Don't Mention the 'W' Word

On Dave's recommendation, I've been working my way through Baker's "Philosophical Investigations section 122: neglected aspects." Though I still owe my readers (all six of you) a discussion of Kremer's article (see below), and I've mentioned writing something about McGinn's Elucidating the Tractatus, I'm going to move a post on Baker to the head of the line. But before I do, I've found some more depressing words for aspiring Wittgenstein scholars.

In addition to comparing Baker's article to Hacker's revised discussion of "surveyability and surveyable representations," I've been reading reviews of Baker's Wittgenstein’s Method: Neglected Aspects. In particular, I've found Peter Sullivan's review in Mind and Hutchinson & Read's review in Philosophy to be helpful (in the same review Hutchinson & Read discuss Hacker's Wittgenstein: Connections and Controversies; as you might expect, they're not sympathetic). Hutchinson and Read preface their review with the following comments on Wittgenstein's current reputation.

Since the publication of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations in 1953 there have appeared a huge number of secondary texts published on different aspects of his life, his work and his place in the philosophical canon. The sheer volume of texts alone might indicate to a non philosopher (or at least to someone who does their philosophizing outside the universities of the UK and USA) that Wittgenstein was the pre-eminent philosopher of the twentieth century and the philosopher of that century that can be truly said to take up a place alongside the greats: Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, Kant…etc. However, from those doing their philosophizing within the academy there is an increasingly apparent and contrasting sense that Wittgenstein is not only less significant than those philosophers who are usually considered as taking their place in the canon, but less significant than his twentieth century contemporaries: Frege, Russell, Carnap, Turing; and even than many of those who have been preeminent in the latter part of the century: Quine, Davidson, Kripke, (early) Putnam etc. It is common to hear young professional philosophers talking of Wittgenstein as if his contribution to our subject amounted to something akin to a statistical blip—that is, while appearing to many for a short period in the mid twentieth century to have done nothing less than transform our subject, he is now, with the perspective afforded by history, seen as bordering on the insignificant in light of the wider picture—of the progression of our subject—that we now have. Indeed, research grant applications do well to leave out the ‘W’ word. Young academics are advised to play down any interest in Wittgenstein when applying for jobs. And if one wants one’s critique of a particular philosophical picture to be treated on its merits alone one better not mention that critique’s Wittgensteinian debts or heritage.

So, how can this be? Think of the questions raised here. For instance, how can one of the most notoriously difficult-to-grasp philosophers of the twentieth century spawn a publishing industry of his own, an industry with its decidedly ‘populist’ end? An industry, that is, which ranges from books on ‘Tractarian’ logical form, written by logicians and impenetrable to all but those trained in formal logic, to books on a ten-minute ‘argument’, written by a couple of journalists, who acknowledge that no one present at the ‘argument’ (between Popper and Wittgenstein) really remembers what was said, a book marketed to the ‘departure lounge’ and the ‘3-for-2’ book-buyer? In short, Wittgenstein’s name sells books almost anywhere; but knowledge of and admiration for his philosophy does not necessarily help you to sell yourself as a philosopher, one bit.

We think the answer to the question posed at the head of the previous paragraph is to be found in that vast secondary literature, which spans the two extremes we invoked. We suspect that the interest in Wittgenstein that leads to publishers commissioning so many books indicates far more on the part of the book-buyers than a mere voyeuristic interest in a somewhat eccentric and domineering character; we think it also indicates that his interest as a philosopher lies in more than his contributions to the earlytwentieth-century development of philosophical logic (narrowly construed). Furthermore, we argue that those who summarily dismiss Wittgenstein’s lasting significance are generally found to be dismissing a straw Wittgenstein, though crucially a straw Wittgenstein often fashioned by ‘friends’ and foes alike.

Who, you ask, is the the principal 'friendly' straw Wittgenstein fashioner? That's right, Peter Hacker.