Escaping the flybottle: solipsism and method in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Remarks

Abstract

Abstract:The paper supports a dialectical interpretation of Wittgenstein's method focusing on the analysis of the conditions of experience presented in his Philosophical Remarks. By means of a close reading of some key passages dealing with solipsism I will try to lay bare their self-subverting character: the fact that they amount to miniature dialectical exercises offering specific directions to pass from particular pieces of disguised nonsense to corresponding pieces of patent nonsense. Yet, in order to follow those directions one needs to allow oneself to become simultaneously tempted by and suspicious of their all-too-evident "metaphysical tone" -a tone which, as we shall see, is particularly manifest in those claims purporting to state what can or cannot be the case, and, still more particularly, those purporting to state what can or cannot be done in language or thought, thus leading to the view that there are some (determinate) things which are ineffable or unthinkable. I conclude by suggesting that in writing those remarks Wittgenstein was still moved by an ethical project, which gets conspicuously displayed in these reiterations of his attempts to cure the readers (and himself) from some of the temptations expressed by solipsism.Keywords: Wittgenstein. Solipsism. Dialectical reading. -Rev. Int. Fil., Campinas, v. 35, n.2, p. 167-205, jul.-dez. 2012. Hacker (1986, p. 215) Somewhat uncommonly for a member of the analytical tradition, Wittgenstein has made great efforts to uncover the sources of the dissatisfactions lying at the basis of the solipsistic temptation. As Peter Hacker pointed out -correctly, I will assume -the solipsist is "the archetypal fly in the original flybottle" from which Wittgenstein wanted to show a "way out" with his philosophy, and the "puzzles surrounding solipsism" became for him "the paradigm of the diseases of the intellect to which philosophers are so prone" (Hacker 1986: 215). Now, how exactly the "way out" of solipsism -and, consequently, of the other philosophical confusions for which it serves as a paradigm -is supposed to be shown in Wittgenstein's writings? And, since there seems to be an issue about the very continuity of those writings, how are we to understand the historical development of his views about solipsism and philosophical method? JÔNADAS TECHIO ManuscritoHacker's own answer to those questions -which, for historical reasons, deserves to be called the 'standard reading' 1 -can be 1 As is well known, that reading has been strongly criticized in at least one front in the last few decades, by the so called "resolute readers" of the Tractatus -among whom notoriously figure Cora Diamond and James Conant (see esp.

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“…Wittgenstein, sobretudo em sua segunda fase, mais bem sintetizada em sua publicação póstuma Investigações Filosóficas (1953), defendeu que o papel da filosofia é o de livrar as pessoas de preconceitos filosóficos. A filosofia não deveria se preocupar em construir teorias, mas deveria ter sobretudo um objetivo ético: o de facilitar as investigações através da dissolução de problemas que estão relacionados às tendências nos modos de agir (Banicki, 2011;Techio 2012;Wyss, 2015). A filosofia deveria ser uma prática que nos livra da força das imagens (Moreno, 1995).…”