Element contents
Wittgenstein and Ethics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 February 2024
Summary
In Ludwig Wittgenstein's writings, ethics takes a central place in his thinking. This element investigates his engagement with ethics in both early and later thinking. Starting from the remarks on ethics in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and the framing of these remarks, it presents two influential approaches to Tractarian ethics, before it develops a coherent reading of ethics in the early thinking, focusing on ethical silence and the relationship notions of world and the philosophical 'I'. The reading of 'A Lecture on Ethics' focuses on the critique of ethical theory and the personal dimension of ethics, two themes also running through Wittgenstein's later thinking. It considers Wittgenstein's later ethical investigations, of ethical examples, ethically relevant language uses of language and the connections between reflections on ethics and living. It also considers the role of the other in Wittgenstein's later thinking.
Keywords
- Type
- Element
- Information
- Online ISBN: 9781009439817Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication: 14 March 2024
References
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
Anscombe, G. E. M. (1959). An Introduction to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Boncompagni, Anna (2022). Wittgenstein on Forms of Life (Elements in the Philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bouwsma, Oets K. (1986). Wittgenstein: Conversations, 1949–1951. Edited by Craft, J. L. and Hustwit, Ronald E., Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishers.Google Scholar
Boyce, Kristin (2019). ‘Logic, Ethics, Aesthetics: Wittgenstein and the Transcendental’. In Agam-Segal, Reshef and Dain, Edmund, eds., Wittgenstein’s Moral Thought. London: Routledge, 133–52.Google Scholar
Cahill, Kevin (2004). ‘Ethics and the Tractatus: A Resolute Failure’. Philosophy 79(307): 33–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christensen, Anne-Marie Søndergaard (2011a). ‘Wittgenstein and Ethics’. In Kuusela, Oskari and McGinn, Marie, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 796–817.Google Scholar
Christensen, Anne-Marie Søndergaard (2011b). ‘“A Glorious Sun and a Bad Person”: Wittgenstein: Ethical Reflection and the Other’. Philosophia 39(2): 207–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christensen, Anne-Marie Søndergaard (2015). ‘Relational Views of Ethical Obligation in Wittgenstein, Lévinas and Løgstrup’. Ethical Perspectives 22(1): 15–38.Google Scholar
Christensen, Anne-Marie Søndergaard (2018). ‘“Life and World Are One”: World, Self and Ethics in the Work of Lévinas and Wittgenstein’. In Ometita, Mihai, Ucan, Timur, and Kuusela, Oskari, eds., Wittgenstein and Phenomenology. London: Routledge, 248–72.Google Scholar
Christensen, Anne-Marie Søndergaard (2020a). Moral Philosophy & Moral Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christensen, Anne-Marie Søndergaard (2020b). ‘The Philosopher and the Reader: Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein on Love and Philosophical Method’. European Journal of Philosophy 28(4): 876–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cockburn, David (2022). Wittgenstein, Human Beings and Conversation. London: Anthem Press.Google Scholar
Collinson, Diane (1985). ‘Ethics and Aesthetics Are One’. British Journal of Aesthetics 25(3): 266–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conant, James (2005). ‘What “Ethics” in the Tractatus Is Not’. In Phillips, D. Z. and von der Ruhr, Mario, eds., Religion and Wittgenstein’s Legacy. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 39–95.Google Scholar
Conant, James and Bronzo, Silver (2017). ‘Resolute Readings of the Tractatus’. In Glock, Hans-Johann and Hyman, John, eds., A Companion to Wittgenstein. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 175–94.Google Scholar
Conant, James and Diamond, Cora (2004). ‘On Reading the Tractatus Resolutely: Reply to Meredith Williams and Peter Sullivan’. In Kölbel, Max and Weiss, Bernhard, eds., Wittgenstein’s Lasting Significance. New York: Routledge, 42–99.Google Scholar
