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https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | Having concluded that Kantian dualism fails to avoid the pitfalls of earlier metaphysical approaches to freedom, Windelband abandons the concept of transcendental freedom altogether. But while in 1882 his alternative had been the “deterministic concept of freedom”, in 1904 Windelband proceeds to articulate the view that the concept of free will is a mere placeholder in our normative discourse. We are not free in the metaphysical sense, but we are perfectly entitled to pass moral judgment. And we use the language of freedom to express the fact that when passing moral judgment we disregard questions of causal determination. | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | To spell out this idea, Windelband takes up the 1882 distinction between the “points of view” of explanatory science and ideal norms. He now argues that there are two ways of constructing the world of appearances: we construct the world of appearances according to causal laws, and we construct it according to our normative evaluations. Evaluation | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | reflects within the manifoldness of the given on those moments only which can be put in relation to the norm… [O]ne could call the manner in which the objects of experience, the given manifoldness of the factual, appear uniformly in light of such an evaluation another form of “appearance”…. (1904b: 195–6) | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | Freedom then means not that the will is an uncaused cause. When speaking of freedom, we appeal to the uncaused merely in the sense that we evaluate matters independently of causal deterministic processes (1904b: 197–198). | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | Windelband believes that his view preserves moral responsibility. As described above, his theoretical investigation had yielded the result that that which determines the extent to which we act in agreement with a moral norm is our personality or character. Personality is the constant cause of voluntary action, it determines our actions necessarily according to general psychological laws. From a practical standpoint, personality then is also the ultimate object of moral appraisal. We hold personality responsible, and we are justified in doing so, even if the formation of personality is itself a causal process over which the individual has no control. Ultimately, the upshot of Windelband’s discussion is that moral responsibility does not presuppose a noumenal world and transcendental freedom, because it does not presuppose that we could act otherwise. It merely presupposes that another person in the same circumstances could act otherwise. The idea that one could have acted differently refers | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | not to the concrete human being in these concrete circumstances, but to the generic concept of the human being. (1904b: 212) | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | In Windelband’s view, a reconsideration of the Kantian project is not only necessary because of its inherent tensions; broader developments in nineteenth-century culture and science also necessitate an adaptation of the critical method to changed historical circumstances. One important factor is the professionalization of the historical disciplines that had been underway since the early nineteenth century (1907: 12). One of Windelband’s central and best known philosophical contributions concerns the question what distinguishes the “historical sciences”, that is, those disciplines that study the human-historical and cultural world, from the natural sciences. Windelband’s answer to this question is in line with his formal-teleological conception of philosophy: by explicating the autonomous presuppositions of historical method, critical philosophy safeguards the historical sciences against methodological holism, namely the view that there is only one scientific method, and that this is the method of physics and natural science. | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | Windelband shares the goal of securing the autonomy of the historical disciplines with his contemporary Wilhelm Dilthey. In his 1883 Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften [Introduction to the human sciences] Dilthey had founded the distinction between the natural sciences and the human sciences or “sciences of spirit” on a distinction between outer and inner experience. While outer experience forms the basis of hypothetical knowledge in natural science, inner experience discloses “from within” how the individual is an intersection of social and cultural relations (Dilthey 1883: 30–32, 60–61, 88–89). Inner experience is at the same time psychological and socio-historical, and a descriptive psychology capable of grasping the integrated nexus of inner experience can provide the “sciences of spirit” with a solid foundation (Dilthey 1894). | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | Windelband profoundly disagrees with Dilthey’s strategy for demarcating the historical disciplines. In his Strasbourg rector’s address “Geschichte und Naturwissenschaft” [“History and natural science”] from 1894, he takes issue with the suggestion that the facts of the “sciences of spirit” derive from a particular type of experience. He takes Dilthey to endorse an introspective view of psychological method. To this he objects that the facts of the historical disciplines do not derive from inner experience alone, and that inner perception is a dubious method in the first place. He also classifies psychology with the natural sciences, rejecting Dilthey’s idea that the human-historical disciplines could be founded on a non-explanatory and non-hypothetical descriptive psychology. Perhaps most fundamentally, Windelband rejects the term “sciences of spirit” on the ground that it suggests that the distinction between different sciences rests on a material distinction between different objects: spirit and nature (Windelband 1894: 141–143). | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | Windelband seeks an alternative method for science-classification that is purely formal. His reflections take scientific justification in its most abstract form as their starting point: justification in science is either inductive or deductive, Windelband argues, and the basic relation on which all knowledge is based is between the general and the particular (1883: 102–103). | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | The distinction between different empirical sciences is then also to be sought at this level. In particular, Windelband argues that science might pursue one of two different “knowledge goals” (1894: 143): it “either seeks the general in the form of natural law or the particular in the historically determined form” (1894: 145). The former approach is that of the “nomothetic sciences” which seek to arrive at universal apodictic judgments, treating the particular and unique as a mere exemplar or special case of the type or of the generic concept. The “idiographic sciences”, in contrast, aim to arrive at singular assertoric judgments that represent a unique object in its individual formation (1894: 150). | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | Windelband emphasizes that the distinction between nomothetic and idiographic sciences is a purely formal and teleological one. One and the same object can be approached from both points of view, and which method is appropriate depends entirely on the goal or purpose of the investigation. Moreover, most sciences will involve both general and particular knowledge. The idiographic sciences in particular depend on general and causal knowledge which has been derived from the nomothetic sciences (1894: 156–157). | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | Note, however, that Windelband is not consistently restricting his analysis to the formal level. He tends to use the terms “nomothetic” and “natural” sciences, and the terms “idiographic” and “historical” sciences interchangeably, which at least suggests a correspondence between scientific goals, methods, and objects. | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | Although Windelband does not spell this out in great detail, he also suggests that values are of integral importance to the idiographic method. First, he argues that the selection of relevant