discuss recent work on relativism from Maria Baghramian21 and Hans-Johann Glock.22 In the third chapter I make use of Corey Robin’s recent book The Reactionary Mind23 in defining conservatism. It should also be clear that the topics I focus on in this book differ from those earlier writers.
Other, hugely influential, figures I should mention from the (broadly speaking, Wittgensteinian) philosophy of social sciences and philosophy of action are G. E. M. Ancombe and Peter Winch, who both published highly influential works in the late 1950s, soon after the publication of the Philosophical Investigations. I have discussed their work in a few places within this book but I did not want to say more about them since there is already a very large literature discussing both philosopher’s work. I hope my indebtedness to their groundbreaking work is clear (as well as my disagreements with contemporary Winchians such as Hutchinson, Read, and Sharrock). I would recommend reading classic works like Ancombe’s Intention,24 Winch’s ‘Understanding a Primitive Society’,25 and his book The Idea of a Social Science,26 as well as more recent discussions of their work such as Value and Understanding (a collection of essays about Winch edited by Raimond Gaita),27 Hutchinson, Read, and Sharrock’s There Is No Such Thing as a Social Science (which I discuss in the first chapter),28 and Roger Teichmann’s excellent recent book about Anscombe’s philosophy29.
Within this introduction, I will briefly look at three recent book-length discussions of Wittgenstein’s relation to social and political theory here and make clear how my own work differs. The three books I will discuss are Peg O’Connor’s Morality and Our Complicated Form of Life,30 Christopher Robinson’s Wittgenstein and Political Theory,31 and Michael Temelini’s Wittgenstein and the Study of Politics.32
0.2.1Morality and Our Complicated Form of Life
Peg O’Connor’s book Morality and Our Complicated Form of Life is primarily concerned with metaethical questions, and so its focus differs from the focus of this book. However, there is some overlap between her work and the questions discussed here. For instance, she discusses methodology in social science as well as the question of relativism and the cases she discusses (Frederick Douglass’s speech ‘What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?’,33 Hurricane Katrina34) have clear relevance to politics. O’Connor makes several recommendations for conducting feminist inquiry and also cites recommendations made by Virginia Held approvingly. I agree with many of the recommendations she makes for feminist inquiry, including the recommendations that she cites from Virginia Held’s Feminist Morality.35 For example, I agree with O’Connor (and Wittgenstein) in being wary of scientism in the humanities and in the social sciences.36 We should resist claims about social sciences being reducible to natural sciences and should also be careful about importing methods from the natural sciences into the social sciences, given differences in subject matter and also in the kinds of explanations appropriate to the different fields. I also agree with Held and O’Connor in not taking Wittgenstein’s remarks about ‘our craving for generality’37 to imply that we should eliminate generalizations from explanations in fields concerned with social phenomena. As I will make clear in the first chapter I think that Wittgenstein’s remarks about generalizations in The Blue Book concern the proper methodology of philosophy rather than the proper methodology of the humanities more generally or of social science. In fact, I think that generalizations have a very important role to play in the humanities and social sciences, alongside close analyses of particular cases.38
O’Connor looks at moral realism and antirealism in the work of John Mackie, Gilbert Harman (both antirealists), and Nicholas Sturgeon (realist) and she argues that neither of these metaethical positions is satisfactory because both are committed to scientistic assumptions about the role of observation, causation, and objectivity in thinking about morality.39 In the first chapter of this book I discuss scientism, reductionism, reasons, and causes, and come to broadly the same conclusions as O’Connor.
The dispute over realism and antirealism also has obvious implications for what has traditionally been called ‘moral epistemology’ (O’Connor prefers to use the expression ‘moral understandings’ in order to distance herself from the tradition).40 Realists and antirealists do not only make claims about objects, properties, and causes but also make claims about what their theory implies about the kind of knowledge we can expect to have in the area of morality.41 If scientism creeps into our conception of our subject matter then that will affect the claims that we will make about knowledge in that area. She concludes, and I agree, that we can make sense of talking about truth and knowledge in morality and she offers her own account of objectivity in the context of her ‘felted contextualism’.42 In the first two chapters of this book I discuss the nature of philosophical inquiry, political enquiry, and scientific enquiry as well as questions about relativism and I come to similar conclusions to O’Connor.43
In addition to rejecting the dualism of realism and antirealism O’Connor also rejects the dualisms that she thinks underlie the debate – the language-world dualism and the nature-normativity dualism. A related dualism, the dualism between moral absolutism and moral relativism, is another which she thinks involves confusions. As an alternative to all of these she offers her own ‘felted contextualism’ which preserves claims to truth and objectivity without resorting to moral absolutist claims and she defends the view that ‘we can have better or worse answers or resolutions to these [moral] conflicts’.44
In explaining her own view, she looks to Wittgenstein’s account of the role of authority, training, and normativity in our lives. Conservative accounts have made much of Wittgenstein’s stress on the role of authority and rules in Wittgenstein. This is something that I will discuss in my chapter on conservatism and also in my discussion of Michael Temelini’s Wittgenstein and the Study of Politics below.
0.2.2Wittgenstein and Political Theory
Christopher Robinson’s book, Wittgenstein and Political Theory,45 is largely concerned with the question of theory, as the title suggests. Robinson argues that although Wittgenstein’s remarks suggest he opposed theory they are best understood