Cumhaill, Clare Mac and Wiseman, Rachael (2022). Metaphysical Animals. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Mesel, De, Benjamin, (2017). ‘Wittgenstein and Objectivity in Ethics: A Reply to Brandhorst’. Philosophical Investigations 40(1): 40–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diamond, Cora (1988). ‘Throwing Away the Ladder: How to Read the Tractatus’. Reprinted in The Realistic Spirit. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991, 179–204.Google Scholar
Diamond, Cora (1996). ‘Wittgenstein, Mathematics, and Ethics: Resisting the Attractions of Realism’. In Sluga, Hans and David, G. Stern, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 149–73.Google Scholar
Diamond, Cora (2000). ‘Ethics, Imagination and the Method of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus’. In Crary, Alice and Read, Rupert, eds., The New Wittgenstein. London: Routledge, 149–73.Google Scholar
Diamond, Cora (2011). ‘The Tractatus and the Limits of Sense’. In Kuusela, Oskari and McGinn, Marie, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 240–75.Google Scholar
Engelmann, Mauro Luiz (2021). Reading Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (Elements in the Philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacker, Peter (2000). ‘Was He Trying to Whistle It?’ In Crary, Alice and Read, Rupert, eds., The New Wittgenstein. London: Routledge, 353–88.Google Scholar
Hacker, Peter (2021). Insight and Illusion: Themes in the Philosophy of Wittgenstein, 3rd ed. London: Anthem Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hänsel, Ludwig (2012). Begegnungen mit Wittgenstein: Ludwig Hänsels Tagebücher 1918–1919 und 1921–1922. Edited by Somavilla, Ilse. Vienna: Haymon Verlag.Google Scholar
Hertzberg, Lars (2002). ‘Moral Escapism and Applied Ethics’. Philosophical Papers 31(3): 251–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Janik, Allan and Toulmin, Stephen (1973). Wittgenstein’s Vienna. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Kelly, John C. (1995). ‘Wittgenstein, the Self, and Ethics’. The Review of Metaphysics 48(3): 567–90.Google Scholar
Kober, Michael (2008). ‘On Epistemic and Moral Certainty: A Wittgensteinian Approach’. International Journal of Philosophical Studies 5(1): 365–81.Google Scholar
Kremer, Michael (2001). ‘The Purpose of Tractarian Nonsense’. Noûs 35(1): 39–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kremer, Michael (2007). ‘The Cardinal Problem of Philosophy’. In Crary, Alice, ed., Wittgenstein and the Moral Life: Essays in Honor of Cora Diamond. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 143–76.Google Scholar
Kuusela, Oskari (2011). ‘The Dialectic of Interpretation: Reading Wittgenstein’s Tractatus’. In Read, Rupert and Lavery, Matthew A., eds., Beyond the Tractatus Wars: The New Wittgenstein Debate. New York: Taylor & Francis Group, 121–48.Google Scholar
Kuusela, Oskari (2018). ‘Wittgenstein, Ethics and Philosophical Clarification’. In Agam-Segal, Reshef and Dain, Edmund, eds., Wittgenstein’s Moral Thought. London: Routledge, 37–65.Google Scholar
Lévinas, Emmanuel (1961). Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press.Google Scholar
Lovibond, Sabina (1998). Wittgensteinian Ethics. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, retrieved 7 January 2023, from www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/wittgensteinian-ethics/v-1.Google Scholar
Malcolm, Norman (1984). Wittgenstein: A Memoir, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Malcolm, Norman (1993). Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View? London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGinn, Marie (1997). Wittgenstein and the Philosophical Investigations. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
McGinn, Marie (2006). Elucidating the ‘Tractatus’: Wittgenstein’s Early Philosophy of Logic and Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mulhall, Stephen (2012). ‘Realism, Modernism and the Realistic Spirit: Diamond’s Inheritance of Wittgenstein, Early and Late’. Nordic Wittgenstein Review 1: 7–35.Google Scholar
Ong, Yi-Ping (2016). ‘A Lecture on Ethics: Wittgenstein and Kafka’. In LeMahieu, Michael and Zumhagen-Yekplé, Karen, eds., Wittgenstein and Modernism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 206–29.Google Scholar
