Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T17:20:03.651Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Two Orders of Things: Wittgenstein on Reasons and Causes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2017

Matthieu Queloz
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper situates Wittgenstein in what is known as the causalism/anti-causalism debate in the philosophy of mind and action and reconstructs his arguments to the effect that reasons are not a species of causes. On the one hand, the paper aims to reinvigorate the question of what these arguments are by offering a historical sketch of the debate showing that Wittgenstein's arguments were overshadowed by those of the people he influenced, and that he came to be seen as an anti-causalist for reasons that are in large part extraneous to his thought. On the other hand, the paper aims to recover the arguments scattered in Wittgenstein's own writings by detailing and defending three lines of argument distinguishing reasons from causes. The paper concludes that Wittgenstein's arguments differ from those of his immediate successors; that he anticipates current anti-psychologistic trends; and that he is perhaps closer to Davidson than historical dialectics suggest.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 92 , Issue 3 , July 2017 , pp. 369 - 397
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Wittgenstein’s Lectures: Cambridge 1932–35 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1979), 4Google Scholar.

2 Hacker, P.M.S., Wittgenstein: Mind and Will: Volume 4 of an Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 160Google Scholar; Glock, Hans-Johann, A Wittgenstein Dictionary (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ‘causation’; Schroeder, Severin, ‘Wittgenstein’, A Companion to the Philosophy of Action, O'Connor, Timothy and Sandis, Constantine (eds), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 556Google Scholar.

3 Davidson, Donald, ‘Actions, Reasons, and Causes’, Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 2001), 17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Smith, Michael, ‘The Structure of Orthonomy’, Agency and Action, Hyman, John and Steward, Helen (eds), (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 165Google Scholar; Stoutland, Frederick, ‘Reasons and Causes’, Wittgenstein: Mind, Meaning and Metaphilosophy, Frascolla, Pasquale, Marconi, Diego, and Voltolini, Alberto (eds), (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 57Google Scholar.

5 Alvarez, Maria, Kinds of Reasons: An Essay in the Philosophy of Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 The following collection gives an overview of the debate: D'Oro, Guiseppina and Sandis, Constantine (eds), Reasons and Causes: Causalism and Anti-Causalism in the Philosophy of Action (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)Google Scholar.

7 Tanney, Julia, ‘Reasons as Non-Causal, Context-Placing Explanations’, New Essays on the Explanation of Action, Sandis, Constantine (ed.), (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 94Google Scholar.

8 Recent anti-causalist accounts include: Alvarez, Maria, Kinds of Reasons: An Essay in the Philosophy of Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bittner, Rüdiger, Doing Things for Reasons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dancy, Jonathan, Practical Reality (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Hacker, P.M.S., ‘Agential Reasons and the Explanation of Human Behaviour’, New Essays on the Explanation of Action, Sandis, Constantine (ed.), (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)Google Scholar; Schueler, George Frederick, Reasons and Purposes: Human Rationality and the Teleological Explanation of Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schroeder, Severin, ‘Are Reasons Causes? A Wittgensteinian Response to Davidson’, Wittgenstein and Contemporary Philosophy of Mind, Schroeder, Severin (ed.), (New York: Palgrave, 2001)Google Scholar; Stoutland, Frederick, ‘Reasons and Causes’, Wittgenstein: Mind, Meaning and Metaphilosophy, Frascolla, Pasquale, Marconi, Diego, and Voltolini, Alberto (eds), (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)Google Scholar; Tanney, Julia, ‘Reasons as Non-Causal, Context-Placing Explanations’, New Essays on the Explanation of Action, Sandis, Constantine (ed.), (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)Google Scholar.

9 Locke, John, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)Google Scholar, II.xxi.28.

10 Glock, Hans-Johann, A Wittgenstein Dictionary (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ‘will’.

11 Schopenhauer, Arthur, The World as Will and Representation (New York: Dover, 1966), 36Google Scholar.

12 James, William, The Principles of Psychology (New York: Dover, 1950)Google Scholar, 492f.

13 Ibid., 560.

14 Hacker, P.M.S., Wittgenstein: Mind and Will: Volume 4 of an Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 548Google Scholar.

15 Russell, Bertrand, The Analysis of Mind (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1921), 285Google Scholar.

16 Hyman, John, ‘Action and the Will’, The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein, Kuusela, Oskari and McGinn, Marie (eds), (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 459Google Scholar.

17 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, The Blue and Brown Books: Preliminary Studies for the Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1958), 151–52Google Scholar.

18 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Zettel (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981)Google Scholar, §587.

19 Ibid., §595.

20 Ibid., §597.

21 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations (Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009)Google Scholar, §628.

22 Ibid., §631. See also Hacker, P.M.S., Wittgenstein: Mind and Will: Volume 4 of an Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 586Google Scholar; Glock, Hans-Johann, ‘Wittgenstein’s Letzter Wille. “Philosophische Untersuchungen” 611–628’, Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophische Untersuchungen,  (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2011), 181Google Scholar.

23 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980)Google Scholar, I, §776.