historical facts depends on an assessment of what is valuable to us (1894: 153–154). Second, he suggests that the integration of particular facts into larger wholes is only possible if meaningful, value-laden relations can be established such that “the particular feature is a meaningful part of a living intuition of the whole [Gesamtanschauung]” (1894: 154). And third, he claims that we value the particular, unique, and individual in a way in which we do not value the general and recurrent, and that the experience of the individual is indeed at the root of our “feelings of value” (1894: 155–156). | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | It is Windelband’s student Heinrich Rickert who takes up these suggestions and develops them into a systematic account of the “individuating” and “value-relating” “concept-formation” of the “historical sciences of culture” (Rickert 1902). Rickert argues that “scientific concept formation”, by which science overcomes the “extensive and intensive manifold” of reality, depends on a principle of selection. The principle of selection at work in the natural sciences is that of “generalization”. For this reason, the natural sciences cannot account for the unique and unrepeatable character of reality. The historical sciences, in contrast, form their concepts in a manner that allows them to capture individual realities (Rickert 1902: 225, 236, 250–251). They do so on the basis of values: values guide the selection of which particular historical facts belong to and can be integrated into a specific historical “individuality” (examples being “the Renaissance”, “the Reformation” or “the German nation state”). According to Rickert, one can clearly distinguish the theoretical value-relation that is the basis of historical science and practical evaluation. The historian relies on values but does not evaluate his material (Rickert 1902: 364–365). Building on Windelband’s core ideas about historical method, Rickert arrives at a more refined and systematized account of how historical science forms its concepts, that ultimately leads to an account of what culture as an object of scientific study amounts to. | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | In some of his later writings, Windelband will pick up the more developed thoughts of his student Rickert. For example, he claims that each science creates its objects according to the manner in which it forms its concepts (1907: 18), and that the historical sciences rely on a system of universal values when making selections about what enters into their concepts (1907: 20). | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | A large part of Windelband’s oeuvre consists of writings in the history of philosophy. Windelband primarily covers modern philosophy from the Renaissance to his own time, but he also published on ancient philosophy. As a historian, Windelband is heavily indebted to Fischer. And yet, he goes significantly beyond his teacher, developing a new method and mode of historical presentation. Windelband conceives of the history of philosophy as a “history of problems”. Rather than presenting a chronological sequence of great minds, he organizes the presentation of philosophical ideas according to the fundamental problems around which the philosophical debates and arguments of an age were structured. Windelband also takes a reflective attitude towards his own historiographical practice and seeks to clarify the goals and systematic relevance of the history of philosophy. | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | In these reflections, Windelband seeks to integrate two main thoughts: First, the idea that philosophy is a reflection of its time and age and, second, the conviction that the history of philosophy has systematic significance. Windelband finds both thoughts in Hegel’s approach to the history of philosophy. Mirroring Hegel’s famous dictum that “philosophy is its own time apprehended in thought”, he speaks of philosophy the “self-consciousness of developing cultural life” (1909: 4). He also applauds Hegel’s “deep insight” that the history of philosophy realizes reason and thus has intrinsic relevance for systematic philosophy (1883: 133). Windelband thinks of history as the “organon of philosophy” (1905: 184), as a guide to the absolute values that the critical method seeks to reveal. | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | But despite the Hegelian gloss of these two claims, Windelband is critical of Hegelianism. This is primarily because he has a different understanding of the idea that philosophy is “its own time apprehended in thought”. For Windelband, this means that philosophical thinking is shaped by historically contingent factors. | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | Accordingly, Windelband formulates two criticisms of the Hegelian conception of the history of philosophy. First, he finds fault with the idea that the order in which successive philosophical ideas emerge is necessary and that—in virtue of being necessary—it has systematic significance: | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | [I]n its essentially empirical determination which is accidental with respect to the “idea” the historical process of development cannot have this systematic significance. (1883: 133, see also 1905: 176–177) | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | The history of philosophy is not only shaped by the necessary self-expression of reason, but also by the causal necessity of cultural history. The cultural determinants of philosophical thinking lead to “problem-convolutions” (1891: 11), in which various, conceptually unrelated philosophical questions merge with one another. Windelband also emphasizes that the “individual factor” of the philosopher’s character and personality is relevant for how philosophical problems and concepts are articulated in a given historical moment (1891: 12) | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | Second, although Windelband agrees that the historical development of philosophical ideas is partly driven by critique and self-improvement, he does not think of this process in terms of progress. Windelband probes the often unacknowledged presuppositions of our talk about progress. In “Pessimismus und Wissenschaft” (1876) Windelband argues that science cannot decide between historical optimism and historical pessimism (1876: 243). In “Kritische und genetische Methode” (1883) he gives a more detailed analysis of why this is the case. Historical change itself is not progress, he observes. In order to determine whether a given historical development is progressive, we need to be in possession of “a standard, the idea of a purpose, which determines the value of the change” (1883: 119). Windelband is wary of triumphalist narratives that identify the historical development of present-day values with progress. History is determined by contingent cultural factors and could have produced “delusions and follies … which we only take to be truths now because we are inescapably trapped in them” (1883: 121). Of progress we can only speak legitimately, if we are in possession of an absolute value that allows us to assess the historical development. At minimum, this means that the appeal to a progressive history of philosophy is of no help when it comes to the systematic task of uncovering the system of absolute values: progress cannot aid in revealing absolute values as it presupposes them. | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | But while the fact that philosophy is at least partly determined by contingent cultural factors undercuts necessity and progress, it also opens the door for a reconceptualization of the “essence” of philosophy. In his Einleitung in die Philosophie [Introduction to philosophy] (1914) Windelband reflects on the fact that everyday life, culture, and science do already contain general concepts of the world. These concepts form the initial content of philosophical reflection (1914: 6). But the business of philosophy only takes off when these initial concepts, and the assumptions that are baked into them, become unstable and collapse. An experience of shock and unsettling prompts philosophy to question, rethink, and critically assess the concepts and ideas of everyday life and science. In this process of critical assessment, philosophy strives to purify these concepts and ideas, and to connect them into a coherent, unified system. According to Windelband, in this