Of Beetles and Roubles: Wittgenstein and Dostoevsky on Intention
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Tea Lobo
Abstract
Wittgenstein and Dostoevsky both ridicule a hypostasizing and fetishizing picture of interiority: viewing sensations and intentions like discrete material objects. The symbols for this misleading view in their respective works are a beetle and a sachet containing thousand five hundred roubles. The beetle in the box passage in the Philosophical Investigations discredits a Cartesian picture of pain as akin to a thing-like entity. The sachet in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov represents Dmitry’s intention to be honourable. Dostoevsky achieves a perspicuous view of entangled webs of intentions, as opposed to labelling them like object-like entities.
I show that Wittgenstein’ account of first-personal thought, including intentions, is not based on the Cartesian dualism of the inner and the outer, the mind and the body. To underscore my argumentation, I refer to The Brothers Karamazov, one of Wittgenstein’s favourite novels. I especially focus on Dmitry’s sachet, which inspired Wittgenstein’s beetle in the box example. I show parallels both in content and in form of Wittgenstein’s and Dostoevsky’s approach to intention as a species of first-personal thought.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Titelseiten
- Hinweis für Leser / Note for Readers
- Inhalt
- Articles
- Sein und Schein (bei Wittgenstein)
- Certainties and Rule-Following
- Does Doubt Require Reasons?
- Hinweise auf Gott
- „Unsere Aufgabe ist es nur gerecht zu sein“
- St Augustine and All That: Remarks on the beginning of Philosophical Investigations
- Of Beetles and Roubles: Wittgenstein and Dostoevsky on Intention
- On the concept of childhood in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations
- Unexpected Uncertainty in Adaptive Learning
- Tiefgehende Uneinigkeiten aus Logisch-Pragmatischer Sicht
- Buchbesprechungen / Book Reviews
- Buchbesprechungen / Book Reviews
- Bernhard Ritter, Dennis Sölch (Hrsg.): Wittgenstein und die Philosophiegeschichte. 2021
- Juliet Floyd, Felix Mühlhölzer: Wittgenstein’s Annotations to Hardy’s Course of Pure Mathematics. An Investigation of Wittgenstein’s Non-Extensionalist Understanding of the Real Numbers. 2020
- Articles
- Die Autorinnen und Autoren des Bandes / Authors of this Volume
- Bisher erschienene Bände / Previously published Volumes
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Titelseiten
- Hinweis für Leser / Note for Readers
- Inhalt
- Articles
- Sein und Schein (bei Wittgenstein)
- Certainties and Rule-Following
- Does Doubt Require Reasons?
- Hinweise auf Gott
- „Unsere Aufgabe ist es nur gerecht zu sein“
- St Augustine and All That: Remarks on the beginning of Philosophical Investigations
- Of Beetles and Roubles: Wittgenstein and Dostoevsky on Intention
- On the concept of childhood in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations
- Unexpected Uncertainty in Adaptive Learning
- Tiefgehende Uneinigkeiten aus Logisch-Pragmatischer Sicht
- Buchbesprechungen / Book Reviews
- Buchbesprechungen / Book Reviews
- Bernhard Ritter, Dennis Sölch (Hrsg.): Wittgenstein und die Philosophiegeschichte. 2021
- Juliet Floyd, Felix Mühlhölzer: Wittgenstein’s Annotations to Hardy’s Course of Pure Mathematics. An Investigation of Wittgenstein’s Non-Extensionalist Understanding of the Real Numbers. 2020
- Articles
- Die Autorinnen und Autoren des Bandes / Authors of this Volume
- Bisher erschienene Bände / Previously published Volumes
