Element contents
Wittgenstein and Aesthetics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2023
Summary
This Element argues that aesthetics broadly conceived plays a significant role in Wittgenstein's philosophy. In doing so, it draws on the interpretative tradition that emphasizes affinities between Wittgenstein's thought and Kant's philosophy. Following the chronology of Wittgenstein's philosophical work, this Element addresses Wittgenstein's early equation between ethics and aesthetics, his middle-period discussion on the normative character of aesthetic judgments and the possibility of their justification, and his later comparison between language and music. As a whole, it traces a continuous line of thought pertaining to a non-conceptual form of encounter with reality, which is developed in close conjunction with aesthetics and contributes to Wittgenstein's understanding of language and the method of philosophy throughout his career.
- Type
- Element
- Information
- Online ISBN: 9781108946452Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication: 09 March 2023
References
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
Allen, R. and Turvey, R. (2001). Wittgenstein, Theory and the Arts. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Allison, H. (1986). “Morality and Freedom: Kant’s Reciprocity Thesis.” The Philosophical Review 95 (3), 393–425.Google Scholar
Allison, H. (2001). Kant’s Theory of Taste: A Reading of the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Appelqvist, H. (2013). “Why Does Wittgenstein Say that Ethics and Aesthetics Are One and the Same?” In Sullivan, P. and Potter, M., eds., Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: History and Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 40–58.Google Scholar
Appelqvist, H. (2016). “On Wittgenstein’s Kantian Solution of the Problem of Philosophy.” The British Journal for the History of Philosophy 24 (4), 697–719.Google Scholar
Appelqvist, H. (2017). “What Kind of Normativity is the Normativity of Grammar?” Metaphilosophy 48 (1–2), 123–145.Google Scholar
Appelqvist, H. (2018). “Wittgenstein on the Grounds of Religious Faith: A Kantian Proposal.” The European Journal of Philosophy 26 (3), 1026–1040.Google Scholar
Appelqvist, H. (2019a). “Wittgenstein and Formalism: A Case Revisited.” Ápeiron: Estudios de filosofía 10, 9–27.Google Scholar
Appelqvist, H. (2019b). “Beauty and Rules: Kant and Wittgenstein on the Cognitive Relevance of Aesthetics.” In Huemer, W. and Vendrell Ferran, I., eds., Beauty: New Essays in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Munich: Philsophia Verlag, 43–70.Google Scholar
Appelqvist, H. and Pöykkö, P. (2020). “Wittgenstein and Levinas on the Transcendentality of Ethics.” In Appelqvist, H., ed., Wittgenstein and the Limits of Language. New York: Routledge, 65–89.Google Scholar
Arbo, A., Le Du, M. and Plaud, S. (2012). Wittgenstein and Aesthetics: Perspectives and Debates. Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag.Google Scholar
Baker, G. P. and Hacker, P. M. S. (2009). Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity. Essays and Exegesis of §§185–242, 2nd, extensively revised edition by Hacker, P. M. S.. Oxford: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, C. (1984). “‘(Ethics and Aesthetics Are One)’?” In Haller, R., ed., Aesthetics: Proceedings of the 8th International Wittgenstein Symposium. Vienna: Holde-Pichler-Tempsky, 17–22.Google Scholar
Batkin, N. (2010). “Aesthetic Analogies.” In W. and Krebs, V., eds., Seeing Wittgenstein Anew: New Essays on Aspect-Seeing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 23–39.Google Scholar
Baumgarten, A. (1954). Reflections on Poetry: Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus. K. Aschenbrenner and W. B. Holther, trs. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Baz, A. (2000). “What’s the Point of Seeing Aspects?.” Philosophical Investigations 23 (3), 97–121.Google Scholar
Baz, A. (2016). “The Sound of Bedrock: Lines of Grammar between Kant, Wittgenstein, and Cavell.” The European Journal of Philosophy 24 (3), 607–628.Google Scholar
Baz, A. (2020). Wittgenstein on Aspect Perception. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Budd, M. (2011). “Wittgenstein on Aesthetics.” In McGinn, M. and Kuusela, O., eds., The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 775–795.Google Scholar
Cassirer, E. (1945). Rousseau, Kant, and Goethe. Gutmann, J., Kristeller, P. O., and Randall, J. Herman Jr., trs. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Collinson, D. (1985). “Ethics and Aesthetics Are One.” British Journal of Aesthetics 25 (3), 266–272.Google Scholar
