation. If I feel disappointed with the poem but this disappointment derives from a prior bad mood or because I was poorly trained to read poetry, these reactions will count for nothing in showing us the weakness of the poem. Rather, the reactions arising from the aesthetic properties of the poem are important, since these are the properties to be changed. A request for a nonaesthetic investigation of the causes of the mistakes in writing is certainly inappropriate. If the goal of the enterprise were a complete explanation of the writing, we might ask these questions. But such a complete explanation in fact may prevent us from reaching our goal of improving the poem because it will strap us to a set of intellectual concerns that complicate our considerations without producing any clear aesthetic payoff. If we can improve the poenl without bringing in these other causal factors, we should do so. But if there is some resistance to changing the poem when such a change would be a good thing, then we might wonder what further factors condition the person's writing. For example, we might wonder whether some more general resistance to successful communication might influence how the person writes and responds to criticism. But this investigation comes in at a second stage. Furthermore, we can imagine a much more complicated case where the reader is different from the writer and where they have different views of the nature and goal of literature. So they disagree about the merits of the poem and 'whether it needs to be changed. Here there may be resistance that we might think legitimate to changing the poem. The cause of the disagreement in this context will be the differing aesthetic views. And unless there is some nonaesthetic resistance to discussion and correction of mistakes, it is unnecessary to ask what underlying causes there are to the dispute. The goal at hand is to resolve the aesthetic disagreement, and so the causes relevant to the disagreement internal to that context are the different views of literature. It is clear that at some point in the enterprise some information labout the most effective means for changing writing may be useful. But

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the ultimate justification of the aesthetic practice will be in its results. Good results are difficult to achieve, and we can feel some satisfaction if we get those results in particular cases. The request that we be able to produce a detailed theory that explains the causes of success and failure or demonstrates the most efficient procedures to employ in such circumstances, though nice in certain contexts, is not necessary and may prevent us from reaching our goals. It is this pattern of response that I want to introduce in discussing philosophical therapy. Philosophical therapy, like aesthetic critique, is designed to get someone to change a philosophical view and ultimately his or her philosophical sensibility. One who has a philosophical problem of the sort Wittgenstein discusses has done something very much like writing a bad poem. One has presented a view at odds with a goal of philosophical thinking. A philosopher can present a critique of the view designed to bring about a change in both the view and the philosophical sensibility of the philosopher. The causes of philosophical disturbance relevant to philosophical investigation are the philosophical properties of the view itself. The reason for this is that the aim of the investigation is to seek and change problenlatic thinking. At another level the relevant causes are not properties of the philosophical view. The request for a complete exanlination of the causes behind the problematic view is no more appropriate here than in the aesthetic case. This is not to say that, in some contexts, other causes may be unearthed to explain or change inappropriate resistance or that some investigation of relative effectiveness of critical strategies nlight not be helpful. But the goals of the enterprise restrict the sort of causes that are of central importance. And the ultimate justification of a philosophical therapy will be in the result it brings about. The picture of the situation is even more complicated than this due to the existence of ongoing legitimate disagreement. The existence of legitimate disagreement in philosophy indicates the special character of the sort of health at which we aim. It is necessary to distinguish between two types of therapy: open and closed. A therapy is closed, in my sense, if it presupposes a therapeutic goal that cannot be legitimately brought into question in the course of the therapy. Otherwise the therapy is open. No good philosophical therapy can be closed. If closed, then it is not philosophical, for the simple reason that the presuppositions of the therapy are not able to be legitimately examined in the course of the therapy (see Chapter 1, "Philosophical Therapy") For this reason, philosophical therapy will never be able to be structured to bring about some specific result, like the removal of some particular synlptom. 1 The claim that a symptom is a symptom itself may be challenged in the course of the therapeutic dialectic, and nothing rules out the revelation

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that the apparent symptom is not a real one. This does not mean, however, that the person acting as therapist will not have a provisional goal for the therapy, but all goals must be that - provisional in nature and able to be supplanted in the face of reasonable criticism. The medical model of therapy, of course, is different. 2 It is not a part of the therapy for syphillis that the question of the nature of syphillis and of whether it is a genuine illness be raised. In normal cases of medical treatment, the nature of the illness is taken as given. Moreover, in normal, but by no means all, cases of medical treatment the cause of the illness is known, and treatment consists of removal of the cause if that is possible or treatment of the symptoms if not. Philosophical therapy is necessarily open. One cannot treat a person simply by eliminating the cause of the illness, for the sort of investigation in question requires that the question of the nature of the illness at hand and its cause be central to the therapeutic investigation. Sorting out the issues at hand, presenting criticism, retracting bad criticism, discovering one's hostile attitude toward a position, recognizing the small number of bad arguments that support the attitude, and so forth are central to this sort of therapy. We must see it as a strength of Wittgenstein's therapy that the question of empirically validating claims about causes of illness did not arise. Those sorts of empirical claims are fruitfully pursued once the evaluative question of which states are to count as illnesses has been settled. But, if philosophy is to be therapeutic and therapy philosophical, it is best to postpone arriving at such conclusions in order to make thinking about such evaluative issues the central task of the therapeutic discussion. It is crucial in philosophical therapy that even the provisional goal of coming into agreement with the world be something that can be brought into question, perhaps even so far as to propose that this orientation to the world itself counts as an illness. So we must not structure this sort of therapy the way we might others whose goals are better defined and defended. The point is to pursue therapy through getting insight and correcting mistaken beliefs and attitudes, and the path need not be a straight one. In constructing this line of reasoning, I attempted to show how one might take the context of philosophical investigation to put a limit on the sort of investigation in which one engages. Wittgenstein emphasizes that one is concerned in such investigation with reasons not causes. But I have criticized the overly strict drawing of that distinction in Chapter 5. In some clear sense, similes misunderstood by the philosopher, pace Wittgenstein, are the cause of puzzlement and disturbance. But this acknowledgment does not make it any the more appropriate in philosophy to investigate every sort of cause that this sort of puzzlement has

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or to think of philosophical therapy as a form of psychological therapy. On the other hand, some such investigation may prove fruitful in certain contexts. Wittgenstein's way of drawing the distinction between reasons and causes has the virtue of clarifying the difference between causal claims, which depend on experimental method, and claims made in aesthetic and philosophical inquiry. But his clarification of the difference rests on a mistake. We can and do make causal claims in aesthetic inquiry just as we do in a variety of ordinary contexts that are not contexts of scientific experimentation. (My mother's plea caused me to reconsider my view of abortion.) The logic of nonexperimental causal claims in aesthetic contexts is similar to the logic of experimental causal claims: in my example, the tension between the images and theme is the sufficient aesthetic condition of the disturbance I feel on rereading the poem. But this recognition does not require experimentation in any strict sense; it derives from close reading of the poem by an aesthetically sensitive reader. We call this tension the cause because we think that the problem in the poem will be removed if the cause were eliminated. Causal claims make good sense in an aesthetic context, but these claims are aesthetic, not scientific. Wittgenstein could have made his point in a way that is less puzzling had he admitted that there are nonscientific causal claims. I have made some crucial alterations in Wittgenstein's views to respond to the criticism described earlier. I argued in Chapter 5 that the distinction between reasons and causes, which Wittgenstein and Canfield draw, does not need to be drawn in the way they do, given Wittgenstein's other views and his conception of philosophy as therapy. Here I take this argument one step further by claiming that what Wittgenstein calls reasons just are causes relevant to the critical, interpretive, and evaluative enterprises of aesthetics and philosophy. Consequently philosophical therapy is concerned with a certain type of cause of philosophical illness, namely, with those causes that derive from bad philosophical thinking. These causes can be eliminated through an improvement of philosophical thinking unless there is some deep resistance to such improvement.

Philosophy as the Handmaiden of Culture Therapeutic philosophy done in the way Wittgenstein proposes will present representations of phenomena that serve the goal of bringing us into agreement with the human form of life. These representations must make the phenomenon that they represent surveyable (the requirement of perspicuousness). They also must treat as central to the development

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of surveyable representations the primitive grasp of the phenomena found in language games in which the phenomena is grasped originally along with the primitive prelinguistic behavior that makes language learning possible. These requiren1ents ensure that the representations of the phenomena will give sufficient weight to the role of the language games in the economy of human life. To represent the phenomena in this way will decrease the possibility that the representations will be out of agreement with the human form of life. Finally, these representations will be realistic;3 they will say what kind of character the phenomenon actually has. For example, they will indicate what knowledge is, what believing is, what numbers are, and so on. (PI, 371 and 373). Philosophical reflection of the sort I describe will take quite seriously Wittgenstein's remarks from 1930-the essential idea of which he never gave up. If anyone should think he has solved the problem life and feel like telling himself that everything is quite easy now, he can see that he is wrong just by recalling that there was a time when this "solution" had not been discovered; but it must have been possible to live then too and the solution which has now been discovered seems fortuitous in its relation to how things were then. And it is the same in the study of logic. If there were a "solution" to the problems of logic (philosophy) we should only need to caution ourselves that there was a time when they had not been solved (and even at that time people must have known how to live and think). (CV, 5)

Any form of philosophical thinking that attempts to demonstrate the justification for our language games by appeal to some standard external to the facts of human life, at least most of which are open to us already, will be wrong. The basis for our language games lies in the phenomenon of human life in which they playa part. Philosophical therapy will need, then, to move in two directions: negatively, against any of the various forms of thought that atten1pt to solve philosophical problems by appeal to some standards alien to the phenomenon of life in question; and positively, by representing the problematic phenomenon in a way that makes its character as part of our form of life stand out in such a way that it no longer requires any other justification. This remark also supplies us with a hint about how to tell when solutions from the "outside" are being offered. Language games that have played roles in the human forn1 of life well before the development of alien philosophical theories designed to justify them will not be in need of such justifications. "Alien philosophical theories" are just those sorts of theories that treat language games as justified only if they conform to an ideal of rationality that does not arise out of language games themselves.

