Wittgensteinian Ethics

La tesi presenta inizialmente il pensiero di Jacques Derrida sull'animalità. Il tema affrontato è la sovranità dell'uomo sul resto dei viventi, in particolare nei riguardi della discriminazione dell'animalità. Nei capitoli a seguire si attua un'emancipazione dell'animalità e non dall'animalità come la corrente umanista voleva. Attraverso l'ontogenesi del concetto di "umanità" viene decostruito il costrutto che sorregge la soglia che divide l'uomo dagli animali, laddove essi partecipano all'animalità in maniere differenti. L'emergenza di questa composizione dei temi trattati si erge ad azione esemplare con cui Derrida, prima di morire, ha lasciato delle tracce da seguire durante il ricevimento del premio Adorno.

L'etica, secondo Wittgenstein, ha a che fare con la mostrazione di un modo di vivere, inteso vuoi come disposizione complessiva del soggetto, vuoi come "habitus". In questo libro, Marta Cassina ripercorre le forme di questa mostrazione nell'opera del filosofo, argomentando, in primo luogo, che il modo di vivere indicato nel "Tractatus" come il contrassegno indicibile della vita giusta e felice debba essere compreso, man mano che il pensiero di Wittgenstein matura, come un "fare" e un uso condiviso della vita; che questo uso, inoltre, possa essere letto nelle sue implicazioni teoretiche e nella maniera della sua genesi attraverso le "lenti" della credenza religiosa e della grammatica del voto di fede.

Published originally in 2003, it occurs to me that some of the argument I make here concerning the heteropatriarchal and deeply racialized ways in which we anthropomorphize--treat nonhuman animals and objects as if they had human characteristics--may have some relevance to the charged profoundly important events, movement, and hopefully revolutionary progressive change whose roots go far deeper than the murder of George (Perry) Floyd, but whose most recent incarnation has been ignited by this senseless police brutality.

The essay was originally published in the excellent anthology, The Grammar of Politics: Wittgenstein and Political Philosophy, ed. Cressida Hayes. Cornell University Press, 2003, p. 167-185.

Ludwig Wittgenstein was an outstanding 20th-century philosopher whose influence has reverberated throughout not only philosophy but also numerous other areas of inquiry, including theology and the study of religions. Exemplifying how Wittgenstein's thought can be engaged with both sympathetically and critically, Wittgenstein, Religion and Ethics pushes forward our thinking about religion and ethics and their place in the modern world.

Bringing Wittgenstein's ideas into productive dialogue with several other important thinkers, including Elizabeth Anscombe, St Thomas Aquinas, Georg Cantor, Søren Kierkegaard and George Orwell, this collection fosters a highly informative picture of how different strands of contemporary and historical thought intersect and bear upon one another. Chapters are written by leading scholars in the field and tackle current debates concerning religious and ethical matters, with particular attention to the nature of religious language. This is a substantial contribution to religion and ethics, demonstrating the significance of Wittgenstein's ideas for these and related subjects.

Wittgenstein’s “grammatical method” analyzes multiple uses of language across contexts of use, with the aim of identifying differences and dissolving conceptual confusion. This paper uses Wittgenstein’s method to undermine Jorge L. A. Garcia’s volitional account of racism. Garcia claims that his theory accommodates the ordinary use of terms like “racist belief.” However, he did not consider whether such terms might have multiple uses/meanings. My paper identifies three uses of “racist belief” that escape Garcia’s analysis. Consequently, philosophers should take Wittgenstein’s advice to heart: do not assume that target-terms have a single use, but “look and see” whether they do.

The article is available here: https://www.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf/purchase?openform&fp=soctheorpract&id=soctheorpract_2017_0999_2_8_3

I reconstruct the background of ideas, concerns and intentions out of which Moore’s early essays, the preliminary version, and then the final version of Principia Ethica originated. I stress the role of religious concerns, as well as that of the Idealist legacy. I argue that PE is more a patchwork of rather diverging contributions than a unitary work, not to say the paradigm of a new school in Ethics. I add a comparison with Rashdall’s almost contemporary ethical work, suggesting that the latter defends the same general claims in a different way, one that manages to pave decisive  objections in a more plausible way. I end by suggesting that the emergence of Analytic Ethics was a more ambiguous phenomenon than the received view would make us believe, and that the wheat (or some other gluten-free grain) of this tradition, that is, what logic can do for philosophy, has to be separated from the chaff, that is, the confused and mutually incompatible legacies of Utilitarianism and Idealism.