Conant, J. (2002). “The Method of the Tractatus.” In Reck, E. H., ed., From Frege to Wittgenstein: Perspectives on Early Analytic Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 374–462.Google Scholar
Conant, J. (2005). “What ‘Ethics’ in the Tractatus is Not.” In Phillips, D. Z. and von der Ruhr, M., eds., Religion and Wittgenstein’s Legacy. Aldershot: Ashgate, 39–88.Google Scholar
Day, W. (2017). “The Aesthetic Dimension of Wittgenstein’s Later Writings.” In Hagberg, G. L., ed., Wittgenstein on Aesthetic Understanding. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 3–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diamond, C. (1983). “Having a Rough Story about What Moral Philosophy Is.” New Literary History 15 (1), 155–169.Google Scholar
Diamond, C. (2000). “Ethics, Imagination, and the Method of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus.” In Crary, A. and Read, R., eds., The New Wittgenstein. London: Routledge, 149–173.Google Scholar
Diamond, C. (2005). “Wittgenstein on Religious Belief: The Gulfs Between Us.” In Phillips, D. Z. and von Ruhr, M., eds., Religion and Wittgenstein’s Legacy. Aldershot: Ashgate, 99–137.Google Scholar
Eldridge, R. (1987). “Problems and Prospects of Wittgensteinian Aesthetics.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 45 (3), 251–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eldridge, R. (2004). “Rotating the Axis of Our Investigation: Wittgenstein’s Investigations and Hölderlin’s Poetology.” In Gibson, J. and Huemer, W., eds., The Literary Wittgenstein. New York: Routledge, 211–227.Google Scholar
Escalera, C. C. (2012). “On Wittgenstein’s Extension on the Domain of Aesthetic Education: Intransitive Knowledge and Ethics.” Journal of Aesthetic Education 46 (3), 53–68.Google Scholar
Floyd, J. (1998). “Heautonomy: Kant on Reflective Judgment and Systematicity.” In Parret, H., ed., Kant’s Aesthetics. Berlin: De Gruyter, 192–218.Google Scholar
Floyd, J. (2000). “Wittgenstein, Mathematics and Philosophy.” In Crary, A. and Read, R., eds., The New Wittgenstein. New York: Routledge, 232–261.Google Scholar
Friedlander, E. (2001). Signs of Sense: Reading Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Friedlander, E. (2011a). “Meaning Schematisms in Cavell’s Kantian Reading of Wittgenstein.” Revue Internationale de Philosophie 2 (256), 183–199.Google Scholar
Friedlander, E. (2011b). “Wittgenstein et Gœthe: La view des couleurs.” In Chauviré, C., ed., L’Art de Comprendre 20.Google Scholar
Gibson, J. and Huemer, W., eds. (2004). The Literary Wittgenstein. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ginsborg, H. (1997). “Lawfulness without a Law: Kant on the Free Play of Imagination and Understanding.” Philosophical Topics 25 (1), 37–81.Google Scholar
Glock, H. (1992). “Cambridge, Jena, or Vienna? The Roots of the Tractatus.” Ratio 5 (1), 1–23.Google Scholar
Glock, H. (1997). “Kant and Wittgenstein: Philosophy, Necessity and Representation.” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 5 (2), 285–305.Google Scholar
Glock, H. (1999). “Schopenhauer and Wittgenstein: Language as Representation and Will.” In Janaway., C., ed., The Cambridge Companion to Schopenhauer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 422–458.Google Scholar
Gmür, F. (2000). Ästhetik bei Wittgenstein: Über Sagen und Zeigen. Freiburg: Alber.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guter, E. (2015). “The Good, the Bad, and the Vacuous: Wittgenstein on Modern and Future Musics.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 73 (4), 425–439.Google Scholar
Guter, E. (2017). “Wittgenstein on Musical Depth and Our Knowledge of the Humankind.” In Hagberg, G., ed., Wittgenstein on Aesthetic Understanding. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 217–247.Google Scholar
Guter, E. (2020). “The Philosophical Significance of Wittgenstein’s Experiments on Rhythm.” Estetika: The European Journal of Aesthetics 57 (1), 28–43.Google Scholar
Guyer, P. (1997). Kant and the Claims of Taste. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hacker, P. M. S. (1986). Insight and Illusion, 2nd revised ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hacker, P. M. S. (2001). “Wittgenstein and the Autonomy of Humanistic Understanding.” In Allen, R. and Turvey, M., eds., Wittgenstein, Theory and the Arts. London: Routledge, 39–74.Google Scholar
Hagberg, G. L. (1995). Art as Language: Wittgenstein, Meaning, and Aesthetic Theory. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Hagberg, G. L. (2008). Describing Ourselves: Wittgenstein and Autobiographical Consciousness. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hagberg, G. L., ed. (2017). Wittgenstein on Aesthetic Understanding. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hagberg, G. L., ed. (2018). Stanley Cavell on Aesthetic Understanding. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Hanfling, O. (2004). “Wittgenstein on Music and Language.” In Lewis, P., ed., Wittgenstein, Aesthetics and Philosophy. Aldershot: Ashgate, 151–162.Google Scholar