process of conceptual reorganization, a rational necessity exerts itself. The “vigorous and uncompromising rethinking of the preconditions of our spiritual life” creates certain philosophical problems “with objective necessity” (1914: 8). | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | Windelband provides neither a very detailed account of what “philosophical problems” exactly are, nor of how precisely they spring from the unsettling of everyday concepts. But he makes three claims that, taken together, establish that philosophy, even when reflecting its particular age, is not solely determined by contingent cultural factors. First, philosophical puzzles stem from the “inadequacy and contradictory imbalance” of the contents that philosophy receives from life and science (1891: 10). That is, true philosophical problems emerge whenever the systematizing drive of philosophy is confronted with the deep incoherence of life. Second, philosophical problems are necessary because the conceptual “material” found in life already contains “the objective presuppositions and logical coercions for all rational deliberation about it” (1891: 10). The necessity of philosophical problems is logical necessity. Third, despite historical change | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | [c]ertain differences of world- and life-attitudes reoccur over and over again, combat each other and destroy each other in mutual dialectics. (1914: 10) | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | Because philosophical problems emerge “necessarily” and “objectively”, they also reoccur throughout history. Philosophical problems are thus timeless and eternal (1891: 9–10; 1914: 11)). | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | Windelband also believes that the history of philosophy, pursued empirically and scientifically, can disentangle from one another the “temporal causes and timeless reasons” (1905: 189) that together give rise to the emergence of philosophical problems. | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | Only through knowledge of the empirical trajectory that is free of constructions can come to light …. what is the share of … the needs of the age on the one hand…but on the other hand that of the objective necessities of conceptual progress. (1905: 189) | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | At this point, Windelband reaches a clear verdict on the goal and systematic significance of the history of philosophy: it lies in disentangling that which is contingently actually accepted from that which is “valid in itself” (1905: 199). History is the “organon of critical philosophy” precisely to the extent that it allows us to distinguish the actually accepted norms of cultural life from that which is absolutely valid (1883: 132). | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | Windelband’s “philosophy of values” is also an intervention into debates that had preoccupied the neo-Kantian movement and German academic philosophy more broadly since the materialism controversy [Materialismusstreit]: what the relation between science and world-views is, and whether philosophy is capable of providing a “world-view”. | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | Given that he takes the core of the critical project to consist in a quaestio juris—a concern with normativity—it seems surprising that throughout the 1880s Windelband insists that critical philosophy does not provide a “world-view”: the project of revealing the highest values of human life has nothing to do with “world-views”, he argues, because it does not provide a metaphysical account of the world and our place in it (1881: 140–141, 145). Questions about optimism or pessimism cannot be answered by means of “scientific” philosophy, since they depend on the idea that the world as a whole has a purpose. And claims about the ultimate purpose of the world arise only from an unscientific, subjective, and arbitrary projection of particular purposes onto the universe as such (1876: 231). Philosophy is a science, albeit a second-order formal science, and is thus barred from formulating a world-view that would be metaphysical in character. | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | After 1900, however, Windelband’s position on the question of world-views changes. He now claims that it is the aim of philosophy to provide a “world-view” with scientific justification (1907: 1). Given that Windelband holds that philosophy in general and the Kantian project in particular need to be adapted to the developing circumstances of time and culture, this change of position is not inconsequential: the cultural landscape of the early 1900s demands a revision of the neo-Kantian project that highlights not only its “negative” and critical aspects, but also develops its positive implications for cultural life (1907, 8). The shift to a more positive attitude towards philosophy as a world-view corresponds to a re-evaluation of Kant’s oeuvre, in which Windelband at least partly suspends the anti-metaphysical rigor of the “third phase” of the genesis of the Critique of Pure Reason, and attributes more relevance to the Critique of the Power of Judgment. This view is taken up by Rickert, who later argues in more detail that the third Critique forms the core of critical philosophy, and that Kant’s metaphysical project can provide the basis for an encompassing theory of world-views (Rickert 1924: 153–168). | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | In his 1904 “Nach hundert Jahren” [“After one hundred years”] Windelband provides yet another take on the relation between the natural and the normative. Declaring the question how the realm of natural laws is related to the realm of values to be the “highest” philosophical endeavor (1904a: 162), he now sees in the Critique of the Power of Judgment the possibility of solving this problem: here one finds the idea that the purposive system of nature gives rise to the value-determined process of human history. The central concept that allows for connecting nature and history in this way is that of “realization” (1904a: 162–3). | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | The turn to the concept of “realization” also leads to a shift in how Windelband approaches the problem of science classification. In 1894, Windelband had thought of the nomothetic and idiographic sciences as two fundamental yet disjointed and even incommensurable approaches to seeking knowledge of the word: “Law and event persist next to each other as the last, incommensurable factors of our representation of the world” (1894: 160). But in 1904, he claims that the concept of realization provides a common, unified basis for the natural and the historical sciences (1904a: 163). | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | Windelband’s language assumes a Hegelian tone. Critical philosophy equipped with the concept of realization is able to grasp and express the “spiritual value content” of reality (1904a: 165). History is capable of revealing the universal value content in the contingent maze of human interests and desires, and in so doing captures “the progressive realization of rational values” (1907: 20–21). The human as a rational being is not determined psychologically or naturally, but humanity is a historical task: “only as a historical being, as the developing species, do we have a share in world-reason” (1910a: 283: see also 1905: 185). Windelband even suggests that history itself has a goal, namely the realization of a common humanity (1908: 257). | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | These remarks remain cursory however, and there is room for debate over how much of Hegel’s ontology of history Windelband takes on board, as well as whether his talk about the progressive realization of reason in history is incompatible with the formal-teleological method that he had endorsed in the 1880s and 1890s. His “Kulturphilosophie und transzendentaler Idealismus” [“Philosophy of culture and transcendental idealism”] of 1910 presents us with a puzzling fusion of Kantian and Hegelian language. The goal of critical philosophy is that of revealing the unity of culture, Windelband now claims, and this unity can only be found | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | by grasping the essence of the function … which is common for all the particular …cultural activities: and this can be nothing else than the self-consciousness of reason which