1 Dewey, Wittgenstein, and Linguistic Instrumentalism My paper ...

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immediate goods that obtain among men is not a fact of philosophy, but of nature and life (LW 1: 305-306). It is not easy to find anything so bold and broad in Wittgenstein, although I sense its presence. He is a far more encompassing philosopher than many of his followers appreciate. Oftentimes in the Tractatus Wittgenstein seems to think that all there is to philosophy is the logical clarification of propositions, which function as pictures of reality. If a proposition is incapable of picturing reality, it is nonsense. Logic itself cannot discover empirical truths only distinguish sense from nonsense. There is much more that we may show, but never say. Once we complete the task of the logical clarification of propositions, there is no more work for philosophy to perform. Therefore, the earlier Wittgenstein thought he had brought philosophy to an end with the publication of the Tractatus. After the critiques of Frank Ramsey and others, Wittgenstein abandoned this position. It increased the scope of what he considered philosophy. Many analytic philosophers and those in the ordinary language tradition read the Philosophical Investigations as clarifying philosophical (i.e., not empirical) problems and thereby relieving us from the bewitchment of language that, among other things, leads us to assume that words always have a reference. They assume we may establish normative logico-grammatical conceptual truths constitutive of any empirical propositional truth within a language game. Often, they confine themselves to investigating the proper rule-governed use of language. While no doubt correct as far as it goes, such a reading of the later Wittgenstein results in a logico-grammatical transcendentalism that understands the role of philosophy in much the same way as the Tractatus. Some accept this formal transcendentalism and combine it with an almost mystical transcendentalism about the meanings that transcend the limits of langua ge. Deweyans reject all form versus content dualisms and all forms of transcendental (e.g., Kant) or transcendent (e.g., Plato) philosophy. However, they do agree that there is a great deal that transcends conceptual containment (e.g., the New England Transcendentalists). We only need to expand the scope of philosophy to include extralinguistic understanding and appreciation to bring Wittgenstein and Dewey into agreement. For Dewey, all sentient beings have completely anoetic experiences that transcend the limits of language. Further, there is “immanent meaning” or what he more frequently calls “sense” meaning, that assumes but surpasses linguistic reference. Dewey thought we could not fully understand the meaning of a proposition without appreciating it qualitatively, emotionally, and in embodied (habitual) action. Dewey asserts: “A universe of experience is the precondition of a universe of discourse. Without its controlling presence, there is no way to determine the relevancy, weight or coherence of any designated [conceptual] distinction or relation” (LW 12: 74). “Experience” is Dewey’s word for all that occurs when any sentient creature such as ourselves trans-acts with other events in the universe. When we experience, we experience existence whence we m ay construct meaning and knowledge. We must 24
carefully distinguish existence from the essences we make from it. No one creates ex nihilo. Beyond the bounds of such constructions many aspects of life are such that we may artistically show them to each other, but otherwise must remain eternally silent. We may approach such aspects of existence linguistically through poetry and nonlinguistically through other arts. Dewey finds that philosophy participates in both the actualities disclosed by empirical science and the possibilities disclosed by literature (including poetry) and all the other arts (LW 1: 304-305). Dewey took the stance that “science itself is but a central art auxiliary to the generation and utilization of other arts” by which he meant that science is the art of constructing tentative, falsifiable, and contingent warranted linguistic assertions (judgments) that the other arts may use to create their artifacts (LW 10: 33). Wittgenstein understands the task of philosophy as something apart from science. It is what James C. Klagge (2011) calls “Wittgenstein’s insulation thesis” (85). As Klagge shows, it is largely unsustainable when we examine Wittgenstein’s own statements in a broader context (see chapter 7). However, as Klagge also shows, Wittgenstein’s primary targets are not so much science as reductive, materialistic, and mechanistic scientism. Dewey too rejected reductive, materialistic, and mechanistic scientism. His alternative was to develop an emergent, organic, naturalism that defied materialistic reductionism. Both Wittgenstein and Dewey seem to agree that philosophy is a form of criticism. Dewey was clear that for him philosophy is cultural criticism. Such wisdom requires artistic creativity as well as aesthetic appreciation. We may also r ead Wittgenstein as a cultural critic, although most of his interpreters confine his contribution to epistemological or, at best, logico-grammatical clarification. In footnote twenty, I suggest a reading of Wittgenstein that depends on the primacy of practice that if correct would bring him much closer to Deweyan pragmatism by dissolving the logical form versus empirical content dualism. 3 For the classical pragmatists, habits are embodied universals in that they are generalized responses to a class of stimuli. A large part of becoming a rational being involves making our habits conscious, correcting them, and rendering them under our control. If we can make them conscious, we can perhaps even state them linguistically. When we cannot, they comprise the basis of tacit knowledge of the kind needed for good laboratory work, mathematical proofs, and music composition. 4 The poem is Ludwig Uhland’s “Count Eberhard’s Hawthorn.” Emphasis in original. 5 Ultimately, such matters as these involve exploring Wittgenstein’s remarks on private language to a greater depth than we will delve into here. It also involves his many reflections on understanding others and our selves (e.g., pain language), which we will also largely ignore. Dewey too has much to say about these topics. 6 Dewey directs our attention to the role of intelligent “intuition” of the kind that only comes from having an appreciative “feel” for the subject matter with which we are practically trans-acting: The expert in thought is one who has skill in making experiments to introduce an old meaning into different situations and who has a sensitive ear for detecting 25
Page 1 and 2: Dewey, Wittgenstein, and Linguistic
Page 3 and 4: Ignoring Dewey’s aesthetic dimens
Page 5 and 6: ecome connoisseurs of fine art, but
Page 7 and 8: He goes on to mention that once we
Page 9 and 10: develop their own widely influentia
Page 11 and 12: direct movement to the object to wh
Page 13 and 14: life but in a contemporaneously ena
Page 15 and 16: Dewey remarks: “For a meaning is
Page 17 and 18: even following a rule correctly. Mo
Page 19 and 20: easoning that is done . . . . Yet h
Page 21 and 22: course, as we said at the beginning
Page 23: Tomasello, M. (1999). The Cultural
Page 27: 13 Your mirror neurons fire in much

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