Abstract:

This essay traces the development of Georg Henrik von Wright’s (1916–2003) work in the theory of values from the early 1950s to the publication of The Varieties of Goodness (1963), with special focus on the influences stemming from Ludwig Wittgenstein’s (1889–1951) later thought. In 1952, von Wright published an essay suggesting a formal analysis of the concept of value. This attempt was soon abandoned. The change of approach took place at the time von Wright started his work on Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. This preoccupation with Wittgenstein led to a new approach to value judgments in 1954, with strong late-Wittgensteinian influences on methodical as well as stylistic levels. Some important traces of the 1954 approach are still visible in The Varieties of Goodness, while the stylistic imitations and allusions have mostly been dropped. But in the late 1950s, new connections to Wittgenstein’s later thought emerge: an aim to provide a “surveyable (re)presentation” (cf. PI: §122)  of the varieties of goodness, i.e. the various different but interrelated uses of the word “good” in language and an aspiration to make analytical philosophy something more than a “collection of material for academic controversy”.

The article is available at the journal's website at  https://www.nordicwittgensteinreview.com/article/view/3546

Nous montrons tout d’abord les difficultés qu’il y a à lire la séquence des Recherches la plus fameuse (§243-411) comme l’exposé d’un argument réductible à l’unité et formalisable. Au lieu de comprendre ces remarques à la lumière de l’impossibilité d’une définition ostensive privée, nous nous proposons de mettre en évidence la toile de fond de cette critique : le refus de réifier les représentations en images privées auxquelles le locuteur seul aurait un accès direct et de les confondre avec les significations de ce qu’elles représentent. Pour porter atteinte au privilège des représentations, Wittgenstein fait d’une part jouer l’expression contre la référence (le lien entre l’impression et l’expression n’est pas arbitraire et contingent, mais à la fois naturel et conceptuel). Il prend également pour cible la représentation de l’espace visuel sur le modèle physicaliste d’un espace plan sur lesquels les sense data se projetteraient. Nous revenons dans un second temps sur l’interprétation strawsonienne de cette séquence, celle d’une théorie du non-propriétaire (Individuals, III) et sur la singularité de la référence en première personne.

"The paper reviews the historical significance of the notes taken by G.E. Moore at Wittgenstein’s lectures in Cambridge during 1930 – 1933, and sets out the editorial principles for a forthcoming edition of those notes. After looking at Wittgenstein’s
very brief discussion of ethical concepts in Philosophical Investigations §77, and its relationship to the discussion of games and family resemblance concepts in §§ 66 ff., the paper turns to Moore’s notes of Wittgenstein’s lectures in May 1933 for a more detailed treatment of the topic."

Soren Kiekegaard explicitly states in his work that his intention in writing it was for what he called a "primitive" reading that provoked reflection and self-reflection in the reader, instead of merely abstract reflection unrelated to an existing individual's concerns. 1 He distinguishes between an "essential author" who is inwardly focussed, with a distinctive life-view, from a "premise author" who lacks inward direction [OAR 3-II (Pap. VII B 235, 6-16)] and notes that "scholarship more and more turns away from a primitive impression of existence… one does not love, does not have faith, does not act; but one knows what erotic love is, what faith is." [CUP 250 (SV VII 211)]

This paper reconsiders understandings of Tractarian ethics by proposing to recontextualize it within the anthropological bent that runs through Wittgenstein’s philosophy and culminates in the Philosophical Investigations. More specifically, the claim is that this recontextualizing of the Tractarian vision of value, ethical propositions as nonsense, and ethics as transcendental shows how these are actually instantiated within the anthropological frame of Wittgenstein’s vision of meaning as use, language-games, rule-following, and forms of life from Philosophical Grammar to Philosophical Investigations. The significance of the paper is that it offers a study of Wittgenstein’s moral thought positioned between traditionalist and resolute readings which offers the possibility of new avenues of dialogue with other moral philosophers. (This is a shortened version of the paper submitted to the International Ludwig Wittgenstein Symposium. That paper is a revision of the author's BA thesis.)

"Este trabajo se ocupa del desarrollo histórico-filosófico de las posiciones subjetivistas sobre los valores surgidas a partir del siglo XVIII con David Hume, en el seno de la tradición del empirismo analítico. Partiendo de esta posición, se centra en la transformación del subjetivismo axiológico de raigambre analítica en el siglo XX hacia el emotivismo, en el marco del giro lingüístico de la filosofía contemporánea. Los filósofos cuyas posiciones se examinan son David Hume, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Alfred Ayer, Bertrand Russell y John Leslie Mackie.
A partir de la dicha indagación, se examinan las posibilidades actuales del emotivismo como propuesta de análisis del lenguaje moral. En las Conclusiones se toma posición frente a dos importantes objeciones que surgieron contra el emotivismo: su incapacidad para dar cuenta de las pretensiones de verdad o de validez que estarían presentes en todo juicio de valor, y su imposibilidad de ofrecer una explicación suficiente del sentido de la discusión moral, al restringir la misma a mera retórica y negar que existan razones para apoyar un juicio de valor.
Mediante un examen crítico de esas dificultades, se vislumbra en qué medida el emotivismo (y más en general el no-cognitivismo) puede aún hoy ser reivindicado como una posición metaética posible, o bien si debe considerarse definitivamente superado. En ese sentido, se analiza también qué aspectos del emotivismo pueden reformularse de modo de mantener alguna vigencia, incorporando elementos del estudio de los juicios de valor provenientes de otras tradiciones metaéticas.
El capítulo I contextualiza la corriente del ‘empirismo analítico’, a la vez que se ocupa del tipo de tratamiento con que esta tradición filosófica abordó la problemática de la ética en general y del estatus de los valores en particular. Desde el capítulo II al VI, se presentan las posiciones de Hume, el 1º Wittgenstein, Ayer, Russell y Mackie. El capítulo VII ofrece un intento de clasificación de las distintas posturas que reciben el nombre genérico de ‘subjetivismo axiológico’. El capítulo VIII versa acerca de las relaciones del empirismo analítico con diversos temas relevantes para la ética (argumentos contra el objetivismo axiológico, posibilidad de fundamentar la ética, papel de la razón en la práctica moral, emotivismo y empirismo, etc.). Finalmente las Conclusiones recapitulan las diferentes posiciones metaéticas y de la argumentación moral expuestas, a los fines de reexaminarlas a la luz de algunas de las críticas que pretendieron impugnar el emotivismo. Se intenta así demarcar el papel que juegan las pretensiones de verdad o de validez en los juicios de valor, no tenidas en cuenta por dicha doctrina. También se examina y se defiende la posibilidad de dar cuenta de un genuino razonamiento moral en el marco de una posición emotivista."