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Philosophical therapy practiced in this mode will be on the lookout for "alien" philosophical theories designed either to defend or reject aspects of the human form of life. It will be suspicious of "alien" defenses because of their failure to grasp the real character of those linguistic practices and the forms of life these theories seek to defend. This seeming acceptance in the end will be the other side of the coin of the rejection of our form of life. On the other hand, philosophical therapy also will present clarifications of the human form of life as it is, and do so in such a way that it is seen as unproblematic in its ordinariness and intractability. This sort of philosophical reflection will minimize conceptual confusion, the torment of philosophy, and cultural diffidence about our basic beliefs and practices. Moreover, alienness will become manifest just at those crucial points where the language games that are part of the human form of life cannot be justified in terms of some proposed ideal, whether metaphysical, epistemological, or scientific. Where some form of life cannot be justified in terms of some proposed account of what would justify it if anything would, one can be assured that the form of life has been misunderstood. For example, any sorts of "error theories" will be alien in this sense.4 So will any theory that claims that aspects of our form of life need justification in terms of some standard external to them.5 In response to this failure philosophical therapy will be needed to counteract the imposition of "alien" requirements on our ordinary language games. It will treat these impositions as individual or cultural impairments, to be countered by critiques and clarifications designed to remove the tendency and bring about a philosophical acceptance of our form of life. Of course, all I have offered here is an overview of a project, one that needs to be supplemented by thorough investigation of the details of ordinary life and language and those general facts of nature that make them intelligible. To show which views ought to be treated as alien and which as perspicuous accounts of ordinary language and life depends entirely on such detailed investigations. The ethical concerns that fuel this project exhibit a sense of what wisdom requires of philosophical thinking. It requires giving each sphere of human life its due, requiring no more of it than it actually contains. In this requirement a Wittgensteinian therapy finds itself in conlplete disagreement with Quine's announcement, discussed at the end of Chapter 1, of the separation of the paths of philosophy and wisdom.

The Question of Precedence It is natural to wonder if there is any precedence for this view of philosophy as therapy. There is a danger, however, in whatever sort of

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answer one gives to this question. The danger increases if, in answering it, we look for a single identical project to which this position is heir. For by looking for a single project identical to this one, we will find either none or one that presents a distorted picture of the project. It would be better in the quest for a precedent to look for a multiplicity of models that shed light on various aspects of the project than to distort the position or find no precedent at all. We find both of these failures in the argument between George von Wright and Robert Fogelin. In emphasizing the novelty of Wittgenstein's thought, von Wright claims that "The author of Philosophical Investigations has no ancestors in philosophy."6 Fogelin finds a precedent in Pyrrhonian skepticism. Although right to reject von Wright's myth of originality and right to point out a similarity to Pyrrhonian skepticism, there also are dissimilarities. Fogelin finds similarities between Wittgenstein's philosophy and Pyrrhonian skepticism in that both aim at peace of mind and do so by presenting skeptical strategies of argument against traditional philosophical claims.? But what such traditional skeptics emphasize in the search for peace of mind is suspension of belief. So for any claim put forth as true and defensible, the traditional strategy is to refute that view. If one then puts forth the claim that this traditional view is false, it is the project of the skeptic to refute that view, too. In practicing such a form of criticism, one gets to the point where one can maintain a suspension of belief and so the sort of peace of mind that comes from that suspension. Fogelin claims that the traditional skeptics were interested primarily in challenging philosophical claims and, so, were interested in the sort of peace of mind that comes to those who finally give up the temptation to think in traditional philosophical ways. This analogy is illuminating. Certainly Wittgenstein wants to bring traditional philosophical thinking to an end, and he is interested in some form of peace of mind. But there are two problems with this characterization as it stands. Wittgenstein does not pursue philosophical peace of mind just by refuting traditional philosophical claims or the right of traditional philosophers to make the sorts of claims they make. The peace of mind he pursues comes from constructing a perspicuous representation of linguistic practices, thereby coming into agreement with one's form of life (see Chapters 2 and 4). Furthermore, his philosophical practices aim not just at refuting traditional views or showing that traditional philosophers make claims they have no right to make but also at acknowledging and combatting deep-seated inclinations to think in ways that bring one into disagreement with the form of one's life (see Chapter 3). These important elements get left out of Fogelin's characterization of the Pyrrhonian skeptics as predecessors of Wittgen-

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stein. Are there, then, other predecessors whose projects are similar to these other aspects of Wittgenstein's thinking? Really two questions are to be raised here. Are there predecessors with respect to the goal of coming into agreement with the form of one's life and are there predecessors with respect to the method of perspicuous representation and confession?8 In terms of the goal of coming into agreement with one's form of life, there is precedent in Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer's solution to the problem of life and death is a renunciation of will brought about through aesthetic contemplation. Through aesthetic contemplation, one casts off the principle of individuation and unites with the world will. One then is in agreement with everything because one sees oneself in everything. Once Wittgenstein moves from the metaphysics of the Tractatus, the object of this agreement changes, and he aims to be in agreement, not with the will or the world, but rather with the form of one's life. The method of getting this agreement with one's form of life is not Schopenhauer's. Here the influence of Spengler provides Wittgenstein with the idea of a perspicuous representation in which one gets a clear, surveyable view of the phenomenon that one found troubling. Spengler derives this idea from Goethe, and one may want to present Goethe also as a predecessor. 9 The use of confession as a central component of philosophical practice can be found in Plato and St. Augustine. It has been argued that Plato was a philosophical therapist. 10 Some recent work on the early Platonic dialogues clarifies their therapeutic character. Ken Seeskin 11 argued that the early dialogues are dramatizations of inquiry designed to show how moral improvement is possible either through a recognition of one's own ignorance or at most through coming to know divine reality and so becoming like it (112, 109). These encounters are designed to test the interlocutors, and not just the beliefs they hold, since they are aimed at transforming the interlocutor (1-2). Socratic conversations are not academic, so the dialogues require that the participants acknowledge what they really believe. Otherwise they themselves will not be put to the test in the encounter. Seeskin refers to the changes the interlocutors undergo as a form of therapy (123 and 139 ff.) Henry Teloh 12 argued that these dialectical encounters have two important aspects: refutation and psychogogia (22-23). The interlocutors are shown to contradict themselves in holding the beliefs they acknowledge, and then Socrates acts as a guide, showing the better way to understand the topic at hand. Both Seeskin and Teloh emphasize that Socratic discussion aims to test the beliefs and responses of individual interlocutors, not abstract

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theory. Teloh stresses that what must be addressed is what the individual person actually believes. Arguments start here and, because they are designed to transform the interlocutors, are ad honlinem (1). But there is also an important affinity to St. Augustine's Confessions, which has in common with Plato's a therapeutic intention and the employment of confessional acknowledgment. Augustine's Confessions in one way is a better model than Plato's dialogues, for his concern in the philosophical parts of that book is to remove puzzles about God's nature, which threaten his relationship to Him. Wittgenstein would characterize as mere simile Augustine's articulation of his ethical quest in terms of his relation to God and would prefer to speak in terms of coming into agreement with the world. When addressing the question of Wittgenstein's originality, it is best to understand it in terms of his relation to a multiplicity of philosophical ancestors, rather than claim, as von Wright does, that Wittgenstein stands alone. For Wittgenstein takes up these modes of reflection and puts them to an original use. He takes Schopenhauer's goal of renunciation of will and pursues it in terms of forms of life. He pursues this agreement through Spengler's and Goethe's perspicuous representations. Nonetheless, he thinks of the transformation he is aiming at as therapeutic. This therapy is conducted through a method that, like Plato's and Augustine's therapies, is confessional. Moreover, Fogelin is right to point out the similarity with Pyrrhonic skepticism, for Wittgenstein holds that his clarifications do not represent how the world must be. When acknowledging the therapeutic character of Wittgenstein's philosophy, it is right to look to Freud as an influence. We must not ignore, however, the therapeutic character of much traditional philosophy. It is true that Wittgenstein finds much to criticize in Platonism, but that rejection does not make Plato's project any the less therapeutic. If there is a critical confrontation between therapeutic thinkers, it is on the related issues of goals and methods. There is ample precedent for Wittgenstein's thinking and ample precedent for taking philosophy to be therapy. These precedents, however, do not negate the originality of his project and its results. But questions of originality are not as important as questions of merit. Claims about the merit of Wittgenstein's therapy stand or fall on their own. But perhaps it is reassuring to find that what Wittgenstein undertook, in his original and distinctive way, was something very old, something at the heart of philosophy in the beginning.

