The Dilemma of Wittgenstein's Non-Cognitivism

In §§89–133 of the Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein appears to reject the traditional view that philosophy is a cognitive discipline, that is, one that could result in knowledge expressed in true propositions. No part of the Investigations has caused more irritation. Often Wittgenstein's attitude is understood as a rejection of science and an expression of a deep-rooted irrationalism. But, I shall argue, this reaction is misguided. For whilst it is true that Wittgenstein was personally hostile towards the scientific spirit of the age (CV 6–7), this ideological attitude can be separated from his methodological position. The latter does not condemn science but scientism, the imperialist tendencies of scientific thinking. Wittgenstein insists that philosophy cannot adopt the tasks or methods of science (cf., e.g., CV 16).

There are several aspects to Wittgenstein's non-cognitivism, several entries in his index of ‘unphilosophical activities’. Some of these can be explained and at least partially supported by the demarcation between philosophy and science that he was driving at. Thus his prohibition of theories, hypotheses and explanations (PI §§109, 126) is directed at scientific theorizing which tries to provide causal explanations of empirical phenomena. Philosophical problems, however, cannot be solved by experience (LWL 79–80; AWL 3). They are conceptual, not factual, and arise not from ignorance about empirical reality or about a Platonist world behind appearances, but from misunderstanding the way we talk about empirical reality. Therefore philosophy is not concerned with explaining reality itself, but with describing our norms of representation which lay down what counts as an intelligible description of reality. Indeed, since the later Wittgenstein no longer restricts meaningful discourse to the description of reality, philosophy more generally reflects on language, the way we speak. It clarifies grammar, the set of rules by which we determine the correct uses of words (PI §§89–90).

The conceptual nature of its problems also explains why philosophy should be ‘flat’, that is to say without the inferences or proofs of deductive-nomological sciences and formal disciplines like mathematics or logic (PI §§126, 599). Deductive argument cannot constitute the heart of the conceptual clarification Wittgenstein seeks. Deduction establishes the consequences of a set of premisses, but it cannot clarify the meaning of these premisses or guarantee their intelligibility.