David Finkelstein

In the course of discussing how it is that a philosophical problem arises in the first place, Wittgenstein says, “The decisive movement in the conjuring trick has been made, and it was the very one that we thought quite innocent.” This isn’t the only place where Wittgenstein speaks as if being gripped by philosophical problems is a matter of succumbing to illusions--as if a philosophers are magicians who are taken in by their own tricks. In this course, we’ll discuss philosophy and magical performance, with the aim of coming to a deeper understanding of what both are about. We’ll be particularly concerned with Wittgenstein’s picture of what philosophy is and does. Another focus of the course will be the passion of wonder. In the Theaetetus, Plato has Socrates say, “The sense of wonder is the mark of the philosopher. Philosophy indeed has no other origin.” And when magicians write about their aesthetic aims, they almost always describe themselves as trying to instill wonder in others. Does magic end where philosophy begins? And what becomes of wonder after philosophy is done with it? (B) (II)

Wittgenstein wrote a letter to G. E. Moore after hearing Moore give the paper which first set forth a version of (what has come to be known as) Moore’s paradox. The version of the paradox that Moore first set forward involved imagining someone uttering the following sentence: “There is a fire in this room and I don’t believe there is.” Wittgenstein’s understanding of the importance of Moore’s paradox may be summarized as follows: Something on the order of a logical contradiction arises when we attempt to combine the affirmation of p and a denial of a consciousness of p within the scope of a single judgment. In his letter to Moore, Wittgenstein writes:

To call this … “an absurdity for psychological reasons” seems to me to be wrong, or highly misleading. It … is in fact something similar to a contradiction, though it isn’t one…. This means roughly: it plays a similar role in logic. You have said something about the logic of assertion. Viz: It makes sense to say “Let’s suppose: p is the case and I don’t believe that p is the case,” whereas it makes no sense to assert “p is the case and I don’t believe that p is the case.” This assertion has to be ruled out and is ruled out by “common sense,” just as a contradiction is. And this just shows that logic isn’t as simple as logicians think it is. In particular: that contradiction isn’t the unique thing people think it is. It isn’t the only logically inadmissible form.

The aim of the seminar is to understand why Wittgenstein thinks Moore’s paradox provides an example of something that is akin to a contradiction and how it brings out why logic isn’t as simple as logicians think it is. In Section x of Part II of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, devoted to an exploration of Moore’s paradox, we find Wittgenstein making these three remarks:

1. My own relation to my words is wholly different to other people’s.
2. If there were a verb meaning ‘to believe falsely,’ it would not have a meaningful first-person present indicative.
3. “I believe….” throws light on my state. Conclusions about my conduct can be drawn from this expression. So there is a similarity here to expressions of emotion, of mood, etc,.

The workshop will seek to understand: how my relation to my own words is wholly different from my relation to those of other people; wherein the asymmetry lies between the use of a range of verbs (such as “believe,” “know,” and “perceive”) in the first-person present indicative form and other uses of the same verbs (e.g., in the second-person or past tense form); and how the logical grammar of these verbs is related to that of expressions of emotion, of mood, and of sensation, including expressions that takes the form of avowals. Finally, we will explore why Wittgenstein thinks a philosophical investigation of these three points ought to lead to an expansion and transformation of our entire conception of logic

In addition to readings by Moore, Wittgenstein, and related secondary literature, we will study thematically related writings by Matthew Boyle, Cora Diamond, Arata Hamawaki, Jonas Held, Michael Kremer, J. M. E. Mactaggart, Margaret MacDonald, Norman Malcolm, Marie McGinn, Eric Marcus, Richard Moran, Bertrand Russell, and Crispin Wright on first-person avowals, self-knowledge, self-alienation, and transparency. (II)

In the first part of the course, we’ll be discussing an argument to the effect that: in order for radical skepticism about empirical knowledge not to be intellectually obligatory, we must understand ourselves as enjoying a very particular kind of self-consciousness. In the remainder of the course, we’ll be trying to get into view what an adequate account of that sort of self-consciousness might look like. (B) (II)

Jonathan Lear writes, “Psychoanalysis…sets freedom rather than some specific image of human happiness as its goal.” This course, while not about psychoanalysis as such, is meant to be about a kind of freedom at which psychoanalysis aims—a freedom that is, one could say, internally related to (1) achieving a non-superficial, diachronic understanding of oneself and (2) learning to be true to oneself. What sort of understanding and what sort of truth are at issue here? I take the following to represent an obviously unsatisfactory approach toward answering this question: “What you must do in order to gain the relevant sort of freedom is, first, learn a lot of facts about the desires and values of an already fully realized self that is, at least partially, hidden from your inward gaze and, second, act in accordance with these desires and values.” But what might a satisfactory answer look like? In exploring this topic, we’ll read work by Jonathan Lear, Harry Frankfurt, Charles Taylor, Richard Moran, Sigmund Freud, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, among others. (A) (I)