produces its objects and in them the realm of validity itself. (1910b: 293). | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | Präludien refers to a collection of works by Windelband. Page numbers refer to the 1915 edition. NKR refers to the The Neo-Kantian Reader (2015) edited by Sebastian Luft. | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | a priori justification and knowledge | Cohen, Hermann | Dilthey, Wilhelm | -->Fischer, Kuno--> | free will | Kant, Immanuel | Kant, Immanuel: moral philosophy | Kant, Immanuel: transcendental arguments | Lotze, Hermann | neo-Kantianism | psychologism | Rickert, Heinrich | value theory | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | Copyright © 2020 by Katherina Kinzel <[email protected]> | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | View this site from another server: | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is copyright © 2021 by The Metaphysics Research Lab, Department of Philosophy, Stanford University | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-windelband/ | Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054 | wilhelm-windelband |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | What is wisdom? Philosophers, psychologists, spiritual leaders, poets, novelists, life coaches, and a variety of other important thinkers have tried to understand the concept of wisdom. This entry will provide a brief and general overview, and analysis of, several philosophical views on the topic of wisdom. It is not intended to capture the many interesting and important approaches to wisdom found in other fields of inquiry. Moreover, this entry will focus on several major ideas in the Western philosophical tradition. In particular, it will focus on five general approaches to understanding what it takes to be wise: (1) wisdom as epistemic humility, (2) wisdom as epistemic accuracy, (3) wisdom as knowledge, (4) a hybrid theory of wisdom, and (5) wisdom as rationality. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | Socrates' view of wisdom, as expressed by Plato in The Apology (20e-23c), is sometimes interpreted as an example of a humility theory of wisdom (see, for example, Ryan 1996 and Whitcomb, 2010). In Plato's Apology, Socrates and his friend Chaerephon visit the oracle at Delphi. As the story goes, Chaerephon asks the oracle whether anyone is wiser than Socrates. The oracle's answer is that Socrates is the wisest person. Socrates reports that he is puzzled by this answer since so many other people in the community are well known for their extensive knowledge and wisdom, and yet Socrates claims that he lacks knowledge and wisdom. Socrates does an investigation to get to the bottom of this puzzle. He interrogates a series of politicians, poets, and craftsmen. As one would expect, Socrates' investigation reveals that those who claim to have knowledge either do not really know any of the things they claim to know, or else know far less than they proclaim to know. The most knowledgeable of the bunch, the craftsmen, know about their craft, but they claim to know things far beyond the scope of their expertise. Socrates, so we are told, neither suffers the vice of claiming to know things he does not know, nor the vice of claiming to have wisdom when he does not have wisdom. In this revelation, we have a potential resolution to the wisdom puzzle in The Apology. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | Although the story may initially appear to deliver a clear theory of wisdom, it is actually quite difficult to capture a textually accurate and plausible theory here. One interpretation is that Socrates is wise because he, unlike the others, believes he is not wise, whereas the poets, politicians, and craftsmen arrogantly and falsely believe they are wise. This theory, which will be labeled Humility Theory 1 (H1), is simply (see, for example, Lehrer & Smith 1996, 3): | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | This is a tempting and popular interpretation because Socrates certainly thinks he has shown that the epistemically arrogant poets, politicians, and craftsmen lack wisdom. Moreover, Socrates claims that he is not wise, and yet, if we trust the oracle, Socrates is actually wise. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | Upon careful inspection, (H1) is not a reasonable interpretation of Socrates' view. Although Socrates does not boast of his own wisdom, he does believe the oracle. If he was convinced that he was not wise, he would have rejected the oracle and gone about his business because he would not find any puzzle to unravel. Clearly, he believes, on some level, that he is wise. The mystery is: what is wisdom if he has it and the others lack it? Socrates nowhere suggests that he has become unwise after believing the oracle. Thus, (H1) is not an acceptable interpretation of Socrates' view. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | Moreover, (H1) is false. Many people are clear counterexamples to (H1). Many people who believe they are not wise are correct in their self-assessment. Thus, the belief that one is not wise is not a sufficient condition for wisdom. Furthermore, it seems that the belief that one is not wise is not necessary for wisdom. It seems plausible to think that a wise person could be wise enough to realize that she is wise. Too much modesty might get in the way of making good decisions and sharing what one knows. If one thinks Socrates was a wise person, and if one accepts that Socrates did, in fact, accept that he was wise, then Socrates himself is a counterexample to (H1). The belief that one is wise could be a perfectly well justified belief for a wise person. Having the belief that one is wise does not, in itself, eliminate the possibility that the person is wise. Nor does it guarantee the vice of arrogance. We should hope that a wise person would have a healthy dose of epistemic self-confidence, appreciate that she is wise, and share her understanding of reality with the rest of us who could benefit from her wisdom. Thus, the belief that one is not wise is not required for wisdom. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | (H1) focused on believing one is not wise. Another version of the humility theory is worth considering. When Socrates demonstrates that a person is not wise, he does so by showing that the person lacks some knowledge that he or she claims to possess. Thus, one might think that Socrates' view could be better captured by focusing on the idea that wise people believe they lack knowledge (rather than lacking wisdom). That is, one might consider the following view: | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | Unfortunately, this interpretation is not any better than (H1). It falls prey to problems similar to those that refuted (H1) both as an interpretation of Socrates, and as an acceptable account of wisdom. Moreover, remember that Socrates admits that the craftsmen do have some knowledge. Socrates might have considered them to be wise if they had restricted their confidence and claims to knowledge to what they actually did know about their craft. Their problem was that they professed to have knowledge beyond their area of expertise. The problem was not that they claimed to have knowledge. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | Before turning to alternative approaches to wisdom, it is worth mentioning another interpretation of Socrates that fits with the general spirit of epistemic humility. One might think that what Socrates is establishing is that his wisdom is found in his realization that human wisdom is not a particularly valuable kind of wisdom. Only the gods possess the kind of wisdom that is truly valuable. This is clearly one of Socrates' insights, but it does not provide us with an understanding of the nature of wisdom. It tells us only of its comparative value. Merely understanding this evaluative insight would not, for reasons similar to those discussed with (HP1) and (HP2), make one wise. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | Humility theories of wisdom are not promising, but they do, perhaps, provide us with some important character traits associated with wise people. Wise people, one might argue, possess epistemic self-confidence, yet lack epistemic arrogance. Wise people tend to acknowledge their fallibility, and wise people are reflective, introspective, and tolerant of uncertainty. Any acceptable theory of wisdom ought to be compatible with such traits. However, those traits are not, in and of themselves, definitive of wisdom. