GRAMMATICAL THERAPY AND THE THIRD WITTGENSTEIN

Abstract

Abstract: The argument for interpreting Wittgenstein's project as primarily therapeutic can be extended from the domain of intellectual pathologies that form the core of the Philosophical Investigations to the topics in On Certainty, carrying further Hutchinson's recent argument for the priority of therapy in Wittgenstein's project. In this article I discuss whether the line Hutchinson takes is extendable to the work of the Third Wittgenstein. For example, how does Wittgenstein's discussion of Moore's “refutation of idealism” in On Certainty work as therapy when we think of it in “practice” terms? What practice? I suggest a further, but more tentative, step applying the therapeutic idea to seemingly insurmountable practical problems, where method is also at issue.