Sean,
The issue of "theories" (and "theses") is one to which I too have given a lot of thought. Thank you for raising the topic. There is much to what you have to say. In what follows, I'll first respond by way of outlining my own approach to these matters and perhaps we can compare and contrast.
An issue that isn't often discussed but that is important in thinking about this and other issues is the role of the teacher-student relationship in many of Wittgenstein'
s dialectics. In reading his lectures, we should remember that Wittgenstein was there to teach his method and those attending presumably attended because they wanted to learn this method.
What might be called "guiding suspicions", "heuristic principles", "rules of thumb", or "methodological rules" are not, in this context, contentious. You accept them to the extent that you want to learn the method. Thus they are not "theses" in the sense of contentious claims. But in another context they might be. (The boundary between methodological statements and statements within a method is not a sharp one.)
Relevance? If we fail to see this, it will look as if Wittgenstein is making blatantly self-refuting claims, e.g. asserting the thesis that one ought to not assert theses. Or offering a theory about why theories have no place in philosophy.
This is more complicated when dealing with Wittgenstein'
s writings intended for publication to a general audience.
He is offering a method. But why should we adopt this method? Any attempt to justify the method would turn the statements of the method into "theses" or a "theory". One may persuaded to adopt the method, perhaps by considering the lack of "progress" in the history of philosophy, by considering the problems with other approaches, by finding particular confusions of one's own alleviated through the use of the method, and so on, but this is not the same as finding grounds for statements of the method.
(And the difficulties here show up in discussions between Wittgensteinian and other philosophers.
)
Let's consider some possible interpretations of the word "theory" and why, in each case, Wittgenstein might have rejected methods of doing philosophy that pursue such things.
1. "Theory" as it is used in various of the natural sciences to refer to, e.g. The Theory of Relativity or the Theory of Evolution.
This is a non-starter for me, because he would be "preaching to the choir". Since the time of Kant (and at least until Quine), there was widespread agreement across different philosophical schools that philosophy was not one of the natural sciences, that it was not empirical. Following Frege's attack on psychologism (and the conversion of Husserl to that cause), the last vestiges of tendencies to (explicitly) treat philosophical problems as empirical were being cleared away.
But if we suppose he was making that point even if it would not have distinguished him in any way from the Vienna Circle, we can at least easily see the problems with philosophers being producers of such theories.
Philosophers, qua philosophers, do not have access to the laboratories and other equipment needed for modern scientific experimentation. Philosophers, qua philosophers, are not trained in the existing theories and methods prerequisite for modern scientific research. There are names for people who do such research and since the 19th century, "philosopher" isn't one of them.
2. "Theory" as something hypothetical, something awaiting further data, though not necessarily scientific data
Recall the problem of treating the nature of Tractarian objects as something that further analysis would reveal. Since such objects were meant to secure the possibility of sense (the possibility of sense was supposed to depend on them!) the idea that we might have no idea what they might be is... problematic. Issues like the color exclusion problem forced that problem into the light, where once the oddness might have been dismissed.
If the goal is to remove confusions caused by misunderstanding, then an hypothesis, something awaiting further data, merely puts off dealing with the misunderstanding. But if it is a misunderstanding - rather than a factual question - then we shouldn't need further data.
(The idea that philosophical puzzles arise from misunderstandings and that theories have no place are complementary. In the _Tractatus_, Wittgenstein was less clear about that connection.)
Furthermore, what sort of data are we to await? If empirical, then we are dealing with a scientific question and the points about science and philosophy apply.
The Tractarian view of analysis did provide an idea of how analysis might yield "data" in the future...
3. "Theory" as something describing an underlying hidden structure or essence, though not necessarily the essence or structure of something that can be revealed by empirical investigation
Note that saying, "there is no deep structure" or "there is no essence" would also be theories in this sense, albeit negative ones. Consider the advice, "don't think, but look", in the discussion of the word "game" and the introduction of the "family resemblance" simile. We may be persuaded to cease the pursuit of some element common to all and only activities called "games", but that is not the same as proof that there could be no such thing.
Searching for the essence of thought, the nature of the proposition, the most basic constituents of reality, the real foundations of mathematics, and so on. The negative part of the dialectic is a patient examination of various proposals, showing how the break down. The positive part is reminding us to consider our real need and leading us to question whether any such theory could satisfy it.
4. "Theory" as generalization
"All generalizations are false" is of course self-refuting. And not all generalizations should be called "theories". But the methods of "covering laws", "finite axiomatization"
, and would be.
