Wittgenstein as an Advocate for Social and Political Change

Abstract

I offer a Marxist reading of Ludwig Wittgenstein and juxtapose his famous dictum that philosophy ‘leaves everything as it is’ with the idea of transformative action. I seek to align the later philosophy of Wittgenstein with Karl Marx’s eleventh thesis on Ludwig Feuerbach. I advance an unorthodox view interpreting Wittgenstein as an advocate for social and political reform. Wittgenstein’s philosophy encourages us to imagine alternative horizons and contemplate concrete possibilities for changing the world. The debate operates within the philosophy of education and draws inspiration from related inquiries in political thought and, more specifically, from Marxist connections with Wittgenstein.

[Philosophy] leaves everything as it is.

(PI §124)

The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.

(Marx and Engels 2010: 5)

Introduction

My narrative on democracy and social justice continues in this chapter by exploring the later philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. How do we reconcile Wittgenstein’s dictum that philosophy ‘leaves everything as it is’ (PI §124)¹ with Karl Marx’s insistence that ‘philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it’ (Marx and Engels 2010: 5)?

I consider Wittgenstein’s aphorism against the backdrop of educational philosophy and political thinking before formulating a Marxist reading of Wittgenstein. My intention is to align his later philosophy with Marx’s eleventh thesis on Ludwig Feuerbach and make a Wittgensteinian case for social and political change. This unorthodoxy² is significant since it challenges conventional interpretations according to which Section 124 of the Philosophical Investigations reverses the eleventh thesis.³

Philosophy Leaves Everything as It Is

Now Wittgenstein is not a social engineer or a political philosopher. He does not speak directly to the struggles of workers or to the uncovering and dismantling of hidden contradictions and asymmetries of power and privilege. He makes no formal links between theory and praxis in the context of social and political change. Also, he denounces philosophical theorising and certainly does not want philosophy to become the handmaiden of science. It is hardly surprising, then, that Wittgenstein and Marx can be seen to be worlds apart.

My approach is presented in the same spirit as Marxist scholars who seek to find deep commonalities between Wittgenstein and Marx, show how their respective worldviews are mutually enriching and who believe that the ideas and methods of these two thinkers can be used to inform social and political criticism.⁴ Also, I take Nigel Pleasants’ cue that Wittgenstein’s philosophical approach ‘stimulates a critical attitude towards traditional philosophical issues and problems’ that ‘can be extended to reflecting upon, and questioning, aspects of social, political and moral life’ (Pleasants 2002: 166).

In Section 109 of the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein makes it plain that our considerations into the ordinary workings of language are not scientific ones and that there is no room to ‘advance any kind of theory’. ‘We must do away with all explanation’, he insists, ‘and description alone must take its place.’ Moreover, our philosophical problems are solved, not by discovering new experience, but by ‘arranging what we have always known’. Wittgenstein’s infamous maxim soon follows:

• Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only describe it.

• For it cannot give it any foundation either.

• It leaves everything as it is.

• It also leaves mathematics as it is, and no mathematical discovery can advance it. A ‘leading problem of mathematical logic’ is for us a problem of mathematics like any other. (PI §124)⁵

Sections 125 to 133 buttress Wittgenstein’s position that philosophy puts everything in plain view. It neither explains nor deduces anything. The aspects of things which are important are only hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity and, hence, our failure to notice what is always before one’s eyes. Our aim is for conceptual clarity which we seek to achieve by demonstrating philosophical methods that, like different therapies, proceed by giving examples which eliminate difficulties and remove philosophical problems. And the business of philosophy is not to make discoveries in the way that science does, but to offer a clear view of, for example, the state of mathematics that troubles us.

