Wittgenstein's Metaphilosophy

In this provocative and very well-written book, Paul Horwich argues that Wittgenstein's most important insight is that expressed by his famous remark that ‘Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language’ (Wittgenstein 1973: §109). According to Wittgenstein's anti-theoretical, deflationary view of philosophy, traditional or theoretical philosophy (‘T-philosophy’)—the attempt to provide by a priori methods fundamental insights ‘into the human condition and the ultimate character of the universe’ (p. 2)—is a fruitless exercise that is a result of muddled thinking. It is an attempt to answer questions that are in fact ‘pseudo questions’, ‘questions’ whose apparent force stems from confusions and false presuppositions engendered by an inclination to exaggerate analogies between different regions of language. This fruitless exercise should be replaced by ‘a painstaking identification of [T-philosophy's] tempting but misguided presuppositions and an understanding of how we ever came to regard them as legitimate’ (p. 2), and, in particular, by therapeutic reminders of ‘the highly idiosyncratic character and function’ (p. 16) of the regions of discourse about which philosophical perplexity arises. According to Horwich, it is this metaphilosophical view that underlies Wittgenstein's approach to specific philosophical issues, including those concerning understanding, rule-following and meaning, rather than vice versa. Although Horwich believes that this assignment of a foundational role to a deflationary metaphilosophy makes for good interpretation of Wittgenstein's texts, his main concern is philosophical: regardless of its pedigree, the deflationary metaphilosophy is ‘worth taking seriously’ (p. xiii) and possesses ‘rough correctness’ (p. 61).

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