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | Socrates can be interpreted as providing an epistemic accuracy, rather than an epistemic humility, theory of wisdom. The poets, politicians, and craftsmen all believe they have knowledge about topics on which they are considerably ignorant. Socrates, one might argue, believes he has knowledge when, and only when, he really does have knowledge. Perhaps wise people restrict their confidence to propositions for which they have knowledge or, at least, to propositions for which they have excellent justification. Perhaps Socrates is better interpreted as having held an Epistemic Accuracy Theory such as: | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | According to (EA1), a wise person is accurate about what she knows and what she does not know. If she really knows p, she believes she knows p. And, if she believes she knows p, then she really does know p. (EA1) is consistent with the idea that Socrates accepts that he is wise and with the idea that Socrates does have some knowledge. (EA1) is a plausible interpretation of the view Socrates endorses, but it is not a plausible answer in the search for an understanding of wisdom. Wise people can make mistakes about what they know. Socrates, Maimonides, King Solomon, Einstein, Goethe, Gandhi, and every other candidate for the honor of wisdom have held false beliefs about what they did and did not know. It is easy to imagine a wise person being justified in believing she possesses knowledge about some claim, and also easy to imagine that she could be shown to be mistaken, perhaps long after her death. If (EA1) is true, then just because a person believes she has knowledge when she does not, she is not wise. That seems wrong. It is hard to imagine that anyone at all is, or ever has been, wise if (EA1) is correct. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | We could revise the Epistemic Accuracy Theory to get around this problem. We might only require that a wise person's belief is highly justified when she believes she has knowledge. That excuses people with bad epistemic luck. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | (EA2) gets around the problem with (EA1). The Socratic Method challenges one to produce reasons for one's view. When Socrates' interlocutor is left dumbfounded, or reduced to absurdity, Socrates rests his case. One might argue that through his questioning, Socrates reveals not that his opponents lack knowledge because their beliefs are false, but he demonstrates that his opponents are not justified in holding the views they profess to know. Since the craftsmen, poets, and politicians questioned by Socrates all fail his interrogation, they were shown, one might argue, to have claimed to have knowledge when their beliefs were not even justified. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | Many philosophers would hesitate to endorse this interpretation of what is going on in The Apology. They would argue that a failure to defend one's beliefs from Socrates' relentless questioning does not show that a person is not justified in believing a proposition. Many philosophers would argue that having very good evidence, or forming a belief via a reliable process, would be sufficient for justification. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | Proving, or demonstrating to an interrogator, that one is justified is another matter, and not necessary for simply being justified. Socrates, some might argue, shows only that the craftsmen, poets, and politicians cannot defend themselves from his questions. He does not show, one might argue, that the poets, politicians, and craftsmen have unjustified beliefs. Since we gain very little insight into the details of the conversation in this dialogue, it would be unfair to dismiss this interpretation on these grounds. Perhaps Socrates did show, through his intense questioning, that the craftsmen, poets, and politicians formed and held their beliefs without adequate evidence or formed and held them through unreliable belief forming processes. Socrates only reports that they did not know all that they professed to know. Since we do not get to witness the actual questioning as we do in Plato's other dialogues, we should not reject (EA2) as an interpretation of Socrates' view of wisdom in The Apology. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | Regardless of whether (EA2) is Socrates' view, there are problems for (EA2) as an account of what it means to be wise. Even if (EA2) is exactly what Socrates meant, some philosophers would argue that one could be justified in believing a proposition, but not realize that she is justified. If that is a possible situation for a wise person to be in, then she might be justified, but fail to believe she has knowledge. Could a wise person be in such a situation, or is it necessary that a wise person would always recognize the epistemic value of what he or she believes?[1] If this situation is impossible, then this criticism could be avoided. There is no need to resolve this issue here because (EA1) and (EA2) fall prey to another, much less philosophically thorny and controversial problem. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | (EA1) and (EA2) suffer from a similar, and very serious, problem. Imagine a person who has very little knowledge. Suppose further, that the few things she does know are of little or no importance. She could be the sort of person that nobody would ever go to for information or advice. Such a person could be very cautious and believe that she knows only what she actually knows. Although she would have accurate beliefs about what she does and does not know, she would not be wise. This shows that (EA1) is flawed. As for (EA2), imagine that she believes she knows only what she is actually justified in believing. She is still not wise. It should be noted, however, that although accuracy theories do not provide an adequate account of wisdom, they reveal an important insight. Perhaps a necessary condition for being wise is that wise people think they have knowledge only when their beliefs are highly justified. Or, even more simply, perhaps wise people have epistemically justified, or rational, beliefs. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | An alternative approach to wisdom focuses on the more positive idea that wise people are very knowledgeable people. There are many views in the historical and contemporary philosophical literature on wisdom that have knowledge, as opposed to humility or accuracy, as at least a necessary condition of wisdom. Aristotle (Nichomachean Ethics VI, ch. 7), Descartes (Principles of Philosophy), Richard Garrett (1996), John Kekes (1983), Keith Lehrer & Nicholas Smith (1996), Robert Nozick (1989), Plato (The Republic), Sharon Ryan (1996, 1999), Valerie Tiberius (2008), Dennis Whitcomb (2010) and Linda Zagzebski (1996) for example, have all defended theories of wisdom that require a wise person to have knowledge of some sort. All of these views very clearly distinguish knowledge from expertise on a particular subject. Moreover, all of these views maintain that wise people know “what is important.” The views differ, for the most part, over what it is important for a wise person to know, and on whether there is any behavior, action, or way of living, that is required for wisdom. