One consequence of the high level of scholarship in the commentary
on Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations begun (in
1980) by Gordon Baker and Peter Hacker is that this commentary
(deservedly) became a resource for all (or almost all) who wished
to take seriously the study of Wittgenstein. That work, and especially
that first volume, was the cornerstone of what was (affectionately?:
see Baker, 2004 p. 2) termed "B&H". At the least,
it offered a shared background for disputes in detail. As time
passed, two important changes modified the project: the first
was a change both in the general availability of Wittgenstein's Nachlass and in the ease of access to it -- especially
given the Bergen/OUP CD-ROM version. This permitted some easy access to some questions about precursors of particular
remarks, although (as would be attested by anyone who has used
computer programmes as tools for searches of this kind) it was
nothing like as straightforward as is sometimes supposed. The
second change was the emergent dispute between B and H, leading
to Gordon Baker's departure from the project after the second
volume (which [recall] was published in 1985 and takes us up
to PI §242[1]). A primary explanation of this split resided
in irreconcilable differences on how Wittgenstein's philosophical
concerns were to be understood; and, crucially, how those concerns
were reflected in Wittgenstein's comments about perspicuous representation
and about surveyability. For these comments bear centrally on
how the project of philosophy was to be understood. This too
was of major significance since, given its root in the fundamentals
of Wittgenstein scholarship, such a difference between their
views was clearly a very serious one. So what should happen next?
The context for this discussion, then, is the modification of
that original scholarly achievement. And, of course, any changes
must be seen in the light of Gordon Baker's death in 2002. Moreover,
the issues here concern not merely this text, and not
merely the vagaries of Wittgenstein scholarship, but how we should
regard our relationship (more specifically, our obligations)
to the posterity of philosophy.
As Peter Hacker (2005a p. xiv) now describes it, the first of
the changes noted above lies behind his decision to 're-issue'
the first volume of that commentary (now split into a volume
of essays [Hacker, 2005a] and a volume of exegesis [Hacker, 2005b]),
in a " second edition, extensively revised", where
this new edition reflects exclusively Hacker's " understanding
of Wittgenstein's philosophy and interpretations of his text"
(Hacker, 2005a p. xiv). Further, Hacker (2005a p. xiv) plainly
states that " Gordon Baker bears no responsibility for the
many changes I have made". The problem, of course, is that
-- in thus reflecting the first of the changes noted above --
the text puts aside the second: but it does so while leaving
Baker's name on the title page.
I will come shortly to some key differences with Baker which,
to my mind, Hacker leaves insufficiently acknowledged (and with
insufficient references). But it is worth recognising the difficulty
of his problem: much of the scholarly work in the exegesis and
some of the material retained in the essays (for instance, in
the essay on "Explanation") is the result of the earlier
joint endeavour of B&H. Clearly Baker's contributions here
could not with justice simply be set aside. And this difficulty
would be intensified in proportion to one's taking seriously
Hacker's repeated acknowledgement in other places (too) of his
debt to Baker. How best to give due weight to Baker's contribution
and to his (positive) influence here? For, as it stands, this
'revised' work (in both volumes: Hacker, 2005a, 2005b) is substantially
a text by Hacker. The possibility apparently considered when
the idea of a revised edition was mooted, to " leave the
original text as it stood" (Hacker, 2005a p. xiv) where
no mutually agreeable solution could be found, was clearly impractical
once Gordon's illness (and subsequent death) precluded his taking
any role in the new project. Therefore acting on their
agreement have precluded any changes. And it is these
facts that Hacker recognises, in moving towards the new version.
As he grants, the guiding light there will be pure Hacker: it
will be 'all his own work'. Then retaining Gordon on the title
page just acknowledges his contribution to the project in its
original phase. Yet that will mean that the fundamental differences
between the original authors will be given no explicit place
in these volumes. So this is a text where -- if one consults,
for instance, Amazon.com -- a (or the) primary author
would have been profoundly unhappy at the content of an obviously
new work. And that cannot be 'justice' either.
