Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 3 Number 1, April 2002
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Allen, Richard and Malcolm Turvey (Eds.) Wittgenstein, Theory and the Arts. London: Routledge, 2001. 320pp., ISBN-0415228751 (Hbk), £ 45.
Reviewed
by
This is an excellent book. It is a book that is difficult to find fault with and one that is difficult to put down. It is well structured and holds together well despite the diversity of interest in Wittgenstein’s work that can be found here. While there are many books written on Wittgenstein and I have read a few of them myself, most are not as scintillating and perceptive as the chapters are in this collected work. Although all of the eleven chapters are written by men, an approach somewhat typical of the philosophical fraternity, one will not be disappointed with this book’s content
The book has a good introduction that clearly outlines the scope of the work. It describes seminal aspects of Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy and art in an elegant style that is consistently maintained throughout. Broadly, the book is concerned with the issue of theory in art as well as the important humanistic contribution of Wittgenstein’s philosophical work to art. The many distinguish authors in this work vigorously pursue different aspects of this idea. Given current debates around ‘Post-Modernist’ theories of art, this timely book questions deeply the concept of theory and structuralism in art. Many of the chapters are written in a mature way, showing considerable experience, knowledge and research. There is in each chapter a real flavour of Wittgensteinian argument.
I have chosen to say something about five of the chapters in this book. Let me begin with P.M.S. Hackers effort. The first half of this chapter attempts to give a reasonable potted history of some notable aspects of philosophical thought leading up to Wittgenstein writings. The paper really takes off, however, when Hacker directly addresses Wittgenstein’s philosophy in the second half of the paper. It is a sensitively written piece and Hacker writes, like many of the other authors, in a manner that will appeal to creative practitioners whose main interest may not be in pure philosophy. Hacker brings out skilfully some of the artistry of Wittgenstein’s conception of language, its use and how it differs in some respects from scientific understanding. He also describes how Wittgenstein conceives of language in public rather than in private terms, connecting linguistic usage to rule-governed practices and forms of life. Indeed, Hacker argues, correctly in my view, that the cultural, social, aesthetic and intentional beings that we seem to be has an undeniable and conformational voice that Wittgenstein gives meaning to in his later philosophy.
Oswald Hanfling’s chapter on: ‘Wittgenstein on Language, Art and the Humanities’, further discusses the humanism in Wittgenstein’s work. This text begins by discussing why Wittgenstein came to reject his Tractatus and its theory of meaning. Numerous vivacious examples are given explaining why Wittgenstein later became uncomfortable with philosophy as theory. Hanfling suggests that the normal use of language that Wittgenstein’s writes about, castigates against theory-laden meanings and scientific approaches to art. The Wittgensteinian argument being, that understanding is more often than not disposed to ordinary actions, conventions and grammar in life. However, in going on to criticise Aristotle’s view as a ‘science of aesthetics’, Hanfling may be being a little disingenuous to Aristotle’s wider writings beyond his Poetics. Yet, the notion that there are laws which govern the cause and effect of all art is given, in this work contra Wittgenstein’s notes on aesthetics, short shrift; a claim that Hanfling then goes on to engineer against Clive Bell’s theory of art.
In Charles Altieri’s chapter: ‘Wittgenstein on Consciousness and Language’. Altieri makes a strong defence of Wittgenstein’s philosophy against scepticism, subjectivity and structuralism. These conceptions for Altieri lead nowhere and offer no firm support in recognising and valuing everyday life and its logic. How we ordinarily experience things, organise our lives, pay attention to what is doing on around us and how one performs specific modes of activity, is the very basis as Altieri mentions of Wittgenstein ontology, his claim for a humanistic kind of certainty. Altieri particularly condemns Derrida’s literary theory against such a background. For Altieri, what Wittgenstein’s demonstrates is how language and one’s behaviour express awareness, one’s consciousness and its intelligibility. In the act of doing we exhibit characteristic behaviours that enable us to pay attention and exploit different uses of the actions and conventions that we have learnt to perform. Altieri takes exception, then, with Derrida’s negation of self-knowledge. He proposes that it is possible to come to agreement on criteria of identity by referring to how Wittgenstein constructs understanding and reasoning in connection with ‘communal roles and modes of activity we share with others’. A quote from Wittgenstein that I am fond of using myself that is also used by Altieri: “Only someone who can already know how to do something with it can significantly ask a name” (PI, S.32). What Altieri find wonderful about Wittgenstein is, to reiterate, his acceptance of the ordinary. In other words, how ordinariness can be perceptive, humble, insightful, gratifying, productive and inclusive of life in its diversity.
Graham McFee’s chapter on: ‘Wittgenstein, Performing Art and Action’, starts with Wittgenstein’s remark about how ‘explaining a music phrase is related to understanding that phrase’. Thus, what it might take to justify and explain this act, the behaviour that might accompany it, is discussed. McFee examines some of the Wittgenstein conditions that can determine different meanings in music, painting and dance, the kinds of instances that can seem necessary sometimes for proper appreciation and recognition. The idea of what constitutes explanation, different instances of it, McFee elaborates copiously upon in artistic ways. In part, one can see here how one’s ability to manifest artistic action, the power of its form coupled with recognising these properties in the art work can be used as a defence against subjectivism. But like Wittgenstein and indeed Iris Murdoch, McFee is wary of drawing a barrier between understanding and valuing and talks perceptively about emotional involvement, tradition and conceptual mistakes in art.
I was personally intrigued by Louis A. Sass’s work on: ‘Wittgenstein, Freud and the Nature of Psychoanalytical Explanation’. Sass has opened up for me a view of Wittgenstein that I had not considered before. He brings out a very complex picture of Wittgenstein’s attitude towards psychoanalysis. In acknowledging, as Sass clearly does, Wittgenstein’s distrust of psychoanalytical thinking, particularly with Freud’s dogmatic belief that wish-fulfilling dreams and their unconscious sexual meanings are ever present, Sass concurs with Wittgenstein’s warning that such speculations may foster further beliefs that prevent the psychoanalyst from perceiving real differences that may be rooted in a persons problems. Moreover, there is a side to Sass’s way of thinking that wants to portray, I think, that Wittgenstein would make a reasonably good therapist himself. The debate that Sass musters later on in the paper by instigating some of Waismann’s arguments in support of Wittgenstein is illuminating and one that I feel sure many readers will find most absorbing because of its implied implications for further artistic understanding. It is a pity, I think, that Waismann was not used more in this book given that he is still regarded as one the best Wittgensteinian scholars.
It is without reservation then that I recommend this book to you; for the artistic delicacy and human warmth of Wittgenstein’s writings is fully explored in this edition.