24 Ryle, Gilbert, The Concept of Mind (London: Routledge, 2009), 54Google Scholar.

25 Ibid.

26 Candlish, Stewart and Damnjanovic, Nic, ‘Reasons, Actions, and the Will: The Fall and Rise of Causalism’, The Oxford Handbook of the History of Analytic Philosophy, Beaney, Michael (ed.), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)Google Scholar.

27 von Wright, Georg Henrik, Explanation and Understanding (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1971), ch. 1Google Scholar.

28 The historical narrative of this and the next paragraph closely follows von Wright's account in Explanation and Understanding (1971).

29 Droysen, Johann Gustav, Historik: Vorlesungen Über Enzyklopädie Und Methodologie Der Geschichte (Stuttgart: Fromann-Holzboog, 1977)Google Scholar, 22, 150f.

30 Glock, Hans-Johann, ‘Reasons for Action: Wittgensteinian and Davidsonian Perspectives in Historical, Meta-Philosophical and Philosophical Context’, Nordic Wittgenstein Review 3 (2014), 7–46 Google Scholar.

31 Monk, Ray, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius (London: Random House, 1991), 288Google Scholar.

32 Dray, William, Laws and Explanation in History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957)Google Scholar.

33 Anscombe, G.E.M., Intention (Oxford: Blackwell, 1957)Google Scholar.

34 Winch, Peter, The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1958)Google Scholar.

35 Davidson, Donald, ‘Actions, Reasons, and Causes’, Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Davidson, Donald, ‘Hempel on Explaining Action’, Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 2001), 261CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 Geach, Peter, Mental Acts. Their Content and Their Objects (London: Routledge, 1957)Google Scholar.

38 Melden, Abraham Irving, Free Action (London: Routledge, 1961)Google Scholar.

39 Kenny, Anthony, Action, Emotion and Will (London: Routledge, 1963)Google Scholar.

40 Melden, Abraham Irving, Free Action (London: Routledge, 1961), 52–53 Google Scholar.

41 Davidson, Donald, ‘Actions, Reasons, and Causes’, Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 2001), 13–14 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 Ibid., 12.

43 Ibid., 3.

44 Stoutland, Frederick, ‘Reasons and Causes’, Wittgenstein: Mind, Meaning and Metaphilosophy, Frascolla, Pasquale, Marconi, Diego, and Voltolini, Alberto (eds), (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)Google Scholar; Hauthaler, Nathan, ‘Wittgenstein on Actions, Reasons, and Causes’, Knowledge, Language and Mind: Wittgenstein's Thought in Progress, Marques, Antonio and Venturinha, Nuno (eds), (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2012)Google Scholar; Glock, Hans-Johann, ‘Reasons for Action: Wittgensteinian and Davidsonian Perspectives in Historical, Meta-Philosophical and Philosophical Context’, Nordic Wittgenstein Review 3 (2014) 7–46 Google Scholar.

45 Wittgenstein, Ludwig and Waismann, Friedrich, The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 111Google Scholar.

46 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Beliefs: Compiled from Notes Taken by Yorick Smythies, Rush Rhees and James Taylor (Oxford: Blackwell, 1966), 21Google Scholar.

47 Ibid.

48 Ibid., 22.

49 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, The Blue and Brown Books: Preliminary Studies for the Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1958), 15Google Scholar.

50 Wittgenstein, Ludwig and Waismann, Friedrich, The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 424Google Scholar.

51 Ibid., 242.

52 Hauthaler, Nathan, ‘Wittgenstein on Actions, Reasons, and Causes’, Knowledge, Language and Mind: Wittgenstein's Thought in Progress, Marques, Antonio and Venturinha, Nuno (eds), (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2012), 102Google Scholar.

53 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, On Certainty (Oxford: Blackwell, 1969), §397Google Scholar.

54 Hauthaler, Nathan, ‘Wittgenstein on Actions, Reasons, and Causes’, Knowledge, Language and Mind: Wittgenstein's Thought in Progress, Marques, Antonio and Venturinha, Nuno (eds), (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2012), 103Google Scholar.

55 Geach, Peter Thomas, God and the Soul (London: Routledge, 1969), 8Google Scholar.

56 Williams, Bernard, Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry (London: Routledge, 2005), 97Google Scholar.

57 Hauthaler, Nathan, ‘Wittgenstein on Actions, Reasons, and Causes’, Knowledge, Language and Mind: Wittgenstein's Thought in Progress, Marques, Antonio and Venturinha, Nuno (eds), (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2012), 97Google Scholar.

58 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982)Google Scholar, I, §891; see also Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Wittgenstein's Lectures: Cambridge 1932–35 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1979), 5Google Scholar.

59 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, The Big Typescript (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 402CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60 Ibid., 403.

61 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982)Google Scholar, I, §894.

62 Wittgenstein, Ludwig and Waismann, Friedrich, The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 48–49 Google Scholar.

63 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982)Google Scholar, I, §907.

64 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, The Big Typescript (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 401v.

65 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, The Blue and Brown Books: Preliminary Studies for the Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1958), 15Google Scholar.

66 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982)Google Scholar, I, §897.