In discussions with me, Gordon Baker identified some ways in
which -- from his perspective -- the exegesis sections from the
first volume of commentary were deficient in detail: for instance,
they failed to distinguish single-quotes from double-quotes in
ways Gordon had come to see (if he hadn't initially) were pernicious
for our understanding of a meticulous writer like Wittgenstein.
[In fact, he typically presented this to me as a battle he had
failed to fight (or, anyway, win) with the publishers.] But these
were not really fundamental issues.
When one turns to the essays, however, far more must be said:
here the disputes with Hacker concerned issues that were
fundamental for any reading which granted Wittgenstein's importance.
And this was an area where (for Gordon) the B&H commentary
has gone astray. For instance, the conception of philosophy presented
there -- in particular, in the essay of that title -- was (Gordon
thought) demonstrably not Wittgenstein's. And if there was one
place in the early sections of PI where this was crucial, it
was in respect of the idea of perspicuous representation, or
übersicht, and the corresponding 'requirement' for
surveyability. [There was a yet more important, if later, case:
the so-called Private Language Argument -- Gordon became a tireless
critic of what he took to be fundamental misreadings of the intention
behind, and direction of, the passages in PI. And a major target
of these criticisms (perhaps unsurprisingly) was the volume of
the commentary on PI in which Hacker developed his account of
PLA (see Baker, 1998 p. 326 note, p. 331 note). Luckily, much
of that material is readily available in Baker's book Wittgenstein's
Method: Neglected Aspects (Baker, 2004) and articles (such
as Baker, 1998) -- although I doubt references to it will now
be introduced into the commentary.]
A key point here: in the new edition we are not told the substance
(or even the gist) of Baker's argument against the 'B&H'
view of perspicuous representation: perhaps this is understandable,
if Hacker regards that argument as misconceived. For a guiding
light of the commentary had been that the 'secondary-lterature'
disputes should not feature. But that line of reasoning seems
so much weaker when the 'secondary source' at issue is the dissenting
voice of one the authors! More importantly, we are not directed
to where Baker's argument on these points might be found (or
even reminded [from Hacker, 2005a p. xvii] that it is in the
public domain). Yet it was initially published in a widely cited
collection from 1991 (and thereafter reprinted in Baker, 2004
pp. 22-51). The upshot: the reader is not offered a way to fill
in this gap. And all this despite Baker appearing as an author
(in the end, the first author) of this text, as reflected in
its title page, ISBN reference, and such like.
Now, Hacker (2005a p. xvii) does explicitly recognise that the
discussion of perspicuous representation " aroused grave
doubts and misgivings in Gordon Baker". However, as I shall
show, the new text displays scant regard for these concerns,
claiming that, in the "extensively revised" edition,
the new essay on this topic " supports the old interpretation
with detailed evidence from the Nachlass" (Hacker,
2005a p. xvii). But (as we will see) much of what is offered
is not detailed and not (strictly) from the Nachlass.
Still, there is reiteration of the view on which Wittgenstein's
philosophy is characterised by " clarification of conceptual
problems by descriptions of grammar and by comparative
grammatical morphology" (Hacker, 2005a p. 333). In particular,
this view is to be contrasted with those places where
Wittgenstein stresses or constructs " objects of comparison"
(Hacker, 2005a p. 332). Thus, this view might be accurately characterised
as one where:
the general aim of the philosopher must be to produce surveyable
descriptions of the uses of words which have a high degree of
comprehensiveness and which can therefore be employed to clarify
sizeable domains of grammar and to dissolve many different philosophical
problems all at once. (Baker, 2004 p. 26)
This version of the nature of the philosophical project, and
hence of perspicuous representation, reflects a fundamental and
pervasive feature of the reading of Wittgenstein by Hacker that
these volumes (Hacker, 2005a; Hacker, 2005b) instantiate. And
one Baker would reject.
How can sufficient of that complexity be introduced so that we
might contest it, without discussing all of the material in a
long and complex text? Or, more exactly, a pair of them?
