Philosophy 390, Fall 1999 Seminar: Wittgenstein
Tues evening 6-9, in SH 120
J. W. Powell (Office 110 UANX, phone 5753, e-mail jwp2@axe.humboldt.edu)
Summary and Warning: This is a seminar on central problems in philosophy as worked on by a relentless and
brilliant 20th century philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951). "As worked on" means that we will spend a fair
amount of time addressing questions about methods. That this is a seminar means students will be supplying regular papers and
presentations to the group. The central problems include the following issues: What is knowledge? What is the meaning
of a word? What is perception? What is subjectivity? What is the mind? What is the relation of words to the world? To
what extent are human beings isolated or imprisoned within themselves? There are a lot of others.
Wittgenstein is hard to read. He has a terrible effect on the prose style of those who read him. This is true despite his
obsessive care to say things plainly and to absolutely abjure jargon. A great deal of his writing is jumpy, oracular,
arrogant, telegrammatic, ironic, metaphorical. Some of the writing involves dialogues with the speeches of the opposing
speakers not well marked off from each other. Sometimes the view he is opposing gets put in a more appealing way than
the attack on it. You have been warned.
Text and Materials: To make up for that difficulty, we are not going to read much. The required texts are just two:
Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Trans. G. E. M. Anscombe, 3rd edition (Prentice Hall:NYC, 1973)
ppr ISBN: 0024288101, and Wittgenstein's Conception of Philosophy by K. T. Fann, (Univ. Calif. Press: Berkeley,
1969) ppr ISBN: 0520018370. There will be some handouts, including Meditations I and II from Descartes' Meditations
on First Philosophy and the first few pages from Wittgenstein's The Blue Book. Students will be assigned to follow up
secondary sources in the library. The department has ordered web access to the complete works of Wittgenstein and
students may be able then to print or read the Investigations on their computers, as well as other works by W.
Course Plan, Topics, and Some Possible Goals: We will spend some time on background, with students presenting
basic materials on Wittgenstein's life and some history of the philosophical issues we will work on. We will not spend much time on this, but
will quickly jump into the material from The Blue Book on the meaning of a word, and then begin reading the
Investigations, pausing for more background as needed. After the first two sessions, almost all our work will involve
close attention to the text, with students presenting at the beginning of the hour either orally or via handouts to the class.
We will go in this manner until the end of the semester at least, maybe for the rest of our lives. Students will have an
opportunity to do presentations on other topics-such matters as biography, sources and influences, and contemporary
journal articles on issues addressed in the text of the Investigations.
A little about my attitude toward Wittgenstein: I am terrifically ambivalent. I do think the methods developed by W.
are crucially important, and I share his interests in central, old-chestnut problems in philosophy. But I do not count myself
much of a disciple (even though I think W. is among the best half dozen philosophers of all time) because I think he is
inconsistent and often wrong. My interest in the course, then, is not in clarifying what he says as much as it is in using his
work to help us with the problems. You need to know ahead of time that this removes us from one of the great industrial
complexes in the discipline, the business of erecting and destroying and altering and remodeling and demolition of
accounts of what Wittgenstein really meant and how his insights would apply to everything from spanking children to
Buddhism. It's only a slight exaggeration to say that everyone claims to have learned from Wittgenstein, but no one has
learned anything which is consistent with what anyone else has learned from Wittgenstein. The journals are ankle-deep in
this. We will have nothing to do with it.
This all sounds grim. One of the good things about this semester is that we will be working on deeply profound issues and insights. This fact will be clear and will persist all semester long. Those of you who got into philosophy because you are profundity junkies will find your habit well taken care of. We will also get to think about goals and methods of doing philosophy. You may decide to change your major, either into philosophy or out.
It's not really grim, is what I'm saying. Except for the parts that are, that is. The exposition is sometimes grim, but the problems are
wonderful. Wittgenstein's conception of our alternatives in the face of the philosophical problems is dizzying and
profound. He's ferociously and monumentally earnest but then makes great wisecracks. The insights from his work, once
mastered, may change a great deal of what you do in philosophy.
Grading and Requirements: Students will present to the class three times, each time either in the form of a 7-9 page
paper with a copy for everyone or in the form of a presentation with a two page outline or handout to help initiate and guide discussion. At least one must be
written. All papers go to everyone in the class. Each student will also provide feedback to every student on every
presentation on a form I will provide. Each presentation will be graded equally and the grade for the course will be the
average of the three, with a deduction of a letter grade if the student missed more than two classes or more than five
feedback forms. I don't give Incompletes.
E-mail discussion list: I'll set up a listserv for the course with all the class subscribed, so students can send e-mail to
one address to be read by all. The class will discuss and decide whether to make use of this listserv a requirement. If it is
possible for all of us to access our e-mail, then it may very well make our discussion and our distribution of handouts and
papers easier.
Send comments, suggestions, questions to: jwp2@axe.humboldt.edu
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