NOTES

1. Philosophy as Therapy 1. There are some notable exceptions to this claim. The therapeutic idiom is put to good use, without appeal to ordinary language argumentation, in Jeffrey Stout's The Flight from Authority and Ethics After Babel, Annette Baier's Postures of the Mind, and Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature and Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. 2. An exception is B. A. Farrell's "An Appraisal of Therapeutic Positivism," Mind, 55 (1946): 25-48 and 133-150. But Farrell wrote this article in response to the work of Wittgenstein's students. Some of his criticisms will be discussed in Chapter 6. 3. This model is presented for evaluation of philosophical therapies. So when I include features, I will do so primarily with the goal of indicating what a well-eonceived and well-executed philosophical therapy is, not what any therapy must be to be a therapy. I admit that therapy is a family resemblance term in Wittgenstein's sense, but I present a paradigm from among the family of possibilities and do so to clarify the evaluative issues surrounding philosophical therapy. 4. For a helpful discussion of the different reasons favoring these approaches, see Leon R. Kass, "Regarding the End of Medicine and the Pursuit of Health," in Arthur L. Caplan et aI., Concepts of Health and Disease. 5. Here I follow Wittgenstein's use of 'ethical' in the Tractatus. I will discuss this term in detail in Chapter 2. 6. This way of thinking of types of therapy gives rise to a number of interesting possibilities. A therapy might be theistic in goal-it might be concerned to bring about humility in the face of God's greatness-but could attempt to bring about that goal through psychological means-through dream interpretation of the sort practiced by Jung, for example. An alternative would be to pursue the therapy through philosophical dialectic, as Socrates did, revealing to the citizens of Athens the deficiency of human wisdom in relation to divine wisdom. 7. Word and Object, pp. 3-4. Additional internal references are to this work.

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8. See Hilary Putnam's Reason, Truth, and History, Chapter 9 and especially pp. 215-216.

2. Wittgenstein, Ethics, and Therapy 1. A recent example of this tendency is Colin McGinn's Wittgenstein on Meaning: An Interpretation and Evaluation. For a developed criticism along these lines, see J. Peterman, "Wittgenstein on Rules and Meaning." In one of the most influential introductions to Wittgenstein's philosophy, Wittgenstein, even in a discussion of the distinctive character of Wittgenstein's philosophy (pp. 229-32) Anthony Kenny never mentions the therapeutic aspect <;>f his work, nor is there an attempt to integrate the therapeutic notion into the rest of the book. Kenny discusses Wittgenstein's view of philosophy in "Wittgenstein on the Nature of Philosophy," but there he attempts to explain Wittgenstein's philosophical method as analogous to that of Descartes, who emphasized that philosophical judgment is a matter of will, not intellect. It would make more sense to think of Wittgenstein's practice as Augustinian in that it is confessional. (See Kenny, "Wittgenstein on the Nature of Philosophy," p. 26.) Furthermore, it is not clear as Kenny claims that Wittgenstein always held that philosophical problems are unavoidable (see ibid., p. 25 and CV, 61). S. Stephen Hilmy, in The Later Wittgenstein: The Emergence of a New Philosophical Method, presents a very detailed account of the emergence of Wittgenstein's later method, but his account contains no mention of the therapeutic aspect of Wittgenstein's method nor of ethical and spiritual concerns behind Wittgenstein's thinking. Oswald Hanfling, in Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy, develops a view of Wittgenstein's later method that takes as centrally important the notion that philosophy should be purely descriptive and not at all theoretical. He is right to make this point, but he makes nothing of the therapeutic project that provides the basis for this feature of Wittgenstein's project. 2. The best commentaries on the therapeutic character of Wittgenstein's philosophy are George Pitcher's The Philosophy of Wittgenstein; P. M. S. Hacker's Insight and Illusion; G. P. Baker and P. M. S. Hacker's Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning; and Garth Hallet's A Companion to Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations." Robert Fogelin, in Wittgenstein, makes some insightful comparisons between Wittgenstein's later project and that of the Pyrrhonian skepticism. See both Chapter 15 and pp. 14Q-43. Robert Ackerman's Wittgenstein's City presents a comprehensive survey of Wittgenstein's philosophy that gives a central role to the therapeutic character of his project. (I will not attempt to cite here the critical differences between my view and the views of each of these authors because I find their discussions for the most part illuminating. When appropriate I indicate criticisms in the development of my interpretation of Wittgenstein's therapeutic project.) In general I think that these positions fail to grasp the crucial issues that arise for any philosophy claiming to be therapeutic. A particularly good article on Wittgenstein's method is_~~~~}~~_~~~~Jl~~

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"The Availability of Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy." There Cavell points out the therapeutic character of Wittgenstein's philosophy but does not adequately develop his interpretive argument. (For specific criticism, see later.) David Pears, in [-ludwig Wittgenstein, claims that Wittgenstein's later philosophy has a confessional character (p. 6), but then rejects as unfortunate Wittgenstein's idea that his philosophy is therapeutic (p. 126). If the argument I developed in the previous chapter is correct, these two aspects of his later philosophy are internally related. Therapeutic philosophy is necessarily confessional. Pears argues that it is mistaken to think of philosophical confusions as illnesses insofar as they are essential to philosophy, whereas philosophical confusion really is only an initial and necessary stage of philosophical thinking. It will be necessary to address this point later. K. T. Fann's Wittgenstein's Conception of Philosophy argues for emphasizing the continuity between certain aspects of Wittgenstein's early and late philosophies, but does not make fully clear the character of Wittgenstein's ethical project. This failure is likely to derive from Fann's emphasis and perhaps even acceptance of Wittgenstein's notion of there being a limit to language (see p. 38). He also fails to acknowledge the central role of ethics in Wittgenstein's later project. He further leaves open how well justified Wittgenstein's therapy is (see p. 111). Henry Staten, in Wittgenstein and Derrida, enlphasizes the ethical character of Derrida's project of deconstruction. He claims that Derrida is a moral skeptic, skeptical of "an idealized picture of sincerity that takes insufficient account of the windings and twistings of fear and desire, weakness and lust, sadism and masochism, and the will to power, in the mind of even the most sincere man" (pp. 126-27). He reads Wittgenstein through Derrida but never attempts to layout an independent description of the moral basis of Wittgenstein's project. It should be easy enough to see that, even if there are similarities between Derrida and Wittgenstein at the point where they are bringing into doubt the role of the ideal in philosophical thinking, Wittgenstein has a different moral project that is fueled by the desire for clarity. Richard Rorty strikingly asserts that what "Wittgenstein did for us" was to "raise the question of the moral worth of our epistemology courses." ("Cavell on Skepticism," in Consequences of Pragmatism, p. 189). 3. This argument is presented by James C. Edwards in Ethics Without Philosophy, p. 156. I responded to this problem in the Introduction to Chapter 1. 4. For a detailed account of Wittgenstein's war experience, see Brian McGuinness, Wittgenstein: A Life. For an extended discussion of the relation between Wittgenstein's philosophical project and his personal ethics throughout his life, see Ray Monk, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. 5. For a discussion of the relation between Wittgenstein and Tolstoi, see Allan Janik and Stephen E. Toulmin, Wittgenstein's Vienna, Charles E. Burlingame "Wittgenstein, His Logic, and His Promethean Mission," and James C. Edwards, Ethics Without Philosophy, pp. 28ff.

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6. For an interesting account of the change in view, see Bernard Williams "Wittgenstein and Idealism." For criticisms of some aspects of his approach, see "Epistemology, Therapy, and Clarity" later in this chapter. 7. The change is not so great as one would think when one recognizes that Wittgenstein identifies life with the world in Tractatus, 5.621. 8. One anonymous reader comments that Wittgenstein really is concerned only with disagreements in what we say. But what we say in part is an expression of our own form or life. When we are in philosophical confusion we are at odds with what we ordinarily say and so with the related form of life. 9. James Edwards might endorse these claims (see p. 104). I think that Edwards would disagree, however, with my characterization of Wittgenstein's later therapeutic goal. He describes the goal as freedom (see pp. 148, 153, and 154). I distinguish between Wittgenstein's minimal and optimal views of health. Freedom is a part of his minimal therapeutic goal; coming into agreement with forms of life is the optimal goal. 10. The best, extensive defense of this position is James Edwards's Ethics Without Philosophy. My own argument can be seen as supplementing the argument of this book. It appears to me to be only partly correct to argue that Wittgenstein pursues an ethics of silence in his intermediate and later periods and that this is why he does not mention ethics, but is engaged in it nonetheless (see p. 104) More can be said about the way in which the later work is ethical. See Janik and Toulmin, Chapter 7, for a discussion of the claim that Wittgenstein's ethical project in the Tractatus is at least implicitly continued in the Philosophical Investigations. They argue that the later conception of ethics is never made fully clear by Wittgenstein (pp. 234-35). Peter C. John presents a very compelling defense and development of Janik and Toulmin's thesis in "Wittgenstein's Wonderful Life." John argues that Wittgenstein's mysticism is retained in his later thought in the importance he attributes to wonder, whereas I am interested in peace and contentment. For Goethe's view of the relation between wonder and contentment, see "Spengler and the Importance of Simile" in Chapter 4. Crittendon claims that the later project is religious in character and that the concern to clarify language games stenlS from the Tractarian idea that to be happy is to be in agreement with the world. (Crittendon, "Wittgenstein on Philosophical Therapy and Understanding," p. 43). I think that Crittendon's claim can be developed in a way that makes the content of Wittgenstein's later ethical project clear. Crittendon has developed this idea exploiting the analogy between Wittgenstein's therapy and Zen Buddhism. See his "Serenity" and "The Suchness of Things: In Buddhism, American Transcendentalism and Ordinary Language Philosophy." D. Z. Phillips presents objections to the use of this analogy by John V. Canfield in his "Wittgenstein and Zen." See D. Z. Phillips's "On Wanting to Compare Wittgenstein and Zen." 11. Fogelin interprets 'complete' in this way also. But Hallet and Baker and Hacker do not. Both claim that Wittgenstein means that each problem

