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							Antonio Ianni Segatto
Wittgenstein’s methods: the struggle against dogmatism

In the Preface to the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein explains the circumstances of composition
of the book and writes “It suddenly seemed to me that I should publish those old thoughts and the new
ones together: that the latter could only be seen in the right light only by contrast with and against the
background of my old way of thinking”. With these words, he is, at first sight, just emphasizing the
distance between the conceptions he advanced in the Tractatus logico-philosophicus and the ones
presented in the album, according to his own characterization of the book. But it is not just that. He is also
pointing at the difference between two ways of thinking, and this could be understood as the difference
between his conceptions of method: the methods practiced and praised in the Tractatus and the new one,
developed since 1930s. Besides that, we could read Wittgenstein’s words as indicating certain continuity
between the two books, since the new thoughts should be understood not only by contrast with, but also
against the background of his old way of thinking.
To begin to understand the complex relations between the two books and to discuss possible ways of
reading the album, I propose an analysis of Wittgenstein’s different conceptions of method and his
struggle against dogmatism. In the Tractatus he tried to avoid dogmatism by saying that the conditions of
sense should not be said, i.e., be represented through propositions, and that the correct method of
philosophy – although he did not employ it in this book – would be to say nothing except what can be
said, i.e., propositions with sense and, whenever someone wanted to say something metaphysical, it
should be demonstrated to him he spoke nonsense. In his later writings, he accused himself of dogmatism
because he had duplicated language, as dogmatists had duplicated reality: while the latter supposed a
world of essences behind the phenomena, he supposed a deep level of language where its essential
structure should be found. He also accused himself of relapsing into dogmatism by determining only one
correct method of philosophy and only one kind of analysis and clarification.
The analysis will concentrated on an excerpt of Wittgenstein’s conversations with Waismann, entitled
“On dogmatism”, and in the §§89-142 of the Philosophical Investigations. I will not focus my attention
exclusively on his conception of philosophy as therapy, his non-cognitive conception of philosophy, etc,
but also on some elements of style and writing, which, I believe, are perfectly coherent with these
conceptions. This strategy will give the opportunity to take part in the theory vs. therapy debate (as Alois
Pichler puts it) or the dispute between non-Pyrrhonian and Pyrrhonian interpreters (as David G. Stern puts
it).