Recent publications

In October 2004 I had two books on Wittgenstein published, which are just starting to get reviewed.

   Historical Dictionary of Wittgenstein's Philosophy (Scarecrow Press, 2004)

♦John Preston of the University of Reading, in The European Legacy, calls the book "impressively even-handed."

♦ Béla Szabados of the University of Regina, Canada, writing for Philosophy in Review, says that the book is: "...a useful reference work for students of Wittgenstein's philosophy, interested scholars from other disciplines, as well as for curious general readers....Richter's dictionary nicely balances philosophical and biographical materials, and importantly brings in history....It is a valuable resource and a useful aid in engendering a better understanding of the works of one of the seminal thinkers of the twentieth century."

♦ Reference Reviews says: "Overall, the book accomplishes exactly what the author intended: an excellent starting point for the beginner, a rich resource for the novice, and a comprehensive reference for the expert. This small, concise, and well-written dictionary is indispensable for anyone interested in investigating the enigmatic Wittgenstein."

♦ Reference Book of the Day says: "The writing is admirably clear, and unlike most philosophical writing, doesn't require much background knowledge in philosophy.  In the preface the author acknowledges what a challenge it is to produce a reference book on Wittgenstein, since the meaning of his work is so controversial among philosophers. Some philosophers would probably take issue with the author's approach to some issues, but given the challenge and the need for simplicity, I think he's done an excellent job.  This would be a very handy book for philosophy students first encountering Wittgenstein."

♦ J. M. Fritzman of Lewis and Clark College, writing for CHOICE (a magazine of reviews for academic libraries), says:

"Richter's helpful orientation to Wittgenstein's philosophy will be a valuable resource for upper-division undergraduates and graduate students, and a useful reference for scholars."  He then describes the contents of the book, calling the bibliography "serviceable," and ends by recommending the book for general readers, upper-division undergraduates, and higher.

♦ Joseph P. Hester, PhD, in ARBA (American reference Books Annual), says:

"The idea for a historical overview of the life of Wittgenstein and his ... problematical views, coupled with an A-Z dictionary covering concepts, people, and movements that either influenced or were influenced by him, is both a creative success and resourceful project."  He goes on to say that, "For the seasoned philosopher or the interested student of philosophy, this volume is a rich resource," and that the bibliography "will prove a valuable foundation to the student when writing a paper, thesis, or dissertation."

The only other reviews of this book so far (see below for an update on this) are on amazon, but here are some representative (honestly!) comments:

♦ "Best introduction to Wittgenstein.  Period.

"Richter's Dictionary is a truly useful resource for promoting knowledge of Wittgenstein's important ideas. Clearly written, comprehensive, succinct, this work belongs on the bookshelves of professional philosophers and laymen. Richter's Dictionary is both a general introduction for students, and a handy reference for professionals who need to rapidly make connections among Wittgenstein's work, the discipline of philosophy in a more general consideration, and the concerns of their own projects. Highly recommended."

♦ "An impressive item.

"When I saw this book, I was doubtful that the author could successfully do what he set out to do. But the result is quite impressive. The author manages to include words and arguments associated with Wittgenstein, friends and collaborators, and even entries on modern commentators on Wittgenstein. The author always presents several opinions where they exist, and tells you which opinion is the most commonly held one. Along with excellent advice on how to start reading about Wittgenstein, this is a real winner."

   Wittgenstein at His Word (Continuum, 2004) 

Cora Diamond has written of this that:

"Richter has an original and very stimulating approach to Wittgenstein, and his new book will be of interest to specialists and non-specialists alike. It challenges received views, and will certainly be controversial. The title is particularly well chosen. Can we, by taking Wittgenstein (the philosopher) at his word, reach a genuinely satisfying account of his overall philosophy and of his treatment of such central topics as the relation between meaning and use? Can we understand how the clarity Wittgenstein sought can be found in thinking about religion and ethics? With great care and thoughtfulness, Richter works through a new approach to those questions (and others equally significant), and that is the value of the book."

