ABSTRACT
Wittgenstein has often been thought to be a naturalist but the question remains: Of what kind? In this paper, I explore this question by first placing a significant constraint on available answers: namely, that Wittgenstein’s philosophy is non-doctrinal. It tracks the restlessness of human thought, being both free of metaphysics and yet full of the temptation to metaphysics. I argue that Wittgenstein can be best understood as a liberal naturalist in a dialectical and reactive vein, one both curious and skeptical of metaphysical assertion. Wittgenstein places a great deal of emphasis on human nature—as contrasted with nature as such—particularly our animality and natural (“primitive”) reactions. The work of philosophy is the never-ending task of returning us to the natural—ordinary and extraordinary—world in which we live and act from the perennial human temptation to unnaturalness in the form of two varieties of metaphysics: supernaturalism in one direction; and scientism in the other.