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confronted must completely disappear, not all of them. Baker and Hacker defend this claim by appeal to Zettel 447, but there are texts that suggest the other reading (see CV, pp. 49 and 62). At the very least, if Wittgenstein meant what these other commentators suggest, he should have rephrased the claim. 12. This sentence is in the 1967 edition of the remarks, but is puzzlingly absent in the revised edition. Reference here is to the earlier edition. For a different translation, see CV, 44. 13. B. R. Tilgham, in "The Moral Dimension of the Philosophical Investigations, argues that the moral dimension of the Philosophical Investigations lies in the fact that Wittgenstein is reminding us what it is to discern the humanity in a person and that in so doing he indicates the conceptual background that makes morality intelligible and how to avoid philosophical confusion and irrelevant scientific theory (pp. 116-17). It is true that Wittgenstein's analyses have consequences for our understanding of "questions of how we should act on particular occasions" (p. 116). But it is much less clear that this claim shows how Wittgenstein might have understood the moral dimension of his investigations. In particular this interpretation ignores the value Wittgenstein accords clarity and peace. Wittgenstein understands his investigations to have a moral character by virtue of the fact that they are designed to clarify and bring about peace. They also clarify the conceptual background of our moral beliefs and practices, but they would have a moral dimension even if this were not the case. 14. 'Limited' occurs in the 1905 edition of Character and Sexuality, cited in Hans Sluga's "Subjectivity in the Tractatus," p. 133. 15. 'See the early version of the Tractatus published as the Prototractatus, pp. 15-16, for his letter to Ficker, the publisher. See Letters to Russell, Keynes, and Moore, p. 71. For an extended defense of this interpretation of the Tractatus, see Edwards, Chapter 2, especially pp. 11-26. 16. Some commentators see the ethical claims as tacked onto the body of the text and not centrally important. See Fogelin, pp. 96 ff., and Hacker, p. 83. In the face of Wittgenstein's strong claims that he never disavowed, we should attempt to understand the text in light of his own claims. If the text cannot be so understood, then perhaps strong assertions like Hacker's claim that Wittgenstein's letter is disingenuous or self-deceptive might be reasonable. At the moment we must take such a claim as a failure to come up with the correct interpretation. 17. This is the passage in Philosophical Investigations that squares most clearly with these passages in Culture and Value. If Wittgenstein's philosophy is therapeutic, we must make sense of the need to accept forms of life as given in terms of this project. These passages make it clear why we must accept forms of life as given. 18. Sabina Lovibond, following Cavell, emphasizes this aspect of Wittgenstein's view of philosophy (Realism and Imagination in Ethics, p. 227, n. 6). Also see Cavell's "The Availability of Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy," p. 184.

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19. The relation of aesthetics, ethics, and philosophy is examined by Hartley Slater in "Wittgenstein's Aesthetics." He claims that Wittgenstein views all three disciplines as subjective, but nonetheless as proceeding through methods of reasoning. Edwards also presents a helpful discussion of the relation between philosophy and aesthetics in Chapter 4 of Ethics Without Philosophy. 20. The clearest argument I have found against this position is constructed by Joachim Schulte in "Wittgenstein and Conservatism." He argues that Wittgenstein held that no significant statements on matters of ethical value can be made. Moreover, he claims, Wittgenstein does not enter into philosophical discussion of these things. The conclusion implied is that ethical views play no significant role in Wittgenstein's activity as a philosopher. If such a conclusion is being drawn by Schulte, it clearly does not follow logically. For ethical views can playa significant role in Wittgenstein's philosophy in a way other than by being discussed explicitly by him. They can provide the therapeutic goal he attempted to realize. Furthermore, the fact that he thought that no significant arguments could be offered for an ethical position does not show that ethical thinking did not provide the basis of his philosophical practice. If one gives up the clairn that one's philosophical view is essentially ethical only if it involves explicit argumentation and theorizing about ethics, Schulte's argument will lack plausibility. The problem is to show how Wittgenstein's work might be understood to have an ethical goal and to provide sufficient textual evidence to show that this interpretation is probably true. This, of course, is what I have attempted to do. No doubt, Schulte is probably right to say that Wittgenstein would have found the remarks published in Culture and Value to be indecent. It does not follow, however, that these notions played no role in his philosophical thinking. 21. See Hilary Putnam's Reason, Truth, and History, Chapter 9 and especially pp. 215 and 216. 22. My thesis about the centrality of an ethical ideal to Wittgenstein's later work is substantiated by Ray Monk's Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius.

23. Richard Eldrige gives an account of Wittgenstein's later project in "Hypotheses, Criterial Claims, and Perspicuous Representations: Wittgenstein's 'Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough. '" He presents Wittgenstein as offering the best and most convincing sort of interpretations of how "we fit into the world" (p. 243). "This can be done best-most fully and convincingly-not by propounding an interpretation that has the appearance of an explanation, but by arranging the materials of human life and letting the interpretation emerge" (p. 243). But this view lets the justification of Wittgenstein's claims rest on their ability to be tested and further articulated. That would mean that we ought to reject the self-descriptions we get from traditional philosophy simply because of their inability to meet the test of comprehensiveness. But it is clear, and I have argued, that these forms of self-description are rejected by Wittgenstein because of their inability to bring about an acceptance of the human form of life. It nlay be that the traditional self-descriptions also are not

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convincing in Eldridge's sense, but avoiding unconvincing interpretations is not Wittgenstein's primary goal. 24. Bernard Williams, "Wittgenstein and Idealism," and Jonathan Lear, "Leaving the World Alone." 25. Lear argues in a footnote that Rorty is mistaken to reject Wittgensteinian transcendentalism. But Rorty, like Wittgenstein, is impressed by the contingency of forms of life, not by the necessity of certain aspects of our form of life. See Rorty's Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity and my discussion of forms of life in Chapter 6. 26. See the section "I, You, and We" in Chapter 3 for a more detailed discussion of this section.

3. Confession and Dialogue 1. See also H. D. P. Lee's "Wittgenstein 1929-1931," p. 218, where Lee reports that Wittgenstein found Augustine's way of formulating philosophical problems illuminating. 2. Saint Augustine, Confessions. 3. Stanley Cavell discusses the issue of style in the Philosophical Investigations in "The Availability of Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy." There are crucial tensions in his discussion. On the one hand, he admits that Wittgenstein's inquiry aims to produce self-knowledge. On the other hand, he claims that the style of the text, because of this goal, is confessional. He distinguishes between confession and correctness and claims that Wittgenstein is battling against correctness in favor of this confessional mode. But this view is hard to make out. When Wittgenstein asks questions about what one would say about this or that phenomenon, he is concerned to find out how things are with us or him. But when he characterizes these verbal inclinations as temptations to be avoided, then he is appealing to what it would be correct to say. The confessional mode is not in contrast to correctness, but incorporates issues of correctness at its very center. In Wittgenstein and Derrida, Henry Staten points out (p. 98) the limitations of Cavell's description of the confessional language of the Investigations. He indicates Cavell's failure to give a complete description of the variety of forms of confessional language, but does not give an exhaustive account himself. The confessional character of Wittgenstein's later writing also is mentioned by Pears (Ludwig Wittgenstein, p. 7). For an extended discussion of Cavell's view in The Claim of Reason, see the last section in Chapter 3. Fann (Wittgenstein's Conception of Philosophy, p. 105) argues quite rightly that Wittgenstein's text is confessional and persuasive. He acknowledges the first-person character of the confessions (106) and their function in helping others. Ray Monk's biography of Wittgenstein's contains a chapter on the role of confession in Wittgenstein's life. His list of episodes of confession is more extensive than I have seen in other accounts.

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4. See Ray Monk's claim that Wittgenstein thought that all honest philosophy begins with confession (Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, p. 366).

4. The Role of Similes in Illness and Health 1. For three descriptions of how images and pictures are different, see James Edwards's Ethics Without Philosophy, pp. 122-23; Virgil Aldrich's "Picture-Meaning, Picture-Thinking, and Wittgenstein's Theory of Aspects"; and Peter Winch's "Wittgenstein: Picture and Representation" in Trying to Make Sense. 2. Some commentators think that Wittgenstein intends to do away with mythology. See Baker and Hacker, Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning p. 469, and Pole, p. 91. This suggests the sort of Enlightenment project Wittgenstein rejected. See this section and the next two for an extended discussion of this and related issues. 3. For a list of the similes Wittgenstein puts forth, see Jerry Gill's Wittgenstein and Metaphor, Chapters 4-6. Staten refers to the notion of family resemblance as one image among nlany, including the images of the toolbox, the chess game, and so on that functions as a helpful illustration, not as some master concept (p. 83). 4. For an interesting discussion of this text, see Frank Cioffi's "Wittgenstein and the Fire Festivals" and "When Do Empirical Methods Bypass 'The Problems Which Trouble Us'?" 5. Hilmy argues that Wittgenstein was influenced by Spengler's comparative method as early as 1931. Hilmy makes much of Wittgenstein's critique of Spengler's idea that the ideal of a phenomenon indicated its essence. Wittgenstein thought that it would be better to take the ideal as an investigative object of comparison. Hilmy, in note 230, presents a somewhat nlore extended description of Spengler's influence on Wittgenstein that emphasizes Spengler's notion that world history could not be represented as a single linear progression but requires comparison of the life cycles of different cultures. Hilmy also criticizes Nicholas Gier for finding nlore lines of influence than this. Hilmy claims that Gier fallaciously infers that Wittgenstein was influenced by all of Spengler's methods because he was influenced by some. I hope that my discussion of some of these other lines of influence-the appeal to simile, the requirement that we cease to think in these examinations, the grasp of the ideal in rather than behind the phenomenon, and the crucial distinction between reasons and causes-show that the similarities in approach must be much deeper than Hilmy indicates. I have tried to show that there is an affinity between his own views and Spengler's, not that Wittgenstein derived these ideas from Spengler. But Hilmy's view makes it somewhat more puzzling than it is why Wittgenstein found Spengler's approach attractive. I already indicated in note 1 of Chapter 2 that Hilmy fails to discuss that therapeutic character of Wittgenstein's project in his otherwise illuminating interpretation of Wittgenstein's project.