In fact, the issue can be raised by focusing on one topic: that
is, considering whether, on Hacker's view, " Wittgenstein
left room for a positive role for philosophy that stands in
contrast [to] and supplements its predominantly negative
or therapeutic task" (Baker, 2004 p. 26). At the least,
what is at issue generates a particular view of the therapeutic
nature of philosophy -- one which Wittgenstein sometimes
drew by comparison with psychoanalysis. And Baker in turn had
drawn, in his reading of Wittgenstein, on passages found among
Waismann's papers (now published in Voices of Wittgenstein
[ed. Baker]: VoW[2]) -- although Baker's account explained the
Wittgensteinian pedigree of these ideas. Then one way of taking
these passages suggests a reading of Wittgenstein deeply antithetical
to Hacker. For these passages can be read as including both a
presentation of a radical version of the therapeutic conception
of philosophy and (sustaining and explaining it) a comparison
with psychoanalysis. And Hacker is keen to minimise the impact
of such a comparison. For that conception will make philosophical
dispute much more occasion-specific, and less concerned with
an abstract version of the identification of nonsense,
than (as we shall see) Hacker supports. This, then, grounds many
of the disputed details. So, in these volumes, much of the material
generated is apparently directed against ideas from Waismann
-- although without the reason being made explicit. And
that reason, of course, is that Gordon Baker thought these passages
revealing of an aspect of Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy
regularly neglected. But Hacker clearly rejects this reading;
and one of his tools is (implicitly) to reject the argument for
the Wittgensteinian pedigree of these passages by presenting
Waismann (in his later writing, at least) as seeking to offer
a picture of philosophy to contrast with Wittgenstein's. Thus,
in another place, Hacker (1996 p. 312 note 90) writes:
"Since this conception [of philosophy] was propounded
deliberately in opposition to Wittgenstein, it is striking
to find it currently being revived and attributed to Wittgenstein,
by, e.g., G P Baker "
A key element of this conception of philosophy can be brought
out through its relation to psychoanalysis, since (in a passage
dictated to Waismann) Wittgenstein wrote that "[o]ur method
resembles psychoanalysis in a certain sense" (VoW p. 69).
Here, we should be struck by the shared expression ("our
method") and go on to ask in what sense that method
in philosophy resembles psychoanalysis.
Yet Hacker thinks that this reference to psychoanalysis -- perhaps
any such reference -- is misplaced. If he can demonstrate
that, he will have offered a different background to any 'therapeutic'
reading of Wittgenstein. And, for Hacker, this is evident from
Wittgenstein's own treatment of such a comparison. Thus, as Hacker
(2005a p. 287) reports, Wittgenstein could " become exceedingly
angry when Wisdom and Ayer exaggerated the psychoanalytic analogy
and attributed it, thus exaggerated, to him".
But is this in fact a rejection of this 'analogy' (as Hacker
both suggests and requires)? As we have it explained here, surely
this remark has more to do with the mistaken (because exaggerated)
character of the view thus attributed, and hence with the exaggeration
here, than with anything else. As we know from the "Preface"
to PI, Wittgenstein was irritated that his ideas " more
or less mangled or watered down" were put about by others.
[Compare here Malcolm (1958 p. 57) where Wittgenstein complains
that his friends regard him as " 'Vogelfrei', as an outlaw,
a bird at whom anyone had a right to shoot".] Perhaps, too,
his objection relates to the ways in which an object of comparison
might be treated by others as though it had an exact congruence
-- so that, having acknowledged a comparison, profitable on some
occasions or for some purposes, Wittgenstein then finds
himself confronted with others claiming (on his authority) that
this was more than a comparison. [Compare Keynes as reported
in Bouwsma's Conversations (1986) p. 36.] Again, the problem
here is then with the misunderstanding or misuse of the
comparison. So this shows us nothing about the plausibility of
some analogy -- or something similar -- here. Indeed,
Hacker (2005a p. 287) approximately quotes Wittgenstein (MS 138a,
17a) to the effect that, in writing in this way, these authors
" flaunt the keys that they have stolen but they can't open
any locks with them." Yet, of course, this does not say
that these are not keys (in the right hands), but only
that they do not so function in these expositions. Further,
this remark implicitly attributes the keys correctly used to
Wittgenstein (from whom -- as he sees it -- they have been stolen).