What could Wittgenstein's work contribute to the rapidly growing literature on life's meaning? This book not only examines Wittgenstein's scattered remarks about value and 'sense of life' but also argues that his philosophy and 'way of seeing' has far reaching implications for the ways theorists approach an ancient question: 'How shall one live?'.

This  paper  is  an  exploration  of  verbal  activism  and  animal  liberation, starting  with  a  brief  explanation  of  Wittgenstein’s  (1953) views on the nature and role of language. A discussion of lexical gaps, linguistic  change, and  verbal  activism  follows: The  paper  introduces the word, “anymal,” to fill a lexical gap and to provide a form of verbal activism.

Wittgenstein e D’Annunzio presero parte alla Grande Guerra con entusiasmo, il primo arruolandosi volontario nel 1914, il secondo partecipando prima attivamente alla campagna interventista, poi prendendo parte al conflitto come combattente. Tuttavia, questi due testimoni percepirono e rappresentarono la guerra in modo diverso o meglio opposto, lasciando nei rispettivi taccuini e diari la traccia del percorso intellettuale e umano che essi compirono attraverso gli anni del conflitto mondiale. Partendo dalla distinzione fatta da Kierkegaard tra vita etica e vita estetica, si può vedere come nel caso di Wittgenstein la guerra porti alla luce la necessità etica di cercare i limiti del linguaggio che corrispondono ai limiti stessi della persona. Wittgenstein percepisce sé stesso al confronto della purezza e dell’assolutezza di Dio come una sostanza limitata e indegna, come un’esistenza imperfetta, manchevole di bontà e bisognosa di quella redenzione che l’uomo ricerca nella vita sotto forma di costante tensione verso l’unità trascendentale, mosso dalla volontà di migliorare sé stesso e divenire un essere dignitoso. Anche nel caso di D’Annunzio la guerra rappresenta la possibilità di andare oltre i propri limiti non più, però, nel senso etico della ricerca di sé stesso, bensì nel senso di affermare e di esaltare l’immagine costruita di sé stesso come uomo eccezionale. D’Annunzio descrive sé stesso come un’eccezionalità unica che, in quanto dotata di straordinaria sensibilità per il bello, è accostata alla divinità e, in quanto tale, è in grado di guidare la massa verso la redenzione; un’eccezione che non ricerca nessuna unità perché già la possiede e che nell’azione esteticamente eroica anela alla bella morte.

Philosophy and the Vision of Language (Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Philosophy), Author: Paul M. Livingston,
Philosophy, Philosophy of Language, Language, Languagstics, Alhassanain, Al-hassanain, Hassanain, Hassanain, alhassanian, al-hassanian, Alhassanain.org, Alhassanain Network, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein, Kant, and the Critique of Totality, EARLY ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY, Frege on the Context Principle and Psychologism, Meaning is Use’ in the Tractatus, RADICAL TRANSLATION AND INTERSUBJECTIVE PRACTICE, From Syntax to Semantics and Pragmatics, Ryle and Sellars on Inner-State Reports, Quine’s Appeal to Use and the Genealogy of Indeterminacy, CRITICAL OUTCOMES, From the Aporia of Structure to the Critique of Practice, Thinking and Being: Heidegger and Wittgenstein on Machination and Lived-Experience, Language, Norms, and the Force of Reason, The Question of Language,
http://alhassanain.org/english/?com=book&id=839

This book aims to address in a novel way some of the fundamental philosophical questions concerning suicide.  Focusing on four major authors of Western philosophy - Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein - their arguments in favour or against suicide are explained, contextualized, examined and critically assessed. Taken together, these four perspectives provide an illuminating overview of the philosophical arguments that can be used for or against one’s right to commit suicide. Intended both for specialists and those interested in understanding the many complexities underlying the philosophical debate on suicide, this book combines philosophical depth with exemplary clarity.