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | Aristotle distinguished between two different kinds of wisdom, theoretical wisdom and practical wisdom. Theoretical wisdom is, according to Aristotle, “scientific knowledge, combined with intuitive reason, of the things that are highest by nature” (Nicomachean Ethics, VI, 1141b). For Aristotle, theoretical wisdom involves knowledge of necessary, scientific, first principles and propositions that can be logically deduced from them. Aristotle's idea that scientific knowledge is knowledge of necessary truths and their logical consequences is no longer a widely accepted view. Thus, for the purposes of this discussion, I will consider a theory that reflects the spirit of Aristotle's view on theoretical wisdom, but without the controversy about the necessary or contingent nature of scientific knowledge. Moreover, it will combine scientific knowledge with other kinds of factual knowledge, including knowledge about history, philosophy, music, literature, mathematics, etc. Consider the following, knowledge based, theory of wisdom: | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | According to (WFK), a wise person is a person who knows a lot about the universe and our place in it. She would have extensive knowledge about the standard academic subjects. There are many positive things to say about (WFK). (WFK) nicely distinguishes between narrow expertise and knowledge of the mundane, from the important, broad, and general kind of knowledge possessed by wise people. As Aristotle puts it, “…we think that some people are wise in general, not in some particular field or in any other limited respect…” (Nicomachean Ethics, Book 6, 1141a). | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | The main problem for (WFK) is that some of the most knowledgeable people are not wise. Although they have an abundance of very important factual knowledge, they lack the kind of practical know-how that is a mark of a wise person. Wise people know how to get on in the world in all kinds of situations and with all kinds of people. Extensive factual knowledge is not enough to give us what a wise person knows. As Robert Nozick points out, “Wisdom is not just knowing fundamental truths, if these are unconnected with the guidance of life or with a perspective on its meaning” (1989, 269). There is more to wisdom than intelligence and knowledge of science and philosophy or any other subject matter. Aristotle is well aware of the limitations of what he calls theoretical wisdom. However, rather than making improvements to something like (WFK), Aristotle distinguishes it as one kind of wisdom. Other philosophers would be willing to abandon (WFK), that is, claim that it provides insufficient conditions for wisdom, and add on what is missing. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | Aristotle has a concept of practical wisdom that makes up for what is missing in theoretical wisdom. In Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics, he claims, “This is why we say Anaxagoras, Thales, and men like them have philosophic but not practical wisdom, when we see them ignorant of what is to their own advantage, and why we say that they know things that are remarkable, admirable, difficult, and divine, but useless; viz. because it is not human goods they seek” (1141a). Knowledge of contingent facts that are useful to living well is required in Aristotle's practical wisdom. According to Aristotle, “Now it is thought to be the mark of a man of practical wisdom to be able to deliberate well about what is good and expedient for himself, not in some particular respect, e.g. about what sorts of thing conduce to health or to strength, but about what sorts of thing conduce to the good life in general” (Nichomachean Ethics, VI, 1140a–1140b). Thus, for Aristotle, practical wisdom requires knowing, in general, how to live well. Many philosophers agree with Aristotle on this point. However, many would not be satisfied with the conclusion that theoretical wisdom is one kind of wisdom and practical wisdom another. Other philosophers, including Linda Zagzebski (1996), agree that there are these two types of wisdom that ought to be distinguished. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | Let's proceed, without argument, on the assumption that it is possible to have a theory of one, general, kind of wisdom. Wisdom, in general, many philosophers would argue, requires practical knowledge about living. What Aristotle calls theoretical wisdom, many would contend, is not wisdom at all. Aristotle's theoretical wisdom is merely extensive knowledge or deep understanding. Nicholas Maxwell (1984), in his argument to revolutionize education, argues that we should be teaching for wisdom, which he sharply distinguishes from standard academic knowledge. Similar points are raised by Robert Sternberg (2001) and Andrew Norman (1996). Robert Nozick holds a view very similar to Aristotle's theory of practical wisdom, but Nozick is trying to capture the essence of wisdom, period. He is not trying to define one, alternative, kind of wisdom. Nozick claims, “Wisdom is what you need to understand in order to live well and cope with the central problems and avoid the dangers in the predicaments human beings find themselves in” (1989, 267). And, John Kekes maintains that, “What a wise man knows, therefore, is how to construct a pattern that, given the human situation, is likely to lead to a good life” (1983, 280). More recently, Valerie Tiberius (2008) has developed a practical view that connects wisdom with well being, requiring, among other things, that a wise person live the sort of life that he or she could sincerely endorse upon reflection. Such practical views of wisdom could be expressed, generally, as follows. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | This view captures Aristotle's basic idea of practical wisdom. It also captures an important aspect of views defended by Nozick, Plato, Garrett, Kekes, Maxwell, Ryan, and Tiberius. Although giving an account of what it means to know how to live well may prove as difficult a topic as providing an account of wisdom, Nozick provides a very illuminating start. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | With Nozick's explanation of what one must know in order to live well, we have an interesting and quite attractive, albeit somewhat rough, theory of wisdom. As noted above, many philosophers, including Aristotle and Zagzebski would, however, reject (KLW) as the full story on wisdom. Aristotle and Zagzebski would obviously reject (KLW) as the full story because they believe theoretical wisdom is another kind of wisdom, and are unwilling to accept that there is a conception of one, general, kind of wisdom. Kekes claims, “The possession of wisdom shows itself in reliable, sound, reasonable, in a word, good judgment. In good judgment, a person brings his knowledge to bear on his actions. To understand wisdom, we have to understand its connection with knowledge, action, and judgment” (1983, 277). Kekes adds, “Wisdom ought also to show in the man who has it” (1983, 281). Many philosophers, therefore, think that wisdom is not restricted even to knowledge about how to live well. Tiberius thinks the wise person's actions reflect their basic values. These philosophers believe that being wise also includes action. A person could satisfy the conditions of any of the principles we have considered thus far and nevertheless behave in a wildly reckless manner. Wildly reckless people are, even if very knowledgeable about life, not wise. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | Philosophers who are attracted to the idea that knowing how to live well is a necessary condition for wisdom might want to simply tack on a success condition to (KLW) to get around cases in which a person knows all about living well, yet fails to put this knowledge into practice. Something along the lines of the following theory would capture this idea. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | The idea of the success condition is that one puts one's knowledge into practice. Or, rather than using the terminology of success, one might require that a wise person's beliefs and values cohere with one's actions (Tiberius, 2008). The main idea is that one's actions are reflective of one's understanding of what it means to live well. A view along the lines of (KLS) would be embraced by Aristotle and Zagzebski (for practical wisdom), and by Kekes, Nozick, and Tiberius. (KLS) would not be universally embraced, however (see Ryan 1999, for further criticisms). One criticism of (KLS) is that one might think that all the factual knowledge required by (WFK) is missing from this theory. One might argue that (WFK), the view that a wise person has extensive factual knowledge, was rejected only because it did not provide sufficient conditions for wisdom. Many philosophers would claim that (WFK) does provide a necessary condition for wisdom. A wise person, such a critic would argue, needs to know how to live well (as described by Nozick), but she also needs to have some deep and far-reaching theoretical, or factual, knowledge that may have very little impact on her daily life, practical decisions, or well being. In the preface of his Principles of Philosophy, Descartes insisted upon factual knowledge as an important component of wisdom. Descartes wrote, “It is really only God alone who has Perfect Wisdom, that is to say, who has a complete knowledge of the truth of all things; but it may be said that men have more wisdom or less according as they have more or less knowledge of the most important truths” (Principles, 204). Of course, among those important truths, one might claim, are truths about living well, as well as knowledge in the basic academic subject areas. