Philosophical Investigations §123: Waismann, Baker, Read and the Freedom View
Open Review until 2026-01-04
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15845/nwr.v14.3723Keywords:
§123, Later Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Philosophical Method, Gordon Baker, WaismannAbstract
In this paper, I order the thinking of Friedrich Waismann, Gordon Baker, and Rupert Read into what I call the Freedom View (FV). I justify this labelling by demonstrating their inter-influence and evolving articulation of a shared framework that conceives the problems, aims, and method of (Wittgenstein’s) philosophy to be defined by freedom. The Freedom View is one of the most consequential, yet frequently misunderstood, explications of the therapeutic aspects of Wittgenstein’s later work. This interpretative labour enables an informed assessment of the merit of such a view. While the FV offers a coherent and provocative reading of Wittgenstein’s philosophy, I argue, drawing on Heidegger’s criticisms of Kant’s conception of orientation, that it ultimately fails to capture the sense of ordinary orientation invoked by Wittgenstein in §123: “A philosophical problem has the form: ‘I don’t know my way about’”. As such, the FV is partial and incomplete, unable to recognise a significant dimension to Wittgenstein’s thought.
References
Affeldt, S., (2013). “Being Lost and Finding Home: Philosophy, Confession, Recollection, and Conversion in Augustine’s ‘Confessions’ and Wittgenstein’s ‘Philosophical Investigations’”. In S. Bru, W. Huemer, and D. Steuer, eds, Wittgenstein Reading. Boston: De Gruyter.
Ahmed, S., (2006). Queer Phenomenology. Durham: Duke University Press.
Baker, G., (2004). Wittgenstein’s Method: Neglected Aspects. Edited by K. Morris. Oxford: Blackwell.
Cavell, S., (2002). Must We Mean What We Say? 2nd Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cavell, S., (1988). “Declining Decline: Wittgenstein as a Philosopher of Culture”. Inquiry 31 (3), 253-264.
Conant, J., (1991). “Throwing Away the Top of the Ladder”. The Yale Review 79 (3), 328-364.
Crary, A., and Read, R., (eds.) (2000). The New Wittgenstein. London: Routledge.
Diamond, C., (1988). “Throwing Away the Ladder: How to Read the Tractatus”. Philosophy 63, 5-27.
Hacker, P.M.S, (2007). “Gordon Baker’s Late Interpretation of Wittgenstein”. In G. Kahane, E. Kanterian and O. Kuusela, eds, Wittgenstein and His Interpreters: Essay in Memory of Gordon Baker. Oxford: Blackwell.
Heidegger, M., (1962). Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson. Oxford: Blackwell.
Kant, I., (1991). Kant: Political Writings. Edited by H.S. Reiss. Translated by H.B. Nisbet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Morris, K., (2019). “’How I See Philosophy’: An Apple of Discord Among Wittgenstein Scholars”. In D. Makovec and S. Shapiro, eds, Friedrich Waismann: The Open Texture of Analytic Philosophy. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mulhall, S., (2001). Inheritance and Originality: Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Kierkegaard. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Mulhall, S., (1994). “Wittgenstein and Heidegger: Orientation to the Ordinary”. European Journal of Philosophy 2 (2), 143-164.
Read, R., (2020). Wittgenstein’s Liberatory Philosophy. London: Routledge.
Waismann, F., (1979). Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle: Conversations (recorded by Friedrich Waismann). Edited by Brian McGuinness. Translated by Joachim Schulte and Brian McGuinness. New York: Barnes and Noble.
Waismann, F., (1968). How I See Philosophy. Edited by Rom Harré. London: Macmillan and Co.
Waismann, F., & Wittgenstein, L., (2003). The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle. Edited by Gordon Baker. London: Routledge.
Wittgenstein, L.,
(2009) Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G.E.M. Anscombe, P.M.S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte. Revised fourth edition by P.M.S. Hacke and Joachim Schulte. Oxford: Blackwell.
(1989) Lectures on the Philosophy of Mathematics. Edited by Cora Diamond. Notes from f R. G. Bosanquet, Norman Malcom, Rush Rhees, and Yorick Smythies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
(1980) Culture and Value. Edited by G.H von Wright; translated by Peter Winch. Oxford: Blackwell.
(1969) Blue and Brown Books: Preliminary Studies for the ‘Philosophical Investigations’. Oxford: Blackwell.
(1967) Zettel. Edited by G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H von Wright; Translated by G.E.M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell.
(1961) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated by David Pears and Brian McGuinness. London: Routledge.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Daniel Simons
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
NWR uses the Creative Commons license CC-BY.
Vol. 1-3 used CC-BY-NC-SA. The collected works copyright ownership for Vol. 1-2 were shared by Nordic Wittgenstein Society and ontos Verlag/De Gruyter.
