ABSTRACT
For more than two decades, Wittgensteinian scholarship has been animated by controversy about so-called resolute reading. “Traditional” interpretation has sustained a narrative of the replacement of the early picture theory of meaning by the later account of meaning-as-use, while new resolute readings have argued that such an understanding not only fails to capture elements of continuity in Wittgenstein thought, but risks committing Wittgenstein, early and late, to the metaphysical assumption of a possible stepping outside of language. The controversy has been productive in some respects but debilitating in others, such that the impression has been given that Wittgensteinians are locked in internal dispute, to the detriment of wider engagement with his philosophy. The present discussion draws attention to the concept of resoluteness, exploring its broader significance in Wittgenstein’s work. Via a consideration of writings of Stanley Cavell, it examines lines of connection with Thoreau and Heidegger – a comparison that leads to the acknowledgement both of limits of language and of the restlessness of the desire to exceed them.