67 Wittgenstein, Ludwig and Waismann, Friedrich, The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 111Google Scholar.

68 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, The Big Typescript (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 401vCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69 Wittgenstein, Ludwig and Waismann, Friedrich, The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 110Google Scholar.

70 Ibid., 31.

71 Ibid., 110–11.

72 Schroeder, Severin, ‘Are Reasons Causes? A Wittgensteinian Response to Davidson’, Wittgenstein and Contemporary Philosophy of Mind (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 158Google Scholar.

73 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, ‘Cause and Effect: Intuitive Awareness’, Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951 (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett, 1993), 408Google Scholar; see also ibid., 373.

74 Ibid., 408.

75 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982)Google Scholar, I, §896.

76 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations (Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009)Google Scholar, §637.

77 Ibid., §659.

78 Ibid., §486; §§682–83.

79 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980)Google Scholar, I, §572.

80 Waismann, Friedrich, The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy (London: Macmillan, 1965), 122Google Scholar.

81 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Wittgenstein's Lectures: Cambridge 1932–35 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1979), 28Google Scholar.

82 Waismann, Friedrich, The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy (London: Macmillan, 1965), 123Google Scholar.

83 Ibid.

84 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophy of Psychology – a Fragment Published in Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009)Google Scholar, §315.

85 Alvarez, Maria, Kinds of Reasons: An Essay in the Philosophy of Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 125CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

86 James, William, ‘The Will to Believe’, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (New York: Dover, 1956), 29Google Scholar.

87 Price, Henry Habberley, ‘Self-Verifying Beliefs’, Belief (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1969), 362Google Scholar.

88 Virgil, , Aeneid (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)Google Scholar, V.231.

89 Glüer, Kathrin, Donald Davidson (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 161CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Keil, Geert, ‘Beyond Assimilationism and Differentialism: Comment on Glock’, Welt Der Gründe, Nida-Rümelin, J. and Özmen, E. (eds), (Meiner, 2012), 920Google Scholar.

90 Davidson, Donald, ‘A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge’, Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective (Oxford: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 2001), 143CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

91 Davidson, Donald, ‘Empirical Content’, Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective (Oxford: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 2001), 169CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

92 Hyman, John, ‘How Knowledge Works’, The Philosophical Quarterly 49 (1999), 433–451, 444Google Scholar.

93 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations (Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009)Google Scholar, §§475–76.

94 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, The Big Typescript (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 403CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Zettel (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981)Google Scholar, §§507–09.

95 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Wittgenstein's Lectures on Philosophical Psychology 1946–47 (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1988), 82–83 Google Scholar.

96 Waismann, Friedrich, The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy (London: Macmillan, 1965), 123Google Scholar.

97 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations (Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009)Google Scholar, §220; Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Zettel (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981)Google Scholar, §296.

98 For more on Wittgenstein's view of the contrast between explanation and justification, see Queloz, Matthieu, ‘Wittgenstein on the Chain of Reasons’, Wittgenstein-Studien 7 (2016) 105–130 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

99 Waismann, Friedrich, The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy (London: Macmillan, 1965), 121Google Scholar.

100 Wittgenstein, Ludwig and Waismann, Friedrich, The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 112–13Google Scholar; see also Waismann, Friedrich, The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy (London: Macmillan, 1965), 121Google Scholar.

101 Ibid., 122.

102 Wittgenstein, Ludwig and Waismann, Friedrich, The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 107Google Scholar.

103 Waismann, Friedrich, The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy (London: Macmillan, 1965), 124Google Scholar; Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations (Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009)Google Scholar, §§197–99.

104 Hacker, P. M. S., ‘Wittgenstein and the Autonomy of Humanistic Understanding’, Wittgenstein, Theory and the Arts, Allen, Richard and Turvey, Malcolm (eds), (London: Routledge, 2011), 61Google Scholar.

105 Davidson, Donald, Problems of Rationality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004), 101CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

106 Davidson, Donald, Truth, Language, and History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005), 285CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

107 Davidson, Donald, ‘Replies’, The Philosophy of Donald Davidson, Hahn, L. E. (ed.), (La Salle: Open Court, 1999), 654Google Scholar.

108 Ibid.

109 Ibid., 655.

110 See Stoutland, Frederick, ‘Reasons and Causes’, Wittgenstein: Mind, Meaning and Metaphilosophy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 60Google Scholar; Glock, Hans-Johann, ‘Reasons for Action: Wittgensteinian and Davidsonian Perspectives in Historical, Meta-Philosophical and Philosophical Context’, Nordic Wittgenstein Review 3 (2014), 7–46 Google Scholar.

111 Thanks to Joachim Schulte and Hans-Johann Glock for many valuable discussions and comments on this paper. Thanks also to Deborah Mühlebach, Damian Cueni, Kai Büttner, Sebastian Wyss, Reto Gubelmann, Nicole Rathgeb, Marco Toscano, Mindaugas Gilaitis, Astrid Kottmann, Susanne Huber, David Dolby, Sarah Tietz, and David Wörner, who read and commented on early versions of the material.