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For a somewhat different defense of the claim that Spengler's influence on Wittgenstein is more extensive than Hilmy allows, see Rudolf Haller's "Was Wittgenstein Influenced by Spengler?" in his Questions on Wittgenstein. 6. Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, p. 9. 7. We find the first approach at PI 179, and the second can be seen at PI 374.

5. The Conflict between Philosophy and Science 1. See Malcolm Budd's Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Psychology, pp. 2ff. 2. Richard Rorty constructs a similar view of the nature of psychoanalysis and its difference from natural science in "Freud and Moral Reflection." His description of the goal of psychoanalytic reflection departs from Wittgenstein's in his emphasis on psychoanalytic therapy as conversation between different persons who are parts of the patient and his enlphasis on ways in which new self-descriptions allow one to "tinker with our behavior" (19). Wittgenstein emphasizes the persuasion of the patient by the analyst and the resignation to some problematic feature of one's life. 3. An extremely helpful set of discussions of these and related issues can be found in a series of articles by Frank Cioffi, "Wittgenstein's Freud," "When Do Empirical Methods Bypass the Problems Which Trouble Us?" "Wittgenstein and the Fire-Festivals," and "Aesthetic Explanation and Aesthetic Perplexity." In his 6/12/45 letter to Malcolm (Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir, 2d ed.), Wittgenstein also speaks of Freud's extraordinary scientific achievement. So claims in his lectures and conversations must not be nleant to show that Freud's thinking is not scientific at all, but to show the places where it is not scientific. 4. John V. Canfield, "Calculations, Reasons, and Causes." 5. See Sigmund Freud, "Instincts and their Vicissitudes," The Interpretation of Dreams; Freud by Richard Wolheim; and "The Nature and Plausibility of Cognitivism" by John Haugeland, pp. 219ff. 6. Wittgenstein claims that it is his method that is important, not the particular views he defended (PI, 133, and Moore, 322). 7. See The Tao of Physics, p. 125. 8. D. C. Dennett, "Current Issues in the Philosophy of Mind," p. 251. 9. J. F. M. Hunter, Essays After Wittgenstein. 10. It would be important to determine the limits of legitimate conceptual revision, but my point does not depend on deternlining those limits. 11. One reviewer referred to the language of the book as violent. See Jane Heal's review in Mind. Heal also claims that the conceptual conservatism of Baker and Hacker's view is not convincingly defend~~_bJ_t~~~_ _ _

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12. The Philosophical Review, p. 454 13. For a recent account that is standard, see Meredith Williams's, Wittgenstein's Rejection of Scientific Psychology." It is noteworthy that Williams presents no textual evidence for her interpretation. 14. For a critique of Wittgensteinian rejections of psychology, see Richard Rorty's "Epistemology and Empirical Psychology," Chapter 5 of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. 15. In "Wittgenstein and Neuroscience."

6. An Evaluation ofWittgenstein's Therapeutic Project I 1. Newton Garver, "Die Lebensform in Wittgensteins Philosophische Untersuchungen. " 2. Peter Winch, The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy, p. 100. 3. Rudolf Haller argues convincingly that Wittgenstein intends both readings at different places in "Form of Life or Forms of Life" in Questions on Wittgenstein, and Gertrude D. Conway attributes a two-tiered view to him in Wittgenstein on Foundations, Chapters 3 and 4. I found both of these treatments helpful in thinking about Wittgenstein's notion of formes) of life. 4. The way in which Wittgenstein would clarify these language ganles of course would be incompatible from the ways in which traditional participants would have understood them, but that should not be surprising. Consider the ways in which he clarifies religious language games. The closest he comes to presenting these clarifications is in his comments on traditional philosophy as presenting new notations to relieve mental cramps, in The Blue Book. 5. Thus, it would seem that Wittgenstein would hold that a form of life can be deficient. This view is defended by Lawrence M. Hinman in "Can a Form of Life Be Wrong?" Unfortunately, he draws no distinction between the singular and plural uses of the term. It is not at all possible that the human form of life is wrong. 6. Nordenfelt rejects analytic theories of health on the grounds that the health of the person cannot be explained as a function of the states of the person's organs. See Chapter 2. 7. Some people read Wittgenstein in this way in reference to Philosophical Investigations, 133, where he wants to be able to stop doing philosophy when he wants to. See for example, John Wisdom's claim that we would be better off "doing something for people real and alive" than to worry about metaphysical problems. See Philosophy and Psychoanalysis, p. 282.

Notes to Chapter 6

141

8. Stanley Cavell gives strong weight to Wittgenstein's cultural criticism as central to his philosophical project in This New Yet Unapproachable America, in "Declining Decline." 9. Bernard Williams, in Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, argues that there are no intellectual foundations for moral thinking and that we need to develop institutions that produce confidence in our moral beliefs and practices to retain moral thinking and practices. Annette Baier argues that foundationalist ethics produces cultural skepticism about ethical practices. See Postures of the Mind, most especially "Theory and Reflective Practices" and "Doing Without Moral Theory." See also, Stanley Clarke and Evan Simpson, eds., Anti-Theory in Ethics and Moral Conservatism, especially the introductory essay. 10. At this point, at the filling in of a justification of the therapy, Shiner's and Cavell's concern with community seem well-placed, not in the reading into passages cited earlier, where it is not so clear these meanings are to be found. 11. See my criticism of Lear and Williams in the last section of Chapter 2. See also Rudolf Haller's "Was Wittgenstein a Neo-Kantian?" in Questions on

Wittgenstein. 12. Here, of course, I am criticizing Rorty's reading of Wittgenstein suggested by his own project. See Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, p. 26. This reading of Rorty may be unfair because Rorty does not speak of forms of life in this passage, but he either means it or else he has left this important notion out of his account. 13. Newton Garver holds that Wittgenstein never seriously maintains that there are forms of life. See his "Die Lebensform in Wittgensteins Philosophische Untersuchungen." For a discussion of the problems with Garver's view, see Rudolf Haller's "Form of Life or Forms of Life?" in Questions on Wittgenstein. 14. This is Haller's term in his "Was Wittgenstein a Skeptic? or On the Differences Between Two 'Battle Cries'" in ibid.

15. The reading of Wittgenstein as relativist can be seen in Peter Winch's The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy. 16. The issue of Wittgenstein's conservatism has been aired in an exchange between J. C. Nyiri, in "Wittgenstein 1929-31: The Turning Back," and Joachim Schulte, in "Wittgenstein and Conservatism." I criticized Schulte earlier but side with him here in the claim that Wittgenstein's position is not inherently conservative. But given my interpretation of Wittgenstein's therapeutic ideal, not shared by Schulte, it is crucial that I be able to show in a way different from Schulte how Wittgenstein is no conservative. Stanley Cavell raises this important issue in This New Yet Unapproachable America: Lectures After Emerson After Wittgenstein, pp. 40ff., as does Maurice Cornforth in Marxism and the Linguistic Philosophy, pp. 261-62.

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7. An Examination o!Wittgenstein's Therapeutic Project II 1. The open-endedness of certain forms of psychotherapy also complicates the evaluation of their results. See Jerome D. Franks's Persuasion and Healing, p. 21. 2. Franks claims that the medical model is not even appropriate for psychotherapy. Ibid., pp. 322-25. 3. See Cora Daimond's "Realism and the Realistic Spirit" for a discussion of Wittgenstein's remark in RFM, p. 325: "Not empiricism and yet realism in philosophy, that is the hardest thing." 4. To name a few, Quine's account of propositional attitudes as being about no fact of the matter; Stich's account of propositional attitudes as primitive psychology, to be rejected with advances in scientific psychology; Mackie's account of moral properties as "queer." 5. For example, any account of propositional attitudes that treats them as part of some empirical theory in need of elaboration to justify, for example, attributions of beliefs, such as Chihara and Fodor's view discussed in Chapter 5, or any foundational account of knowledge, like Descartes's, that treats ordinary knowledge as ignorance until it can be put on a to-be-developed firm foundation, or an ethical theory, like MacIntyre's, that claims that our moral claims are illegitimate outside of some explicit moral theory, embedded in a tradition of inquiry. 6. G. H. von Wright, "A Biographical Sketch" in Malcolm's Wittgenstein: A Memoir, p. 14. 7. Robert J. Fogelin, Wittgenstein, pp. 233-34. 8. K. T. Fann in Wittgenstein's Conception of Philosophy, Chapter 5, gives an argument against von Wright that mentions a number of thinkers from whom Wittgenstein inherited his later project. He mentions Sraffa, Ramsey, Moore, Hertz, Lichtenberg, and Mauthner, among others. There is no mention of the influence of Spengler and the consequential indirect influence of Goethe. Fann, however, does mention the similarity between Plato's dialectical approach to philosophy and Wittgenstein's later philosophy (p. 53). 9. One should also mention Sraffa in this regard. See Fann, ibid., p. 49. 10. See Robert E. Cushman, Therapeia, who makes a good case for the claim that Plato's philosophy is therapeutic.

