The Paradox of Ethics — ‘It leaves everything as it is’

ESTUDO GERAL Repositório científico da UC , 2017

The aim of this paper is to clarify Wittgenstein’s notion of ethics, and explain how it can contribute to the understanding of the continuity of his philosophy. The broad consensus on Wittgenstein’s work divides it into an early and later period; however, few have undertaken the challenge of finding the linking thread between them. Of those who have, results have in general led to prioritising the original aspects of one in favour of the other. The premise of this study is that the ethical purpose of Wittgenstein’s philosophy remained essentially the same throughout his life. This means that interpretation of his work (from the Notebooks 1914 – 1916 to On Certainty) through the lens of his notion of ethics, may offer a synoptic, yet non-discriminatory view of his writings. If this is correct, it should lead to a fresh reading of Wittgenstein’s philosophy that avoids postulating in advance an internal discord in his thoughts and that prioritises its conception as coherent in its development. Finally, it also underscores Wittgenstein’s will in contributing to the pursuit of the ‘good’ life.

Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research, 2018

The paper undertakes an in-depth analysis of the early phase of Ludwig Wittgenstein's writings in Notebooks (NB), Tractatus Logico Philosophicus (TLP) and ''A Lecture on Ethics'' (LOE) in order to present an exposition of some of the central themes, and to extrapolate his views on ethics. To this end, the paper analyses Wittgenstein's understanding of the nature of philosophical inquiry, significance and centrality of ethics, the model of language, saying/showing distinction, notions of will, happiness, good and evil, use of relative and absolute values and several others. Early Wittgenstein's views on ethics are peculiar in so far as they are implied by his views on language with the study of which he was centrally concerned. He claims that language, thought and reality are isomorphic; therefore, language is the basis of all speculation about morality. In TLP, Ethics is transcendental and transgresses the limits of language. The paper begins with a discussion of the importance of ethics, as explicated in his early writings.

2004

In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus we find Wittgenstein’s first and most substantial published investigation of ethics. I will argue that if the ethical sections of the Tractatus are seen in connection with a particular concept of showing, they then reveal a coherent and radical alternative to traditional conceptions of ethics; an alternative which sheds light on Wittgenstein’s claim that ethics cannot be expressed and the necessity of ethics. But I furthermore want to argue that the reasons leading Wittgenstein to a demand for silence in ethics falls away if one looks at the later investigations of necessity which he makes in On Certainty.

DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), 2015

This article suggests a reading of the significance of Wittgenstein's Tractatus for ethics, in the light of Cora Diamond's resolute reading. The contrasts between sense and nonsense and between ethics and science are commented on and are connected to a further contrast between a specialized response to language and the world and an unspecialized response characteristic of the humanistic disciplines. The Tractatus is seen as a work which diagnoses the loss of such a fully human unspecialized sense of things and which wishes to recover this possibility for its reader. On the basis of such reading, the article also suggests how to connect the significance of the later Wittgenstein for ethics with the Tractatus. A connection can be established by following Iris Murdoch's notion of conceptual clarification.

European Journal of Psychoanalysis, 2018

In this paper I will show how the later Wittgenstein utilises the "logic" of the second-person or I-you perspective. Though Wittgenstein himself did not think of his philosophy in this way, laying out the logic of the I-you understanding will show the source of the illuminating power of his philosophy and give a perspicuous view of the character of philosophical problems. Philosophers tend to overlook that a fundamental form of intelligibility has its source in the second person or I-you perspective. The most salient feature of the I-you perspective is its ethical character and I will try to outline some aspects of this feature. When ethics is understood in terms of the I-you perspective it will differ radically from the way ethics is understood in the philosophical mainstream. This may explain why it has been so difficult for Wittgensteinscholars to give a clear account of the way ethics is essential to Wittgenstein's later philosophy. I will try to show the philosophical significance of the I-you perspective by discussing both some of Wittgenstein's problematic ideas such as his talk of first person expressive and third person descriptive perspectives and some of his fruitful ideas such as his talk of primitive reactions and language-games, in the light of the I-you perspective.

Forthcoming in Reshef Agam-Segal and Edmund Dain eds., Ethics and the Limits of Sense: Essays on Wittgenstein and Value.

Although at first reading Wittgenstein explicitly said little, if anything, about ethics, his approach finds a way of overcoming flawed attempts by 'professional ethicists' to provide normative rules to solve ethical problems. This paper presented to the Gloucestershire Philosophy Society in October 2014 outlines an elucidatory and therapeutic reading of Wittgenstein's work to highlight how ethical issues cannot be dealt with as if they are scientific problems solved through the application of rules and principles.