ABSTRACT

This book is a collection of essays motivated by a "cultural" and biographical reading of Wittgenstein. It includes some new essays and some that were originally published in Educational Philosophy and Theory. The book focuses on the concept of “technoscience”, and the relevance of Wittgenstein’s work for philosophy of technology which amplifies Lyotard’s reading and provides a critique of education as an increasingly technology-led enterprise. It includes a distinctive view on the ethics of reading Wittgenstein and the ethics of suicide that shaped him. It also examines the reception and engagement with Wittgenstein’s work in French philosophy with a chapter on post-analytic philosophy of education as a choice between Richard Rorty and Jean-François Lyotard. Peters examines Wittgenstein’s academic life at Cambridge University and his involvement as a student and faculty member in the Moral Sciences Club. Finally, the book provides an understanding of Wittgensteinian styles of reasoning and the concept of worldview. Is it possible to escape the picture that holds us captive? This constitutes a challenging introduction to Wittgenstein’s work for academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of education, technology and philosophy.

chapter |11 pages

Introduction

Truth, value and the philosopher as cultural physician

chapter 3|17 pages

Wittgenstein as exile

A philosophical topography 1

chapter 4|15 pages

Wittgenstein and the ethics of suicide

Homosexuality and Jewish self-hatred in fin de siècle Vienna

chapter 5|30 pages

Wittgenstein and post-analytic philosophy of education

Rorty or Lyotard?

chapter 6|18 pages

Wittgenstein at Cambridge

Philosophy as a way of life

chapter 7|9 pages

“A picture holds us captive”

Wittgenstein and the German tradition of Weltanschuung

chapter 8|19 pages

Philosophy as pedagogy

Wittgenstein’s styles of thinking