Some Socratic Aspects of Wittgenstein’s Conception of Philosophy

doi:10.1017/9781108151764.013

Chapter 12 - Some Socratic Aspects of Wittgenstein’s Conception of Philosophy

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 August 2019

James Conant

Edited by

James Conant and

Sebastian Sunday

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James Conant: Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Sebastian Sunday: Affiliation:
University of Oxford

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Summary

This chapter begins with an examination, testing the reader’s knowledge of Socrates and Wittgenstein. It goes on to consider the question of why the exam might be a difficult one, and the question of what this difficulty shows about Wittgenstein. The chapter further discusses, on a more general level, the questions of why the claim that a philosopher’s conception of philosophy bears a Socratic aspect was once a tautology and why the claim that Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy bears a Socratic aspect is no longer a tautology. Along the way, the chapter argues in favor of several claims of this latter, non-tautological sort. (All three parts of the exam are also provided, detached from the text, in the form of three appendices; a fourth appendix contains the correct answers.)

Keywords

philosophy Wittgenstein metaphilosophy Socrates Socratic life biography exam Plato

Type: Chapter
Information: Wittgenstein on Philosophy, Objectivity, and Meaning , pp. 231 - 264

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108151764.013 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2019

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References

The Preliminary Exam

Wittgenstein. Britton, Karl, “Portrait of a Philosopher,” in Flowers III, F. A., ed., Portraits of Wittgenstein (Thoemmes Press, 1999), volume 2, p. 209.Google Scholar

Socrates. Charmides 163d. Plato’s dialogues are cited after The Collected Dialogues of Plato, edited by Hamilton, Edith and Cairns, Huntingdon (Princeton University Press, [1961]).Google Scholar

Wittgenstein. The remark occurs, in German, in a letter to his sister Helene Salzer (née Wittgenstein) dated “Saturday [1934].” See Wittgenstein: Gesamtbriefwechsel / Complete Correspondence (Innsbrucker Electronic Edition), second release, edited by Coda, Anna, Citron, Gabriel, Halder, Barbara, Janik, Allan, Lobis, Ulrich, Mayr, Kerstin, McGuinness, Brian, Schorner, Michael, Seekircher, Monika, Unterkircher, Anton, and Wang, Joseph (Intelex, 2004/11), www.nlx.com/collections/166.Google Scholar

Socrates. Meno 84b; translation amended.Google Scholar

Wittgenstein. Culture and Value: A Selection from the Posthumous Remains, edited by von Wright, G. H. in collaboration with Nyman, Heikki, revised edition of the text by Pichler, Alois, translated by Winch, Peter (Blackwell, 1977/98), p. 88e. The original quotation reads: “Anything the reader can do for himself, leave it to the reader.”Google Scholar

Socrates. Hadot, Pierre, “The Figure of Socrates,” in Philosophy as a Way of Life, edited by Davidson, Arnold I., translated by Chase, Michael (Blackwell, 1995), pp. 149 and 153.Google Scholar

Wittgenstein. Malcolm, Norman, Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir, second edition with Wittgenstein’s letters to Malcolm (Clarendon Press, 1958/84), p. 26.Google Scholar

Socrates. Gottlieb, Anthony, The Dream of Reason: A History of Western Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance (Norton, 2000), p. 133.Google Scholar

Wittgenstein. Malcolm, op. cit., p. 47.Google Scholar

Socrates. Gottlieb, op. cit., p. 143.Google Scholar

Wittgenstein. Malcolm, op. cit., p. 27.Google Scholar

Socrates. Gottlieb, op. cit., p. 155.Google Scholar

Socrates. Ibid., p. 160.Google Scholar

The Exam Proper

Socrates. Apology 36b.Google Scholar

Wittgenstein. von Wright, Georg Henrik, Wittgenstein (Blackwell, 1982), p. 23.Google Scholar

Wittgenstein. Malcolm, op. cit., p. 25.Google Scholar

Socrates. Symposium 220c.Google Scholar

Wittgenstein. von Wright, Georg Henrik, “Autobiography,” in Schilpp, Paul Arthur and Hahn, Lewis Edwin, eds., The Philosophy of Georg Henrik von Wright (Open Court, 1989), p. 14.Google Scholar

Socrates. Laches 187e.Google Scholar

Socrates. Apology 28b.Google Scholar

Wittgenstein. Geheime Tagebücher, 1914–1916, edited by Wilhelm Baum (Turia + Kant, [1991]), entry for 13.9.14 (translated from the original German).Google Scholar

Wittgenstein. Ibid., 7.10.14 (translated from the original German).Google Scholar

Socrates. Phaedo 64a (translated from the original Greek).Google Scholar

Socrates. Gottlieb, op. cit., p. 154; the embedded quotation is a translation of Joël, Karl, Der echte und der Xenophontische Sokrates (R. Gaertner, 1893), p. 256, quoted in W. K. C. Guthrie, Socrates (Cambridge University Press, 1971), p. 138.Google Scholar

Wittgenstein. Knut Erik Tranøy, “Wittgenstein in Cambridge 1949–1951: Some Personal Recollections,” in Flowers III (ed.), op. cit., vol. 4, p. 126.Google Scholar

Wittgenstein. Ibid., pp. 128–9 (transposed into the present tense to better suit the purposes of the exam).Google Scholar

Socrates. Symposium 218a.Google Scholar

Wittgenstein. Tranøy, op. cit., p. 125.Google Scholar

Wittgenstein. Culture and Value, op. cit., p. 69e.Google Scholar

Wittgenstein. Ibid., p. 41e (punctuation altered).Google Scholar

Wittgenstein, . Philosophical Occasions: 1912–1951, edited by Klagge, James C. and Nordmann, Alfred (Hackett, [1993]), p. 119.Google Scholar

Socrates. Theaetetus 189a (translation altered, and italics added, following Wittgenstein’s rendition; see next answer).Google Scholar

Wittgenstein, . Philosophical Investigations, edited by Anscombe, G. E. M and Rhees, Rush, revised edition by Hacker, P. M. S. and Schulte, Joachim, translated by Anscombe, G. E. M., Hacker, P. M. S., and Schulte, Joachim (Wiley‐Blackwell, 1953/2009), §518 (after he quotes the above passage from the Theaetetus).Google Scholar

The Extra Credit Portion of the Exam

Both.Wallgren, Thomas, “Radical Enlightenment Optimism: Socrates and Wittgenstein,” in Perissinotto, Luigi and Ramón Cámara, Begoña, eds., Wittgenstein and Plato (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), p. 298.Google Scholar

Both. Joel Backström, “On Wittgenstein, Socrates, and the Morals of Metaphysics,” unpublished manuscript, p. 2.Google Scholar

Both. Niklas Toivakainen, “Socrates Examining, Wittgenstein Investigating,” unpublished manuscript, p. 14.Google Scholar

Both. Sunday Grève, Sebastian, “The Importance of Understanding Each Other in Philosophy,” Philosophy 90 (2015), p. 292.Google Scholar