Theory & Event

Robinson, Christopher C.
How To Do Things With Wittgenstein
Theory & Event - Volume 5, Issue 1, 2001

The Johns Hopkins University Press

Christopher C. Robinson | How To Do Things With Wittgenstein | Theory & Event 4:4 How To Do Things With Wittgenstein 4:4 | © 2001 Christopher C. Robinson Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox (Verso, 2000) Robin Holt, Wittgenstein, Politics and Human Rights (N.Y. Routledge, 1997); Simon Glendinning, On Being With Others: Heidegger -- Derrida -- Wittgenstein (Routledge, 1998) Nigel Pleasants, Wittgenstein and the Idea of a Critical Social Theory: A Critique of Giddens, Habermas and Bhaskar (N.Y.: Routledge, 1999). Political theorists have been at a loss on what to do with Wittgenstein. For some, the way to work with Wittgenstein is indirectly through surrogate "Wittgensteinians" like Peter Winch or Thomas Kuhn. Those who wish a more direct route display a tendency, following Hanna Pitkin, to consider the "significance" of Wittgenstein's philosophy for the enterprise of theorizing. Making the connection between Wittgenstein and political thought is a difficult one precisely because Wittgenstein did not talk about politics in any specific way, and his remarks regarding theory were anything but positive. One area where Wittgenstein and political theory could be said to overlap, noted Pitkin and others after her, is in the activity of reading. Political theorists read difficult texts, ponder the historical changes reflected in concepts such as politics, democracy, justice, and so on, while Wittgenstein describes words and contexts as tools that derive...