Reflections in Educational Philosophy

How do Wittgenstein’s remarks sit within the field of educational philosophy? In particular, how do they cater for social and political critique? The starting point is to read Section 124 in context (Smeyers 2017: 243) and appreciate that philosophy, or theory, does not leave everything as it is (Standish 2017: 263). Facts in the world may not change but our understanding of them changes along with their significance.⁶ Language evolves and concepts are continuously revised, perhaps ‘by finding and inventing intermediate cases’ (PI §122), and new terms are introduced (such as language-games and family resemblances) but none of this takes place, Wittgenstein rightly contends, by inventing a new or ideal language or constructing a new symbolism—our language of every day is ‘completely in order, as long as we are clear about what it symbolizes’ (Waismann 1979: 45–46).⁷

Paul Smeyers reminds us that Wittgenstein’s attack is primarily against theorists who, for instance, use theories that resemble those found in the scientific paradigm and which make causal, and not conceptual connections, operate as hypotheses waiting to be tested by experiment or experience in general, and which involve deductions and the drawing of conclusions rather than providing descriptions by means of examples (Smeyers 2017: 243–244). Wittgenstein is very much concerned with traditional philosophical problems (many of which traverse social, political and moral life) and does not want them to fall within the realm of science.⁸ Viewing his aphorism in this light, Paul Standish properly connects it with the then community of ‘scientific’ philosophers including the mindset of the author of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Standish 2017: 263).

Section 124 serves as a heuristic aimed at theorists—and educational philosophers no less—to think about the things we do in practice: the way we research, argue, draw conclusions, debate our theories and positions (in the senses Wittgenstein means) and publish our work. This has a significant purchase given the interdisciplinary nature of research and teaching and, with it, the importance of recognising, as legitimate, different epistemologies, styles of reasoning and methods of inquiry. Indeed, our domains of knowledge, once subjected to Wittgenstein’s investigations, will not remain the same (Hacker 1972: 125–126). Nevertheless, how does Wittgenstein’s philosophy connect with the educational notion of transformative or emancipatory action? Here are some illustrations or clues.

Bringing Wittgenstein’s language-games into the classroom allows us to change our perspective on how we use and define concepts and, in turn, reflect on their underlying premises (Edwards 2019: 676). As researchers, we come to look at the world differently and so we, too, change (Smeyers 2017: 247). As teachers, we can use works of art, for example, to trigger our students’ imagination to see things in the right perspective—like when we are sitting in a theatre and watching an actor perform a mundane task, say, lighting a cigarette, ‘observing a human being from outside in a way that ordinarily we can never observe ourselves’; where ‘it would be like watching a chapter of biography with our own eyes’; something ‘uncanny and wonderful at the same time’ (CV 4)—and, as Adrian Skilbeck continues, our challenge is to ‘create the conditions under which students feel willing and prepared to expose themselves to the risks involved in making claims through their art’ (Skilbeck 2017: 202–204).

Jeff Stickney suggests we can take the lead from scholars in philosophical feminism, ethical philosophy and political philosophy to advance a social reading of Wittgenstein’s later work in an effort to bring about political change and achieve social justice (Stickney 2020: 8). Aligning Wittgenstein with Marx’s eleventh thesis on Feuerbach would certainly speak to this. Stickney foresees educational philosophers playing a role in delivering a decolonising education and that this will change our natural history by altering our language and forms of life (Id. 10). He writes:

Here I am possibly caught in a contradiction, as my use of Wittgenstein’s philosophy does not ‘leave everything as it is’, but sides more with Marx in seeking not only to describe but to change the world. (ibid.)

Claudia Schumann points out that we can distinguish between the limits and the ‘possibilities of effecting change through theorizing’; and that, by advancing a positive critical analysis, we ‘open up new ways of understanding’ and are able to develop, among other things, the ‘transformative potential of feminist political practice’ (Schumann 2017: 381 and 385).

This discussion leads naturally to my unorthodox view that Wittgenstein’s philosophy is an instrument for social and political change. In educational philosophy, Maxine Greene’s pioneering work on ‘looking at things as if they could be otherwise’⁹ runs along the same Wittgensteinian tracks that head towards imagining alternative horizons and contemplating concrete possibilities for changing the world. Here we can utilise her thesis that by mediating with creative and imaginative works such as literature, poetry, sculpture, theatre, film, music and dance we empower our students to tear apart the ‘cotton wool of daily life’ (Greene 2018: 185) and imagine better worlds for themselves (Greene 2017: 494–495 and 500–501; 2018: 15, 163, 185–186 and 196); invite them to engage with the ‘imaginary mode of awareness’ and ‘break with the taken-for-granted, with the ordinary and the mundane’ (Greene 2018: 181) and encourage them to take transformative action to ‘repair the lacks, to move through the openings, to try to pursue real possibilities’ (Id. 223). Greene writes:

Imagination, after all, allows people to think of things as if they could be otherwise; it is a capacity that allows a looking through the windows of the actual towards alternative realities. (Greene 2017: 494–495)

The imaginative leap required to lead to transformative praxis is, moreover, dependent on ‘seeing things close up and large’ (Greene 1995: 16). No longer seeing things small, from a safe distance, and as mere objects—in the way we may have previously looked at ‘schooling through the lenses of a system’ (Id. 11), we see people and things for whom and what they truly are. And this passion for seeing the world big is the ‘doorway for imagination’, where there is the ‘possibility of looking at things as if they could be otherwise’ (Id. 16).

Moving on the same tracks is José Medina’s work on ‘resistant imaginations’.¹⁰ He says we should explore the role imagination plays in our epistemic lives and especially when we are contemplating epistemic alternatives (Medina 2013: 53). We have to resist ossification, he insists, and reimagine our generic categories (man, woman, white, black, straight, gay, etc.). To remain truly alive and to cease following the path of least resistance, we need the assistance of:

a resistant imagination—an imagination that is ready to confront relational possibilities that have been lost, ignored, or that remain to be discovered or invented. (Id. 299)

Lessons from Political Thought

Alice Crary presents an in-depth analysis of the significance of Wittgenstein’s philosophy for political thought (Crary 2000). Her concern with the ongoing debate between a popular interpretation on which Wittgenstein advances a view of meaning that threatens to rule out the possibility of social and political criticism and, in some instances, labels his work as deeply conservative and a more progressive reading on which Wittgenstein’s thought sheds light on our desire to instigate social and political change, even radical or revolutionary change is that both positions misinterpret Wittgenstein’s view of meaning and are not able to highlight how his philosophy informs political thought.¹¹

Crary seeks to present a more plausible account of the relevance that Wittgenstein’s philosophy holds for political thought by clarifying his view of meaning. She argues that Wittgenstein’s account of meaning does not commit him to the view that meaning is fixed independently of use or that use fixes meaning (Id. 131). Meanings are not fixed and we have no need to assume metaphysical vantage points before we can begin to critique our social and political practices. Rather, Wittgenstein wants us to bring ‘meaning’ and ‘criticism’ back from their metaphysical to their everyday use (Id.138). We can in fact submit all aspects of our lives to criticism but there may well be occasions when ‘we have no notion what (if anything) will count as the fulfilment of the words we are uttering’; in this sense, there are limits on our critical endeavours (Id. 139–140). Nevertheless Wittgenstein, Crary concludes:

presents us with a view of the conditions of human knowledge on which there is human activity in the forms of thought and speech we use in attempting to understand the world: here getting at the facts of a situation may require us to try and see it in a different light, to use our imagination in a variety of ways, to seek new experiences which help us to refine our sensitivities and so on. Wittgenstein’s writings in this respect teach us something about the kind of challenge we confront when we turn to investigating established modes of thought and speech (such as those that bear directly on political life), sorting out their injustices and developing more rigorously just and consistent ways of thinking and speaking. (Id. 141)

Everything that lies in plain view is open to question.¹² Wittgenstein encourages us to critique our social and cultural practices. Philosophy does not freeze our forms of life, our debates or our modes of criticism. Quite the opposite, it invites us, as Crary rightly says, to look at things afresh, to use our imagination and to seek new challenges in the ways we confront and negotiate the world. Wittgenstein writes:

The sickness of a time is cured by an alteration in the mode of life of human beings, and it was possible for the sickness of philosophical problems to get cured only through a changed mode of thought and of life, not through a medicine invented by an individual.