On the basis of this evidence, then, there is no reason to suppose
that Wittgenstein rejected some 'analogy' here -- indeed, if
the account Hacker gives is accurate, it shows rather more. For,
as Hacker describes it, the objection is clearly not to this
analogy as such: rather it is to the exaggeration. And Wittgenstein
need not have put his point that way: he could easily have rejected
the whole analogy, root-and-branch, had he thought there was
nothing in it. So this cannot provide a basis for Hacker's conclusion.
In elaboration, I would offer three or four points here: the
first is simply to repeat that this discussion by Hacker is just
a concealed attack on the views of Gordon Baker -- and I (for
one) object to this indirect targetting! (At least Hacker
was more explicit elsewhere: see the passage from Hacker, 1996
p. 312 note 90, quoted earlier.) And I resent this especially
since its character as an attack is barely acknowledged
here; and since Gordon cannot confront it himself. Moreover,
his name on the title page might make Gordon seem complicit in
this line of objection. Then, second, we should be aware that
the context of Hacker's discussion is his claim that Wittgenstein
" argues that certain positions, certain putative doctrines,
make no sense" (Hacker, 2005a p. 287): in this way
it presents Wittgenstein's philosophy as policing sense. Even
were this granted (contrast Baker, 2004 p. 1), the difficulty
would still be to see whether these positions make no sense
(punkt) or whether they make no sense as answers to questions
to which their proponents take them to be addressed -- that is,
where the senselessness (or otherwise) is itself contextual.
For this latter view does not, as the former does, conflict with
an emphasis on the therapeutic nature of philosophy, understood
as contextually specific. And that is one key difference here
between Baker and Hacker. (To be more blunt, this emphasis on
making sense does not support Hacker in his battle with
Baker.)
And what of Hacker's evidence here? Again, it is inconclusive.
For example, Hacker (2005a p. 321) quotes LA 29, in speaking
of "certain comparisons -- grouping together of certain
cases". But, first, these remarks from LA are ambiguous
in precisely the crucial or disputed way noted above -- are these
permanent comparisons or merely comparisons for some purpose
or on some occasion? This passage does not tell us. And
we might see Hacker endorsing one reading, Baker the other (respectively).
Then, second, this is a passage from students' notes: it does
lack just the kind of the specificity we might have expected
to find lacking here. For it misses just those modal qualifications,
such as "Here I might say ", which pepper Wittgenstein's
own writings. So the source too is at best ambiguous[3]. (In
fact, we might feel that, if the extant version in LA seems to
coincide better with Hacker's view, this might even be evidence
for Baker's view, given the provenance of these remarks: the
students might miss out precisely those contextualisations Wittgenstein's
own writing suggest are key.)
The third point asks whether Wittgenstein was as opposed to the
psychoanalytic comparison (for philosophy) as Hacker takes his
exasperation with (say) Ayer or Wisdom to indicate. Well, we
know this was a doctrine Wittgenstein once thought important:
as quoted previously, he dictated to Waismann that "[o]ur
method resembles psychoanalysis in a certain sense" (VoW
p. 69). Could he have given up this idea entirely? That strikes
me prima facie implausible. Instead, his biography shows that
it was a kind of account he continued to deploy. For instance,
speaking in the USA in 1949 to O. K. Bouwsma -- clearly both
a perceptive reader of Wittgenstein and one thought perceptive
by Wittgenstein (who once described himself as " good enough
to eat apple-sauce with a philosopher": Malcolm, 1958 p.
98) -- Wittgenstein " had himself talked about philosophy
as in certain ways like psychoanalysis" (Bouwsma, 1986 p.