Hanslick, E. (1986). On the Musically Beautiful. Payzant, G., tr. and ed. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.Google Scholar
Haugeland, J. (1998). “Truth and Rule-Following.” In Haugeland Having Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 305−361.Google Scholar
Huemer, W. (2013). “The Character of a Name: Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Shakespeare.” In Brum, S. Huemer, W., and Steuer, D., eds., Wittgenstein Reading. Berlin: De Gruyter, 23–37.Google Scholar
Hyman, J. (2001). “The Urn and the Chamber Pot.” In Allen, R. and Turvey, M., eds., Wittgenstein, Theory and the Arts. London: Routledge, 137–152.Google Scholar
Jacquette, D. (2017). “Wittgenstein and Schopenhauer.” In Glock, H. and Hyman, J., eds., A Companion to Wittgenstein. Oxford: Blackwell, 57–73.Google Scholar
Janik, A. (2007). “Das Ästhetische im Ethischen and das Ethische im Ästhetischen.” In Majetschak, S. and Lütterfelds, W., eds., “Ethik und Ästhetik Sind Eins”: Beiträge zu Wittgensteins Ästhetik und Kunsphilosophie. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 11–19.Google Scholar
Johannessen, K. S. (1990). “Art, Philosophy and Intransitive Understanding.” In Haller, R. and Brandl, J., eds., Wittgenstein: Towards a Re-evaluation. Proceedings of the 14th International Wittgenstein-Symposium, vol. 19,. Vienna: Springer Verlag, 323–333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johannessen, K. S., ed. (1998). Wittgenstein and Aesthetics. Bergen: University of Bergen.Google Scholar
Kannisto, H. (1986). Thoughts and Their Subject: A Study of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. Acta Philosophica Fennica, vol 40. Helsinki: The Philosophical Society of Finland.Google Scholar
Kemp, G. and Mras, G., eds. (2016). Wollheim, Wittgenstein, and Pictorial Representation: Seeing-as and Seeing-in. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kripke, S. (1982). Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kuusela, O. (2017). “Wittgenstein’s Comparison between Philosophy, Aesthetics and Ethics.” In Majetschak, S. and Weiberg, A., eds., Aesthetics Today. Berlin: De Gruyter, 333–348.Google Scholar
Lewis, P. B. (1996). “Wittgenstein and ‘the Tremendous Things in Art’.” In Johannessen, K. S. and Nordenstram, T., eds., Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Culture. Vienna: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky, 148–161.Google Scholar
Lewis, P. B. (1998). “Wittgenstein’s Aesthetic Misunderstandings.” In Johannessen, K. S., ed., Wittgenstein and Aesthetics. Bergen: University of Bergen, 18–38.Google Scholar
Lewis, P. B. (2005). “Original Nonsense: Art and Genius in Kant’s aesthetic.” In MacDonald Ross, G. and McWalter, T., eds., Kant and His Influence. London: Continuum, 126–145.Google Scholar
Majetschak, S. and Lütterfelds, W., eds. (2007). “Ethik und Ästhetik Sind Eins”: Beiträge zu Wittgensteins Ästhetik und Kunsphilosophie. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Makkai, K. (2021). Kant’s Critique of Taste: The Feeling of Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. (2009). “How Not to Read Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: Brandom’s Wittgenstein.” In McDowell, , The Engaged Intellect: Philosophical Essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 96–114.Google Scholar
McGuinness, B. (1988). Wittgenstein: A Life. Young Ludwig (1889–1921). London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Moore, A. W. (1987). “Beauty in the Transcendental Idealism of Kant and Wittgenstein.” British Journal of Aesthetics 27 (2), 129–137.Google Scholar
Moore, A.W. (2007). “Is the Feeling of Unity that Kant Identifies in his Third Critique a Type of Inexpressible Knowledge?” Philosophy 82 (321), 475–485.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, A.W. (2011). “A Response to Sullivan.” In Read, R. and Lavery, M. A., eds., Beyond the Tractatus Wars: The New Wittgenstein Debate. New York: Routledge, 190–195.Google Scholar
Moore, A. W. (2013). “Was the Author of the Tractatus a Transcendental Idealist?.” In Sullivan, P. and Potter, M., eds., Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: History and Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 239–255.Google Scholar
Moyal-Sharrock, D. (2020). “Literature as the Measure of Our Lives.” In Appelqvist, H., ed., Wittgenstein and the Limits of Language. New York: Routledge, 270–287.Google Scholar