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | Moreover, one might complain that the insight left standing from Epistemic Accuracy theories is also missing from (KLS). One might think that a wise person not only knows a lot, and succeeds at living well, she also confines her claims to knowledge (or belief that she has knowledge) to those propositions that she is justified in believing. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | One way to try to accommodate the various insights from the theories considered thus far is in the form of a hybrid theory. One such idea is: | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | Although this Hybrid Theory has a lot going for it, there are a number of important criticisms to consider. Dennis Whitcomb (2010) objects to all theories of wisdom that include a living well condition, or an appreciation of living well condition. He gives several interesting objections against such views. Whitcomb thinks that a person who is deeply depressed and totally devoid of any ambition for living well could nevertheless be wise. As long as such a person is deeply knowledgeable about academic subjects and knows how to live well, that person would have all they need for wisdom. With respect to a very knowledgeable and deeply depressed person with no ambition but to stay in his room, he claims, “If I ran across such a person, I would take his advice to heart, wish him a return to health, and leave the continuing search for sages to his less grateful advisees. And I would think he was wise despite his depression-induced failure to value or desire the good life. So I think that wisdom does not require valuing or desiring the good life.” | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | In response to Whitcomb's penetrating criticism, one could argue that a deeply depressed person who is wise, would still live as well as she can, and would still value living well, even if she falls far short of perfection. Such a person would attempt to get help to deal with her depression. If she really does not care at all, she may be very knowledgeable, but she is not wise. There is something irrational about knowing how to live well and refusing to try to do so. Such irrationality is not compatible with wisdom. A person with this internal conflict may be extremely clever and shrewd, one to listen to on many issues, one to trust on many issues, and may even win a Nobel Prize for her intellectual greatness, but she is not admirable enough, and rationally consistent enough, to be wise. Wisdom is a virtue and a way of living, and it requires more than smart ideas and knowledge. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | Aristotle held that “it is evident that it is impossible to be practically wise without being good” (Nicomachean Ethics, 1144a, 36–37). Most of the philosophers mentioned thus far would include moral virtue in their understanding of what it means to live well. However, Whitcomb challenges any theory of wisdom that requires moral virtue. Whitcomb contends that a deeply evil person could nevertheless be wise. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | Again, it is important to contrast being wise from being clever and intelligent. If we think of wisdom as the highest, or among the highest, of human virtues, then it seems incompatible with a deeply evil personality. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | There is, however, a very serious problem with the Hybrid Theory. Since so much of what was long ago considered knowledge has been abandoned, or has evolved, a theory that requires truth (through a knowledge condition) would exclude almost all people who are now long dead, including Hypatia, Socrates, Confucius, Aristotle, Homer, Lao Tzu, etc. from the list of the wise. Bad epistemic luck, and having lived in the past, should not count against being wise. But, since truth is a necessary condition for knowledge, bad epistemic luck is sufficient to undermine a claim to knowledge. What matters, as far as being wise goes, is not that a wise person has knowledge, but that she has highly justified and rational beliefs about a wide variety of subjects, including how to live well, science, philosophy, mathematics, history, geography, art, literature, psychology, and so on. And the wider the variety of interesting topics, the better. Another way of developing this same point is to imagine a person with highly justified beliefs about a wide variety of subjects, but who is unaware that she is trapped in the Matrix, or some other skeptical scenario. Such a person could be wise even if she is sorely lacking knowledge. A theory of wisdom that focuses on having rational or epistemically justified beliefs, rather than the higher standard of actually having knowledge, would be more promising. Moreover, such a theory would incorporate much of what is attractive about epistemic humility, and epistemic accuracy, theories. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | The final theory to be considered here is an attempt to capture all that is good, while avoiding all the serious problems of the other theories discussed thus far. Perhaps wisdom is a deep and comprehensive kind of rationality (Ryan, 2012). | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | In condition (1), DRT takes account of what is attractive about some knowledge theories by requiring epistemically justified beliefs about a wide variety of standard academic subjects. Condition (2) takes account of what is attractive about theories that require knowledge about how to live well. For example, having justified beliefs about how to live in a practically rational way would include having a well-reasoned strategy for dealing with the practical aspects of life. Having a rational plan does not require perfect success. It requires having good reasons behind one's actions, responding appropriately to, and learning from, one's mistakes, and having a rational plan for all sorts of situations and problems. Having justified beliefs about how to live in a morally rational way would not involve being a moral saint, but would require that one has good reasons supporting her beliefs about what is morally right and wrong, and about what one morally ought and ought not do in a wide variety of circumstances. Having justified beliefs about living in an emotionally rational way would involve, not dispassion, but having justified beliefs about what is, and what is not, an emotionally rational response to a situation. For example, it is appropriate to feel deeply sad when dealing with the loss of a loved one. But, ordinarily, feeling deeply sad or extremely angry is not an appropriate emotion to spilled milk. A wise person would have rational beliefs about the emotional needs and behaviors of other people. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | Condition (3) ensures that the wise person live a life that reflects what she or he is justified in believing is a rational way to live. In condition (4), DRT respects epistemic humility. Condition (4) requires that a wise person not believe things without epistemic justification. The Deep Rationality Theory rules out all of the unwise poets, politicians, and craftsmen that were ruled out by Socrates. Wise people do not think they know when they lack sufficient evidence. Moreover, wise people are not epistemically arrogant. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | The Deep Rationality Theory does not require knowledge or perfection. But it does require rationality, and it accommodates degrees of wisdom. It is a promising theory of wisdom. | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | The Wisdom Page http://www.wisdompage.com/ | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | [Please contact the author with suggestions.] | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | evidence | justification, epistemic: coherentist theories of | justification, epistemic: foundationalist theories of | justification, epistemic: internalist vs. externalist conceptions of | knowledge: analysis of | modesty and humility | reliabilist epistemology | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | Copyright © 2013 by Sharon Ryan <[email protected]> | wisdom |