The problem here is that such approaches tend to lead us away from careful examination of particular cases and tend to lead us into further confusion when our principles come into conflict, and may do nothing to address whatever confusions started us down that path.
And there are particular problems with particular generalizations, which must be dealt with case by case (though similar cases may call for similar approaches).
Some additional replies to specific remarks...
> I've always been troubled by how certain remarks of
> Wittgenstein are understood. In particular, the ones about
> theorizing. Wittgens
tein quite clearly told his students
> that he was never presenting a theoretical account of
> anything and that to do so was inherently problematic.
I would be interested in what specifically troubled you about this. I am not suggesting that you were wrong to be troubled, but I am supposing that different people may be troubled for different reasons here. And since the tendency to approach philosophy as a theorizing activity is seen as a source of confusion in Wittgensteinian philosophy, making explicit why the call to abandon the approach would be troubling might shed some light on the issue. Even help us with those less inclined to even consider not taking that approach, since presumably they'd find it troubling too, perhaps for similar reasons.
> I had always maintained this strand of Wittgenstein'
s
> thought was misunderstood by many people. Some people read
> it as saying that conceptualism or abstract sort of
> thinking is disallowed.
I'm not quite sure what you mean here. Examples of the sorts of thing they would (wrongly) think impermissible?
Also, I'd actually take issue with "disallowed"
. If you go this way rather than that, you are merely doing philosophy in a manner different from Wittgenstein'
s. He may hope to persuade you to proceed differently or think that the way you're going will get you nowhere, but he isn't actually forbidding anything.
This is important, not just quibbling, because obviously, since we are not all Wittgensteinians, he'd be saying something contentious.
This is clearly not the case. My
> old way of saying it was this: Wittgenstein is
> against "formalism, not conceptualism.
" I would say: he's
> against making certain subjects (language, art, etc) into a
> mathematics or a logic. In what are incredibly radical
> lectures, he was also against making mathematics itself into
> a kind of "mathematics" or logic in the sense that I am now
> speaking.
I think there is definitely a misunderstanding in this as well. There's a lot to disentangle here, but that would take us far afield.
For now, I'll just say that he was not "against" formalization. But he wanted to disabuse us of certain confusions that often surround such activities. There are a number he discusses, but in none of them is there an objection to formalization, per se.
What he is
> fundamentally
against is an approach to understanding
> wherein a person will try to produce a law for the activity
> -- at least for language, ethics, aesthetics, mathematics
> and many others. (One assumes he is not against something
> like this in science. But maybe even here, it could have
> issues).
There's some unclarity here. If he is opposed to proposing laws as a means to philosophical understanding (and my initial remarks above show where I would agree with such an interpretation) then he is just as much opposed to proposing laws as a means to further our philosophical understanding of science as in any other area whose misunderstanding might lead to philosophical confusion.
The fact that science clearly does propose laws has nothing to do with whether the philosophy of science should proceed in the same way.
But if he is taken as being opposed to proposing laws, per se (with an exception being granted for science) - rather than only being opposed to the proposing of laws for philosophical purposes - that would have him setting up philosophy as some sort of authority on how other activities ought to proceed. And that strikes me as a very un-Wittgensteinian idea.
Would he be opposed to laws in linguistics? Not as such. The philosophy of language is another matter. Similarly, contrasting mathematics and the philosophy of mathematics.
With ethics and aesthetics, the contrast between the practice of philosophy and how such matters are discussed in other contexts is less straightforward.
Rather than "ethics" and "the philosophy of ethics", some speak of "meta-ethics"
. Likewise, some distinguish between "aethetics" and "philosophical aesthetics" (which is not quite the same as a "philosophy of aesthetics" might be, if we follow the precedent of the Oxonion distinction between "philosophical psychology" and "philosophy of psychology" or between "philosophical logic" and "philosophy of logic".)
Some would be inclined to call any discussion of norms and values "philosophical"
. That's fine, but if we do that, we should not then suppose that Wittgenstein'
s recommendations and methods are applicable to everything we might call "philosophy"
.
Clearly, Wittgenstein was interested in examining the variety of ways that people proceed in their ethics talk, aesthetics talk, and so on. In being clearer about the role such talk - and related activity - plays in our complicated form of life. Because philosophers get confused when they think about such matters. But not everyone discussing ethics or aesthetics is a candidate for Wittgensteinian therapy, just as not every religious believer is a candidate, despite the superficial resemblances between some religious beliefs and some metaphysical talk.
JPDeMouy
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