The Middle Wittgenstein on Aesthetics
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Vincent Vincke
Abstract
This article aims to challenge the idea that the ‘Middle Wittgenstein’ restricted himself to a so-called ‘calculus’ approach to aesthetics, i. e., to a conception of aesthetic language and judgement as rigidly determined by the rules of ‘autonomous systems’, and thereby allocated only a minor role to human practice and agency. The incompleteness of such a view will be addressed by highlighting the various ‘anthropological’ considerations that guided Wittgenstein’s treatment of aesthetics in his 1933 Cambridge lectures. This will be done by inquiring into his discussions about (1) the word ‘beautiful’. By reflecting on this ‘difficult case’, Wittgenstein came to illustrate the limitations of the calculus approach, anticipate the methods of the Blue Book, and direct his gaze to ‘actual aesthetic controversies and enquiries’, as well as (2) his ‘propaganda for a descriptive rather than explanatory method’ in aesthetics. By critiquing Frazer and the conflation of aesthetics and psychology, Wittgenstein argued for a descriptive aesthetics where perspicuous presentations and a person’s aesthetic puzzlement play a central role. Lastly, (3) Wittgenstein’s conception of ‘ideals’ in aesthetics will be clarified in relation to the judgements and the language of musicians, painters, architects, etc., as well as in relation to our own accounts of aesthetic practices.
© 2025 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Inhalt
- Hinweis für Leser / Note for Readers
- Tractarian Nonsense and Literary Language
- The Middle Wittgenstein on Aesthetics
- The Question of Linguistic Idealism in the Tractatus
- Waismann and Waismann’s Wittgenstein
- Die Grenzen welcher Sprache?
- Wittgenstein on Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams
- Wittgenstein über die Erkenntnis Anderer
- Shouldered In and Out of the Reality of Mortality
- On Deep Moral Disagreement Between Theists and Atheists
- Redrawing and publishing the graphics in Wittgenstein’s Nachlass
- Special Topic: Das erlösende Wort in dürftigen Zeiten – Wittgensteins Fortschritts-, Zivilisations- und Kulturkritik
- Einleitung
- Text und Kontext
- Wozu Philosophie und Kunst in Zeiten der Unkultur?
- „[I]ch sehe jedes Problem von einem religiösen Standpunkt.“
- Wittgensteins „erlösende Worte“
- Wittgenstein über die Bildung von Begriffen
- Buchbesprechungen / Book Reviews
- David R. Cerbone: Wittgenstein on Realism and Idealism
- Peter Eigner: Die Wittgensteins. Geschichte einer unglaublich reichen Familie
- Raimundo Henriques: Self-Understanding in the Tractatus and Wittgenstein’s Architecture: From Adolf Loos to the Resolute Reading
- Shunichi Takagi, Pascal F. Zambito (eds.): Wittgenstein and Nietzsche
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Inhalt
- Hinweis für Leser / Note for Readers
- Tractarian Nonsense and Literary Language
- The Middle Wittgenstein on Aesthetics
- The Question of Linguistic Idealism in the Tractatus
- Waismann and Waismann’s Wittgenstein
- Die Grenzen welcher Sprache?
- Wittgenstein on Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams
- Wittgenstein über die Erkenntnis Anderer
- Shouldered In and Out of the Reality of Mortality
- On Deep Moral Disagreement Between Theists and Atheists
- Redrawing and publishing the graphics in Wittgenstein’s Nachlass
- Special Topic: Das erlösende Wort in dürftigen Zeiten – Wittgensteins Fortschritts-, Zivilisations- und Kulturkritik
- Einleitung
- Text und Kontext
- Wozu Philosophie und Kunst in Zeiten der Unkultur?
- „[I]ch sehe jedes Problem von einem religiösen Standpunkt.“
- Wittgensteins „erlösende Worte“
- Wittgenstein über die Bildung von Begriffen
- Buchbesprechungen / Book Reviews
- David R. Cerbone: Wittgenstein on Realism and Idealism
- Peter Eigner: Die Wittgensteins. Geschichte einer unglaublich reichen Familie
- Raimundo Henriques: Self-Understanding in the Tractatus and Wittgenstein’s Architecture: From Adolf Loos to the Resolute Reading
- Shunichi Takagi, Pascal F. Zambito (eds.): Wittgenstein and Nietzsche