11. Dialogue and Discovery; all references to Seeskin's views are to this text.

12. Socratic Education in Plato's Early Dialogues; all references to Teloh's work are to this text.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books Ackerman, Robert. Wittgenstein's City. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988. Baier, Annette. Postures of the Mind. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985. Baker, G. P., and P.M.S. Hacker. Language, Sense, and Nonsense: A Critical Investigation into Modern Theories of Language. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984. - - - . Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.

Budd, Malcolm. Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Psychology. London and New York: Routledge, 1989. Canfield, John V. The Philosophy of Wittgenstein, 15 vols. New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1986. Capra, Fritjof. The Tao of Physics. New York: Bantam Books, 1984. Cavell, Stanley. The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. - - - . In Quest of the Ordinary. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. - - - . This New Yet Unapproachable America: Lectures After Emerson After Wittgenstein. Albuquerque: Living Batch Press, 1989.

Clarke, Stanley G., and Evan Simpson, eds. Anti-Theory in Ethics and Moral Conservatism, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989. Conway, Gertrude D. Wittgenstein on Foundations. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press International, 1989. Cornforth, Maurice. Marxism and the Linguistic Philosophy. New York: International PUblishers, 1967. Cushman, Robert E. Therapeia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1958.

143

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Edwards, James C. Ethics Without Philosophy: Wittgenstein and the Moral Life. Tampa: University Presses of Florida, 1982. Fann, K. T. Wittgenstein's Conception of Philosophy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969. Fogelin, Robert. Wittgenstein. London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987. Franks, Jerome D. Persuasion and Healing. New York: Schocken Books, 1974. Freud, Sigmund. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Edited by James Strachey. 24 vols. London: Hogarth Press, 1964-1974. Gier, Nicholas. Wittgenstein and Phenomenology. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981. Gill, Jerry. Wittgenstein and Metaphor. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1981. Gustafson, Donald F., and Banes L. Tapscott. Body, Mind, and Method: Essays in Honor of Virgil Aldrich. Dordrecht and Boston: D. Reidel, 1979. Hacker, P. M. S. Insight and Illusion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972. Haller, Rudolf. Questions on Wittgenstein. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988. Hallet, Garth. A Companion to Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations." Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977. Hanfling, Oswald. Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989. Hartle, Ann. The Modern Self in Rousseau's Confessions. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983. Hilmy, S. Stephen. The Later Wittgenstein: The Emergence of a New Philosophical Method. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987. Hunter, Jeffrey. Essays After Wittgenstein. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973. Janik, Allan, and Stephen Edelston Toulmin. Wittgenstein's Vienna. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973. Kenny, Anthony. Wittgenstein. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977. Kuhn, T. S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.

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Kuklick, Bruce. The Rise of American Philosophy: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1860-1930. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977. Lovibond, Sabina. Realism and Imagination in Ethics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983. MacIntyre, Alasdair. Whose Justice, Which Rationality? South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988. - - - . After Virtue. South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984.

Malcolm, Norman. Ludwig Wittgenstein: .£1 Memoir. With a biographical sketch by G. H von Wright. 2nd edition with Wittgenstein's letters to Malcolm. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. McGinn, Cotlin. Wittgenstein on Meaning: An Interpretation and Evaluation. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984. McGuinness, Brian. Wiltgenstein: A Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. - - - , ed. Wittgenstein and His Times. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. Monk, Ray. Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. New York: The Free Press, 1990. Moore, G. E. Philosophical Papers. London: Allen and Unwin; New York: Humanities Press, 1977. Nagel, Thomas. The View from Nowhere. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. Nordenfelt, Lennart. On the Nature of Health. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1987.

Pears, David. The False Prison. 2 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

---a Ludwig Wittgenstein. New York: Viking Press, 1970. Pitcher, George. The Philosophy of Wittgenstein. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964. Pole, David. The Later Philosophy of Wittgenstein. London: Athlone Press, 1958. Putnam, Hilary. Reason, Truth, and History. Cambridge, England, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Quine, W. V. O. Theories and Things. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981.

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- - . Word and Object. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1960. Rorty, Richard. Consequences of Pragmatism: Essays, 1972-1980. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1982.

- - - . Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. - - - . Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980. Saint Augustine. Confessions. New York: Penguin Books, 1961. Seeskin, Kenneth. Dialogue and Discovery, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987. Spengler, Oswald. The Decline of the West. Translated by Charles Francis Atkinson. 2 vols. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926 and 1928. Staten, Henry. Wittgenstein and Derrida. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984. Stout, Jeffrey. Ethics After Babel. Boston: Beacon Press, 1988.

- - - . The Flight from Authority. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981. Teloh, Henry. Socratic Education in Plato's Early Dialogues. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986. Tolstoi, L. N. The Gospel in Brief. New York: T. Y. Crowell and Co., 1896. von Wright, G. H. The Varieties of Goodness. New York: Humanities Press, 1966. Williams, Bernard. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985.

- - - . Moral Luck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Winch, Peter. The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy. New York: Humanities Press, 1958.

- - . Trying to Make Sense. New York and Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987. Wisdom, John. Philosophy and Psychoanalysis. New York: Philosophical Library, 1953. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Big Typescript. In Wiltgenstein Papers, 213. University of California, Berkeley. Microfiche.

- - - . Culture and Value. Edited by G. H. von Wright in collaboration with Heikki Nynlan. Chicago: University of Chicago P~~s~12®--"-

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- - - . Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology, and Religious Belief. Edited by Cyril Barrett. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972. - - - . Letters to Russell, Keynes, and Moore. Edited by G. H. von Wright, assisted by B. F. McGuiness. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1974. - - . Notebooks, 1914-1916. Edited by G. H. von Wright and G. E. M. Anscombe. New York: Harper and Row, 1969. - - - . On Certainty. Edited by G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright. New York: Harper and Row, 1972. - - . Philosophical Grammar. Edited by Rush Rhees, Translated by Anthony Kenny. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974. - - - . Philosophical Investigations. New York: Macmillian Publishing, 1969. - - - . Philosophical Remarks. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975. - - - . Preliminary Studies for the "Philosophical Investigations," Generally Known as the Blue and Brown Books. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1969. - - - . Prototractatus: An Early Version of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Edited by B. F. McGuinness, T. Nyberg, and G. H. von Wright. Translated by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1971. - - - . Remarks on Colour. Edited and translated by G. E. M. AnSCOlTlbe. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. - - - . Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough. Edited by Rush Rhees. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1979. - - - . Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics. Edited by G. H. von Wright, R. Rhees, and G. E. M. Anscombe. Trans. G. E. M. Anscombe. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1967. - - . Remarks on the Foundations of Mathen1atics. Revised edition. Edited by G. H. von Wright, R. Rhees, and G. E. M. Anscombe. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1983. - - . Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology. 2 vols. Oxford: University of Chicago Press and Basil Blackwell, 1980. - - . Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. - - . Zettel. Edited by G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967. Wollheim, Richard. Freud: A Collection of Critical Essays. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1974.

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Articles Aldrich, Virgil. "Picture-Meaning, Picture-Thinking, and Wittgenstein's Theory of Aspects." Mind 67 (1958): 70-79. Burlingame, Charles E. "Wittgenstein, His Logic, and His Promethean Mission." Philosophy Research Archives 12 (1986-87): 195-218. Canfield, John V. "Calculations, Reasons, and Causes." In Body, Mind, and Method, edited by Donald F. Gustafson and Bangs L. Tapscott, pp. 179-96. Dordrecht and Boston: D. Reidel, 1979. - - . "Wittgenstein and Zen," Philosophy 50 (1975): 383--408. Cavell, Stanley. "The Availability of Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy." In Wittgenstein: The Philosophical Investigation, edited by George Pitcher, pp. 151-85. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1966. Chihara, Charles, and Jerry Fodor. "Operationalism and Ordinary Language: A Critique of Wittgenstein." American Philosophical Quarterly 2 (1965): 281-95. Reprinted in Wittgenstein: The Philosophical Investigations, edited by George Pitcher, pp. 394-99. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966. Cioffi, Frank. "Aesthetic Explanation and Aesthetic Perplexity." Acta Philosophica Fennica 28: pp. 417--49. Reprinted in The Philosophy of Wittgenstein. Edited by John V. Canfield, vol. 14, pp. 71-104. New York: Garland Publishing, 1986. - - . "Wittgenstein and the Fire-Festivals." In Perspectives on the Philosophy of Wittgenstein, edited by Irving Block. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1983. - - . "Wittgenstein's Freud." In Studies in the Philosophy of Wittgenstein, edited by Peter Winch, pp. 184-210. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969. - - . "When Do Empirical Methods Bypass 'The Problems Which Trouble Us'?" Philosophy 59 (1984): 155-72. Reprinted in The Philosophy of Wittgenstein, vol. 5, edited by John V. Canfield, pp. 175-92. New York, Garland Publishing, 1986. Crittendon, Charles. "Wittgenstein on Philosophical Therapy and Understanding." International Philosophy Quarterly 10 (1970): 20-43. - - . "Serenity." Journal of Indian Philosophy 12 (1984): 201-14. - - . The Such ness of Things: In Buddhism, American Transcendentalism and Ordinary Language Philosophy." In Zen in American Life and Letters, edited by Robert S. Ellwood, pp. 51-66. Malibu, Calif.: Urdena Publications, 1987. -----------------------