Nyiri, J. C. (1982). “Wittgenstein’s Later Work in Relation to Conservatism.” In McGuinness, B., ed., Wittgenstein and His Times. Oxford: Blackwell, 44–64.Google Scholar
Proops, I. (2004). “Wittgenstein on the Substance of the World.” The European Journal of Philosophy 12 (1), 106–126.Google Scholar
Rhees, R., ed. (1981). Ludwig Wittgenstein: Personal Recollections. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Rowe, M. (2004). “Criticism without Theory.” In Lewis, P., ed., Wittgenstein, Aesthetics and Philosophy. Aldershot: Ashgate,73–93.Google Scholar
Säätelä, S. (2002). “‘Perhaps the Most Important Thing in Connection with Aesthetics’: Wittgenstein on Aesthetic Reactions.” Revue Internationale de Philosophie 1 (219), 49–72.Google Scholar
Säätelä, S. (2011). “From Logical Method to ‘Messing About’: Wittgenstein on ‘Open Problems’ in Mathematics.” In Kuusela, O. and McGinn, M., eds., The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 159–178.Google Scholar
Schroeder, S. (2001). “The Coded-Message Model of Literature.” In Allen, R. and Turvey, M., eds., Wittgenstein, Theory and the Arts. London: Routledge, 210–228.Google Scholar
Schroeder, S. (2017). “Wittgenstein on Aesthetics.” In Glock, H. and Hyman, J., eds., A Companion to Wittgenstein. Oxford: Blackwell, 612–626.Google Scholar
Schopenhauer, A. (1969). The World as Will and Representation, vol I. E. F. J. Payne, tr. New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Schulte, J. (1989). “Aesthetic Correctness.” Revue Internationale de Philosophie 43 (169), 298–310.Google Scholar
Schulte, J. (1993). Experience and Expression. Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schulte, J. (2003). “Goethe and Wittgenstein on Morphology.” In Breithaupt, F., Raatzsch, R., and Kremberg, B., eds., Goethe and Wittgenstein: Seeing the World’s Unity in Its Variety. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 55–72.Google Scholar
Schulte, J. (2004). “’The Life of the Sign’: Wittgenstein on Reading a Poem.” In Gibson, J. and Huemer, W., eds., The Literary Wittgenstein. New York: Routledge, 146–164.Google Scholar
Schulte, J. (2013). “Did Wittgenstein Write on Shakespeare?” Nordic Wittgenstein Review 2 (1), 7–32.Google Scholar
Schulte, J. (2018). “Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Aesthetics and Their Context.” In Stern, D., ed., Wittgenstein in the 1930s: Between the Tractatus and the Investigations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 224–238.Google Scholar
Schulte, J. (2020). “‘Engelmann told me … ’ On the Aesthetic Significance of a Certain Remark by Wittgenstein.” Estetika: The European Journal of Aesthetics 57 (1), 15–27.Google Scholar
Scruton, R. (2004). “Wittgenstein and the Understanding of Music.” British Journal of Aesthetics 44 (1), 1–9.Google Scholar
Sedivy, S. (2016). Beauty and the End of Art: Wittgenstein, Plurality and Perception. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Stenius, E. (1960). Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: A Critical Exposition of Its Main Lines of Thought. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sullivan, P. (2011). “Synthesizing without Concepts.” In Read, R. and Lavery, M. A., eds., Beyond the Tractatus Wars: The New Wittgenstein Debate. New York: Routledge, 171–189.Google Scholar
Szabados, B. (2014). Wittgenstein as a Philosophical Tone-Poet: Philosophy and Music in Dialogue. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Tam, T. (2002). “On Wonder, Appreciation, and the Tremendous in Wittgenstein’s Aesthetics.” British Journal of Aesthetics 42 (3), 310–322.Google Scholar
Tilghman, B. (1991). Wittgenstein, Ethics and Aesthetics: The View from Eternity. London: MacMillan.Google Scholar
Varga, S. (2009). “Sub Specie Aeternitatis: An Actualization of Wittgenstein on Ethics and Aesthetics.” Nordic Journal of Aesthetics 20 (38), 35–50.Google Scholar
Weitz, M. (1956). “The Role of Theory in Aesthetics.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 15 (1), 27–35.Google Scholar
Wilde, C. (2004). “Ethics and Aesthetics are One.” In Lewis, P. B., ed., Wittgenstein, Aesthetics and Philosophy. Burlington: Ashgate, 165–184.Google Scholar
Williams, B. (1981). “Wittgenstein and Idealism.” Reprinted in Williams, Moral Luck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 144–164.Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, L. (2022). Betrachtungen zur Musik. Zimmermann, W., ed. Berlin: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
von Wright, G. H. (1977). “Foreword to the Edition of 1977.” In CV, ix–xi [no page numbers available].Google Scholar
- 7
- Cited by