A No‐Theory?: Against Hutto on Wittgenstein

This ambitious book aims to carve out in greater detail than has hitherto been attempted by anyone the relatively new space that its sub-title intimates. The book is ambitious and polemical, including against this reviewer’s work; this review will at times – responding to Hutto’s way of setting out the debate – be somewhat lively, too. Dan Hutto wishes to assert both that the Tractatus does not present a philosophical theory and that he does not wish to be identified with ‘the therapeutic view’, by which he refers to the ConantDiamond etc. account of certain features of the Tractatus and also of Wittgenstein’s later work. The continuity in Wittgenstein’s thought can be seen, according to Hutto, in the lack of theory which is evidenced throughout Wittgenstein’s work. In particular, the key to understanding what sort of philosophical activity Wittgenstein was advocating in the Tractatus, is, says Hutto, to be sought in Wittgenstein’s conception of logic. Hutto hopes to end up with a different view than the ‘view’ of Conant and Diamond on all this. But does he succeed in understanding the latter? Does he in practice consider it seriously enough as a candidate interpretation of the text? He clearly does not think that the ‘propositions’ of the Tractatus are nonsensical or meaningless, as he tells us what they mean. For