Ludwig Wittgenstein

North American Wittgenstein Society, Summary and Past Programs

The North American Wittgenstein Society meets with the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association in the spring of each year. It was organized by a group of philosophers during the 1999-2000 academic year and put on its first program of papers and commentaries in March of 2000. A great many philosophers have offered encouragement and advice, but the bulk of the organizational work was done by Merrill Ring of the California State University, Fullerton; Stephen Simon, CSU Fullerton; and Elizabeth Wolgast, CSU Hayward (now CSU East Bay).

The organization up through the 2006 program has shown especial interest in the work of the later Wittgenstein and in topics of therapeutic and ordinary language methods, since some crucial issues in these areas have been and continue to be neglected.

There is as of yet no dues required for belonging. For that matter, there is not yet much to the concept of belonging to NAWS. Send your e-mail address. We will use the list mostly for distributing the Call for Papers each year and the program when it is finalized. If we have what we think are important announcements we may send a note to the list, but we do not anticipate doing this much. We will not make the list available to anyone beyond the program committee.

The programs for each year, including the name of the chairman, the titles and authors of papers, and usually the names of commentators, follow. Messages or further inquiries may be sent to John W. Powell, 2006 Program Chair and 2007 Program Committee Secretary. Dates for submission of papers for the 2007 program, to be held in San Francisco in early April, are September 1-October 15, 2006. The 2007 Program Chair is Jeffrey T. Johnson of the University of Minnesota. See the Call for Papers for more details and this year's theme.