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Wittgenstein on the metaphysics of the self: the dialectic of solipsism in philosophical investigations
Author(s) -
Minar Edward H.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
pacific philosophical quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.914
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1468-0114
pISSN - 0279-0750
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0114.00067
Subject(s) - solipsism , metaphysics , philosophy , epistemology , dialectic , intelligibility (philosophy) , salient , reading (process) , linguistics , computer science , artificial intelligence
Wittgenstein’s later efforts to exorcise the attractions of solipsism involve descriptions of the uses of ‘I’ which may be taken to show that ‘I’ does not refer in its philosophically most salient uses. This point of “grammarrdquo;, however, would not by itself provide a direct refutation of solipsism; Philosophical Investigations ¶¶398‐410, of which this paper is a reading, traces a complex dialectic by which Wittgenstein elicits and questions the solipsist’s commitments. In challenging the intelligibility of the solipsist’s starting‐points, Wittgenstein raises a forceful demand for an explanation of the motivations behind metaphysical inquiry into the nature of the self.