Suppose the use of the motor-car produces or encourages certain illnesses, and [humankind] is plagued by such illness until, from some cause or other, as the result of some development or other, it abandons the habit of driving. (RFM I, II, §4)

In her seminal work, Wittgenstein and Social Justice, Hannah Pitkin argues that philosophy’s success lies in showing the ‘deep necessities’ of our conceptual system—the very concepts that ‘reflect our most central forms of life’ and are altered by them (Pitkin 1972: 298). These concepts are, to be sure, intimately connected with our social, political and moral lives.¹³ In her view, ‘Wittgenstein is very close to Marx’ and the eleventh thesis on Feuerbach is parallel to Wittgenstein’s idea that the sickness of a time is cured by an alteration in our modes of life (Id. 340).¹⁴

The Grammar of Politics: Wittgenstein and Political Philosophy represents a collection of insightful essays that demonstrate the relevance of Wittgenstein’s methods to political thought.¹⁵ In addressing the question, What is political?, Allan Janik suggests we assemble ‘Wittgensteinian reminders of the role of the political in human experience that enable us to grasp how politics fits into human natural history’ (Janik 2003: 101). Politics permeates our ‘everyday concepts and conflicts’; and the ‘solution to our political problems’, he argues, ‘comes in the way we live, not in the theories we hold’ (ibid.).¹⁶ Clearly, our practices have their own political significance. Janik’s analysis of the interrelation between family resemblance concepts and the activity of rule-following (which itself manifests a certain regularity in human behaviour that limits the ways in which our practices can be altered) leads him to conclude:

To change society has to entail not simply changing the ruling ideas (the substance of the rules we abide by) but changing our mode of rule-following itself. (Id. 115)

Critical reflection on our social and political practices can bring about change. I am presenting Wittgenstein as a reformer in just this sense. James Tully’s exposition of our practices of critical reflection connects with this approach (Tully 2003). Rather than resorting to theory or relying on a single form of critical reflection as a foundation, our pressing political issues are resolved in practice and commence by surveying our diverse language-games of reflection.¹⁷ In the course of our activities of critical reflection, what we take for granted and what we call into question and reflect on are ‘provisional and subject to change and reversal over time’ (Id. 28–29). Tully writes:

our new understanding of the non-foundational and conditional role of practices of critical reflection gives a clearer view of the diverse forms they take and the boundary-challenging ways free critical reflection both rests on and questions its own conditionality. (Id. 34)

Tully adopts Wittgenstein’s metaphor of language as an ancient city (PI §18) to illustrate the maze of little streets and squares of old and new houses that frequent our practices of critical reflection (Tully 2003: 41). He rightly concludes the only guarantor of our free and critical life is the wisdom to accept and work within the ‘enlightening multiplicity of conceptions of critical reflection available to us’. We can use them ‘to reflect critically on, our well-trodden ways of thought and action, rendering them less indubitably foundational, and thereby disclosing possibilities of thinking and acting differently’ (ibid.). In this way, we are able to use critical concepts to address our social, political and moral questions.

Further, if we are able to identify with the voices represented in the internal dialogue in the Philosophical Investigations then, as Richard Eldridge explains, we are given a ‘chance to recognize in a new way what we do and might do in judging, in politics and in other domains’ (Eldridge 2003: 120–121). Wittgenstein’s remark that philosophy may not interfere with the use of language but only describe it does not have to be seen to endorse political conservatism or traditionalism even in hard cases. Eldridge takes up Stanley Cavell’s ‘argument of the ordinary’ and shows how by participating in the ‘conversation of justice’ we are able to move between different positions and work within a political framework of affirmative tolerance and mutual respect (Id. 124–128).

Eldridge and Crary’s essays are consistent with my argument that Wittgenstein’s philosophy encourages us to imagine other vistas and work on building avenues for changing the world. Finally, I endorse Denis McManus’ proposal to sketch a Wittgensteinian model for radical political critique (McManus 2003: 63). The key is to work through what Wittgenstein means by ‘nonsense’ and rehabilitate a ‘conception of “nonsense” as a term of criticism for the political thinker’ (Id. 65–66).¹⁸ His notion of ‘political imagination’ is intended to rescue the lives that animate our practices (and therefore the sense or meaningfulness that attaches to them); to stop them from slipping away (Id. 77). McManus concludes:

we can make sense of a species of reflection on our situation which reveals a species of nonsense in our lives and provides a Wittgensteinian model for radical political change. The model hopefully captures the difficulty and seriousness of such thought, the rare kind of insight required, and just how much is at stake. The vice we seek to expose is not speaking falsely or acting contrary to principle. Rather it is the descent of our talk into meaningless chatter and our action into token gesture. (Id. 81)