36). Moreover these comments mention a text, which we take to
be TS 220, a pre-war version of PI (compare Baker, 2004 p. 219
note 4). Bouwsma's notes report the conversation as follows:
When he became a professor at Cambridge he submitted a typescript
to the committee Of 140 pages, 72 were devoted to the idea that
philosophy is like psychoanalysis. (Bouwsma, 1986 p. 36)
In reality, that typescript is, of course, not as specifically
about the comparison with psychoanalysis as Bouwsma's account
relates: but, clearly, this is the impression of it that Wittgenstein
left with him. There is no suggestion here (at least)
that this was a view Wittgenstein wished to repudiate entirely.
For he must have both recognised Bouwsma's understanding and
been in a position to contradict (or elaborate) it, had he wanted
to. And this was discussion from 1949: that is, from late in
Wittgenstein's life. So the biographical information suggests
that this comparison was not something for wholesale rejection:
then we are left with consideration of the degree to which
(or, better, the places where) this was a profitable comparison.
One segment of Hacker's argument here (in both Hacker, 2005a
p. 323 and Hacker, 1996 p. 312 note 90, where he is much blunter)
is (a) that Waismann stressed this analogy (for instance, in
HISP) and (b) that, as above, this was done " to stake out
Waismann's own distinctive position" (Hacker, 2005a p. 323
note) -- that is, to distinguish his position from Wittgenstein's.
Yet was this conception so clearly and distinctly not
Wittgenstein's? Now, it would obviously be a mistake to simply
read back into Wittgenstein the upshot of remarks in Waismann
(even when the remarks are based on Wittgenstein's dictations)
-- as is often done with Waismann's remarks on open texture[4].
But that does not mean that nothing is ever learnable here from
Waismann's texts. As Baker (2004 p. 179) points out, much of
this material in Waismann is " very closely based on material
which Wittgenstein dictated to Waismann during the period 1931-1935",
material to which we now have access through PLP (better, LSP)
and VoW. So it had clearly begun life with Wittgenstein.
And where (as here[5]) these passages suggest little input from
Waismann, it does make sense to attribute the ideas to Wittgenstein
(at least tentatively). For (even when we come to HISP[6]), we
know already that Waismann was trying to state as bluntly
as possible an account of 'our method' which Wittgenstein had
been content to leave implicit in the practice of philosophical
investigation. So this alone might explain some (apparent) difference
of emphasis[7]. Then the discussion with Bouwsma suggests Wittgenstein
still thought the comparison valuable. So we should not preclude
seeing Wittgenstein's incursions into philosophy in that light.
This takes us to the final (fourth) point: that what Waismann
offered (or, better, what Wittgenstein first presented) was more
than a mere analogy -- rather, it was "a revolutionary
programme" (Baker, 2004 p. 179) for philosophy, a programme
Wittgenstein had seen -- at least at one time -- as "our
method" (VoW p. 69). And the heart of that method was the
therapeutic conception: as Baker (2004 p. 181) puts it:
'Our method' is radically therapeutic. It is a method for
treating thinkers and their troubles, not abstract
problems, confusions or nonsense.
The outcome of such a conception is to make philosophical
issues context-specific, purpose-specific, and even person-specific.
So that Baker's (later) conception of Wittgenstein's project
grew from exactly those ideas which Hacker sought to put aside.
And, of course, one distinctiveness of "our method"
is that there is no implication here that this was the
method in philosophy, or a method regularly used (if all unnoticed)
by philosophers of the past. But, of course, this is precisely
to record a conception of philosophy that (as we have seen) is
not how Hacker views the project of philosophy!
For, to elaborate, the comparison with psychoanalysis generates
a view on which philosophy (at least as deployed through "our
method") " focuses on individuals" (Baker, 2004
p. 181). And then one cannot simply be dismissing, as a position
making no sense, what those individuals are drawn to ask
or urge. For the motivations for the utterances were not grounded
in philosophical puzzlement. Instead, we must do justice to the
'propositions' of those considered, exploring whether or not
-- as understood by their 'authors' -- they are being treated
in ways that generate philosophical perplexity: that is, whether
they do in fact, not whether they might in principle.
