There is a significant tradition of reading Aquinas through the lens of Wittgenstein. Associated in particular with the English province of the Dominican order and those close to them in various ways, this tradition includes figures such as G. E. M. Anscombe, Herbert McCabe, Anthony Kenny, and Fergus Kerr. The impression is sometimes given that this tradition is no longer living, in spite of works such as Roger Pouivet's Aprés Wittgenstein, Saint Thomas and Stephen Mulhall's The Great Riddle, both of which have brought it to the attention of a new generation of readers. The present book by David Goodill, himself an English Dominican, is definitive evidence that the tradition persists. Thoroughly engaging throughout, Nature as Guide comprises a tour de force through Wittgenstein's thought on metaphysics and nature and an application of this thought to moral theology in the Catholic tradition. The book will, however, be of interest to a much wider range of readers than this perhaps suggests: anyone interested in Wittgenstein's philosophical anthropology or religious thought, or in the relationship between ideas about nature and morality, would gain a lot from reading the book.
The opening chapters of the book are a careful discussion of Wittgenstein's philosophy, early and late, although with the emphasis very much on the latter. The picture Goodill paints is of a Wittgenstein who belongs in the succession of great metaphysical thinkers. He is not alone in tracing such a lineage – his debt to Anscombe in this regard is acknowledged – but it may still surprise those used to thinking of Wittgenstein as an anti-metaphysical philosopher. I'll return to this point in a moment. Goodill draws out the extent to which there is a philosophy of nature in Wittgenstein's work, and the manner – often overlooked – in which the animal nature and pre-linguistic capacities of human beings are, for Wittgenstein, foundational for their forms of life and linguistic practices. These insights are then skilfully deployed to bring Wittgenstein into dialogue with moral theology in the Thomist tradition. Parallels are traced between Aquinas and Wittgenstein regarding nature, agency, and cause, and concerning the logical relationship between interior and exterior action. The appeal to Wittgenstein serves both to illuminate the treatment of Aquinas and to demonstrate how themes in Aquinas's work find an echo in contemporary philosophy.
The conclusion of the book develops a theme of McCabe's, namely that human beings are narrative creatures called in Christ to share God's story. Against this backdrop a distinctively Christian account of virtue is sketched out in careful conversation with Aquinas and drawing on the lessons learned from Wittgenstein earlier in the book. This discussion on its own would be valuable reading, particularly for those interested in analytic theology, a subdiscipline which has unfairly neglected McCabe's work, which surely represents one of the most successful attempts to do theology against an analytic philosophical backdrop. Goodill persuasively shows that McCabe's own amalgam of Wittgenstein and Aquinas deserves ongoing attention, and uses it as a starting point for his own rich treatment of the nature, flourishing, and destiny of the human animal.
Goodill is clearly right to see Wittgenstein as in some sense a metaphysician, one engaged in the study of being, in Wittgenstein's case by means of the study of grammar. But it is equally clear that Wittgenstein regards much that would get classed as metaphysics as a temptation, the result of language ‘going on holiday’. In particular, metaphysics understood as a quasi-scientific investigation into the nature of reality beyond empirical appearances does not escape his critical censure. At points I was left wondering whether Wittgenstein the anti-metaphysician might have critical questions to ask moral theology in the Thomist tradition. Are those of us who inhabit that tradition too confident about our capacity to know the nature of things? Indeed, is there any such knowledge to be had, or are certain kinds of questions about the nature of things the product of grammatical confusion? The line of thought which follows up these questions would perhaps end up disagreeing with Goodill about some specific points, but would remain grateful to him for opening up the dialogue between Wittgenstein and moral theology.
All in all, this is a very good book and deserves to be widely read. And perhaps even more urgently, the kind of textually and historically informed conversation between philosophy and theology which it instantiates needs to become more commonplace.
