Leading a Human Life: Wittgenstein, Intentionality, and Romanticism / Edition 2

by Richard Eldridge

Overview

In this provocative new study, Richard Eldridge presents a highly original and compelling account of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, one of the most enduring yet enigmatic works of the twentieth century. He does so by reading the text as a dramatization of what is perhaps life's central motivating struggle—the inescapable human need to pursue an ideal of expressive freedom within the difficult terms set by culture.

Eldridge sees Wittgenstein as a Romantic protagonist, engaged in an ongoing internal dialogue over the nature of intentional consciousness, ranging over ethics, aesthetics, and philosophy of mind. The picture of the human mind that emerges through this dialogue unsettles behaviorism, cognitivism, and all other scientifically oriented orthodoxies. Leading a human life becomes a creative act, akin to writing a poem, of continuously seeking to overcome both complacency and skepticism. Eldridge's careful reconstruction of the central motive of Wittgenstein's work will influence all subsequent scholarship on it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226203133
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	10/27/1997
Edition description:	1
Pages:	307
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Richard Eldridge is associate professor of philosophy at Swarthmore College.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
1. Introduction: Philosophical Thinking beyond Dogmatism and Nihilism
2. Intentionality and Idealism: Hegel, Kant, and Freedom
3. Toward a Critique of Critique: Fichte, Schiller, Schlegel, and Poesis
4. Wittgenstein's Writerliness and Its Repressions
5. Augustine's Misbegotten Conversion: Proposal and Rebuke
6. Simples and Samples: Realism versus the Ordinary
7. Perspicuous Representations and Anxieties of the Normal
8. Following a Rule: Conceptual Consciousness and the Wish for Absolute Assurance
9. "Inner Experience," the Exhaustion of Temptation, Remembrance, Gratitude
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

In contrast to those who see the later Wittgenstein's work as "unprofessional, or unreasoned, or grandiose," or as demonstrating the end of the need to ask ultimate questions, Eldridge (philosophy, Swarthmore) sees in it a profound drama that attempts to provide a philosophical understanding of the essence of human life. This drama unfolds, Eldridge argues, in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, where he tries to understand conceptual consciousness and give a unified account of meaning and understanding. This is a penetrating and insightful interpretation of Wittgenstein's thoughtone that goes well beyond the usually straight-forward analytical treatments (although it is that, too) to encompass the broader questions of the nature of culture and human existence. For academic collections and readers highly conversant with contemporary philosophy.Leon H. Brody, U.S. Office of Personnel Mgt. Lib., Washington, D.C.

Library Journal

Offers a reading of Wittgenstein's that presents a protagonist who, in seeking to articulate the terms for full human self-command and self-expression, sometimes imagines that achievement will come through grasping the nature of human intentionality and conceptual consciousness, but continually finds that no formulation of the nature of conceptual consciousness in fact yields the desired command. Focuses on sections 1-308 as the most crucial and intense intermediate version of the text. Paper edition (20313-1), $17.95. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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