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Daimond, Cora. "Realism and the Realistic Spirit." In Ludwig Wittgenstein: Critical Assessments, edited by Stuart Shanker, vol. 4: pp. 214-42. London: Croom Helm, 1986. Dennett, D. C. "Current Issues in the Philosophy of Mind." American Philosophical Quarterly 15 (1978): 249-61. Eldridge, Richard. "Hypotheses, Criterial Claims, and Perspicuous Representations: 'Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough'." Philosophical Investigations 10 (1987): 226-45. Farrell, B. A. "An Appraisal of Therapeutic Positivism." Mind, 55 (1946): 25-48 and 133-50. Freud, Sigmund. "Instincts and Their Vicissitudes." In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 14, edited by James Strachey, 111-40. London: Hogarth Press, 1964-74. Garver, Newton. "Die Lebensform in Wittgensteins Philosophischen Untersuchungen." Grazer Philosophische Studien 21 (1984): 33-54. Haugeland, John. "The Nature and Plausibility of Cognitivism." In Brain and the Behavioral Sciences 2 (1978): 215-60. Heal, Jane. "Review of Language, Sense, and Nonsense, by G. P. Baker and P. M. S. Hacker" Mind 94, no. 374, (1985): 307-10. Hinman, Lawrence. "Can a Form of Life Be Wrong?" Philosophy 58 (1983): 339-51. Hornstein, Norbert. "Review of Language, Sense, and Nonsense, by G. P. Baker and P. M. S. Hacker." The Philosophical Review 96 (1987): 450-55. John, Peter C. "Wittgenstein's Wonderful Life." Journal of the History of Ideas 49 (1988): 495-510. Kass, Leon R. "Regarding the End of Medicine and the Pursuit of Health." In Arthur L. Caplan et aI., Concepts of Health and Disease. Reading, Mass.: Addsion Wesley, 1981. Kenny, Anthony. "Cartesian Privacy." In George Pitcher, WiUgenstein: The Philosophical Investigations, pp. 352-70. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1966. - - . "Wittgenstein on the Nature of Philosophy." In Wittgenstein and His Times, edited by Brian McGinness, pp. 1-26. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. Klagge, James C. "Wittgenstein and Neuroscience." Synthese 78 (1989): 319-43. Lear, Jonathan. "Leaving the World Alone." Journal of Philosophy 79 (1982): 382-403.

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Lee, H. D. P. "Wittgenstein 1929-1931." Philosophy 54 (1979): 211-20. Moore, George Edward. "Wittgenstein's Lectures in 1930-33." In his Philosophical Papers. New York: Humanities Press, 1959. Nyiri, J. C. "Wittgenstein 1929-31: The Turning Back." In Ludwig Wittgenstein: Critical Assessments, edited by Stuart Shanker, vol. 4., pp. 29-59. London: Croom Helm, 1986. Originally published as "Ludwig Wittgenstein as a Conservative Philosopher" in Continuity: A Journal of History 8 (Spring 1984): 1-23. Peterman, James. "Wittgenstein on Rules and Meaning: A Review of Wittgenstein on Meaning by Colin McGinn." Behaviorism 15 (1987): 67-71. Phillips, D. Z. "On Wanting to Compare Wittgenstein and Zen." Philosophy 52 (1977): 338-93. Rhees, Rush. "Some Developments in Wittgenstein's View of Ethics." Philosophical Review 74 (1965): 17-27. Rorty, Richard. "Freud and Moral Reflection." In Pragmatism's Freud, edited by Joseph H. Smith and William Kerrigan. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Schulte, Joachim. "Wittgenstein and Conservatism." Ratio 25 (1983): 69-80. Shiner, Roger. "Canfield, Cavell, and Criteria." Dialogue 22 (1983): 253-72. Slater, Harvey. "Wittgenstein's Aesthetics." British Journal of Aesthetics 23 (1983): 34-37. Sluga, Hans. "Subjectivity in the Tractatus." Synthese 56 (1983): 123-40. Tilgham, B. R. "The Moral Dimension of the Philosophical Investigations." Philosophical Investigations 10 (1987): 99-117. Williams, Bernard. "Wittgenstein and Idealism." In his Moral Luck, pp. 164-83. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Williams, Meredith. "Wittgenstein's Rejection of Scientific Psychology." Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 15 (1985): 202-23. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. "A Lecture on Ethics." Philosophical Review 74 (1965): 3-26.

INDEX TO WITTGENSTEIN'S TEXTS AND LECTURES

Note: page and section numbers in Wittgenstein's texts are shown in parentheses, followed by page reference. 60, 71, 82; (322) 31; (323) 31, 32, 60,61 Notebooks, 1914-16 (references are to page numbers) (73) 23; (75) 23; (81) 23; (83) 30, 34; (85) 55; (87) 22 On Certainty (references are to section numbers) (92) 105, 106, 114; (95-7) 58; (97) 98; (162) 58; (204) 53; (359) 91 Philosophical Investigations (references are to section numbers unless otherwise indicated) (x) 65; (19) 26, 29, (p. 56) 37, 105, 106; (61-72) 46; (66) 64; (89) 40; (90) 117; (100-33) 41; (111) 24,49, 49,59;(112)49,50,59,60;(113) 73; (119) 49; (122) 21, 29,50, 60, 61; (123) 49; (124) 20, 71, 91, 114; (126) 32; (130) 20; (131) 65; (132) 69,85,106;(133) 18,50,61,66,69; (138) 73; (150) 72; (156) 47; (165) 46; (172) 72; (173) 51; (178) 56; (178) 73; (194) 58; (206) 104; (220) 58; (221) 58; (p. 223) 104; (p. 226) 26,29, 104; (p.230) 37,105, 106; (p. 232) 98; (241) 104; (244) 105; (254) 19, 43; (255) 19,(277) 43; (278) 43; (283) 57; (288) 44; (290) 51; (298) 45; (299) 45; (305) 57; (371) 126; (373) 126; (374) 44 (401-2) 84; (422) 57; (480) 105;

Wittgenstein's Lectures: Cambridge 1932-5, edited by Alice Ambrose (references are to page nUITtbers) (139-40) 82-3 Blue and Brown Books (references are to page numbers) (5) 79; (5-6) 64; (6) 86; (14) 81; (15) 82; (23) 78; (25) 93; (26) 40; (55) 97; (57-8) 79; (58) 81, 93 Culture and Value (references are to page numbers) (4) 25; (5) 126; (6) 70; (6-7) 67; (7) 36; (14) 65 (16) 28; (19) 42, 60, 75; (20) 75; (25) 33; (27) 25, 27, 30, 103; (28-9) 40; (31) 105; (34) 84; (35) 28; (43) 20; (45) 28, 40; (48) 28; 50, 70; (49) 28; (50) 28; (57) 20, 30, 75; (61) 70, 107; (66) 70; (77) 41; (79) 34; (93) 50 Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology, and Religious Belief, edited by Cyril Barrett (references are to page numbers) (18) 83; (25) 86; (27) 20, 64, 71; (28) 22, 28; (41) 78; (51) 20, 21, 32, 82; (51-2) 84 "A Lectures on Ethics" (references are to page nurnbers) (5) 18; (8) 23; (9-10) 40 "Wittgenstein's Lectures in 1930-33," by G. E. Moore (312) 30; (314) 32; (315) 31; (316)

151

152

PHILOSOPHY AS THERAPY

(577) 100; (593) 19; (607) 73; (654-56) 106 Prototractatus (references are to page numbers) (15-16) 14 Remarks on Colour (references are to page numbers) (21) 48; (9) 61 Remarks on the Foundations of Mathenlatics (references are to page numbers)

(1967, IV, 53) 21, 71; ( 132) 107; (132) 19, 28; (132) 30; (302) 20, 21 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (references are to proposition numbers) (5.641) 56; (5. 632) 24; (6. 130) 34; (6.421) 30,34; (6.430) 22; (6. 521) 22 Zettel (references are to section numbers) (69) 19; (456) 73

INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS

ad hominem arguments, 130 aesthetic charm in physics, 86 aesthetics akin to ethics, 30 as resembling philosophy, 33 agreement in forms of life as an ideal of health, 103 as an ideal of health, 108 defined, 108 related to happiness, 110 agreement with forms of life as solution to life and philosophical problems, 27 agreement with the world as ethical goal, 12 and forms of life, 16

Baker, G. P., 99 'beautiful,' grammar of, 30 behavior prelinguistic, 126 bewitchment as a confessional subject, 41, 42, 48 as in need of a cure, 74 produces a false appearance, 50 black box problem, 85 body as best picture of the soul, 56 bunlps of the understanding, 49

Canfield, John V., 84--5,125 Capra, Fritjof, 88 causal claims in aesthetic inquiry, 125

in experimental contexts, 125 causal laws, 74 causal mechanisms mistaken as sources of intelligibility,106 causes of illness, 119 causes as similar to reasons, 85 distinguished from reasons, 81-3 in aesthetics, 122 Cavell, Stanley, 48, 52, 53, 54, 137 ceasing to think, 63-4 clarification distinguished from theory-construction, 14 clarity as ethical goal, 35 as therapeutic goal, 36 comparative method, 64 concepts intelligibility of, 105

conceptual conservatism, 97,101. See also conservatism confession defined, 39 in Plato and St. Augustine, 129 ordinary sense of, 39 in therapeutic discourse, 5 confessional character of Philosophical Investigations, confessional text structure of, 42 confusion as a confessional subject, 42 conservatism, 116, 117. See also conceptual conservatism

