Describing Ourselves Wittgenstein and Autobiographical Consciousness

by Hagberg, Garry L.

• ISBN13: 9780199698424
• ISBN10: 0199698422
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-12-15
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The voluminous writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein contain some of the most profound reflections of recent times on the nature of the human subject and self-understanding - the human condition, philosophically speaking. Describing Ourselves mines those extensive writings for a conception of the self that stands in striking contrast to its predecessors as well as its more recent alternatives. More specifically, the book offers a detailed discussion of Wittgenstein's later writings on language and mind as they hold special significance for the understanding and clarification of the distinctive character of self-descriptive or autobiographical language. Garry L. Hagberg undertakes a ground-breaking philosophical investigation of selected autobiographical writings - among the best examples we have of human selves exploring themselves - as they cast new and special light on the critique of mind-body dualism and its undercurrents in particular and on the nature of autobiographical consciousness more generally. The chapters take up in turn the topics of self-consciousness, what Wittgenstein calls 'the inner picture', mental privacy and the picture of metaphysical seclusion, the very idea of our observation of the contents of consciousness, first-person expressive speech, reflexive or self-directed thought and competing pictures of introspection, the nuances of retrospective self-understanding, person-perception and the corollary issues of self-perception (itself an interestingly dangerous phrase), self-defining memory, and the therapeutic conception of philosophical progress as it applies to all of these issues. The cast of characters interwoven throughout this rich discussion include, in addition to Wittgenstein centrally, Augustine, Goethe, Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Iris Murdoch, Donald Davidson, and Stanley Cavell, among others. Throughout, conceptual clarifications concerning mind and language are put to work in the investigation of issues relating to self-description and in novel philosophical readings of autobiographical texts.

Author Biography

Garry L. Hagberg is the James H. Ottaway Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetics at Bard College.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Confronting the Cartesian Legacy	p. 1
Autobiographical Consciousness	p. 15
Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein's Transition, and the Edge of Solipsism	p. 16
The 'Inner Picture'	p. 25
Real Privacy (and Hidden Content)	p. 33
The Self, Reflected	p. 44
Observing Consciousness	p. 45
The Picture of Metaphysical Seclusion	p. 54
Cavell and the Stage of Speech	p. 59
The Self, Speaking	p. 76
A Behaviorist in Disguise?	p. 77
First-Person Avowals	p. 89
Real Introspection (and Kierkegaard's Seducer)	p. 97
The Self, Thinking	p. 119
Imagining Thought	p. 119
Augustine and the Autobiographical Situation	p. 132
Wittgenstein Underground (and Dostoevsky's Notes)	p. 140
The Question of True Self-Interpretation	p. 154
Meaning in Retrospect	p. 158
The Pain and the Piano	p. 163
Augustine in Retrospect	p. 175
The Uniqueness of Person-Perception	p. 185
The Case of Goethe	p. 187
The Mind Shown: Leonardo, Rembrandt, and Mimetic Actors	p. 196
Iris Murdoch, the 'Unfrozen Past', and Seeing in a New Light	p. 202
Rethinking Self-Interpretation	p. 223
The 'Descent into Ourselves	p. 231
On Philosophy as Therapy: Wittgenstein, Cavell, and Autobiographical Writing	p. 240
Index	p. 259
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