A forthcoming review by Daniel D. Hutto apparently (I am quoting from the Continuum website) says:

My guess is that there is an "other the other hand..." part to this review, but I haven't seen it yet.

The book has also been rather negatively reviewed, by Frederick Stoutland at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

On the positive side, Stoutland writes that:

"Richter's book is smoothly written, draws usefully on a wide variety of secondary sources, and offers an interesting and novel account of the structure of Wittgenstein's writing (which I discuss below). A virtue of the book is its placing Wittgenstein's work in the setting of his personal views about culture and value. Another is the range of issues it articulates. What is the point of Wittgenstein's therapeutic method? Does his work on language presuppose the kind of theory he rejects? Does his insistence on description make him an ordinary-language philosopher? Is he a foundationalist in some sense? What is the significance of his claim that a genuine thesis in philosophy would be a truism? These are good questions that merit explicit discussion, and Richter's reflections on them draw attention to relevant considerations and helpful quotations. Those relatively new to Wittgenstein may find the book useful as an orientation to his work, and others may be stimulated by the questions it raises and its exploration of Wittgenstein's remarks on ethics and religion."

On the other hand, he does not think that what I say is right.  Let me try to go through his criticisms one by one. 

1. My "handling of Wittgenstein's extra-philosophical remarks about cultural and spiritual matters is not very penetrating and tends toward the prosaic."  This does not sound good, but penetration is not my goal in this book.  Indeed, the idea that penetration of Wittgenstein's words is needed suggests that something is hidden in them, whereas my goal is precisely to see whether we can take him at his word.  I won't claim to have been superficial out of profundity, but my taking his words at face value is quite deliberate.

2. I am "careless, especially in drawing distinctions that are too often imprecise and shifting."  Could be, but Stoutland does not give an example, so I can't really defend myself on this charge.

3. "It is not a book that will persuade philosophers not already committed to a therapeutic reading of Wittgenstein's work but will alienate them further. Nor will it be very illuminating to philosophers who are sympathetic to that reading but insist that the problems of philosophy are deep and intricate, involve nonsense only when pushed in certain directions, and are capable of resolution only with great care and precision and with attentiveness to the arguments that surround them." 

I don't know who will be persuaded by the book, so the first sentence I have quoted here might be quite true.  The second sentence is interesting though.  I myself am sympathetic to a therapeutic reading of Wittgenstein and insist that the problems of philosophy are capable of resolution only with great care and with attentiveness to the arguments that surround them.  I do not deny this in the book.  Philosophers who insist that philosophical problems are deep and involve nonsense only when pushed in certain directions, though, are never likely to be sympathetic to what Wittgenstein says.  He says, after all, that the depth of philosophy is the depth of a grammatical joke (Philosophical Investigations §111), that his investigations destroy only houses of cards (§118) and uncover plain nonsense (§119).  Stoutland prefers to take some of Wittgenstein's methodological remarks as expressing ideals, rather than reflecting Wittgenstein's own actual practice, and perhaps he is right to do so.  But the point of my book, to repeat, is to see whether a coherent picture or story emerges if we take Wittgenstein as meaning what he says.  I think it does, although I do not also try to defend this story as true.  In other words, I do not try to persuade anybody that we should take Wittgenstein at his word.