In the conclusion to “Anything but Argument?”, after measuring her intellectual distance from Onora O’Neill, Cora Diamond writes: “the arguments I have given are in a sense quite useless.” – I propose to elucidate Diamond’s treatment of distances (“Moral Difference and Distances,” “the Gulfs between Us,” to mention titles of two of Diamond’s papers)—in both metaphysics and ethics.

§1 presents Diamond’s suspicions regarding a conception of people as distant because they accept different thought-systems—“play different language-games.” We can make connections, Diamond argues, even across thought-systems; arguing with people who are different from us is not a priori useless. Things get trickier in philosophy, however, when the distances are between not thought-systems, but expectations from and conceptions of philosophy. §§2-3 discuss such distances between Diamond and O’Neill, and between Diamond and Saul Kripke. Here, I argue, bridging an intellectual gap, for Diamond, requires eliciting change in the philosopher’s will. §4 puts philosophical alongside moral distances. In ethics too, Diamond thinks, we typically need to examine wills—others’ but also our own. I discuss the personal aspect of this, the exposure and imaginative involvement it requires.

"'Phil Hutchinson offers an incisive, insightful and deeply humane New Wittgensteinian critique of a number of influential accounts of the emotions, including shame. That too many philosophers have marginalized the 'person' in their accounts – that they have forgotten the place of the emotions in human lives and in the life-world – is the shame of philosophy.'
- Katherine Morris, Oxford University

'A fine work: not only does it provide convincing answers to important questions, it also reveals the limitations - and cures some of the blindspots - of much contemporary research on emotions. The discussion of cognitivism is particularly subtle, while the perspicuous presentation of the lived experience of shame might help to resolve some crucial theoretical aporias about the nature and the significance of being a person.'
- Anthony Hatzimoysis, The University of Manchester
 
'Hutchinson's book is a thoughtful, thorough and interesting work. He offers many striking reflections on emotion, language and, specifically, shame. In showing how different conceptions of emotions are based on problematic conceptions of language, he also goes much deeper than philosophers usually when they write about this subject.'
- Ylva Gustafsson, Philosophical Investigations

'Shame and Philosophy is an engaging philosophical effort to explore reflection about emotion with its relevant connection to personhood. Phil Hutchinson offers a careful reflection that establishes a dialogue among current research both from the analytical and the continental traditions. This novel approach to philosophy of emotions provides, just like Hutchinson wants, a conceptual network for a better understanding of how emotions make up our world.'
- Dina Mendonça, Metapsychology online


Abstract
In an important contribution to the burgeoning area of philosophy of emotions, Phil Hutchinson engages with philosophers of emotion in both the analytic and continental traditions. Shame and Philosophy advances a framework for understanding emotion: world-taking cognitivism. He argues that reductionist accounts of emotion leave us in a state of poverty regarding our understanding of our world and ourselves. The book contains detailed engagements with theorists of emotions such as Peter Goldie, Paul Griffiths, Jesse Prinz and Jenefer Robinson as well as a chapter on the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, which also contains a detailed critical engagement with Jacques Derrida's work. The Chapter on Griffiths' work also contains a detailed critique of the program of natural kind semantics. As the book progresses it becomes more and more concerned to meditate on shame as discussed by Primo Levi and other survivors of extreme trauma. The book moves towards conclusion by suggesting further directions for study."

In ethics, Wittgenstein, early and late, emphasized changes of attitude over questions about how to act. He once told his friend Rhees: “One of my sister’s characteristics is that whenever she hears of something awful that has happened, her impulse is to ask what one can do about it, what she can do to help or remedy. This is a tendency in her of which I disapprove.” Instead, he says elsewhere: “If life becomes hard to bear we think of improvements. But the most important & effective improvement, in our own attitude, hardly occurs to us […].” Such attitudinal changes involve a kind of clarity of thought for Wittgenstein, and his understanding of them can be explained in part by reference to his later discussion about aspect-perception. Moral problems can disappear in a way that resembles the disappearance of the rabbit-aspect of Jastrow's duck-rabbit when the duck-aspect dawns. I compare moral clarification to logical-philosophical clarification. Both cases involve propositions that say nothing, but rather shed light on what other propositions say—tautologies, grammatical remarks, and philosophical elucidations on the one hand, clarificatory moral remarks like ‘think of her as someone’s daughter’ on the other. I argue that this gives a practical edge to Wittgenstein’s moral thought, a tool with which to think through moral difficulties.

