Wittgenstein's Influence

A few days ago I read an article criticizing someone I'd never heard of because he had criticized Andrew Sullivan, someone I had heard of but don't care much about. After a couple of relevant comments on the article, the conversation suddenly and inexplicably turned to the question of Wittgenstein's influence on past and present analytic philosophy. A commentor claimed that Wittgenstein, through his "baleful" influence on analytic philosophy, had replaced "real philosophy" with "wallowing" in "arid" language-games. The article's author responded

To the extent that Wittgenstein ever exerted a significant influence over the direction of analytic philosophy, it was the Tractatus, not the Philosophical Investigations that exerted that influence. But not even TLP was all that influential in the development of analytic philosophy. For the most part Wittgenstein was and is regarded as a brilliant anomaly whose work has not guided other philosophers' research. (The one notable exception is itself a very odd case.)"

The notable exception was later said to be Kripke's discussion of rule-following. This sweeping dismissal of Wittgenstein's influence received some minor qualification a few comments down:

I don't deny for a moment that Wittgenstein has stimulated a fair amount of fruitful philosophical work (TLP much more than PI), but if you were to examine the development of analytic philosophy over the 20th century to the present, Wittgensteinian thought, either Tractarian or Investigative, would look like a narrow branch off the main road.

This qualification was prompted by a comment pointing out that the TLP had been influential on the logical positivists, and the PI had been influential on figures such as Anscombe and Malcolm (both Wittgenstein's students). It's not clear how logical positivism could have been a "narrow branch off the main road" given that Quine's highly influential philosophy emerged as a response to logical positivism (in particular, Carnap's). Apparently, the author thinks that logical positivism is a "narrow branch off the main road" because it is a "dead project."

At this point, a couple of philosophy professors get involved. Bryan Frances (Fordham) responded to the author:

I can't agree with some of what you said about analytic philosophy and W's influence on it. [...] W's PI was, in my opinion, quite influential in analytic philosophy of language, although the influence is indirect. Colin McGinn's Wittgenstein book is helpful on this matter. The emphasis on context is enormous now, and nearly everyone is vigilant in checking to see if they are being hoodwinked by various grammatical constructions and patterns. As I understand it, these developments owe much to the PI.
I say these things as a Fordham professor specializing in core analytic philosophy!

Fortunately for the author, Jason Stanley (Rutgers) came to his defense:

Except for debates about rule-following, which occupy a rather small corner of the philosophy of language, PI has had a much smaller impact on analytic philosophy than non-philosophers think. For example, I'm a contemporary analytic philosopher at a pretty good department, and almost none of the work of my colleagues has been influenced by PI (perhaps none). And a lot of the influence of PI has [...] been due to Kripke's book.

This was getting interesting, so I decided to throw my two cents in. I pointed out that the TLP was in fact highly influential on two significant movements in analytic philosophy — Cambridge analysis (e.g., Ramsey, Braithwaite, Wisdom, and Russell himself) and logical positivism (e.g., Schlick, Waismann, Carnap) — and that the PI was highly influential on another significant movement in analytic philosophy, so-called 'ordinary language' philosophy (e.g., Ryle, Strawson). In light of these influences, I claimed that Wittgenstein's influence on analytic philosophy was "second to none." I also pointed out that Wittgenstein's present influence extends beyond discussions of rule-following (e.g., McDowell, Brandom).

The author was incredulous. Could I really be claiming that Wittgenstein's influence on analytic philosophy has been at least equal to that of Frege, Russell, Quine, Kripke, and Lewis? Even if my answer was 'yes,' I was clearly mistaken. After all, Jason Stanley had just said that Wittgenstein wasn't that influential. Surely I wouldn't disagree with a professor who works in analytic philosophy.

Shortly thereafter, Jason Stanley returned to explain that, aside from Kripke and those influenced by Kripke on rule-following, current analytic philosophers who have been influenced by Wittgenstein are all scholarly types who are "devoted to explaining his project" (e.g., Diamond, Conant, Hacker). Apparently, McDowell and Brandom don't count because they were also influenced by Kant and Hegel. Stanley finished up his comment with

I think it's fair to say that on current debates [Wittgenstein] has figured less prominently than metaphysicians such as David Lewis or Saul Kripke, not to mention Frege and Russell.

To which I responded,

I don't diasagree with this. I've been making two points: (1) Wittgenstein's influence on the last century of analytic philosophy is "second to none": two major movements in analytic philosophy — logical positivism, and "ordinary language" philosophy — are direct offshoots of Wittgenstein's thought; and (2) the current influence of Wittgensteinian ideas is not confined to debates about rule-following. There are prominent philosophers (Putnum, McDowell, Brandom) in current analytic philosophy who are not primarily interested in commenting on Wittgenstein but nonetheless rely (in some instances, heavily) on Wittgensteinian ideas. I take it you wouldn't disagree with either point.

I also do not deny that the vast majority of current philosophy of language either rejects or ignores Wittgensteinian ideas. Personally, I think this is a failing of current philosophy of language, but that's a different discussion.

Stanley didn't reply to my comment, but he did have more to say about Wittgenstein:

Those who are now attracted to Wittgenstein are people who never saw the sense or interest in traditional philosophical questions. Since those are the questions that professional philosophers have always pursued, in the United States and elsewhere, many people attracted to Wittgenstein do not see the interest in the discipline of philosophy. But none of this has anything to do with America, or some supposed pretend distinction between analytic philosophy some other kind of philosophy. It just has to do with philosophy. Many people find it too boring or too hard, and see a vindication of their attitude in Wittgenstein.

Another commentor took issue with this:

Now this, like the preceding nonsense about "nonsense," is simply a perverse equivocation on "traditional" (would you say the same of Kant's rejection of "traditional" philosophy?!), and ends up very close to a slur. If you're not interested in Wittgenstein or the issues he raises about philosophy, fine. No one's forcing you to think about such things. But this characterization of the issue isn't any better than the Anonymous rant that started us off. As our indulgent hosts might say: feh.

There was a bit more exchange between the author and some others who had joined in, but then, sadly, the discussion drew to a close.

I've been reflecting on all of this the last few days. How is this view of the history of analytic philosophy possible? I'm reminded of something Michael Kremer wrote about Soames's history of analytic philosophy:

The books are uneven in many ways, reflecting Soames's varying level of expertise. This comes out in the lists of suggested additional readings appended to the twelve major parts of the two volumes. For example, the suggestions for Volume 1, Part Three, "Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus," consist of one book and three articles. While the one book, by Robert Fogelin, is a standard secondary source, the other pieces all discuss a fine point concerning the expressive capacity of Wittgenstein's logic — an issue first raised in Fogelin's book. In contrast, the list of additional readings for Volume 2, Part Seven, "Saul Kripke on Naming and Necessity," includes 9 books and 36 articles. The difference between these lists does not reflect the relative sizes of the two literatures, or the quality of the work. One is left to suppose that it reflects the state of Soames's own expertise.