Wholeness in Wittgenstein and Aquinas: A Contrast in Styles

Extract

The title of my paper is intended to represent a glimpse and a project rather than the profession of an achievement. I must, therefore, make explicit at least a certain disclaimer and mark a certain delimitation. I write primarily as a simple pupil of Aquinas, as one, however, who, perhaps precisely as such, has learned a sympathy with certain later and apparently dissimilar thinkers, and in particular with Wittgenstein. Further, the Wittgenstein whom I want to consider here is the later Wittgenstein of the Philosophical Investigations.

My intention, therefore, is to suggest certain analogies between the thought of one whom I consider to be my principal tutor and that of another with whom, I think, Aquinas would have recognised an elective affinity. And since my argument will at least at times be somewhat intricate, I want to begin by providing an Ariadne-thread to facilitate the passage through the possible labyrinth. My contention will be that the conceptions of language held by both Wittgenstein and Aquinas can best be understood as expressions of their conception of what it is to be a man, that their respective conceptions of man turn out to be fascinatingly convergent, but that nevertheless their conceptions of language present a striking, albeit complementary, contrast. Or, put in slightly different form, the idea I want to suggest is that whereas the conceptions of language held by both thinkers should be seen as aspects and consequences of a markedly similar conception of man, these conceptions of language nevertheless present contrasting characteristics.

I shall begin, then, by trying to state my understanding of the main features of Wittgenstein’s conception of language as expressed in the Philosophical Investigations.