Assembling Reminders For Educational Research: Wittgenstein On Philosophy

Educational Theory

Volumn 48, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 287-308

  Smeyers, Paul ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LEUVEN   (Belgium)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0039645585     PISSN: 00132004     EISSN: 17415446     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-5446.1998.00287.x     Document Type: Article

References (58)

1. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations/Philosophische Untersuchungen. trans. G.E.M. Anscombe (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1953), II, 109. This book will be cited as PI in the text for all subsequent references.
2. See for instance the Journal for Qualitative Studies in Education and Educational Action Research. Since 1990 there are more than 200 new titles.
3. One of the sessions of the 1996 AERA meeting was entitled, "Yes, But is it Research?"
4. See for instance, see Peter Winch, The Idea of a Social Science (London: Routledge, 1958).
5. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, II, 232e.
6. Ludwig Wittgenstein, "Remarks on Frazer's Golden Hough," in Wittgenstein: Sources and Perspectives. ed. Grant Luckhardt (Hassocks, Sussex: The Harvester Press, 19791, 69.
7. See G.E. Moore, "Wittgenstein's Lectures at Cambridge 1930-32,"Mind 64 (1955): 19.
8. Fora typical characterization of "the narrative" as central to this kind of research: ee D.E. Polkinghorne, Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences (New York: State University of New York Press, 1988). For a typical reaction to this kind of research see for instance, D.C. Phillips, "Gone with the Wind? Evidence, Rigor, and Warrants in Educational Research," in Papers of the Annual Conference of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, ed. James Tooley (Oxford: Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, 1993), 4-11.
9. I am indebted to Jim Macmillan for this focusing on "language."
10. See G.P. Baker and P.M.S. Hacker, An Analytical Commentary on Wittgenstein's "Philosophical investigations." vol. 1 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983), 236-37.
11. Wittgenstein discusses "philosophy" mainly in 89-133 of Philosophical Investigations.
12. Wittgenstein's use of the concept of explanation primarily refers to indicating causes, as in physics for instance. Theories do explain as well by offering a description or a redescription (from a different perspective) and so do descriptions of particular cases ("placing things side by side" in order "to see connections"). Wittgenstein's hostility is not only directed toward explanations in terms of causes, but also against whatever kind of theory. He is not interested in a theoretically driven account. In the following the term will be used to refer to causal explanations and "explanation" (within inverted commas) to indicate the understanding that is looked for in all kind of theories.
13. Felicia Ackerman, "Does Philosophy only State what Everyone Admits? A Discussion of the Method of Wittgensteins's Philosophical Investigations," Midwest Studies in Philosophy 17 (1992): 246-54.
14. "The Big Typescript," incorporated in Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Occasions, ed. James C. Klagge and Alfred Nordmann (Indianapolis: Hacking, 1993), 86-87.
15. Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1968), 18.
16. See Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology/Bemerkungen über die Philosophie der Psychology, ed. G.H. von Wright and Heikki Nyman
17. trans. C.G. Luckhardt and Macmillian Aue (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980), I, 548 and II, 289.
18. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value/Vermischte Bemerkungen. ed. G.H. von Wright, trans. Peter Winch (Oxford: Basil Blackwell), 37e.
19. Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty/Über Gewissheit, ed. G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright, trans. Denis Paul and G.E.M. Anscombe (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969), 378.
20. C.J.B. Macmillan, "Using Wittgenstein in Educational Contexts" (paper presented at the Philosophy of Education Seminar, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 30 November 1994).
21. David Pears, "Wittgenstein's Naturalism,"" The Monist 78 (1995): 414.
22. Rudolf Haller, Questions on Wittgenstein (London: Routledge, 1988).
23. This "practice" should however not be conceived as the ultimate point of reference, only as the one that is used in this case. Such would otherwise presuppose-an invariability of practice that is not the kind of concept Wittgenstein would endorse. This is similarly argued by S.L. Hurley in dealing with the question: if acts or practices do not interpret themselves any more than anything else does, why are they any better placed than the discredited entities either to solve, or to dissolve, the problem of content? Hurley finds inadequate not only the myth of the given (where pragmatism and contextualism find a place) because the essential role of activity disappears, but also the myth of the giving (the complementary - quasi Kantian- conception of the content of intentional acts), this giving being taken to be the reflection, or pure output, of a spontaneous active mind. Intentional acts presuppose classification, unification under concepts or by reference to objects, as much as experience or anything else does, he argues. In place of a one-sidedness that reads Wittgenstein's appeal to forms of life in terms of a practice-oriented asymmetry involving the myth of the giving, one has to read this appeal as a way of avoiding both myths by recognizing the interdependence of experience and practice within forms of life. S.L. Hurley, "Wittgenstein on Practice and the Myth of the Giving," The 1995 Lindlev Lecture, University of Kansas Department of Philosophy.
24. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Zettel, ed. G.E.M. Anscomhe and G.H. von Wright, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967), 387.
