Recent Responses to the Philosophy of Wittgenstein- Life and Language

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Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Society, a group of philosophers for reflections on the philosophy of Wittgenstein, slowly has developed itself into a significant philosophical forum as almost all Indian Wittgensteinians have contributed to it. So far, it has organised three conferences national and international - and many informal gatherings.

This anthology is the first publication of Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Society which owes its existence to many academicians in the field of Philosophy of Wittgenstein in India. Professor S R Bhatt, Chairman, Indian Council of Philosophical Research has always been my mentor. My gratefulness to him, for his support to me, cannot be expressed in words as it transcends the boundaries of formal vote of thanks. I'm thankful to Indian Council of Philosophical Research, New Delhi and to Indian Council of Social Sciences Research, New Delhi for providing financial support as well as to University of Lucknow for their logistic support to organize the 1" Wittgenstein Conference in 2016. This is also an occasion to thank about a dozen Ph.D. Scholars who have obtained their degrees under my supervision as they kept me engaged throughout with philosophy of Wittgenstein. I wish to mention Rishi, Asmita, Anjali, Hricha, Uday, Hitesh among them for their co-operation and dedication.

Life keeps on moving despite obstacles and Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Society has had its own share of ups and downs. However, this is the time to forget the pain and thank all the life members of the society for their trusting me. I never had even an iota of doubt in success of the academic activities of the society. The members of the society contributed to this success story and so I'm grateful to them all.Dr.Ratikanta Panda always motivated me in registering the society as well as organising the conference. Prof. Tafajol Hossain, Dr. Roitualiana Darlong, Dr. Mamata Manjari Panda, and Dr. Tarang Kapoor have rendered friendly help in formatting the manuscript. Mrs Sangeeta Sinha has provided much needed professional proofreading and for this I'm grateful to her.

Twenty three essays constitute this anthology which can be divided into two I kinds: first, essays which aim at explicating the meaning of Wittgensteinian concepts, and second, essays which use them as a tool to explore, examine, and understand further philosophical developments. These two parts of the book mutually complement each other as former provides the background for the latter. Here an attempt has been made to include the issues which have often been occurred in India during recent debates and discussions in the area of Wittgensteinian philosophy, theology, logic, ethics, religion, social science, culture studies, psychology and linguistics.

Professor R. C. Pradhan's essay, "Re-reading Wittgenstein: Problems and Prospects", which explores various dimensions of the philosophy of Wittgenstein, has been placed at the top in order to act as a foundation to the anthology. Pradhan has claimed that Wittgenstein's philosophy being rich and multi-faceted cannot be put into any strait-jacket. It is open to multiple interpretations from realism to idealism, from naturalism to transcendentalism and from modernism to post-modernism. Wittgenstein seems to be open to the ideas from all traditions with which he has been acquainted. In that sense, he does not belong to any school of philosophy; he is a philosopher of philosophers. Wittgenstein has always been an eternal explorer, a nomadic in the field of thought. That is the reason why he has explored without any bias and prejudice of thought, language and reality covering the entire domain of man's encounter with Being. This essay resists any attempt to freeze Wittgenstein's thought within the narrow confines of sectarian philosophy and the outmoded styles of interpreting philosophy.

Professor Pradhan's essay sets the general background of the issues discussed in the anthology and the next four essays deal with Wittgenstein's thoughts on Logic: the first on Wittgenstein's 'Notes on Logic', the second on Wittgenstein on Induction, the third on the logical representation of the world, and the fourth on Early Wittgenstein as a critique of Russellian logic in particular and logical representation in general. The "Notes on Logic" is regarded as the first philosophical issue with which Wittgenstein engaged himself. Professor K. C. Pandey in his essay "On Potter's Interpretation of 'Meaning' and 'Sense' in Wittgenstein's 'Notes on Logic" has interpreted the notions of 'meaning' (Bedeutung) and 'sense' (Sinn) as described in Micheal Potter's insightful work Wittgenstein's Notes on Logic. He has shown that the value of this book had already been outlined in the publication of its book reviews that had specifically established that Wittgenstein's "Notes on Logic" was an independent and primordial work which acted as a catalyst at least to "Notes dictated to G.E. Moore in Norway [1914]", Notebooks 1914-16, and Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. After analysing the positions of Frege and Russell on the notions of 'meaning' and 'sense, this essay brings out Wittgensteinian perspective as well as expositions of Potter's interpretations on multiple issues. The next essay "Wittgenstein's view on Empirical Reasoning and Induction" on the issue of Wittgenstein on logic belongs to Professor S. Shyamkishore Singh. According to him, Ludwig Wittgenstein's remarks on induction in Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations throw light on the nature of empirical reasoning and probability relations between the events. For Singh, Wittgenstein in Tractatus has maintained that the so called law of induction cannot be a law of logic. It is so because it is not possible to infer the existence of one situation from the existence of another situation, because there is no casual nexus between them. (TLP, 5.135, 5.136). Regarding the 'uniformity of nature', Wittgenstein has held that we have no ground for such a hypothesis in the light of which we may make predictions about the future from past experiences. Further, Singh has investigated that Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations, has maintained that one cannot justify a conclusion on the ground that the something has been found to pay (P1, 467) as any attempt to justify in this manner would be circular. Experience provides grounds for predictions. But a good ground makes the occurrence of the event only probable. On the justification of induction Wittgenstein observed that our day to day regular reactions to the contingent happenings around us constitute the framework within which we learn to give reasons for doing and believing. He has placed it within the framework of our language games, and not within the fold of any deductive reasoning. Wittgenstein, however, admitted the importance of induction from the pragmatic standpoint.

Next, Professor Tafajol Hossain has claimed that Wittgenstein in Tractatus has held that there is a logical correspondence between world of facts and language. That means, language is used as a means of representation. Wittgenstein explains his theory of representation with the help of his doctrine of language and that of the world as there is a representing (picturing) relation between language and reality, which is the totality of state of affairs. Only the elementary propositions directly picture (represent) the reality. Now the question is: how does an elementary proposition represent a state of affairs? Following Wittgenstein, it may be said that an elementary proposition, being a model of a state of affairs, pictures (represents) it. To give an exposition to Wittgenstein's theory of representation, Hossain tries to explain the notions of 'world', 'language' and 'representing (picturing) relation between them" in the three sections of essay "Wittgenstein's Theory of Representation: An Exposition."