Looking at §124 of the Philosophical Investigations Through a Marxist Lens

Now we reach the crux of the matter and see how a Marxist reading of Wittgenstein can further support both the alignment of his later philosophy with Marx’s eleventh thesis on Feuerbach and place Wittgenstein as an advocate for changing our forms of social existence. In respect of my first task, then, Terrell Carver questions whether Marx’s retort about what philosophers should do and what philosophy should be ‘could be very close to Wittgenstein’s parable of philosophers as flies in fly-bottles’ or ‘it could be something very different and very confused’; and the answer depends on what readers bring to these remarks and what they intend to do with them (Carver 2002: 103–104). Here I agree with K.T. Fann that Wittgenstein’s philosophy is a tool that is entirely useless if you are not a fly trapped in the fly-bottle or are otherwise quite content to stay there (Fann 2002: 285).¹⁹

In my view, Wittgenstein and Marx challenge what we mean when we say we are doing philosophy. They rupture what we take for granted. Carver rightly says that both philosophers do not approve of the practice of philosophy as it is performed by their contemporaries. As an activity, Wittgenstein and Marx are ‘concerned with doing something—such that their contemporaries would be drawn up short and their self-understandings, and understandings of the world, disturbed’ (Carver 2002: 104). Indeed a theory of revolutionary praxis may well have been in Wittgenstein’s mind and life though, unlike Marx, it is not readily transparent in his works (Id. 107).²⁰

Moira De Iaco takes issue with reconciling Wittgenstein’s philosophy with Marx’s notion of transforming the world given that, for Wittgenstein, philosophy ‘must limit itself to leaving everything as it is’ (De Iaco 2021: 25). ‘Wittgenstein’s philosophy does not have’, in her view, ‘the purpose of changing society through the thought and rethinking of language. It does not look at society’ (Id. 26).²¹ De Iaco accuses Wittgenstein of focusing on the ‘role of praxis in the meaning processes of language’ without ‘considering these processes from an historical point of view’ (ibid.). Wittgenstein’s emphasis is on reforming metaphysically inclined philosophers hell-bent on misusing language²² rather than appreciating the wider role that ‘real historical circumstances’ play in determining thoughts, actions and events (Id. 28).²³

Even if De Iaco is correct in her reading of his work, can we not choose to read Wittgenstein from the point of view of an absence? If we take Nancy Fraser’s cue,²⁴ we can extrapolate from things Wittgenstein does say to things he does not and reformulate his conception of praxis as if he had considered the historical perspective. Nevertheless, De Iaco does attempt to close this gap by suggesting we can use Wittgenstein’s method for analysing linguistic usage in a manner which complements the way we use ‘Marxist conceptual tools’ to ‘investigate the social–historical processes that affect language and real life with which language is intertwined’ (Id. 26). Our toolbox for addressing ‘concrete linguistic uses’ is, in other words, strengthened by combining these complementary aspects of Marxist and Wittgensteinian philosophies (Id. 28–29).

Robert Vinten is right, in my view, to suggest that the underlying tensions between Wittgenstein and Marx dissolve once we appreciate the different ways in which both thinkers approach the nature of philosophy (Vinten 2013: 10).²⁵ ‘Wittgenstein’s elucidatory philosophy’, he argues, ‘does not obviously conflict with Marx’s emancipatory philosophy’ if we accept that Wittgenstein engages in different tasks from those performed by Marxists (Id. 13).²⁶ There is no barrier, Vinten concludes, to combining both philosophical approaches in our practical endeavours (Id. 22).²⁷ They are, to be sure, mutually enriching.

