Witti-Buch2 2001.qxd - Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society

Wittgenstein And Freud
Wittgenstein extended it not only to games but also to language and to the notion of
causation. That this method is far from being an occasional exercise is underlined by H.
J. Glocks´s application of it (p. 72-73) when he examines the notion of causation.
According to him, Wittgenstein "rejects a uniform nomological account of causation.
There is an irreducible variety of prototypes" of causal connection: (a)impact… (b)
traction … (c)mechanism… (d) human relations (e) statements… Wittgenstein
arguably regards "cause" as a FAMILY-RESEMBLENCE concept".
Together with these similitudes or relationships among ideas between the two great
Viennese I wish to state, nevertheless, some important differences: Freud speaks
sometimes about common or essential features (wesentlich); Wittgenstein, instead,
avoids the term in order not to slide down the metaphysical slope and appeals to
descriptive terms such as overlapp and criss-crossing or interweaving of like features
(denn so übergreifen und kreuzen sich die verschieden Ähnlichkeiten) (Wittgenstein, .§
67)
After this exploration about the decisive influence of Freud´s over Wittgenstein´s
philosophy, it is amazing that scholars dedicated to the latter did not notice it, and above
all, the value of Galton´s method in relation to family resemblances. These
considerations are not only absent from the studies of different aspects of Wittgenstein´s
thought but also from books dedicated to examine the Freud-Wittgenstein relationship,
like Frank Cioffi´s. On the other hand, the references I know are not relevant to the topic
I have exposed. Thus, Cyril Barret only recalls that Wittgenstein uses in his Lecture on
Ethics -as I already pointed-Galton´s procedure for the illumination of synonymous
expressions of value or of ethics. David Bloor mentions Galton´s contributions as a
natural scientist, in genetics and statistics, and specially his concept of
correlation, a weightful idea, according to him, in social sciences. Stephen Hilmy, on his
part, refers extensively to William James considerations of Galton´s psychological and
psychometric theories. They are all works dedicated to Wittgenstein´s philosophy but we
do not observe in them the gravitation on Wittgenstein´s thought of the use Freud makes
of family resemblances in relation to Galton´s composite photography.
Concluding, I find my hypotheses justified when I afirm that Wittgenstein was
inspired by several ideas of the Freudian theory, or was at least coincident with some of
them.
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