Author: Steen Brock

Publisher: Philosophia Press Denmark

Published: 2023-08-01

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 8793041632

This book is a manual for reading Witttgenstein´s Nachlass 1929 – 1951 based on hundreds of original manuscripts, and not the highly edited paper books published by Blackwell. The book shows how al thought, language and psychology entangles in body language as this language develop within cultural frameworks. The book further shows that Wittgenstein´s platform are viewpoints of Goethe, and that the methodological strategy of Wittgenstein relates to the architectural system of the works of Kant. The book makes clear that Wittgenstein had six philosophical projects 1929 – 1951. The project of “philosophical investigations” is only one of these six projects. The book published with that title in 1953 does not belong to that project. The book discusses three successive versions of “philosophical investigations” and shows how they follow the order of Kant´s First Critique; a teaching of Form, an Analytic, and a Dialectic. The book further shows that the idea of a “Third Wittgenstein” is absurd. The writings 1949 – 1951 have one and only one theme concerning the rightfulness of human behaviour. The Nachlass in shorthand: What is a human being? According to Wittgenstein s(he) is a ceremonial animal. Phylogenies and cultural background form the “natural history of Mankind”. Wittgenstein´s texts are contributions to this history. Accordingly, there is an embeddedness of the individual human being in the natural history of Mankind. Individuals internalize this embeddedness through drilling (Abrichtung), through an overwhelming normatively and severe formation of individuals. However, the outcome of this drilling is, in principle a free, imaginative, self- assured adult human being. The “pupils” never copy the “teachers”, and no two pupils are alike. The result is drilled individuals. The main capacity of these drilled individuals is The Attention enabling the individuals to search for things, look at things, and observe things in accordance with interests, needs, feelings, and inclinations that in a sense both were there “anyway” - before the drilling - and in another sense were shaped and empowered by the drilling. The adult human individual is at rest with the drilling s(he) was exposed to. One can regulate, nourish, and guide a human life in that way. Thus, we have the emergence of The Calm Look of the individual adults. However, the teachers witnessing these adults pay attention to a diversity and surprising variety of the outcome of their drilling. The Teachers pay attention to a Living Look they did not anticipate. The Teachers have an instrument making sure that the Living Look does not run wild. They can chain The Attention of the individuals exercising The Living Look. Prime example is Mathematics. There are many other examples of such being civilized, meeting the standards of a social setting or institution. A milder approach of the teachers is trying to induce imaginations within the attention of others without severely chaining The Attention. This brings forth The Induced Look. Now, pupils can both chain and induce the attention of other pupils. Thereby arises The Seducing Look. However, there is a limit to seduction. That is the theme of Shakespeare’s Othello, and theme of Wittgenstein´s last writings, autumn 1949 – Spring 1951: How do evidence and the rightful understanding of others relate? The answer is that if person´s expressions meets certain norms, then there is a diverse and open character of behaviour that other people have no reason not to find rightful Which behaviour is right can be very diverse.