Practisingpragmatist–Wittgensteinianism

Hutchinson, Phil ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6244-1747 and Read, Rupert (2013) Practisingpragmatist–Wittgensteinianism. In: The Cambridge Companion to Pragmatism. Cambridge Companions to Philosophy . Cambridge University Press, pp. 159-188. ISBN 9780521125802 (paperback); 9780521110877 (hardback); 9781139022132 (ebook)

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Abstract

Much has been written on the continuities between Wittgenstein's later work and pragmatism. Many have argued for there being strong continuity. Of those who see such strong continuity there are those who hold Wittgenstein to be the preeminent – even superior – philosopher of the Wittgenstein–pragmatism nexus (e.g. Hilary Putnam), and others who see Wittgenstein as simply echoing some of what was said with more originality by C. S. Peirce, with the consequent diminution in clarity that echoes bring (e.g. W.V.O. Quine). What Quine and Putnam have in common, however, is the identification of continuity, and in this they are far from alone (see Edwards, Ethics Without Philosophy (Reference Edwards1985), Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1980), etc.).