Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Wittgenstein and the Scene of Contemporary Political Theory
- 1 Theorizing as a Lived Experience: A Wittgensteinian Investigation
- 2 Wittgenstein's Philosophy after the Disaster
- 3 Wittgenstein and Citizenship: Reading Socrates in Tehran
- 4 Why Wittgenstein is Not Conservative: Conventions and Critique
- 5 Aspect-Blindness in Religion, Philosophy, and Law: The Force of Wittgensteinian Reading
- 6 Seeing as it Happens: Theorizing Politics through the Eyes of Wittgenstein
- 7 Bare Life: Comedy, Trust, and Language in Wittgenstein and Beckett
- Conclusion: The Personal is the Theoretical
- Bibliography
- Index
Introduction: Wittgenstein and the Scene of Contemporary Political Theory
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Wittgenstein and the Scene of Contemporary Political Theory
- 1 Theorizing as a Lived Experience: A Wittgensteinian Investigation
- 2 Wittgenstein's Philosophy after the Disaster
- 3 Wittgenstein and Citizenship: Reading Socrates in Tehran
- 4 Why Wittgenstein is Not Conservative: Conventions and Critique
- 5 Aspect-Blindness in Religion, Philosophy, and Law: The Force of Wittgensteinian Reading
- 6 Seeing as it Happens: Theorizing Politics through the Eyes of Wittgenstein
- 7 Bare Life: Comedy, Trust, and Language in Wittgenstein and Beckett
- Conclusion: The Personal is the Theoretical
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Political theorists have been at a loss on what to do with Wittgenstein. The form his work most often takes is that of the remark. It is a style that defies coherence, both because Wittgenstein sought to write what and as he saw, and this was fragmented; and because he did not “want to spare other people the trouble of thinking.” His work therefore suggested many directions, but pursued only a few. For some, the way to work with Wittgenstein is indirectly through surrogate “Wittgensteinians” like Peter Winch or Thomas Kuhn, who focus on aspects of the work, create a coherent account of that aspect, and then apply it to an area of interest – the study of primitive culture or how a body of knowledge changes over time from within. Those who wish a more direct route display a tendency, following Hanna Pitkin, to consider the “significance” of Wittgenstein's philosophy for the enterprise of theorizing. Making the connection between Wittgenstein and political thought is a difficult one precisely because Wittgenstein did not talk about politics in any specific way, and his remarks regarding theory were anything but positive. One area where Wittgenstein and political theory could be said to overlap, noted Pitkin and others who followed her, is in the activity of reading. Political theorists read difficult texts, ponder the historical changes reflected in concepts such as politics, democracy, justice, and so on, while Wittgenstein describes words and contexts in languagegames as tools that derive meaning from their place and use in sentences and social practices.
- Type
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- Information
- Wittgenstein and Political TheoryThe View from Somewhere, pp. 1 - 20Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2009