4. Stoutland notes that I distinguish between expressions of Wittgenstein's personal opinions and things that he wrote as part of his philosophical investigations.  I also distinguish, as he notes, between Wittgenstein's methodological thoughts and things he says in the course of applying his philosophical methods.  Stoutland sees some problems with this approach, though, because it "is unacceptable in that it distorts his work, ascribes to him a confused and even silly subjectivism, and fails to show why he is, as Richter agrees, a great philosopher."  As I have said, I am not out to defend Wittgenstein's reputation as a great philosopher.  The other charges are more serious.  The claim that I distort Wittgenstein's work seems to be based on the idea that my approach makes "no distinction between writing Wittgenstein agreed to have published, writing he reworked but did not publish, writing he rejected, and notes and jottings he made only for himself."  This is not really true however.  Indeed, I remark explicitly on the danger of failing to make such distinctions, for instance on p. 121.  My view is that where there is inconsistency, we should put much more weight on polished work, such as that found in the Philosophical Investigations.  But I don't find much inconsistency in Wittgenstein's (later) work, so the problem does not really arise.  That's why I say that Stoutland's claim is "not really true" rather than simply false.  I think it is a red herring.  That leaves the complaint that I ascribe to Wittgenstein a form of subjectivism.  This is simply false.  For one thing, I go out of my way to avoid attributing any theories to Wittgenstein, in order to take him at his anti-theoretical word.  For another, my view is that, according to Wittgenstein, philosophy can tell us nothing about what we should believe in ethics, religion, and politics.  This is not the same thing as thinking that philosophy endorses or licenses whatever ethical, religious, etc. beliefs one happens to have. 

5. Stoutland says that I argue "that any claim to which someone would dissent can be no part of philosophy in Wittgenstein's sense."  This would be more or less correct if the word 'someone' were replaced with the words 'one's interlocutor.'  Stoutland goes on to quote my saying that this is "not very different from the standard philosophical approach of starting with a common intuition, [although] Wittgenstein might be more rigorous than most about choosing intuitions that are universally, not just widely, shared."  I was embarrassed to read myself saying this, but in context this seemingly foolish remark of mine is about ethics or moral philosophy.  When it comes to metaphysics, I would agree with Stoutland that:

By what "everyone would agree to" Wittgenstein means nothing like "the standard philosophical approach of starting with a common intuition." On the contrary, such intuitions typically mirror the assumptions he would have us give up and that keep us from seeing what are "most important for us [and] are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity." [Investigations, 126] Characterizing what everyone would agree to in Wittgenstein's sense requires extraordinary effort and is not the beginning but the end of philosophy. 

This is why it is important to distinguish between 'intuitions' that are universal and those that are merely widespread.  Wittgenstein is not out to get us to give up universally shared ethical intuitions!

6. Stoutland says that I never mention the so-called "context principle."  This is strictly true, although I might say in my defense that the importance of context for Wittgenstein's thinking about meaning is emphasized in the book.  The index shows references to context on pp. 69, 78, 80, 85, 93, 94, 95, and 181.  If I had written more about the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus no doubt I would have used the actual words "context principle."

7. "Wittgenstein did not use the therapeutic metaphor to suggest that philosophy licenses persons "to say what they choose"[139]. He wrote in the Investigations that his hope for the book was that it could "if possible, stimulate someone to thoughts of his own", but that did not mean that whatever one comes to accept is acceptable." 

Indeed.  See point 4 above.  Wittgensteinian philosophy has absolutely nothing whatever to say about what is acceptable.  Nor does it issue or deny licenses.  Incidentally, the words "Say what you choose" are a quotation from Wittgenstein's Investigations (§79).  I discuss their meaning at some length in the book.  I do not say that they mean what Stoutland thinks I say.  It might be, of course, that I could have been clearer.  If so, I hope that I have partly made up for that failing here.   

Finally, let me add that I am genuinely grateful to Stoutland for having paid (and brought) so much attention to my book.  No doubt it has its faults.  But I do not think they are the faults that he identifies in it, and I hope I have not been too peevish in saying so.

Update

Randy Ramal has reviewed both books together in Philosophical Investigations 30:4 October 2007.  He does not like either of them.