The question concerning the extent of the tension between the claims that philosophy leaves everything as it is and that philosophers ought to change the world, not merely interpret it is raised directly by Rupert Read. He is right to claim that ‘Unless language can take care of itself, there can be no taking care of it’; and, in this respect, philosophy ‘leaves language as it is’ (Read 2002: 256). Read finds points of convergence between Wittgenstein and Marx²⁸ and answers:

Marx’s approach, like Wittgenstein’s, has to be seen as essentially practical, getting one primarily not to think something one doesn’t think, but to do something one doesn’t want to do. And, more generally, that resources are available to us—within Marx, within our lives and experiences, our societies, within ‘common sense’—both to avoid ‘idea-ism’ and to embrace a vision and practice of changing the world (including importantly, as Wittgenstein would emphasise, oneself). Of course, to say this still does not in the slightest imply that it will be easy to do. (Id. 272)

Read seeks to fill the lacuna by suggesting that Marx could have endorsed Section 124 of the Philosophical Investigations and much of Wittgenstein’s philosophy and methods and that Wittgenstein, in turn, could have endorsed Marx’s eleventh thesis on Feuerbach and that he, Wittgenstein, was ‘not against changing things (even by means of philosophy)’ (Id. 274).²⁹ He concludes that there is a ‘fit’ between Wittgenstein and Marx and the ‘point may indeed very much be still to change the world’ (Id. 275). Wittgenstein’s philosophy may appear more ‘individualist’ than Marx’s, Reid writes, but Wittgenstein does not want us to work upon ourselves ‘in a narrow and introspective way’; rather he hopes that the darkness of our time ‘might be altered by people taking up his work and using it to think (and act) with’ (Id. 277).

Despite the popular image of Wittgenstein as a ‘deeply apolitical thinker’, a closer inspection of the ‘biographical and broader historical context of his life and thought’, Dimitris Gakis remarks, ‘reveals a number of interesting connections to Marx(ism)’ (Gakis 2021: 8). He reiterates our finding that they share a critical attitude that approaches philosophy as a ‘matter of praxis and method’ as distinct from a ‘mystifying, metaphysical tradition’ couched in ‘doctrine or dogma’ (Id. 11). It is here, Gakis continues, that their outlooks ‘converge on the potentially transformational and emancipatory character of philosophy’ (Id. 11–12). To this, he adds their connections between philosophical and everyday human activity (and how theoretical problems are dissolved in practical life) and then argues that Marx’s eleventh thesis and Wittgenstein’s aphorism that philosophy leaves everything as it is (‘with the “everything” ranging over the use of language’) may be taken to be in fact complementary and not opposed (Id. 12–13). Gakis concludes that Wittgenstein’s philosophy is of ‘critical importance from a political point of view’ (Id. 15).

One contact point that Marco Gigante pursues between Wittgenstein and Marx is the ‘attribution to philosophical thought, understood as praxis, of the power to transform the real’, the power to transform social relations (Gigante 2021: 42). He discusses Marx’s eleventh thesis and Wittgenstein’s remarks on the role of philosophy as therapy³⁰ and its task to leave everything as it is (Id. 48–49). Gigante couples Wittgenstein’s account of language with the transformative power of philosophy advanced by Marx (Id. 49–50). ‘Both philosophers’, he says, ‘show the instruments for carving out a different role for [philosophy’s] exercise and therefore for the use of its own demystifying power’ (Id. 50). This task does not involve new interpretations of the world, Gigante continues, but the ‘description of the logics of social life’ that are always before one’s eyes and the understanding that enables us to ‘identify and remove the conditions that alone can transform them or give rise to other forms of life’. He concludes:

Marx and Wittgenstein aim at making philosophy an instrument of criticism, a tool by which men and women can more and more effectively recognize the contingent character of the ideological constructions they are surrounded by; that is, in doing so, the philosophical discourse becomes a practice of transformation, a way to change the process of description and interpretation of the world itself. (ibid.)³¹

I have already started to touch upon the emancipatory or transformative power of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. Moving onto my second task, and drawing on further insights from Marxist thinking, I now investigate the possibilities that Wittgenstein’s philosophy holds for reforming our social existence. The first thing to note is that a philosopher should not find him or herself trapped within any particular community of ideas. We all hold certain beliefs and values. And, not surprisingly, we are members of different human communities but, as philosophers, we need to keep our critical distance and try and see them for what they are.³² ‘The philosopher is not a citizen of any community of ideas’, Wittgenstein insists, and this is precisely ‘what makes him into a philosopher’ (Z §455).

