Home Philosophische Superlative und die Maschine als Symbol
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Philosophische Superlative und die Maschine als Symbol

  • Joachim Schulte
Published/Copyright: February 3, 2021
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Abstract

Philosophical Superlatives: Machines as Symbols. – In this paper, my chief aim is to present a close reading of parts of a central sequence of remarks from Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations (191 – 197, cf. Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, I, 121 – 130). The apparent theme of this sequence is the idea of a ‘machine as a symbol of its mode of operation’. Obviously, this idea requires a good deal of clarification, and the present paper attempts to elucidate relevant passages which, in their turn, are discussed in the hope of succeeding in spelling out some of the points Wittgenstein has in mind in appealing to the picture of a machine as a symbol of its mode of operation. What will serve as a kind of framework of these elucidations is the notion of a philosophical superlative appealed to by Wittgenstein in a number of remarks that can be seen as particularly characteristic of his later thought. In the course of developing the idea of a philosophical superlative six aspects, or types, of superlatives are distinguished, and the last of these is found to shade into the image of a machine as symbol in a way that allows us to draw on various superlatives in striving to clarify the train of thought underpinning the sequence PI 191 – 197 and related passages.

Literatur

Baker, Gordon & Hacker, Peter: Wittgenstein. Rules, Grammar and Necessity, Malden. MA/Oxford 22014.Search in Google Scholar

Flowers. F.A. & Ground, Ian (Hg.): Portraits of Wittgenstein, 2 Bde., London 22016.Search in Google Scholar

Malcolm, Norman: Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir, Oxford 21984 (dt. Frankfurt/Main 1987).Search in Google Scholar

Savigny, Eike von: Wittgensteins „Philosophische Untersuchungen“. Ein Kommentar für Leser, Frankfurt/Main 21994.Search in Google Scholar

Schulte, Joachim: Chor und Gesetz, in: ders., Chor und Gesetz. Wittgenstein im Kontext, Frankfurt/Main 1990, 11 – 42.Search in Google Scholar

Schulte, Joachim: Phenomenology and Grammar, in: Rosa M. Calcaterra (Hg.): Le Ragioni del Conoscere e dell’Agire, Mailand 2006, 228 – 240.Search in Google Scholar

Online erschienen: 2021-02-03

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Front matter
  2. Titelseiten
  3. Hinweis für Leser / Note for Readers
  4. Inhalt / Table of Contents
  5. Articles
  6. Philosophische Superlative und die Maschine als Symbol
  7. The Linguistic Idealism Question: Wittgenstein’s Method and his Rejection of Realism
  8. Bilder, Klänge und Gedanken als Orientierungsfaktoren: Anhaltspunkte bei Nietzsche und Wittgenstein
  9. The Unutterable as a Mode of Utterance: Wittgenstein’s Two Remarks on “Count Eberhard’s Hawthorn” by Ludwig Uhland
  10. David Hume & Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Common Approach to Common Sense?
  11. What he could have said (but did not say) about Gödel’s second theorem: A note on Floyd-Putnam’s Wittgenstein
  12. The Interpretation of Probability in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
  13. Can Wittgenstein’s Philosophy account for Uncertainty in Introspection?
  14. Wittgenstein and Dilthey on Scientism and Method
  15. Logischer Holismus und Wittgensteins „praktische Wende“
  16. Lectures on Religious Belief and the epistemology of disagreements
  17. Buchbesprechungen / Book Reviews
  18. Buchbesprechungen / Book Reviews
  19. John G. Gunnell: Conventional Realism and Political Inquiry. Channeling Wittgenstein. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press 2019. 208 pages, $40.00 (Hardback), ISBN 978-0-226-66127-8
  20. Veena Das: Textures of the Ordinary. Doing Anthropology After Wittgenstein. New York, NY: Fordham University Press 2020. 432 pages, $35.00 (Paperback), ISBN 978-0-8232-8769-7
  21. Ilse Somavilla, Carl Humphries, Bożena Sieradzka-Baziur (Hrsg.): Wittgensteins Denkbewegungen (Tagebücher 1930 – 1932/1936 – 1937) aus interdisziplinärer Sicht. Innsbruck: Studienverlag 2019, 264 Seiten, 34,90 € (kartoniert), ISBN 978-3-7065-5591-3
  22. Articles
  23. Die Autorinnen und Autoren des Bandes / Authors of this Volume
  24. Bisher erschienene Bände / Previously published Volumes
Downloaded on 1.10.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/witt-2021-0002/html
Scroll to top button