Wittgenstein and Communication Technology : A conversation between Richard Harper and Constantine Sandis

Special Issue: PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH WITTGENSTEIN SOCIETY 10TH ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE: WITTGENSTEIN IN THE 21ST CENTURY © 2018 John Wiley & Sons LtdThis paper documents a conversation between a philosopher and a human computer interaction researcher whose research has been enormously influenced by Wittgenstein. In particular, the in vivo use of categories in the design of communications and AI technologies are discussed, and how this meaning needs to evolve to allow creative design to flourish. The paper will be of interest to anyone concerned with philosophical tools in everyday action.Non peer reviewe

Modern Moral Philosophy Before and After Anscombe

Prologue This paper argues for the following three theses: i) There was considerably more philosophy of action in moral theory before 1958 (when Anscombe complained of its lack under the banner 'philosophy of psychology') than there has been since. This is in part because ii) Anscombe influenced the formation of ‘virtue theory’ as yet another position within normative ethics, and iii) Anscombe’s work contributed to the fashioning of ‘moral psychology’as an altogether distinct (and now increasingly empirical) branch of moral philosophy. None of (i-iii) were foreseen – let alone intended – by Anscombe, who would have been displeased by this state of affairs, already evident at the time of her death in early 2001. The tragic irony of ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’ (MMP), then, is that in many ways the past century of ethical theory make more sense read backwards. My somewhat programmatic investigation into this predicament begins somewhere in the middle, with MMP, then proceeds to present what happened before and after in its light.Peer reviewe

The Doing and the Deed : Action in Normative Ethics

This material has been published in Philosophy of Action edited by Anthony O'Hear. This version is free to view and download for personal use only. Not for re-distribution, re-sale or use in derivative works. © 2017 Selection and editorial matter, Anthony O’Hear, individual chapters, the contributors.This essay is motivated by the thought that the things we do are to be distinguished from our acts of doing them. I defend a particular way of drawing this distinction before proceeding to demonstrate its relevance for normative ethics. Central to my argument is the conviction that certain ongoing debates in ethical theory begin to dissolve once we disambiguate the two concepts of action in question. If this is right, then the study of action should be accorded a far more prominent place within moral philosophy than previously supposed. I end by considering an extension of the above to aesthetic evaluation and, mutatis mutandis, that of our lives in general

One Fell Swoop : Small Red Book Historicism Before and After Davidson

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of the following article: Constantine Sandis, ‘One Fell Swoop: Small Red Book Historicism Before and After Davidson’, Journal of the Philosophy of History, Vol. 9 (3): 372-392, 2015. The Version of Record is available online at doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/18722636-12341308.In this essay I revisit some anti-causalist arguments relating to reason-giving explanations of action put forth by numerous philosophers writing in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s in what Donald Davidson dismissively described as a ‘neo-Wittgensteinian current of small red books’. While chiefly remembered for subscribing to what has come to be called the ‘logical connection’ argument, the positions defended across these volumes are in fact as diverse as they are subtle, united largely by a an anti-scientistic spirit which may reasonably be described as historicist. I argue that while Davidson’s causalist attack was motivated by an important explanatory insight borrowed from Hempel, it caused serious damage to the philosophy of action by effectively brushing over a number of vital distinctions made in the aforementioned works. In seeking to revive these I propose an approach to the theory of action explanation that rescues the anti-causalist baby from the historicist bathwater.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

'If Some People Looked Like Elephants and Others Like Cats': : Wittgenstein on Understanding Others and Forms of Life

This manuscript version is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The version of record, © 2015, de Gruyer, Sandis, Constantine; ‘If some people looked like Elephants and Others Like Cats’, Wittgenstein on Understanding Others and Forms of Life, Nordic Wittgenstein Review, Special Issue, pp. 131-153, October 2015, ISSN 2242-248X. Available online at: http://www.nordicwittgensteinreview.com/article/view/3372This essay introduces a tension between the public Wittgenstein’s optimism about knowledge of other minds and the private Wittgenstein’s pessimism about understanding others. There are three related reasons which render the tension unproblematic. First, the barriers he sought to destroy were metaphysical ones, whereas those he struggled to overcome were psychological. Second, Wittgenstein’s official view is chiefly about knowledge while the unofficial one is about understanding. Last, Wittgenstein’s official remarks on understanding themselves fall into two distinct categories that don’t match the focus of his unofficial ones. One is comprised of those remarks in the Investigations that challenge the thought that understanding is an inner mental process. The other consists primarily of those passages in PPF and On Certainty concerned with the difficulty of understanding others without immersing oneself into their form of life. In its unofficial counterpart, Wittgenstein focuses on individuals, rather than collectives. The official and the unofficial sets of remarks are united in assuming a distinction between understanding a person and understanding the meaning of their words. If to understand a language is to understand a form of life, then to understand a person is to understand a whole life.Non peer reviewe

What is it to do nothing?

© The Author. This is the accepted manuscript version of a book chapter which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108628228.014We should reject any moral theory that rests on the metaphysical assumption that actions—or even their characterisations—can be neatly divided into positive acts of doing and so-called ‘negative’ acts of omitting, refraining, neglecting, and so on. This essay is an attempt to cut loose from the tenacious grip of such a picture and journey towards the elusive Bhagavadian view that all action contains inaction, and vice versa. Should it succeed, the repercussions for the doctrine of doing and allowing and related puzzles concerning moral responsibility are radical

Period and Place: : Collingwood and Wittgenstein on Understanding Others

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of the following article: C. Sandis, ‘Period and Place: Collingwood and Wittgenstein on Understanding Others’, Collingwood and British Idealism Studies, Vol 22 (1): 167-193, January 2016. The Version of Record is available online at: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/imp/col/2016/00000022/00000001/art00008.What it takes to understand radically different others lies at the heart of the philosophies developed by Collingwood and Wittgenstein at roughly the same time. Their approaches contain three differences of focus that are prima facie significant: (i) period vs. place; (ii) individual vs. collective; (iii) re-enactment vs. forms of life. In this essay I demonstrate that these are little more than a divergence in emphasis and thatwemust view their approaches as complimentary, rather than opposed. This this is not a simple case of reaching the same conclusions through different, let alone incompatible, routes. Far from it. The two philosophers use similar methods and reason in similar ways when considering the relation of thought to action, and of both thought and action to explanation and understanding. This is particularly remarkable given that the two thinkers are often thought to stand at opposite ends of the methodological spectrum with respect to the value of metaphysics.Peer reviewe

Against principles

Constantine Sandis argues for a holistic approach to museum

No Picnic: Cavell on Rule-Descriptions

© 2021 The Authors. Philosophical Investigations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.In his first paper, ‘Must We Mean What We Say?’, Stanley Cavell defended the methods of ordinary language philosophy against various charges made by his senior colleague, Benson Mates, under the influence of the empirical semantics of Arne Naess. Cavell’s argument hinges on the claim that native speakers are a source of evidence for 'what is said' in language and, accordingly, need not base their claims about ordinary language upon evidence. In what follows, I maintain that this defence against empirical semantics applies equally well to experimental philosophy's attack on doing philosophy from the armchair. In so doing, I attempt to clarify – and adjust – Cavell's claim that statements about ordinary language are rule‐descriptions that are neither analytic nor synthetic.Peer reviewe