153

154

PHILOSOPHY AS THERAPY

correct method of philosophy, 16 cultural health as constraint of on philosophy, 112 as justification of therapy, 113 defined, 112 cultural ideal, 111 culture distinguished from civilization, 66-7 cycles of, 55 cures as inlplying causal claims, 120

deconstruction, 133 Dennet, Daniel, 88 description distinguished from persuasion in philosophy,20 as transformative, 55 descriptive method in philosophy, 10 destiny distinguished from causality, 62-3 dialectic in confessional contexts, 51 in therapy, 123 role of, in therapeutic discourse, 5 dialectical character of Philosophical Investigations, 12 disagreement in philosophy, 123

Edwards, James C., 134 Eldridge, Richard, 136 emotion, 110 epistemological foundations, 53 episteJTIology,36 erfuhlen and agreement with forms of life, 63-4 essentialism, 115-16 ethical character of Phiosophical Investigations, 11 ethical critique of Freud, 87 ethical goal of Wittgenstein's philosophy, 54 ethical health in relation to happi-

ness, 100 ethical purpose of the Tractatus, 23-4 ethics and the unsayable, 23 defined, 3, 17,18 in Philosophical Investigations, 10 in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 10

fact-value distinction, 84 family resemblance as simile, 65 Fann, K. T., 133 Farrell, B. A., 119-120 fate, 68 Ficker, L. von letter to, 25 first -order occurences of pronouns, 46 Fogelin, Robert, 128, 130, 135 fornl of life as realizing ideals, 114 as substitutes for transcendent self and world, 16, 26 as unchangeable 104, 117 defined, 107 distinguished from mode of life, 107 in its relation to soul, 57 ranking, 107, 114, 115 religious, 117 shared, 56 singular and plural uses of the term distinguished, 104 formulas, in philosophy and science, 63-4 Freud, Sigmund, 60, 69, 78

game-picture distinction, 72 Gier, Nicolas, 138 Goethe's "exact percipient fancy," 63 Goethe, 62,129,130 'good,' grammar of, 30 gramm~~~~~~e~~n~~La~ifi~aJi9!},_7)

_

Index Hacker, P. M. S., 99, 135 Hanfling, Oswald, 132 happiness, defined as agreement with the world, 28 health as a cluster concept, 109 as an ideal, 3 cultural, 5 defined in terms as an ideal human flourishing, 7, 8, 18 in relation to illness, 2 philosophical, 1 positive and negative conceptions of,2 Hilmy, S. Stephen, 132, 138 Hornstein, Norbert, 100 hunlan behavior common, 104 prelinguistic, 105

'I,' occurrences of, in Philosophical Investigations, 45-7 ideals as objects of comparison, 65 in philosophy, ethics and aesthetics, 32 as mistaken as sources of intelligibility, 106, 127 images, distinguished from pictures, 57 impairments of the understanding, 75 inclination to say such and such, 45 indifference thesis, 101 insulation thesis, 101 interlocutor and nl0nologue, 52 as confessional device, 48 role of, in Philosophical Investigations, 74 intuition, 63 justifications, alien to language games, 126-7 Kenny, Anthony, 46,132 Klagge, James, 101

155

ladder metaphor, 22 language game as containing confusing pictures, 57 as object of clarification, 52, 62, 65 as objects of comparison, 85 as source for agreement, 29, 64 intelligibility of, 104, 105 justification of, 126 of dreaming, 92-3 primitive, 105 language behavioral component of, 59 contains a mythology, 58 pictorial component of, 59 linguistic inclination as temptations, 45-7 treatment of, 47

Malcolm, Norman, 33 measurement puzzlement about, 49 mental cramps, 49 as deep disturbance, 17 nlental health defined, 110 method of philosophy, 19 methods of ethics and aesthetics, 30 mind-models, 80 misunderstanding of meanings, 42 mode of life as alterable, 27, 114 distinguished from forms of life, 107 monologue in Philosophical Investigation,\" 53 mood, lID Moore, G. E., 11 mould of life, 25-6 mythology, embedded in language, 58

natural science goals of, in relation to human wellbeing,9 naturalism of the Philosophical Investigations, 29

156

PHILOSOPHY AS THERAPY

neopragmatism, 115-16 neo-Kantians, 115-16 new notations distinguished from discoveries, 81 Nordenfelt, Lennart, 103, 108 passim notational pluralism, 97

ordinary language, 73 organic character of phenomenon, 62 originality, Wittgenstein's, 128-130

pain language game of, 51 picture of, 44 paleontology and intermediate connnexions, 62 as model for textual interpretation, 10 peace of tnind as goal of philosophy, 27 negative and positive conceptions, 29 Pyrrhonian, 128 Pears, David, 133 perspicuous representations defined, 59 and seeing connexions, 61, 73 as including reference to prelinguistic behavior, 125-26 as necessary for sound understanding, 21, 26 presentation of, as goal, 16 persuasion in philosophy, 20 phi Iosophical discovery nature of, 18 philosophical disease, 19 philosophical disquietude, 49 philosophical disturbance causes of, 123 philosophical facts, 71 philosophical illness, as lack of clarity, 17 dependent on myth and pictures,

59

textual evidence about, 19 philosophical method demonstrated, 41 akin to therapeutic methods, 18 philosophical peace as ethical goal, 29, 35 as goal of Philosophical Investigations, 50 philosophical problems as problems of life, 35 philosophical puzzlement resolution of, 70 philosophical reflection goal of, 19 philosophical shame, 30, 48 philosophical therapy as a development of Tractarian ethics, 13 distinct from conceptual analysis, 13 sense of the term,1, 4 philosophical torment cause of, 120 philosophical treatment, 19 philosophy as analogous to aesthetics, 121, 123 as analogous to therapy, 17 discovery of the method of, 31 resembles aesthetics, 33 role of persuasion and description in, 20-21 physical health defined, 110 picture as a source of confusion, 45 distinguished from criteria, 44 distinguished from images, 57 role in grasping destiny Plato, 129-30 practical ethics, 22 praexiological foundationalism, 116 prime phenomenon, 62 primitive ideals, 63 private language argument, 57 problems of ethics death, 15 life, 9,14

Index meaning of life, 15 akin to problems of logic, 29 as problems of the limit of the world, 15 problems of philosophy distinguished from natural science,

80 pronouns first- and second-order, 46, 48 psychoanalysis Wittgenstein's criticisms of, 79 as akin to aesthetics, 83 psychological explanation, 79 psychological mechanisms, 79 purpose of human existence, 23 puzzlement as a confessional subject, 41-2 derives from pictures, 44 elimination of, 60

Quine, W. V. 0., 8, 9, 120, 127

real philosophical discovery criterion of, 19 reasons as similar to causes, 86 distinguished from causes, 81-3, 124 in aesthetic investigations, 83 relativism, 107, 116 rules, 96 Russell, Bertrand, 23, 73

saying-showing distinction, 15 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 56, 129 Schulte, Joachim, 136, 141 second-order occurrences of pronouns, 48 seduction as a confessional subject, 42, 48 produces a false appearance, 50 Seeskin, Ken, 129 self as identical with world, 56

157

as limit of the world, 15 distinguished from soul, 56 self-evidence, 68 self-expression, 68 sensations picture of, 44 Shiner, Roger A., 53 showing-saying distinction, 15 silence as the mark of seeing the world aright, 17 in both Wittgenstein's early and later works, 9 problem of, 14 simile and mythology, 73 as correct or incorrect, 72, 75 as source of philosophical health and illness, 12, 55, 59, 60, 74, 124 distinguished from formulas, 71 Freud's use of, 31 give rise to expectations, 72 role of in philosophy, 64 skepticism, 91, 128, 130 Socratic conversation, 129 soul picture of, 57 relation to body, 57 sound human understanding defined, 74-5 in relation to the ends of human life, 22 Spengler's Oswald, 17,55 passim, 129-30 St. Augustine, 40, 129-130 strict method of philosophy, 9 sub-specie aeternitatus, 22, 24, 30 superfacts, 71 synopsis of facts, 32, 61 systematic account of therapy, 9,14

talking nlachine hypothesis, 95 Teloh, Henry, 129 temptation as a confessional subject, 42, 48

158

PHILOSOPHY AS THERAPY

as something to be treated, 43-4, 51 produces a false appearance, 50 the human good in relation to therapy, 35 theory of health subject goal, 109 vital goal, 109 welfare, 108 therapeutic discourse ad hominem character of, 7 therapeutic goals negative and positive, 110-11 therapeutic philosophy eJements of, 7 therapeutic transformation, 55 therapy and human health, 17 as family resemblance term, 131 cultural, 3 ethical, 3 medical model of, 124 open distinguished from closed, 123-4 philosophical distinguished from rhetorical, 6 role of dialectic in, 4-5 theistic, 3 Tilghanl, B. R., 135 ToJstoi,14

transcendental idealism, 48 transcendentalism of the Tractatus, 24 treatment as a clarification, 50 individual character of, 6

Obersichlichkeit, 59 unconscious thoughts, 79

von Wright, G. H., 128, 130

'we' as confessional pronoun, 37 occurrences of in Philosophical Investigations, 46 shifts from (1),47 Wells, H. G., 73 Williams, Bernard, 48 Williams, Meredith, 140 wonderful descriptions distinguished from explanations, 87

'you' occurrences of, in Philosophical Investigations, 46