Synthesizing without concepts
Peter Sullivan
(Abstract for talk in Bergen, October 2008)
In Culture and Value Wittgenstein gave expression to a conception of an ‘inner limit’
of language that is important in both his earlier and his later philosophy: “The limit
of language is shown by its being impossible to describe the fact which corresponds
to…a sentence, without simply repeating the sentence. (This has to do with the
Kantian solution of the problem of philosophy.)” (CV p. 10). In relation to both his
earlier and his later work there is a question of how Wittgenstein’s conception of this
limit is connected with Kant’s thought: does Wittgenstein thought about this limit
invite, or does it overcome, Kant’s transcendental idealism?
My own (perhaps surprising) view on these questions is that (a) in his early work,
Wittgenstein’s treatment of this limit is part of his successful resistance to the pull of
idealism, whereas (b) his later treatment of it, in the consideration of rule‐following,
succumbs to idealism; further, (c) that the aspects of Wittgenstein’s later thought
about rules that commit him to idealism are simply mistaken.
Even so, I think it is clear that deep issues have been raised by those who have
explored connections between Wittgenstein’s rule‐following considerations and
Kantian reflections on the fundamental ground of the possibility of judgement. One
outstanding example of this kind of work is David’s Bell’s paper, “The Art of
Judgement”; Adrian Moore’s recent work presents another example. In this talk,
then, I set out to ask, concentrating particularly on Bell, whether the insights
presented in this work are separable from idealist commitments. The approach is
expository, comparative, and selective. My tentative conclusions are (a) that there is
indeed a “way of understanding that is not an interpretation”; (b) that this has just
the importance Bell claims for an understanding of how our experience can be
meaningful to us; but that (c) acknowledging this does not commit us to recognizing
any ‘pre‐conceptual’ (or ‘sub‐bedrock’) synthesis, or any kind of unity in experience
that grounds the possibility of judgement.