25. Wittgenstein, On Certainty. 94.
26. Cora Diamond, The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein. Philosophy. and the Mind(1991; reprint, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995), 69.
27. Wittgenstein, On Certainly. 139.
28. Kjell Johannessen, "The Concept of Practice in Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy," Inquiry 31 (1988): 357-69.
29. Wittgenstein, On Certainty. 144.
30. See also Johannessen, "The Concept of Practice," 368 and M.S. Cladis, "Wittgenstein, Rawls, and Conservatism," Philosophy and Social Criticism 20 (1994): 17.
31. See for a further development for instance Stephen Mulhall, "Wittgenstein and Heidegger: Orientation to the Ordinary," European journal of Philosophy 1 (1994): 143-64.
32. Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, 31e.
33. Lars Hertzberg, "Primitive Reactions - Logic or Anthropology?" Midwest Studies in Philosophy 17 (1992): 24-39.
34. John Churchill, "Something Deep and Sinister," Modern Theology 8 (1992): 15-37.
35. J.C. Nyiri, Tradition and Individuality (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1992).
36. Cladis, "Wittgenstein, Rawls, and Conservatism."
37. In the Sketch for a Foreword (Culture and Value, 6c) Wittgenstein writes that the dominant spirit of European and American civilization which makes itself manifest in its industry, architecture, and music, in its fascism and socialism, is alien and uncongenial to him - though he insists that this is not a value judgment. He continues then as follows: "yet the fact remains that I have no sympathy for the current of European civilization and do not understand its goals, if it has any. So I am really writing for friends who are scattered throughout the corners of the globe." The remark dates from 1930. More ammunition for the interpretation that this essay offers can also be found in a recent study by W.J. DeAngelis on Wittgenstein and Spengler. He argues that the general character of Wittgenstein's later work - and not just its spirit as elucidated in the prefatory remarks - is Spenglerian. To the extent that modern philosophy endorses the conception of a private language, it leads us away from what is shared and in the direction of even more widespread fragmentation of effort; in this respect it even encourages the extreme conditions of a civilization dying. He asks the reader whether Wittgenstein's remarks on private language have been intended to combat not only a mistaken picture of the functioning of language but also those conditions and these times. See W.J. DeAngelis, "Wittgenstein and Spengler
38. See W.J. DeAngelis, "Wittgenstein and Spengler," Dialogue 33 (1994): 41-61.
39. John McDowell, "Meaning and Intentionality in Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy," Midwest Studies in Philosophy 17 (1992): 40-52.
40. In Dieter Mersch, Gesprache über Wittgenstein (Wien: Passagen Verlag, 1991).
41. Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, 24e. It may be interesting to see that the German word he uses for this is "dichten." Again similarities with the later work of Heidegger press themselves forward. The way "Being" comes in the openness is elaborated paradigmatically in terms of the art in Urspning des Kurstwerkes.
42. Morris Lazerowitz, The Language of Philosophy: Freud and Wittgenstein (Dordrecht: D. Reider, 1977) and Morris Lazerowitz and Alice Ambrose, Essays in the Unknown Wittgenstein (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus, 1984).
43. Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, 86e-87e.
44. Wittgenstein, "Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough," 119.
45. Paul Smeyers and James Marshall Philosophy and Education: Accepting Wittgenstein's Challenge (Dordreeht: Kluwer, 1995).
46. See also my recent study, "Child-rearing and Parental 'Intentions' in Postmodernity,"Educational Philosophy and Theory 30, forthcoming.
47. C.J.B. Macmillan, "Rational Teaching," Teachers College Record 86 (1985): 411-22.
48. I am grateful to Nick Burbules for drawing my attention to this matter.
49. Paul Standish, "Why We Should Not Speak of an Educational Science," in Smeycrs and Marshall, Philosophy and Education, 156-57.
50. Qualitative research In particular might benefit from this, being in need of a positive point of reference instead of only positioning itself as different from a causal-analytical approach. Not only in educational research but also in psychology, an interest has recently developed toward certain aspects of narrative research
51. See Steinar Kvale, "Ten Standard Objections to Qualitative Research Interviews," journal of Phenomenological Psychology 25 (1994): 147-73.
52. Wittgenstein, "Big Typescript," 91 and Philosophical Occasions, 189.
53. Wittgenstein, "Big Typescript," 86 and Philosophical Occasions, 161.
54. Denis McManus, "Philosophy in Question: 'Philosophical Investigations 133,'" Philosophical Investigations 18 (1995) in particular 359-60.
55. James Edwards, Ethics without Philosophy: Wittgenstein and the Moral Life (Tampa: University of Florida Press, 1982).
56. John Churchill, "Wonder and the End of Explanation: Wittgenstein and Religious Sensibility," Philosophical Investigations 17 (1994): 389.
57. In the recently published Handbook of Qualitative Research, ed. Norman K. Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1994), Egon Cuba and Yvonna Lincoln have a chapter on "Competing Paradigms in Qualitative Research." They differentiate between positivism, postpositivism, critical theory, and constructivism. Leaving the problems of "constructivism" aside, a position they clearly prefer, the interesting points they make cannot hide that they have not given up one of the traditional objectives of research: "The criterion for progress is that over time, everyone formulates more informed and sophisticated constructions and becomes more aware of the content and meaning of competing constructions," 113). This is not necessarily manipulative, but could easily slip away in that direction.
58. Norma Malcolm, Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir (London: Oxford University Press, 1958).