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https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ | Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054 | wisdom |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/ | Considered by some to be the greatest philosopher of the 20th century, Ludwig Wittgenstein played a central, if controversial, role in mid-20th-century analytic philosophy. He continues to influence, and incur debate in, current philosophical thought in topics as diverse as logic and language, perception and intention, ethics and religion, aesthetics and culture, and even political thought. Furthermore, a central factor in investigating Wittgenstein’s works is the multifarious nature of the project of interpreting them; this leads to untold difficulties in the ascertainment of his philosophical substance and method. | wittgenstein |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/ | Originally, there were two commonly recognized stages of Wittgenstein’s thought—the early and the later—both of which were taken to be pivotal in their respective periods. In this orthodox two-stage interpretation, it is commonly acknowledged that the early Wittgenstein is epitomized in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. By showing the application of modern logic to metaphysics, via language, he provided new insights into the relations between world, thought, and language and thereby into the nature of philosophy. It is the later Wittgenstein, mostly recognized in the Philosophical Investigations, who took the more revolutionary step in critiquing all of traditional philosophy including its climax in his own early work. The nature of his new philosophy is heralded as anti-systematic through and through, yet still conducive to genuine philosophical understanding of traditional problems. In more recent scholarship, this division has been questioned: some interpreters have claimed a certain unity between all stages of his thought, while others talk of a more nuanced division, adding stages such as the middle Wittgenstein and the post-later Wittgenstein. | wittgenstein |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/ | Wittgenstein was born on April 26, 1889 in Vienna, Austria, to a wealthy industrial family, well-situated in intellectual and cultural Viennese circles. In 1908 he began his studies in aeronautical engineering at Manchester University where his interest in the philosophy of pure mathematics led him to Frege. Upon Frege’s advice, in 1911 he went to Cambridge to study with Bertrand Russell. Russell wrote, upon meeting Wittgenstein: “An unknown German appeared … obstinate and perverse, but I think not stupid” (quoted by Monk 1990: 38f). Within one year, Russell was committed: “I shall certainly encourage him. Perhaps he will do great things … I love him and feel he will solve the problems I am too old to solve” (quoted by Monk 1990: 41). Russell’s insight was accurate. Wittgenstein was idiosyncratic in his habits and way of life, yet profoundly acute in his philosophical sensitivity. | wittgenstein |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/ | During his years in Cambridge, from 1911 to 1913, Wittgenstein conducted several conversations on philosophy and the foundations of logic with Russell, with whom he had an emotional and intense relationship, as well as with Moore and Keynes. He retreated to isolation in Norway, for months at a time, in order to ponder these philosophical problems and to work out their solutions. In 1913 he returned to Austria and in 1914, at the start of World War I (1914–1918), joined the Austrian army. He was taken captive in 1918 and spent the remaining months of the war at a prison camp. It was during the war that he wrote the notes and drafts of his first important work, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. After the war the book was published in German and translated into English. | wittgenstein |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/ | In the 1920s Wittgenstein, now divorced from philosophy (having, to his mind, solved all philosophical problems in the Tractatus), gave away his part of his family’s fortune and pursued several ‘professions’ (gardener, teacher, architect, etc.) in and around Vienna. It was only in 1929 that he returned to Cambridge to resume his philosophical vocation, after having been exposed to discussions on the philosophy of mathematics and science with members of the Vienna Circle, whose conception of logical empiricism was indebted to his Tractatus account of logic as tautologous, and his philosophy as concerned with logical syntax. During these first years in Cambridge his conception of philosophy and its problems underwent dramatic changes that are recorded in several volumes of conversations, lecture notes, and letters (e.g., Ludwig Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle, The Blue and Brown Books, Philosophical Grammar, Philosophical Remarks). Sometimes termed the ‘middle Wittgenstein,’ this period heralds a rejection of dogmatic philosophy, including both traditional works and the Tractatus itself. | wittgenstein |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/ | In the 1930s and 1940s Wittgenstein conducted seminars at Cambridge, developing most of the ideas that he intended to publish in his second book, Philosophical Investigations. These included the turn from formal logic to ordinary language, novel reflections on psychology and mathematics, and a general skepticism concerning philosophy’s pretensions. In 1945 he prepared the final manuscript of the Philosophical Investigations, but, at the last minute, withdrew it from publication (and only authorized its posthumous publication). For a few more years he continued his philosophical work, but this is marked by a rich development of, rather than a turn away from, his second phase. He traveled during this period to the United States and Ireland, and returned to Cambridge, where he was diagnosed with cancer. Legend has it that, at his death in 1951, his last words were “Tell them I’ve had a wonderful life” (Monk: 579). | wittgenstein |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/ | Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was first published in German in 1921 and then translated—by C.K. Ogden (and F. P. Ramsey)—and published in English in 1922. It was later re-translated by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness. Coming out of Wittgenstein’s Notes on Logic (1913), “Notes Dictated to G. E. Moore” (1914), his Notebooks, written in 1914–16, and further correspondence with Russell, Moore, and Keynes, and showing Schopenhauerian and other cultural influences, it evolved as a continuation of and reaction to Russell and Frege’s conceptions of logic and language. Russell supplied an introduction to the book claiming that it “certainly deserves … to be considered an important event in the philosophical world.” It is fascinating to note that Wittgenstein thought little of Russell’s introduction, claiming that it was riddled with misunderstandings. Later interpretations have attempted to unearth the surprising tensions between the introduction and the rest of the book (or between Russell’s reading of Wittgenstein and Wittgenstein’s own self-assessment)—usually harping on Russell’s appropriation of Wittgenstein for his own agenda. | wittgenstein |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/ | The Tractatus’s structure purports to be representative of its internal essence. It is constructed around seven basic propositions, numbered by the natural numbers 1–7, with all other paragraphs in the text numbered by decimal expansions so that, e.g., paragraph 1.1 is (supposed to be) a further elaboration on proposition 1, 1.22 is an elaboration of 1.2, and so on. | wittgenstein |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/ | The seven basic propositions are: | wittgenstein |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/ | Clearly, the book addresses the central problems of philosophy which deal with the world, thought and language, and presents a ‘solution’ (as Wittgenstein terms it) of these problems that is grounded in logic and in the nature of representation. The world is represented by thought, which is a proposition with sense, since they all—world, thought, and proposition—share the same logical form. Hence, the thought and the proposition can be pictures of the facts. | wittgenstein |