T.P. Uschanov says that this remark is the ‘core of Wittgenstein’s attitude towards the mixing of philosophy and politics’ (Uschanov 2002: 38). As philosophers we should not treat the ideas of one ideology more favourably than those of another; rather, we should be content to support our preferred political party’s ideas ‘from without’ (ibid.). Uschanov also cites Cavell’s related point that ‘when philosophers do change things, there’s nothing about their being philosophers that specially enables them to do this’ (Id. 39). Philosophy leaving everything as it is does not mean that philosophers are estopped from trying to change their society. Individuals and movements are free to work on changing things only that philosophy by itself, theory to be precise, will not get them there.³³

The ‘obvious point’, Pleasants explains, is that ‘to say philosophy leaves things as they are neither entails nor implies that they should be left as they are’; and, in line with Marx’s eleventh thesis, the ‘natural implication is, then, that if one really wants to change things, doing philosophy is not the way to go about it’ (Pleasants 2002: 169). He says we can bring Wittgenstein’s Socratic presentation of the reminders about things ‘we have always known’ but have since forgotten or misplaced³⁴ to bear on the problems that trouble us without resorting to any special philosophical insight or explanatory theory (Id. 164). The quest for universal critical standards remains ‘chimerical’ (Id. 174–175). Description that promotes changing how people see their reality is what is needed, not an explanation that unearths its ‘hidden essence’ (Id. 177).

Pleasants demonstrates how Wittgenstein’s remarks—relating to changing the way we look at things,³⁵ the considerable effort of will rather than intellect required to make such changes³⁶ and his appeal that we ‘look and see... don’t think, but look’³⁷—form an essential part of his philosophy as a therapeutic process and which is capable of producing a change in attitude and that we can extend and apply Wittgenstein’s ‘way of seeing’ to new problems provided they are of ‘personal interest and significance’ (Id. 165). This approach, he says, connects with Marx’s maxim on changing the world and ‘stimulates a critical attitude towards traditional philosophical issues and problems’ that is key to challenging ‘aspects of social, political and moral life’ (Id. 166).³⁸

The point of a ‘radical social critique’—one which strikes at the heart of our social and political foundations—is, Pleasants continues, ‘somehow to get the participants themselves to see and share one’s critical view’ (Id. 175). He writes:

The task of the social critic is not a theoretical one; rather, the desideratum is to change the way people see their relations with their fellow creatures and their environment. And with that change of seeing comes change in acting. (ibid.)

Doğan Göcmen and Doğan Baris Kilinc discuss what Wittgenstein and Marx understand by criticising the world and what their intentions are in doing so. Marx is intent on changing the world and Wittgenstein wants to resolve philosophical problems by addressing language problems occurring in the real world (Göcmen and Kilinc 2021: 53).³⁹ The praxis of language, they suggest, should be taken in a wide sense in respect of both philosophers (Id. 64). They conclude:

In the Tractatus [Wittgenstein] presents how the proposition, language, and thought were gained from the world and now in the Investigations he suggests that they return to the world in the actions of socially embedded individuals to change the world. The aim of changing the world is to establish an ethical life, not beyond good and evil, but beyond ‘punishment and reward’. This is also the principle Marx seems to employ as the basis of his theory of socialism. (ibid.)

Antonia Soulez conceives of Wittgenstein’s ‘praxis of the use of language’ as an activity in a social or institutional sense that nevertheless has indirect political implications (Soulez 2021: 171–174). And while Wittgenstein does not aim for social transformation through, for example, a ‘politically active programme’, she does ask how we may relate his idea of the transformation of oneself to taking action in the world (Id. 173).⁴⁰ How does self-improvement lead to emancipatory action? Soulez says we can read Wittgenstein’s approach ‘as critical even in a social sense, even though it is not overtly political’ (Id. 176). This must be right.⁴¹ Employing Aldo Gargani’s reading of Wittgenstein, moreover, we should dispense with the traditional philosopher’s task of ‘applying models to reality’; accept that reality is ‘irregular and uneven’ and that it ‘cannot be dealt with using exact tools’; and that we must adjust one’s tools to meet ‘contingent, uneven realities’ (Id. 177). Of Wittgenstein, she writes:

he certainly provided us with the epistemological tools useful for building a political conception of constructive models that could shed light on praxis as a politically linguistic activity through the reversal of the very-relation of model to real. (Id. 178)