His first main criticism of Wittgenstein at His Word is that I make claims that are, he says, un-Wittgensteinian and nonsensical.  The one example that he gives of such a claim is my saying that no sentence is absolutely nonsensical because any sentence can be given a meaning.  To refute this claim he provides two odd sentences and asks rhetorically whether they could ever enter a real conversation.  The first thing to say in response is that it seems pretty clear that Ramal regards my claim as false rather than nonsensical.  The second thing to say is that I am unconvinced that my claim is false.  The claim (mine, that is) is about sentences, after all, not propositions.  Any sentence can be given a use, and hence a meaning.  Take a shorter example than Ramal's, such as "Chair equals yellow."  The sentence makes no sense, but it can be given a meaning.  It could, for instance, be the signal for an attack.  Then my saying it would have meaning.  And, of course, "Chair" and "yellow" could be used as names, and "equals" could be (or become) slang or a technical term so that the sentence "Chair equals yellow" could mean just about anything.  This is likely to seem trivial, but it is all I meant.  If we want to know the meaning of a word or sentence, we need to look at its use.  Certainly some people will disagree with this idea, but it is hardly nonsensical or un-Wittgensteinian.  (If you doubt this, try googling "meaning is use.")

Secondly (I am trying to write only about Ramal's main criticisms) he comes to what I say about the sentence "Nobody ever really dies."  He insists that I have misinterpreted the meaning of this sentence.  However, I discuss this sentence autobiographically, as something that occurred to me.  I do not deny that others might use this and similar sentences meaningfully.  My point is that during the brief time that I thought these words to myself I do not think they really had any meaning at all.  Ramal refers to Socrates' use of similar words.  But I am not Socrates.

Ramal then complains that Wittgenstein would not "support the view that religious faith is nonsense."  One thing to say about this is that Wittgenstein does seem to say in the Tractatus and his lecture on ethics that religious utterances (not the same thing as faith, of course, but what I write about in the book) are nonsensical.  Another thing to say is that in the book I write, on the page that Ramal refers to: "My point is not, as might be thought, that this [i.e. consisting of useful and important nonsense] is the nature of religion.  My claim is only that some religion might be like this..."  Ramal seems to have missed this.

Third, he objects to what I have to say about Wittgenstein and philosophical ethics.  It is entirely possible that I have not been as clear here as I should have been, but Ramal's objection consists mostly in rhetorical questions and the assertion that, taken one way, what I say would be "truly strange."  The truly strange reading, needless to say, would not be the correct one, as I think Ramal recognizes.  What he does not seem to recognize is that there is a real and difficult issue here.  Wittgenstein made very disparaging remarks about moral philosophy.  So while I agree with Ramal that Wittgenstein surely would not have rejected the notion of moral reflection, it is not easy to say what form such reflection would have to take if it were to win Wittgenstein's approval.  This is what I am working to articulate in the chapter on Wittgenstein and ethics.

Finally, he suggests that I am not consistent in the chapters on ethics and religion.  If there cannot be Wittgensteinian moral philosophy, then how can there be Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion?  My view is that if we do philosophy as Wittgenstein said it should be done, then we will not arrive at any ethical or religious conclusions by means of philosophy.  In this I think I am consistent.  It does not follow that Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion cannot exist.  Wittgenstein did it himself, after all. 

On the positive side, Ramal does at various points describe things I say in the book as excellent, interesting, adept, good, right, intriguing, and even deep (or showing a deeper understanding than does another philosopher, at any rate).  For this I am grateful.  On the whole Ramal seems to find the book lacking in clarity.  No doubt I could have done better.

On the Historical Dictionary of Wittgenstein's Philosophy Ramal writes that some of the entries are illuminating but that others are disappointing.  He is disappointed by the fact that some entries, he believes, could not be fully understood by the beginner without more background being provided, and by the fact that some entries are too short, which perhaps amounts to the same criticism again.  I agree that the book might be better if I made it longer.  On the other hand, some people like the conciseness of it.  Perhaps one day I will be able to produce an expanded, second edition.         

My thanks, anyway, to Ramal for reading the books and drawing people's attention to them. 

Duncan Richter