Style, Method and Philosophy in Wittgenstein

Alois Pichler1009462792, 9781009462792, 1108958079, 9781108958073, 9781108955485

Wittgenstein said, ‘really one should write philosophy only as one writes a poem’. This Element provides a comprehensive explanation of what he possibly meant by the statement, and why the statement is a correct description of Wittgenstein’s philosophy. It connects the statement with Wittgenstein’s idea of philosophical clarification, the methods he uses in it, and the masters he acknowledges as the sources for his ways of ‘moving his thought’. The Element introduces distinctions that are essential for approaching the multilayered complex of Wittgenstein’s oeuvre. One is the distinction between writing philosophical clarifications for himself and forming philosophical books for his reader. While poetry was central to both activities, it was mandatory for the second. Indeed, for creating the perfect philosophical book Wittgenstein thought he lacked precisely what some of his masters possessed: poetic genius.

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Table of contents :
Cover
Title page
Copyright page
Style, Method and Philosophy in Wittgenstein
Contents
Introduction
1 Writing Philosophy; Forming Philosophical Works
1.1 Nachlass and Works
1.2 Composing Philosophical Works
1.3 The Tractatus Ladder of Philosophical Theses
1.4 The Turn Away from the Ladder
1.5 Bemerkungen and Betrachtungen of Perspicuous
Representation
1.6 The Brown Book Gapless Series of Language-Games
1.7 From the Brown Book to the Album of the Investigations
2 Methods for the Apt Movement of Thought
2.1 Ten Masters
2.2 Movements of Thought
2.3 What about Ramsey and Others?
2.4 Boltzmann, Hertz, Schopenhauer, Frege, Russell, Kraus, Loos,
Weininger, Spengler, Sraffa
2.5 Frege’s Transformations and Elucidations
2.6 Spengler and Schopenhauer’s Family Resemblances
2.7 Development of Philosophy and Authorship in Wittgenstein
3 Poetry in Philosophy
3.1 Poetry in Writing Philosophy, Poetry in Forming Philosophical
Works
3.2 The Investigations as a Fragment of the Brown Book
3.3 The Investigations as an Album
3.4 The Investigations as a Polyphonic Dialogue
3.5 The Investigations as an Organic Book
3.6 Poetry versus Drivel
3.7 Belief in the Poetic Genius
References
Wittgenstein Primary Sources Cited by Abbreviation
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
Acknowledgements