Between 1937 and 1951 Wittgenstein had numerous philosophical conversations with his student and close friend, Rush Rhees. This article is composed of Rhees’s notes of twenty such conversations — namely, all those which have not yet been published — as well as some supplements from Rhees’s correspondence and miscellaneous notes. The principal value of the notes collected here is that they fill some interesting and important gaps in Wittgenstein’s corpus. Thus, firstly, the notes touch on a wide range of subjects, a number of which are only briefly addressed by Wittgenstein elsewhere, if at all. The subjects discussed include: explanation, ethics, anarchism, contradiction, psychoanalysis, colour, religion, concepts, classification, seeing-as, evolution, the relation between science and philosophy, and free will, amongst others. Secondly, the notes contain references to, and brief remarks about, philosophers of whom Wittgenstein otherwise says very little, if anything — such as Brentano, Heidegger, Aquinas, and Marx, amongst others. And thirdly, the notes provide us with valuable examples of Wittgenstein’s use of some key ‘Wittgensteinian’ terms of art which are surprisingly rare in his written works, such as ‘surface-’ and ‘depth-grammar’, and ‘centres of variation’.

I discuss the second of the three theses advanced by Anscombe in 'Modern Moral Philosophy'. The focus is the nature of entities to which – if Anscombe's diagnosis is correct – ought and cognate modals are assumed by modern moral philosophers to refer. I reconstruct the alternative account offered by Anscombe of viable and justified 'Aristotelian' modals – as contrasted with mysterious and unjustified 'Kantian' modals; I discuss the nature and status of 'Aristotelian necessity' to which such legitimate modals refer to. I conclude with the claims that Anscombe's account of modern moral philosophy is viciously parochial, reducing it to Oxford philosophy from the Thirties and Forties and its immediate antecedents; that her historical reconstruction is vitiated by lack of awareness of the existence of law-views of morality preceding Christian theology, artful anticipation of secularization in order to fit her picture of modern moral philosophy as the 'day after' of Christianity; that Aquinas's and her own view of natural morality as made of rational moral judgments laws is incompatible with both her predilection for 'divine law' instead of plain down-to-earth 'natural law'; that her strained reconstruction of a Christian-Jewish-Stoic view of morality as law promulgated by God has little to share with any reconstruction of the Biblical moral traditions meeting academic standard and in more detail there is no possible translation of Torah as Law; and that her criticism hits just targets from the old little British world she was familiar with, while leaving Kantian ethics unaffected.

בשנת 1964 נערך במחלקה לתיאולוגיה באוניברסיטת דרואו בארצות הברית כנס הנובע מתוך "הצורך בניסוחה של שפה תיאולוגית חדשה". המארגן, פרופ' סטנלי הופר, הצהיר כי זהו הצורך הבהול בהצלתו של השיח התיאולוגי המערבי. במאמר יסוד לספר שנכתב לאחר מכן, מכנה הופר את שפה תיאולוגית חדשה זו בשם תיאו-פואטיקה [theopoetics], כלומר הפואטיקה של האלוהות. לדבריו, התיאופואטיקה נובעת מתוך "יישום הגותו המאוחרת של מרטין היידגר, בהתבסס על הפואטיקה ומעשה האמנות כמודלים של מחשבה ואמירה אודות 'האמת הרְאשיתית'". הדיבור הפואטי ומעשה האמנות, כפי שהם מוצגים בהגותו המאוחרת של היידגר, נתפסים אפוא מכאן ואילך כ"שפה שלנו אודות האמת והאלוהות" – השפה התיאופואטית.  אלא שבהגות המאה העשרים צמחה למעשה תפיסה תיאופואטית רבת עוצמה המנוגדת לזו שהוצגה בהגותו של היידגר. זוהי התיאופואטיקה שהתגבשה בפילוסופיה המוקדמת של לודוויג ויטגנשטיין, שתכליתה לשמר את הטרנסצנדנציה החמורה של תחום האתיקה, הדת והאלוהות ומתוך כך לעצב אסתטיקה של 'התבוננות מבחינת הנצח'. מאמר זה יתחקה אחר יסודותיה ומאפייניה של התיאופואטיקה הוויטגנשטייניאנית.

(מאמר מתוך הפרק "תהומות אלוהיים: תיאופואטיקה פילוסופית בכתביהם של היידגר וויטגנשטיין", בתוך: אבי אלקיים ושלומי מועלם (עורכים), "תיאופואטיקה - אוסף מאמרים", אידרא, 2020)

In this paper, I argue that the meaning of Wittgenstein's remarks on suicide should be elucidated against the background of the transcendental picture that permeates Wittgenstein's early writings. This picture is, in its essentials, Schopenhauer's metaphysics of the Will. It is part of my purpose here to argue that the question of suicide such as Wittgenstein raises it, far from being a side issue, is internally related to problems concerning the ethical integration of Will and world, and the meaning of the world. As it will be seen, Wittgenstein manages to present a highly original view on the fundamental character of ethics that combines asceticism with an affirmative attitude to the world. Suicide would undermine ethics. As such, it stands for a nihilistic worldview.