Phillips, D. Z. (1992). Interventions in Ethics. Albany: State University of New York Press.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pianalto, Matthew (2011). ‘Speaking for Oneself: Wittgenstein on Ethics’. Inquiry 54(3): 252–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plant, Bob (2005). Wittgenstein and Levinas: Ethical and Religious Thought. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plato, (1997). Meno. In Cooper, John M., ed., Complete Works. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 870–97.Google Scholar
Pleasants, Nigel (2008). ‘Wittgenstein, Ethics and Basic Moral Certainty’. Inquiry 51(3): 241–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramsey, Frank P. (1923). ‘Review of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: By Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell’. Mind 32(128): 465–78.Google Scholar
Read, Rupert (2019). ‘“Private Language” and the Second Person: Wittgenstein and Løgstrup “Versus” Levinas?’ In Backström, Joel, Nykänen, Hannes, Toivakainen, Niklas and Wallgren, Thomas, eds., Moral Foundations of Philosophy of Mind. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 363–90.Google Scholar
Read, Rupert (2021). Wittgenstein’s Liberatory Philosophy: Thinking Through His Philosophical Investigations. Oxon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Read, Rupert and Deans, Rob (2003). ‘“Nothing Is Shown”: A “Resolute” Reply to Mounce, Emiliani, Koethe and Vilhauer’. Philosophical Investigations 26(3): 239–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rhees, Rush (1965). ‘Some Developments in Wittgenstein’s View of Ethics’. Philosophical Review 74(1): 17–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rhees, Rush (2001). ‘On Religion: Notes on Four Conversations with Wittgenstein’. Faith and Philosophy 18(4): 409–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richter, Duncan (1996). ‘Nothing to Be Said: Wittgenstein and Wittgensteinian Ethics’. The Southern Journal of Philosophy 34(2): 243–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richter, Duncan (2019). ‘Sketches of Blurred Landscapes: Wittgenstein and Ethics’. In Agam-Segal, Reshef and Dain, Edmund, eds., Wittgenstein’s Moral Thought. London: Routledge, 153–73.Google Scholar
Schönbaumsfeld, Genia (2023). Wittgenstein on Religious Belief. (Elements in the Philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stern, David G. (2004). Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stern, David G. (2006). ‘How Many Wittgensteins?’. In Pichler, Alois and Säätelä, Simo, eds., Wittgenstein: The Philosopher and His Works. Heusenstamm: onto verlag, 205–29.Google Scholar
Stern, David G. (2012). ‘Wittgenstein on Ethical Concepts: A Reading of Philosophical Investigations §77 and Moore’s Lecture Notes, May 1933’. In Greif, Hajo et al., eds., Ethics, Society, Politics. Kirchberg Am Wechsel: De Gruyter, 55–67.Google Scholar
Stokhof, Martin (2002). World and Life as One: Ethics and Ontology in Wittgenstein’s Early Thought. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Tejedor, Chon (2010). ‘The Ethical Dimension of the Tractatus’. In Perissinotto, Luigi and Sanfélix, Vicente, eds., Doubt, Ethics and Religion: Wittgenstein and the Counter-Enlightenment. Berlin: De Gruyter, 85–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Von Der Ruhr, Mario (2009). ‘Rhees, Wittgenstein, and the Swansea School’. In Edelman, John, ed., Sense and Reality: Essays Out of Swansea. Heusenstamm: ontos verlag, 219–35.Google Scholar
von Wright, , Henrik, Georg (1969). ‘The Wittgenstein Papers’. The Philosophical Review 78(4): 483–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, Roger M. (2011). ‘Throwing the Baby Out with the Ladder: On “Therapeutic” Readings of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus’. In Rupert Read and Lavery, Matthew A., eds., Beyond the Tractatus Wars: The New Wittgenstein Debate. New York: Taylor & Francis, 22–65.Google Scholar
Wiggins, David (2004). ‘Wittgenstein on Ethics and the Riddle of Life’. Philosophy 79(309): 363–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winch, Peter (1981). ‘“Eine Einstellung zur Seele”’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series 81: 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar