The voluminous writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein contain some of the most profound reflections of recent times on the nature of the human subject and self-understanding - the human condition, philosophically speaking. Describing Ourselves mines those extensive writings for a conception of the self that stands in striking contrast to its predecessors as well as its more recent alternatives. More specifically, the book offers a detailed discussion of Wittgenstein's later writings on language and mind as they hold special significance for the understanding and clarification of the distinctive character of self-descriptive or autobiographical language.
Garry L. Hagberg undertakes a ground-breaking philosophical investigation of selected autobiographical writings - among the best examples we have of human selves exploring themselves - as they cast new and special light on the critique of mind-body dualism and its undercurrents in particular and on the nature of autobiographical consciousness more generally. The chapters take up in turn the topics of self-consciousness, what Wittgenstein calls 'the inner picture', mental privacy and the picture of metaphysical seclusion, the very idea of our observation of the contents of consciousness, first-person expressive speech, reflexive or self-directed thought and competing pictures of introspection, the nuances of retrospective self-understanding, person-perception and the corollary issues of self-perception (itself an interestingly dangerous phrase), self-defining memory, and the therapeutic conception of philosophical progress as it applies to all of these issues.
The cast of characters interwoven throughout this rich discussion include, inaddition to Wittgenstein centrally, Augustine, Goethe, Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Iris Murdoch, Donald Davidson, and Stanley Cavell, among others. Throughout, conceptual clarifications concerning mind and language are put to work in the investigation of issues relating to self-description and in novel philosophical readings of autobiographical texts.

This edited collection investigates the kinds of philosophical reflection we can undertake in the imaginative worlds of literature. Opening with a look into the relations between philosophical thought and literary interpretation, the volume proceeds through absorbing discussions of the ways we can see life through the lens of literature, the relations between philosophical saying and literary showing, and some ways we can see the literary past philosophically and assess its significance for the present. Taken as a whole, the volume shows how imagined contexts can be a source of knowledge, a source of conceptual clarification, and a source of insight and understanding. And because philosophical thinking is undertaken, after all, in words, a heightened sensitivity to the precise employments of our words - particularly philosophically central words such as truth, reality, perception, knowledge, selfhood, illusion, understanding, falsehood - can bring a clarity and a refreshed sense of the life that our words take on in fully-described contexts of usage. And in these imagined contexts we can also see more acutely and deeply into the meaning of words about words - metaphor and figurative tropes, verbal coherence, intelligibility, implication, sense, and indeed the word "meaning" itself. Moving from a philosophical issue into a literary world in which the central concepts of that issue are in play can thus enrich our comprehension of those concepts and, in the strongest cases, substantively change the way we see them. With a combination of conceptual acuity and literary sensitivity, this volume maps out some of the territory that philosophical reflection and literary engagement share.

In his intriguing new book, David Goldblatt examines what he calls "the complex logic of ventriloquism" and its relationship with art, philosophy and the artistic process. In the conversational exchange between ventriloquist and dummy, Goldblatt recognizes a speaking in other voices, illusion without deception, talking to oneself, effacing oneself as speaker, being beside oneself - the ancient Greek notion of Ecstasisi - and the animation of inanimate objects as an unabashed anthropomorphism.
Like ventriloqual dummies, artworks take on personalities, characters of their own, often saying what the artist herself would or could not say in voices distinct from her (our) daily modes of expression. Goldblatt uses ventriloquism as an apt metaphor to help understand a variety of artworld phenomena - how the vocal vacillation between ventriloquist and dummy work is mimicked in the relationship of artist, artwork and audience, including the ways in which artworks are interpreted. Moreover, Goldblatt uses the concept of ventriloquism to generate insights into many of our important philosophers' writings on the arts, discussing the work of Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida, Cavell, Wittgenstein, among others.
Featuring a critical commentary by Garry L. Hagberg and preface by series editor, Saul Ostrow.

In his intriguing new book, David Goldblatt examines what he calls "the complex logic of ventriloquism" and its relationship with art, philosophy and the artistic process. In the conversational exchange between ventriloquist and dummy, Goldblatt recognizes a speaking in other voices, illusion without deception, talking to oneself, effacing oneself as speaker, being beside oneself - the ancient Greek notion of Ecstasisi - and the animation of inanimate objects as an unabashed anthropomorphism.
Like ventriloqual dummies, artworks take on personalities, characters of their own, often saying what the artist herself would or could not say in voices distinct from her (our) daily modes of expression. Goldblatt uses ventriloquism as an apt metaphor to help understand a variety of artworld phenomena - how the vocal vacillation between ventriloquist and dummy work is mimicked in the relationship of artist, artwork and audience, including the ways in which artworks are interpreted. Moreover, Goldblatt uses the concept of ventriloquism to generate insights into many of our important philosophers' writings on the arts, discussing the work of Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida, Cavell, Wittgenstein, among others.
Featuring a critical commentary by Garry L. Hagberg and preface by series editor, Saul Ostrow.

The voluminous writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein contain some of the most profound reflections of recent times on the nature of the human subject and self-understanding - the human condition, philosophically speaking. Describing Ourselves mines those extensive writings for a conception of the self that stands in striking contrast to its predecessors as well as its more recent alternatives. More specifically, the book offers a detailed discussion of Wittgenstein's later writings on language and mind as they hold special significance for the understanding and clarification of the distinctive character of self-descriptive or autobiographical language.
Garry L. Hagberg undertakes a ground-breaking philosophical investigation of selected autobiographical writings--among the best examples we have of human selves exploring themselves--as they cast new and special light on the critique of mind-body dualism and its undercurrents in particular and on the nature of autobiographical consciousness more generally. The chapters take up in turn the topics of self-consciousness, what Wittgenstein calls 'the inner picture', mental privacy and the picture of metaphysical seclusion, the very idea of our observation of the contents of consciousness, first-person expressive speech, reflexive or self-directed thought and competing pictures of introspection, the nuances of retrospective self-understanding, person-perception and the corollary issues of self-perception (itself an interestingly dangerous phrase), self-defining memory, and the therapeutic conception of philosophical progress as it applies to all of these issues.
The cast of characters interwoven throughout this rich discussion include, in addition to Wittgenstein centrally, Augustine, Goethe, Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Iris Murdoch, Donald Davidson, and Stanley Cavell, among others. Throughout, conceptual clarifications concerning mind and language are put to work in the investigation of issues relating to self-description and in novel philosophical readings of autobiographical texts.

This collection examines the relationship between Augustine and Wittgenstein and demonstrates the deep affinity they share, not only for the substantive issues they treat but also for the style of philosophizing they employ. Wittgenstein saw certain salient Augustinian approaches to concepts like language-learning, will, memory, and time as prompts for his own philosophical explorations, and he found great inspiration in Augustine's highly personalized and interlocutory style of writing philosophy. Each in his own way, in an effort to understand human experience more fully, adopts a mode of philosophizing that involves questioning, recognizing confusions, and confronting doubts. Beyond its bearing on such topics as language, meaning, knowledge, and will, their analysis extends to the nature of religious belief and its fundamental place in human experience. The essays collected here consider a broad range of themes, from issues regarding teaching, linguistic meaning, and self-understanding to miracles, ritual, and religion.