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This article argues for the elimination of the concept of life worth living from philosophical vocabulary on three complementary grounds. First, the basic components of this concept suffer from multiple ambiguities, which hamper attempts to ground informative evaluative and classificatory judgments about the worth of life. Second, the criteria proposed to track the extension of the concept of life worth living rest on unsupported axiological assumptions and fail to identify precise and plausible referents for this concept. And third, the concept (...) of life worth living is not shown to serve any major evaluative or classificatory purpose besides those served by already available axiological concepts. By eliminating the concept of life worth living, philosophers will free themselves of the task of addressing ill-posed axiological questions and ground reflection about the worth of life on more rigorous conceptual foundations. (shrink) | |
This dissertation presents an objection to Wittgenstein's concept of family resemblances, three possible solutions to the objection, evaluations of the solutions, and a sketch of Wittgenstein's approach to the objection. My thesis is that none of the three proposed solutions is satisfactory, but that Wittgenstein can deal with the objection. ;Chapter I presents the Problem of the Under-Determination of Extension, the claim that family resemblances are not enough to explain the extension of a concept, since resemblances may be postulated between (...) cases falling under different concepts. ;Chapters II and III discuss three solutions proposed by commentators on family resemblances. The Basic Predicates Solution claims that points of family resemblance are sufficient conditions, and is incorrect since Wittgenstein denies that one can infer the applicability of a concept based on the presence of a resemblance to an instance of the concept. The Simple Properties Solution claims that only some concepts are family resemblance concepts, and depend upon concepts which are not family resemblance concepts, and is incorrect, since Wittgenstein does not require that family resemblance concepts be reducible to non-family resemblance concepts. The Bi-Directional Determination of Concepts Solution is the claim that a concept is determined by an interaction between facts about cases subsumed under it, and needs and purposes of language-users. This solution is non-Wittgensteinian by ignoring the ramifications of his concepts of grammar and language-games. ;Chapter IV argues that Wittgenstein deals with the original objection by developing new models for understanding language, involving the concepts of grammar and language-games. (shrink) | |
Besides its intrinsic interest, the definition of ‘game’ is important for three reasons. Firstly, in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations ‘game’ is the paradigm family resemblance concept. If he is wrong in thinking that ‘game’ cannot be defined, then the persuasive force of his argument against definition generally will be considerably weakened. This, in its turn, will have important consequences for our understanding of concepts and philosophical method. Secondly, Wittgenstein's later writings are full of analogies drawn from games—chess alone is mentioned scores (...) of times—and a proper understanding of ‘game’ can lead us to exercise more caution when considering the parallels between games and non-games. Thirdly, games and play are intriguingly and closely related to art and ritual, and an analysis of games can throw considerable light on both of the latter. (shrink) | |
How should sociologists use the word theory? Gabriel Abend’s recent insistence that this question should be tackled politically raises two important issues: Is sociology political? And if so, what normative implications follow for its organization? Drawing on Wittgenstein’s notion of family resemblance and post-Gramscian theories of hegemony, I argue that Abend’s proposal that semantic questions about theory can be addressed separately from ontological, evaluative, and teleological ones is untenable. Disagreements about the latter are constitutive, not merely supplementary to the meaning (...) of theory. Against Abend’s deliberative-democratically oriented vision, I propose an agonistic politics of theory. In doing so, I consider both the internal inconsistencies of deliberativism and the practical advantages and sociological relevance of agonism. (shrink) | |
I argue in the paper that the conception of family resemblance discussed by Ludwig Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations is a result of the application of Wittgenstein’s general argument against rule‑following to the pragmatics of all concepts. My argument runs as follows: First, (1) I criticize interpretations of family resemblance as a ‘local’ theory, applicable only to some concepts. Next, (2) I present and criticise a classic argument against the conception of family resemblance. In the following section, (3) I analyse attempts (...) to explicate family resemblance in terms of their possessing a common basic feature. I end my paper (4) by summarizing conclusions drawn from this critical review of literature and I briefly point to a possible solution of the difficulties generated by the concept of family resemblance. (shrink) | |
Science is about conceptualizing the natural world in a way that can be understood by human beings while at the same time reflecting as much as possible what we can empirically infer about how the world actually is. Among the crucial tools that allow scientists to formulate hypotheses and to contribute to a progressive understanding of nature are the use of imagery and metaphors, on the one hand, and the ability to assume certain starting points on which to build new (...) avenues of inquiry on the other hand. The premise of this work is that, in the words of philosopher of science Daniel Dennett, "There is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination." The purpose here is precisely to examine some of this philosophical baggage, and to see where such analysis may lead us. Obviously, it is not possible for a single project to take on science as a whole, or even an entire discipline such as physics, or ecology. Therefore, the core of this work is constituted by a series of eight case studies drawn from the field of evolutionary biology, with which I am particularly familiar as a practicing biologist. The hope is that combining expertise in both philosophy and science in one person, the resulting insights might be useful for the practicing scientist as well as because of their value as philosophical inquires. The dissertation is a combination of conceptual analysis and science criticism applied to specific questions in organismal biology, largely of an evolutionary nature, with the eight case studies grouped into three broad categories: Unexamined Baggage, Bad Habits, and Good and bad metaphors. (shrink) | |
Wittgenstein's illustrative comparison of linguistic activities with games, his defence of a single term for items having no more than a ‘family resemblance’ and not even one common distinguishing feature, and his objections to any proposal seeming to imply an unshareably private language appear to have been accepted as interesting and important if not always as persuasive in English language philosophy. But these themes, and others introduced along with them are most often taken as separate items, belonging to distinct compartments (...) of philosophy, and justice is not done to their inter-connections and coherence. (shrink) | |
People used to think that the items referred to by one word, e.g. , should all have certain features in common, which would jointly constitute : and that this should enable us to decide whether any given item is a triangle or not. | |
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