In one of his most widely read pieces of writing—the chapter of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding called “Of Identity and Diversity”—John Locke writes: “[S]ince consciousness always accompanies thinking, and ‘tis that, that makes every one to be, what he calls self; and thereby distinguishes himself from all other thinking things, in this alone consists personal Identity, i.e. the sameness of rational Being: And as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past Action or Thought, so far reaches the Identity of that Person…” Locke’s account of personal identity has puzzled, annoyed, and inspired readers since it was published in the second edition of his Essay, in 1694. One of our aims in this course will be to find a coherent and attractive reading of it, a reading that takes account of influential objections to it offered by later writers. A related goal—one that will take us beyond the discussion of Locke and his commentators—will be to see what sense and what philosophical use we can make of Locke’s prima facie odd-sounding suggestion that an essential and distinctive feature of persons is a capacity to extend consciousness backwards in time. In pursuing the latter goal, we’ll read and discuss Sigmund Freud’s justly famous “Remembering, Repeating and Working-Through” as well as regions of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations in which the author remarks on the distinctive authority that is exhibited by (some) statements that take a first-person past tense form (e.g., “Last Thursday, I was furious with you”; “For a few months during my senior year of college, I intended to go to law school”; “I meant what I just said as a compliment”). Our aim throughout will be to understand the logical (or grammatical) features of, and relationships between, memory, consciousness, first-person authority, and personhood. (B)

This course meets in Autumn and Winter quarters.

This course meets in Autumn and Winter quarters.

(IV)

In the course of discussing how it is that a philosophical problem arises in the first place, Wittgenstein says, “The decisive movement in the conjuring trick has been made, and it was the very one that we thought quite innocent.” This isn’t the only place where Wittgenstein speaks as if being gripped by philosophical problems is a matter of succumbing to illusions--as if a philosophers are magicians who are taken in by their own tricks. In this course, we’ll discuss philosophy and magical performance, with the aim of coming to a deeper understanding of what both are about. We’ll be particularly concerned with Wittgenstein’s picture of what philosophy is and does. Another focus of the course will be the passion of wonder. In the Theaetetus, Plato has Socrates say, “The sense of wonder is the mark of the philosopher. Philosophy indeed has no other origin.” And when magicians write about their aesthetic aims, they almost always describe themselves as trying to instill wonder in others. Does magic end where philosophy begins? And what becomes of wonder after philosophy is done with it? (B) (IV)

In the first part of the course, we’ll be discussing an argument to the effect that: in order for radical skepticism about empirical knowledge not to be intellectually obligatory, we must understand ourselves as enjoying a very particular kind of self-consciousness. In the remainder of the course, we’ll be trying to get into view what an adequate account of that sort of self-consciousness might look like. (B) (II)

In one of his most widely read pieces of writing—the chapter of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding called “Of Identity and Diversity”—John Locke writes: “[S]ince consciousness always accompanies thinking, and ‘tis that, that makes every one to be, what he calls self; and thereby distinguishes himself from all other thinking things, in this alone consists personal Identity, i.e. the sameness of rational Being: And as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past Action or Thought, so far reaches the Identity of that Person…”  Locke’s account of personal identity has puzzled, annoyed, and inspired readers since it was published in the second edition of his Essay, in 1694. One aim of this course will be to find a coherent reading of it, one that considers objections that later writers—most famously Butler and Reid—made to it as well as some recent readings of it. Part of the point of this endeavor will be to see what, if anything, we still can learn from Locke concerning what a person is. A second aim of the course will be to arrive at an understanding of consciousness that makes sense in light of what we’ve learned about persons and personal identity from Locke. (III)

The course will have three foci in Wittgenstein’s later writings: (1) Philosophical Investigations’ famous remarks on rule-following—at least insofar as they bear upon a kind (or kinds) of skepticism concerning semantically contentful language; (2) discussions that bear upon a related kind (or kinds) of skepticism concerning psychologically contentful expression that appear shortly thereafter in Philosophical Investigations; and (3) remarks about belief, doubt, and (what might be called) quasi-logical propositions that run through On Certainty. A thought that we’ll have to grapple with, and keep returning to, is nicely articulated in this sentence from On Certainty: “The difficulty is to realize the groundlessness of our believing” (§166). (II)

This course meets in Autumn and Winter quarters.

In one of his most widely read pieces of writing—the chapter of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding called “Of Identity and Diversity”—John Locke writes: “[S]ince consciousness always accompanies thinking, and ‘tis that, that makes every one to be, what he calls self; and thereby distinguishes himself from all other thinking things, in this alone consists personal Identity, i.e. the sameness of rational Being: And as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past Action or Thought, so far reaches the Identity of that Person…”  Locke’s theory of personal identity has puzzled, annoyed, and inspired readers since it was published in the second edition of his Essay, in 1694. The main aim of this course will be to arrive at a reading of it that (1) situates it in the context of earlier philosophers’ writings about selves and souls, (2) is informed by an understanding of Locke’s own views concerning consciousness and memory, among other things, and (3) carefully considers objections that later writers—most famously Butler and Reid—made to Locke’s theory. In this endeavor, we’ll be aided by two excellent recent books: Udo Theil’s The Early Modern Subject (2011) and Galen Strawson’s Locke on Personal Identity (2011). Along the way, we’ll devote some time to considering one or two recent neo-Lockean accounts of personal identity. (B)

This course meets in Autumn and Winter quarters.