And this will be so even when (as with Heidegger's "The
Nothing noths": discussed VoW p. 69) the claims seem inherently
problematic (Baker, 2004 p. 208). Moreover, this consideration
cannot mean saying simply, "These are nonsense". [I
am reminded of John Wisdom (1963 p. v) pointing out the limitation
of one simply noting that certain views are false or nonsensical:
Anyone who as soon as he has noticed this gives no more attention
to these propositions or the arguments which have been adduced
for them will do as little philosophy as I do in Problems
of Mind and Matter.
The implication was that this was not much philosophy!] Rather,
we must attend to what contrasts and comparisons the author meant
to draw, even if his utterance brings them out rather badly.
So that, when a remark could be read as embodying a mistaken
dualism, we must consider if it should be so read. Doing
so will make better sense of those passages where Wittgenstein
does not simply dismiss kinds of dualism. Moreover, suppose
comparative devices such as analogies, similes and the like "
are pivotal both in the genesis and in the cure of diseases
of the understanding" (Baker, 2004 p. 187): that is, suppose
the point were sometimes to shake off the 'gravitational pull'
of one picture or analogy simply by acknowledging another one
-- so that we no longer take the first as 'necessary' or 'obvious'
or 'natural'. Even without taking this line, we are already along
the path to enlightenment in recognising diversity here.
Indeed, the context of such-and-such a particular claim, and
what we take to follow from it, must be contrasted (and compared)
with others that might be made in the same words. For what might,
in some circumstances, be misleading need not actually mislead.
Further, this picture of philosophy works against the view that
there are some fixed (yet nonsensical) positions into
which we either fall or do not. But, if this is right, the claims
of persons (especially in respect of their own actions) will
rarely be nonsense punkt but only become nonsense in respect
of this question or in this context; or when extended
into a new domain. And such contextualism is one dimension of
Baker's difference from Hacker.
Many of these differences might seem fairly subtle until one
tries to 'run' with them in practice. For, on the Baker reading,
it makes sense to find someone speaking of, say, the importance
of images or of the kinaesthetic for the understanding of dance
or music, and to ask:
How then do we explain to someone what it means "to understand
music"? By naming the images, kinaesthetic sensations, etc.
experienced by someone who understands? Morelikely, by
pointing out the expressive movements of one who understands
(CV p. 80; MS 137 20b; 15 Feb. 1948)
Then the force of the "more likely" will be that
sometimes even that way of explaining musical understanding -
which Wittgenstein earlier spoke of as involving banalities -
is appropriate. So the quoted remark is a criticism in some
contexts of occasions in which terms like "image",
"kinaesthetic sensation" are deployed. (and we could
go on to say something about which). But it is not a criticism
of every occasion of the deployment of terms like these.
Rather, if appeal to these conceptions is sometimes misplaced,
it follows -- from the logic of "more likely" -- that
sometimes it is not: hence, there will be occasions where this
will be a perfectly satisfactory account. Then this whole
picture will be occasion-specific. But if Wittgenstein is willing
to grant this kind of contextual difference, and to this degree,
it will be hard for the Hacker interpretation to maintain that
Wittgenstein's primary concern is with a conception of a fixed
'perspicuous representation' of our concepts, suitable for all
occasions. And that had been Baker's point (see, for instance,
Baker, 2004 p. 41-44). Instead, we would be moving towards the
thought that such perspicuous representation was context-specific
and perplexity-specific: that it would be "a representation
that makes perspicuous what is represented" (Baker,
2004 p. 42) with "[t]he criteria of success strictly relative
to particular situations" (Baker, 2004 p. 43). And, of course,
this is just what the (for Hacker) rejected psychoanalytic
model of therapy would generate.