Table of contents

1. Defining the problem
2. Notions defined
3. The problem’s prehistory
4. Cultural relativism and its ethical implications
5. Consequences in analytical ethics
5.1. The anti-realists’ relativism 
5.2. Wittgensteinian contextualism
5.3 Virtues theorists
5.5 Metaetical relativism cum normative antirelativism: Williams
6. Towards universalism without absolutism

1. I intend to clarify the various meanings of the term relativism, to reconstruct the  the birth of the thesis named “cultural relativism” and its possible ethical implications, and then to revisit recent discussion of universalism and particularism.
2. The traditional argument for prescriptive moral relativism was the argument from variability, namely, that judgments, rules, and shared values are de facto variable in time and space. The traditional counter-argument was that examples of variability do not prove what the normative relativist contends for.
3. Ancient sophists were either immoralists or contractarians. Modern moral scepticism (xvii century) used to argue that variability as an historical and ethnographic fact supports a sceptical conclusion more moderate than sheer immoralism.  Voltaire, Kant, Adam Smith, Reid counter-attacked pointing at something like a universally shared moral sense. Romantics and idealists staged an even more moderate reformulation by pointing at the Spirit of a People which is, first, an alternative to abstract and universal philosophical systems as far as it is lived culture, secondly, an indivisible unity with an inner harmony and a source of normative standards.
4.  The alleged 18th c. doctrine of the Noble savage was imagined by 19th century ethnocentric anthropologists such as Edward Tylor, who believed the savage’s moral standards to be simply lower than ours own. Franz Boas reacted by claiming that development of civilization is neither ruled by technical progress nor does it follow a one-way path; instead there are parallel developments (for ex. Agriculture does not follow stock-raising, that until we have understood beliefs and intentions behind behavior we are not yet in a position to compare externally identical kinds of behavior, that we should distinguish among different practices which are only superficially similar, and that the implication is not that we cannot judge behavior by members of other groups but just a recommendation of extreme caution..
Bronislaw Malinowski argued, against Tylor’s and Frazer’s “magpie” methodology, that field-work is required, that a culture as a whole should be observed from inside while individual elements are incomprehensible; that a culture is an organic whole; that its elements are accounted for by their function while avoiding recourse to non-observables.
Ruth Benedict and Melville Herskovitz identified Boas’s approach with the phantom-notion of “cultural relativism”. Benedict claimed that what is normal or abnormal is to be judged on a culture’s own standards. Herskovits claimed that ‘Boas adumbrates what we have come to call cultural relativism, namely that  ‘Judgements are based on experience, and experience is interpreted by each individual in terms of his own enculturation’.
5. Analytic philosophy basically misunderstood the anthropologists' discussion. At the beginning of the 20th c., the new view in ethics was hard non-cognitivism. Eric Westermark combines this view with an old-style ethnographic approach in support of relativity of moralities. Moralities are codes, or systems of emotive ‘disinterested’ reactions selected by evolution on their usefulness in terms of survival value for the society that is the carrier of such systems or codes. The moral relativity thesis: there are cases of disagreement that cannot be settled even after agreement about facts. Later on, Anti-realists such as Brandt, Mackie, Gilbert, Harman adopted Westermark’s approach in a more sophisticated version, namely contending that: moralities are codes with an overall function and may be appraised only as wholes; variability is an argument for moral subjectivism; c) apparent legitimacy of deriving shift from ought is legitimized only within one institution d) morality should not be described but instead made, and existing moralities may be improved. I discuss whether this is ‘real’ relativism? It is clearly subjectivism (a metaethical thesis), the claim that there are better and worse codes, and survival values is the normative standard.
Particularists such as MacIntyre, Sandel, Wiggins nad McDowell adopted ‘Wittgensteinian’ prospectivist arguments to support weak-relativist claims.
Kantian universalists such as Baier, Gewirth, Rawls, Apel, Habermas share the claim that justice concerns the right and is universal in so far as it may be based on minimal assumptions and other virtues are relative to context in so far as they are related to comprehensive views of the good. 
A metaethical relativist and normative anti-relativist, Bernard Williams, contends that 
vulgar relativism may be assumed to claim that: (a) 'just' means 'just in one given society'; (b) 'just in a given society' is to be understood in functionalist sense; (c) it is wrong for one society’s members to condemn another society’s values. It is inconsistent since in (c) uses ‘just’ in a non-relative way that has been excluded in (a). His positive proposal is to keep a number of substantive or thick ethical concepts that will be different in space and time; to admit that public choices are to be legitimized through recourse to more abstract procedures and relying on more thin ethical concepts.
6. The only real relativism available is ‘vulgar’ relativism such as Westermark’s. Descriptive universalism (or absolutism) has a long pedigree, from Cicero on, reaching Boas himself but it is useless as an answer to normative questions. Twentieth-century philosophical discussion seems to discuss an ad hoc doctrine reconstructed by assembling obsolete philosophical ideas but ignoring the real theory of cultural relativism as formulated by anthropologists. A way out of the conundrum might be found in the following considerations: a distinction between ethoi and ethical theories; there are de facto existing systems of conventions; these may be studies from outside as phenomena or facts; there is moral argument and this, when studies from outside, is a fact, but this does not influence in any degree the possible validity of claims advanced; the difference between the above claims and Mackie’s criticism to Searle’s argument of the promising game is that promises, arguments etc. are also phenomena, but they are also communicative phenomena with a logical and pragmatic structure.
By way of conclusion, first, cultural relativism, as a name for Boas’s methodology is a valuable discovery, and in this sense we cannot avoid being relativist; ethical relativism, as an alleged implication of cultural relativism, has been argued in a philosophically quite unsophisticated way by Benedict and Herskovits; philosophers apparently discussed ethical relativism in the basis of a rather faint impression of what cultural relativism had been; a full-fledged ethical relativism has hardly been defended by anybody among philosophers, and virtually no modern philosopher really argued a prescriptive version of the thesis; we may accept the grain of truth in ethical relativism by including relativist critique to ethical absolutism into a universalist normative doctrine that be careful in separating open-textured formulations of universal claims from culturally conditioned particular prescriptions.