The last step in my unorthodox advancement of Wittgenstein as an advocate for transformational change and the use of his philosophy to open up new horizons is afforded by Marco Brusotti. He reads the later Wittgenstein as a philosopher who takes up a ‘contemplative’ stance that is non-causal and at odds with science (Brusotti 2021: 185–186). But what does ‘contemplative’ mean here? Exploring Wittgenstein’s conversation with Rush Rhees, Brusotti suggests that ‘consideration’ and ‘comparison’ are what Wittgenstein is driving at and that Wittgenstein’s ‘contemplative philosopher’ is focused on showing other possibilities, other ways in which things might be done (Id. 186–187). Wittgenstein is, it seems to me at least, anticipating Greene’s notion of ‘looking at things as if they could be otherwise’.⁴²

There are and always will be ‘other and different ways of social existence’ (Id. 187). Further, the reason why a contemplative philosopher is ‘concerned with pointing out other possibilities’ and to make comparisons is, Brusotti says, ‘understanding’. This may well include imagining ‘circumstances and surroundings in which a familiar institution or activity may lose its point’ (ibid.). Wittgenstein is, to be sure, calling the necessity of our institutions into question.⁴³ He is asking us to consider ‘alternatives, even imaginary possibilities that show the alleged necessity to be contingent’ (ibid.). This insight shows how Wittgenstein’s ‘contemplative’ philosopher is able to challenge our political landscape and envision alternatives in the name of democracy and social justice. Brusotti continues:

For the philosopher, alternative possibilities are mere objects of comparison in order to better understand a familiar cultural phenomenon. Even when this phenomenon seems to be necessary and unique, the ethnological eye looks at it as something that could have been otherwise. (Id. 188)

Brusotti’s ideas certainly connect with Greene’s work. It also meshes with Medina’s notion of ‘resistant imaginations’⁴⁴ and further complements the contemplative philosopher in his or her task of calling into question the alleged necessity of our institutions. This insight demonstrates how Wittgenstein’s ‘contemplative’ philosopher can take up Marx’s gauntlet and not only interpret the world but change it. Again to borrow from Fraser, Wittgenstein is inviting us to cut our teeth on the struggles and wishes of our age (Fraser 1989: 113).

I close with these thoughts from Gavin Kitching:

Wittgenstein found a voice—a form of speaking and writing—that is appropriate, and deeply appropriate, not just for doing philosophy in a postmodern, highly individualised, bourgeois democratic society, but also a voice which is equally appropriate for doing political and ethical and religious and aesthetic debate (both with others and with oneself) in such societies. (Kitching 2002: 15–16)

Conclusion

I have assessed Wittgenstein’s dictum that philosophy ‘leaves everything as it is’ (PI §124) in light of educational philosophy, political philosophy and Marxist thinking. I made the case for presenting a Marxist reading of Wittgenstein and showed how his later philosophy aligns with Marx’s eleventh thesis on Feuerbach (rather than reverses it). I argued that Wittgenstein can be portrayed as an advocate for social and political reform and foregrounded the emancipatory power of his later philosophy. The final step in this intricate process involved assimilating Greene’s ground-breaking work on ‘looking at things as if they could be otherwise’ and Medina’s idea of ‘resistant imaginations’ with Brusotti’s notion of the Wittgensteinian ‘contemplative’ philosopher. This demonstrated, I argued, how the critical being is empowered to take up Marx’s gauntlet and not only interpret the world, but change it for the better. The unorthodoxy expressed by my ideas is, moreover, consistent with emerging trends in political philosophy and Marxist thinking that offer different perspectives on how we may interpret Wittgenstein’s philosophy and methods and which underscore their significance for tackling democratic and social justice issues.

Next, I turn to Part IV of this book and delve into the nature of thinking.