Fundamental to my concern here is the view posterity might
take if a judicious assessment of the commentary on PI were requested,
faced with a final "B&H" composed (as this is)
almost entirely of H -- especially on fundamental issues. That
relates (again) to, as it were, the spine of the books, and especially
the volume containing the essays. On the basis of these volumes,
I can see posterity awarding laurels to Baker for views he thought
not merely mistaken but positively pernicious. So this does no
justice to the realities of authorship. But just such a verdict
has the title page of the book on its side. So I concluded that,
possibly in a misguided spirit of generousity towards a former
fellow-worker and friend, Hacker has saddled Baker's name with
a huge amount of text the substance of which he (Baker) would
have rejected. Certainly the best thing here would be to remove
Baker's name from this text -- as well, at least, from any reworking
of the second volume of 'their' commentary, Wittgenstein:
Rules, Grammar and Necessity (Blackwell, 1985). Moreover
I would be less concerned if I did not think that same posterity
deserved the best, and most authoritative, version of
the commentary on PI: that seems a necessary step in any rehabilitation
of Wittgenstein. At the least, posterity should know clearly
what it is reading -- and, ideally, the mature views of
those listed as the text's authors should at least be referenced.
For one wants to be fair, not only to Wittgenstein, but also
to Gordon Baker. And, while these texts might make both
problematic, they certainly mislead to an unacceptable degree
anyone to thinks to find Baker's later views in them. (At least
the first version fits into a broad periodisation of his work,
of the kind presented in Baker, 2004 pp. 1-2.) Moreover, while
that point invites us to consider the complex question of how
best to do justice to Wittgenstein, I cannot approach that here.
Yet, if I did, it would certainly be in a style learned
from Baker's work. Here, then, I see myself as an advocate of
B (and hence of the importance, for Wittgenstein studies, of
Baker, 2004): but it is important to consider the footprints
we leave for posterity. In that light, I continue to prefer B&H
to H alone. And I hope this discussion explains why[8].
Notes
[1] Throughout,
standard abbreviations to primary and secondary Wittgenstein
sources are used. In particular,
·
Wittgenstein, 1953 [2001] cited as "PI";
·
Wittgenstein, 1993 cites as "PO";
·
Student notes published as Wittgenstein, 1966 cited as "LA";
·
Exerpts published as Wittgenstein, 1994 cited as "CV".
[2] Throughout standard
abbreviations to works by Waismann: in particular;
·
Waismann, 1965 [2nd Ed. 1996] cited as "PLP" ;
·
Waismann, 1968 cited as "HISP";
·
Waismann, 1976 cited as "LSP";
·
Wittgenstein & Waismann, 2003 cited as "VoW".
[3] Hacker (2005a
p. 331) takes certain remarks to be "subsequently repudiated",
giving the reference to the exegesis of §122: but, of course,
that is his exegesis -- so this is at best repetition
of the point, not new evidence. But the details given (Hacker,
2005b pp. 261-264) do not decide the matter either way. Thus,
for instance, MS 116 p. 55 (quoted Hacker, 2005b p. 264) requires:
"The complete overview of everything that may produce unclarity".
Yet what is thus required would be far from a complete
overview if we regard the unclarity at issue as some person's
unclarity.
[4] One culprit
here was Morris Weitz, especially in writing in aesthetics -
see Weitz, 1977. For discussion, see McFee, 2003.
[5] Waismann called
this document a dictation for Schlick; and its pedigree
is implicit in its place (as DS 302) in Von Wright's catalogue
of Wittgenstein's work: PO p. 492.
[6] The relationship
between some of Waismann's HISP material and LSP may be important
here: see VoW pp. xxx. We know, for instance, that when Waismann
first came to England, he had " several chapters [of LSP
translated] into English for him to read as lectures or papers"
(PLP [2nd Ed, 1996] p. xvii), and that he continued to drawn
on, and work on, this material. Indeed, some of the papers published
in HISP are more or less transcriptions from LSP.
[7] Two points:
(a) it may be that no exceptionless account can be given -- still,
we might see Waismann as trying, even if the task was
hopeless; (b) none of this speaks to the personal relationsbetween
Wittgenstein and Waismann, which had deteriorated markedly.
[8] My thanks to
Rupert Read for his suggestions, especially in respect of the
last paragraph (where I have adopted a few of his formulations);
and to Katherine Morris for discussion of some of the issues
embodied here.
Bibliography:
Baker, Gordon "The Private Language Argument" Language
and Communication Vol. 18, 1998 pp. 325-356.
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