ABSTRACT
According to Bernard Williams, Wittgenstein’s opposition to scientific naturalism led him to reject explanation of phenomena as a philosophical goal. Williams claims that this rejection was driven by a distinctive conception of the subject matter of philosophy as “exclusively a priori”. I suggest that Wittgenstein’s opposition is directed against a particular form of explanation understood as central to a ‘scientific attitude’. Wittgenstein also regarded the subject matter of philosophy as incorporating “the phenomena of every-day”, and he was careful to emphasize the importance of identifying and considering our actual practices and experiences in providing insight into the nature of meaning and understanding. To provide an alternative to Williams’s view, this chapter compares Wittgenstein’s naturalism to Hume’s. Humean naturalism is sometimes assumed to have paved the way for scientism. Yet, for Hume, “the cautious observation of human life” was central to philosophical method, central to the “science of human nature”. There are important differences between Hume and Wittgenstein. But recognizing the elements arguably shared by them can provide a better way to characterize Wittgenstein’s naturalism. This helps clarify the role Wittgenstein gave to human practice and experience and demonstrates that his attitude to the subject matter of philosophy was not ‘exclusively a priori’.