Według niektórych interpretatorów wczesnej filozofii Wittgensteina w jego etyce obecne są wątki stoickie. Niniejsza praca poświęcona jest zbadaniu, jak głębokie są podobieństwa między etyką zawartą w Traktacie logiczno-filozoficznym oraz Dziennikach 1914-1916 a stoicyzmem. Skupiam się przy tym na trzech głównych zagadnieniach: 1) charakterystyce podmiotu moralnego; 2) miejscu podmiotu w świecie i wynikającym z tego miejsca stosunku do świata; 3) celu etyki. W pracy staram się pokazać, że rozważania etyczne Wittgensteina ujawniają wiele podobieństw do stoicyzmu – zarówno w kwestiach szczegółowych, jak i co do ogólnej wizji etyki. Wskazuję jednak również na różnice, jakie zachodzą między tymi dwoma stanowiskami.


According to some scholars, the philosophy of Wittgenstein's early period is pervaded with Stoic threads. The subject matter of the present work is to analyze how significant are the similarities between, on the one hand, ethics of ‘Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus’ and ‘Notebooks 1914-1916’ and, on the other hand, Stoic philosophy. The three core issues are: (1) characterization of the moral subject; (2) subject’s position in the world and the subject-world relationship that follows; (3) the purpose of ethics. I intend to show that Wittgenstein’s ethical inquiry bears resemblance to Stoicism ‒ both in the general framework and in many particular details. However, I also do point out discrepancies between the two.

CONFERENCIA:
“WITTGENSTEIN: MÍSTICA, FILOSOFÍA Y SILENCIO;  NOTAS SOBRE ESTÉTICA, PSICOANÁLISIS Y  ÉTICA.”
– Dr. Adolfo Vásquez Rocca.
CONFERENCIA en
'SEMINARIO HUMANIDADES: ESTUDIOS ANTROPOLÓGICOS ACERCA DE LO DIVINO', Departamento de Artes y Humanidades, Facultad de Filosofía, Universidad Andrés Bello UNAB, Santiago, octubre, 2005. Publicada en Revista Observaciones Filosóficas – ISSN 0718-3712,  Sección Filosofía Contemporánea, Año 2006  http://www.observacionesfilosoficas.net/misticayfilosofia.html
INTRODUCCIÓN
Wittgenstein, el filósofo más original del siglo XX, fue tomado erróneamente por un positivista. Pese a ello, la intención con la que Wittgenstein escribió el Tractatus era, en última instancia, una intención ética, que puede compendiarse bajo lo que el autor llama lo místico (das Mystische), que incluye la ética, la estética y la teoría de los valores. La preocupación por estas y otras cuestiones conexas, como la religión y el del sentido de la existencia, desempeñan un sordo papel central en el conjunto de su  pensamiento.
Y, si bien, según las propias tesis wittgensteinianas, las cuestiones éticas, no pueden ser respondidas y, en rigor, ni siquiera formuladas en el marco de la ciencia natural, esto no implica un menosprecio de “esta irrevocable tendencia del espíritu humano” a plantear tales cuestiones, sino más bien el reconocimiento de las limitaciones de nuestro lenguaje para dar cuenta de ellas. Estos aspectos pueden compendiarse bajo lo que el autor llama lo místico (das Mystische), que incluye la ética y la estética, la teoría de los valores y, en definitiva, la cuestión del sentido de la existencia, así como cuestiones conexas, que desempeñan un sordo papel central en el conjunto del pensamiento wittgensteiniano.
Wittgenstein manifestó siempre un profundo respeto por esta tendencia del espíritu humano (a arremeter contra los límites del lenguaje) que es la ética. Ello se desprende de una afirmación central del Tractatus: “Nosotros sentimos que incluso si todas las posibles cuestiones científicas pudieran responderse, el problema de nuestra vida no habría sido más penetrado”.
Dr. Adolfo Vásquez Rocca

