TY - CHAP
T1 - Philosophy and/or Politics
T2 - Learning from Engagement with Wittgenstein
AU - Wallgren, Thomas
AU - Biletzki, Anat
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 selection and editorial matter, Lotar Rasinski, Anat Biletzki, Leszek Koczanowicz, Alois Pichler, and Thomas Wallgren; individual chapters, the contributors.
PY - 2024/1/1
Y1 - 2024/1/1
N2 - This concluding chapter reflects on what we may learn from engagement with Wittgenstein about how philosophy communicates with its times. One aspect, the authors suggest, is that Wittgenstein’s work undermines the idea of political philosophy as a separable field of study with pregiven problems. A further claim is that Wittgenstein may help us reimagine routine conceptions of political practice and of where, when and how politics and philosophy happen and how the two meet. One pivotal notion is that Wittgenstein, through his study of the foundations of reason, brings to the fore interdependences among dialogical engagement, formation of self and building political community. It follows, the authors argue, that Wittgenstein helps us overcome the divide in much of modern political theory between “atomistic” and “communicative” views of the relation between the freedom of individuals and democracy. From the perspective of Wittgenstein, there is a unity of philosophy and a democratic form of life due to the equally primordial role dialogical philosophy has to play in the search for understanding of oneself and of others.
AB - This concluding chapter reflects on what we may learn from engagement with Wittgenstein about how philosophy communicates with its times. One aspect, the authors suggest, is that Wittgenstein’s work undermines the idea of political philosophy as a separable field of study with pregiven problems. A further claim is that Wittgenstein may help us reimagine routine conceptions of political practice and of where, when and how politics and philosophy happen and how the two meet. One pivotal notion is that Wittgenstein, through his study of the foundations of reason, brings to the fore interdependences among dialogical engagement, formation of self and building political community. It follows, the authors argue, that Wittgenstein helps us overcome the divide in much of modern political theory between “atomistic” and “communicative” views of the relation between the freedom of individuals and democracy. From the perspective of Wittgenstein, there is a unity of philosophy and a democratic form of life due to the equally primordial role dialogical philosophy has to play in the search for understanding of oneself and of others.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85209858760&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.4324/9781003485254-19
DO - 10.4324/9781003485254-19
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AN - SCOPUS:85209858760
SN - 9781032778891
SP - 297
EP - 304
BT - Wittgenstein and Democratic Politics
PB - Taylor and Francis
ER -