Nordic Wittgenstein Review (NWR)
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Review of Inside Ethics: On the Demands of Moral Thought by Alice Crary
No full textBook review of Crary, Alice, Inside Ethics: On the Demands of Moral Thought, Harvard University Press 2016
What We Can Learn about Phenomenal Concepts from Wittgenstein’s Private Language
Get PDFThis paper is both systematic and historical in nature. From a historical viewpoint, I aim to show that to establish Wittgenstein’s claim that “an ‘inner process’ stands in need of outward criteria” (PI §580) there is an enthymeme in Wittgenstein’s private language argument (henceforth PLA) overlooked in the literature, namely Wittgenstein’s suggestion that both perceptual and bodily experiences are transparent in the relevant sense that one cannot point to a mental state and wonder “What is that?” From a systematic viewpoint, I aim to show that Wittgenstein’s PLA teaches us that the prevailing picture of the nature of phenomenal concepts (henceforth PCs) is upside down: we can only introspectively know what is going on inside our heads, after we learn of what is going on outside (PI §580). In this regard, I aim to defend two associate claims against the prevailing view of PCs on the basis of PLA. First, by means of transparency, I aim to show that there is no de re awareness of our private sensation that could determine the meaning of sensation-words; for example, I am never aware of the phenomenal blueness of my experience of something blue. The second associated claim is that introspective self-knowledge of our private sensation is always de dicto. We can only know introspectively that phenomenal blueness is the phenomenal character of the experience we are undergoing after we have learned that (de dicto knowledge) blue is the color that usually causes in us that kind of experience. Likewise, we can only introspectively know that pain is the phenomenal character of the experience we are undergoing after we have learned that pain is what usually causes some typical pain behavior
The University of Iowa Tractatus Map
Get PDFDrawing on recent work on the nature of the numbering system of the Tractatus and Wittgenstein’s use of that system in his composition of the Prototractatus, the paper sets out the rationale for the online tool called The University of Iowa Tractatus Map. The map consists of a website with a front page that links to two separate subway-style maps of the hypertextual numbering system Wittgenstein used in his Tractatus. One map displays the structure of the published Tractatus; the other lays out the structure of the Prototractatus. The site makes available the full text of the German and the two canonical English translations. While we envisage the map as a tool that we would like a wide variety of readers to find helpful, we argue that our website amounts to a radically new edition of Wittgenstein’s early masterpiece, with far-reaching implications for the interpretation of that text. In particular, we claim that our visually compelling presentation of the book’s overall structure delivers on Wittgenstein’s cryptic claim in a letter to his publisher that it is the numbers that “make the book surveyable and clear”
Review of Formen des Klärens by Christian Erbacher
No full textBook review of Christian Erbacher\u27s Formen des Klärens, Literarisch-Philosophische Darstellungsmittel in Wittgensteins Schriften, Münster: mentis 2015.***Christian Erbacher’s Formen des Klärens, Literarisch-Philosophische Darstellungsmittel in Wittgensteins Schriften, which I would translate as Forms of Elucidating, Literary-Philosophical Means of Presentation in Wittgenstein’s Works, comprises and critically analyzes the most important phases of almost a hundred years of both English and German speaking Wittgenstein scholarship on the form of his literary-philosophical presentation. Furthermore, Erbacher demonstrates a thorough first hand knowledge of Wittgenstein’s manuscripts and manner of work, while at the same time offering an interpretation of the Tractatus logico-philosophicus, as well as later works, that is capable of comprehending both Wittgenstein’s serious and intense ethical and aesthetic preoccupations, as well as his significant contributions to logic and philosophy of language. Furthermore, despite its density, Erbacher’s slender book admirably achieves an elegant lucidity. Thus it performatively shows the unity of aesthetic-rhetorical form and philosophical content, as well as the ethical ideal of clarity at the core of Wittgenstein’s concerns
The Tractatus for Future Poets: \u27Dialectic of the Ladder\u27 by B. Ware
No full textBook review of Ben Ware, Dialectic of the Ladder: Wittgenstein, the Tractatus and Modernism, London: Bloomsbury 2015, xix+212 pp
\u27Wittgenstein and the Creativity of Language\u27, Edited by Grève and Mácha.
No full textBook review of Grève, Sebastian Sunday and Mácha, Jakub (eds.) 2016, Wittgenstein and the Creativity of Language, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, xxi + 318pp
\u27Wittgenstein on Colour\u27, Edited by Gierlinger and Riegelnik
No full textBook review of Gierlinger, Frederik A. and Riegelnik, Štefan (eds.) 2014, Wittgenstein on Colour, Berlin: De Gruyter, vii+124 pp
Moore(anists) and Wittgenstein on Radical Skepticism
Get PDFIn this paper, I present and criticize a number of influential contemporary anti-skeptical strategies inspired by G.E. Moore’s “proof of an external world”. I argue that these accounts cannot represent a valid response to skeptical worries. Furthermore, drawing on Wittgenstein’s criticisms of Moore, I argue that Radical skeptical hypotheses should be considered nonsensical combinations of signs, excluded from our epistemic practices
Note from the Editors
Get PDFThe editors discuss issues related to the journal, its editing process and publication model