In che modo il caso irrompe e interferisce nella vita e nella ricerca, soprattutto quando assume la forma della scoperta inattesa e della coincidenza significativa? In che modo gli umani che Nietzsche definisce “uomini della conoscenza” si sono rapportati a queste forme dell’esperienza? Attraverso quale grammatica e quale linguaggio è possibile descrivere tali forme e darne conto? Come il rapporto con il caso modifica la percezione che abbiamo di noi stessi come “soggetti” in grado di agire “liberamente”? Il libro è dedicato a queste domande e, per documentare un esempio del modo in cui alcuni uomini della conoscenza si sono misurati con il problema, racconta le origini dell’avventura conoscitiva che, sulle orme di Schopenhauer, ha visto Carl Gustav Jung impegnato nel tentativo di dare un senso all’azione del caso attraverso la formulazione del principio di sincronicità.

The aim of this paper is to show that " traditional " and " resolute " interpretations have not freed the Tractatus from the apparent paradoxical self-defeat. I argue that these readings only give it new clothing. Hacker's " traditional " reading ends up ascribing a metaphysical conspiracy to the “Tractatus”, which is incompatible with the aims of the book. The “resolute” reading of Diamond and Conant ascribes an authorial conspiracy to Wittgenstein, which contradicts his views on authorship and method. Grounded in the difficulties found in both sides of the current debate, I conclude this paper by proposing several requirements that the correct interpretation of the Tractatus should fulfill.

En una carta a Ludwig von Ficker, Wittgenstein explica que la clave para entender el Tractatus es comprender que el sentido general del libro es una cuestión ética. Sin embargo, el propio Wittgenstein define el horizonte de trabajo del Tractatus como una búsqueda para definir los límites del pensamiento a través de un análisis lógico del lenguaje. En este trabajo, a partir del horizonte mencionado y mediante dos preguntas directrices, voy a tratar de dar contenido a lo que podría denominarse como el sentido de lo ético en el Tractatus.

Ethics and aesthetics share a common property: they both cannot be taught. This paper argues that this was a common thesis that was individually suggested by two important figures of mid-war Germany, that most probably never met: the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and the architect Walter Gropius. In order to test this thesis, two texts of the time are cross-examined the 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus' (1918) and the 'Manifesto and Program of the School of Bauhaus' (1919).
This paper examines the ethical meaning of Gropius words that explicitly say that 'art cannot be taught' through the way that Wittgenstein viewed ethics (and aesthetics) in his early philosophy. The paper also suggests that, despite their shared view on the  impossibility of teaching, both Wittgenstein and Gropius had in mind a similar way that allows the cultivation of ethics and aesthetics. The philosopher called this: 'showing'; while the architect realized it in the 'workshops of the craft', making them the core of the education of Bauhaus.

H ηθική και η αισθητική έχουν μια κοινή ιδιότητα: και οι δυο δεν μπορούν να διδαχθούν. 'Η τουλάχιστον αυτό ισχυρίζεται αυτή η εισήγηση ότι διατυπώθηκε κατά τη διάρκεια το μεσοπολέμου στη Γερμανία από τον φιλόσοφο Ludwig Wittgenstein και τον αρχιτέκτονα Walter Gropius. Υπό αυτή την αρχική θέση θα συνεξεταστούν δύο σύγχρονα μεταξύ τους κείμενα το Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1918) και το Ιδρυτικό Κείμενο της Σχολής του Bauhaus (1919).
Η παρούσα εισήγηση διερευνά το ηθικό νόημα της διατύπωσης του Gropius ότι 'η τέχνη δεν διδάσκεται' υπό το πρίσμα της ηθικής φιλοσοφίας του Wittgenstein. Επίσης επιχειρεί την ανάλυση ενός διανοητικού εργαλείου το οποίο υποστηρίζεται ότι είναι κοινό ανάμεσα στον Wittgenstein και τον Gropius, το οποίο μπορεί να επιτρέψει την καλλιέργεια της ηθικής και της αισθητικής. Το εργαλείο αυτό ο φιλόσοφος το ονόμασε 'δείξη,' το ανάλογο του οποίου ο αρχιτέκτονας το υλοποίησε στα εργαστήρια των τεχνών, δίνοντάς τους κεντρικό ρόλο στην εκπαιδευτική διαδικασία του Bauhaus.

Wittgenstein's "Lecture on Ethics" concludes with a paradox: all ethical and aesthetic value judgements are either relative, and thus completely trivial (since reducible to statements of fact), or absolute and important but nonsensical (since they go beyond meaningful language). While this distinction is embedded in a Tractarian conception of language and value, Wittgenstein's treatment of it in the Lecture points forward to his later work, especially through its use of examples of "what we would say when". But it is not until he frees himself from the Tractarian constraints on language and value that he can take in the full force of these kinds of considerations about use, and describe aesthetics in a satisfactory way. Examples from Wittgenstein's later treatment of aesthetics show how the earlier unconditional distinction between relative and absolute value is understood instead as grammatical distinction within a family of different language-games involving aesthetic evaluation and appreciation.