Rafio (New Series) 1 1 1 June 1989 0034-0066 $2.

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O N REFLECTION: T H E LEGACY OF WITTGENSTEINS LATER PHILOSOPHY

Jonathan Lear

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A philosophical consciousness is inadequate, Hegel argued, insofar as it is unable to account for how it itself is possible. Kants conception of mind, for example, was criticized by Hegel on the ground that it was mysterious how mind so conceived could engage in the philosophical thinking which is so evidently manifest in critical philosophy. Since Hegel, a central problem for philosophy has been to give a philosophical account of how philosophical consciousness is possible. There is indeed a general challenge to any comprehensive attempt to account for the world, whether scientific, religious or philosophical: the account must make it at least plausible that the person giving the account could be doing such. For example, a theory of evolution would be incomplete so long as it remained mysterious, on the basis of the theory, how a consciousness could evolve capable of formulating that theory. However, with philosophical consciousness the problem seems to be more serious than mere incompleteness. There is a feature of philosophical consciousness which makes it problematic whether a philosophical understanding of it is even possible. Our popular conception of objectivity, derived from a seventeenth century conception of scientific inquiry, demands that an objective inquirer be non-intrusive with respect to the subject of inquiry. I t would seem then that philosophy could not come to an objective self-understanding. For an objective understanding of philosophy to be possible, on what I shall call this metaconception of philosophy, there would have to be a metaphilosophy which comprehended philosophy, so to speak, from the outside. But this isnt what we want. What we want is not another object for study, even if we call that object philosophy, what we want is insight into the minds own activity when it is philosophizing. Philosophical consciousness must appear, on the meta model, as necessarily elusive to j tself. There is an analogy with Kants account of self-consciousness.
G . W. F. Hcgcl, Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, volume 1 (Hegels logic, trs. W. Wallace, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), $5 40-46.

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It must be possible, Kant argued, for the I think to accompany each of my representations.* This, for Kant, was an analytic principle, stating what it is for something to be a representation of mine. I need not be self-consciously aware of all my experiences, but it is analytic that the experiences of a self-conscious being, such as myself, are such that I can become aware of any of them. T h e activity of becoming self-consciously aware Kant describes in terms of the predication of an I think of one of my representations. In that activity my consciousness changes from merely having the representation to treating that representation as an object of consciousness. Every representation is thus a possible object of consciousness, but what perpetually escapes the net of selfconscious attention is the subject who is self-consciously treating various representations as objects of thought. Given any representation R, I can become self-consciously aware of it: I can think I think R. But now I think R is one more representation which can become an object of self-conscious attention. This process can be iterated indefinitely, but at each stage I seem to leave out the genuine subject: in the predication I seem to be treating myself as an object for scrutiny. Thus philosophers in the critical tradition have distinguished I as I am in myself from I as I appear to myself, the I from the me, and I as subject from I as object . T h e meta model provides a serviceable enough picture of consciousness investigating objects distinct from itself. T h e picture lends support to the thought that the mind is investigating an objects true nature: that in remaining distinct from its object mind does not distort it. A conflict, though, is generated when the mind tries to gain self-understanding. T h e resolution of this conflict, if a resolution is possible, must be significant: either we must admit that philosophical self-understanding is impossible or that thc meta model must be junked and superseded by a deeper conception of philosophical consciousness.
I1 I n Wittgensteins later philosophy, the problem of philosophical consciousness arises in a particularly acute form.3 O n the one
B 131-132.

Immanuel Kant, Critique o f p u r e Reason, ( t r . N. K . Smith, 1.ondon: Macmillan, 192Y),

Earlicr papers in which I consider this problem includc Ixaving the World Alone, The Journal of Philosophy, 1982; The Disappearing Wc , Proceedings of the Aristotelian Socite&, Supplcmcntary Volume, 1984; Transcendental Anthropology, Subject, Context and Thought, (J. McDowell and P. Pcttit cds., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986).

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hand, Wittgensteins philosophy is informed by a desire for some form of self-understanding. In part this is achieved by considering how certain uses of language are woven into our other activities, in part by considering various primitive language-games, including those of tribes whose customs differ in salient ways from ours. T h e outcome of these reflective exercises is supposed to be insight into how we go on. But, on the other hand, is not the extent of that insight severely limited by the primitiveness of the practices we are invited to consider? None of the tribes Wittgenstein conjures u p contains a Socrates figure who is reflecting on how this tribes activities are best to be understood. T h e primitiveness of the language-game does enhance various aspects of the practices for our consideration. And it is in consideration of primitive languagegames, our own included, that we are able to put ourselves in a position to realize that justifications run Thus we do gain some insight into how we go on: in our primitive language-game we go on ultimately without reasons. But what about our less primitive language-games? What about the corlsciousness that has just discovered how we go on in our primitive language-games? Just as Proust could not rest content with his portraits of Francoise, but had to weave them into an account of his own life as a reflective, sensitive soul, those of us who are tempted toward reflective understanding in the first place are not going to rest content with a reflective understanding of our unreflective activities. Indeed, if we are to understand correctly even our unreflective activities we must see how they are woven into the more reflective aspects of our lives. There is a danger that Wittgenstein misleads us even about the unreflective precisely because it is considered in isolation. O f course, it will not help merely to include a Socrates figure in a Wittgensteinian tribe. T h e problem is not to observe a reflective consciousness at work - that we can do by reading a Platonic dialogue or a George Eliot novel - but to gain some deeper insight into the consciousness that is doing the observing. T h e problemwith Wittgensteins later philosophy is not confined to philosophical consciousness. Reflective consciousness in general is left out of Wittgensteinian tribes. An assistant may, for example, bring a builder a slab when he hears Slab! called out, but neither the builder or the assistant are endowed with a reflective understanding of their own activities.5 T h e only reflective consciousSce Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978), e.g. Book I , $ $ 21 1, 109, 126, 213, 217, 3 2 5 4 , 467-8, 4 7 1 4 , 480-5, 4 9 6 7 , 516, 599. See Philosophical Investigations 9 4-6.

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nesses on the scene are we the readers and Wittgenstein himself: and we are all standing outside this form of life, looking on. Wittgenstein says:

It disperses the fog to study the phenomena of language in primitive kinds of application which can command a clear view of the aim and functioning of words.
This is the original sin of Wittgensteins later philosophy: for i t led Wittgenstein to posit tribes who engaged in exclusively unreflective activity. For Socrates the unexamined life was not worth living; for Wittgenstein the unexamined life was above all worth examining. I t was in the examination of unreflective activities that Wittgenstein confused two projects. T h e first was that of showing that when a person speaks a language his activity need not be guided by any special inner mental item. The study of primitive language-games helps us to discover that when someone uses language correctly there need be nothing special going on in his mind at the time of the utterance which endows his utterance with meaning. T h e claim that an individual understands an expression is not legitimated by reference to any special mental object, but by his ability to use the expression correctly. Using the expression correctly consists in using it as it is used in the customs, practices, language-games in which the expression gets its life. T h e second was to portray forms of life as unreflective. T h e confusion is inviting. For if one wants to portray language-use as not dependent on special inner mental items, then when one goes on to show that language use is dependent on customs, one will be naturally inclined to cite unreflective customs. Since if the customs were highly reflective, an objector might challenge the view that there need be nothing special going on in ones mind when one participates in the custom. This would be to miss Wittgensteins point. No doubt there are highly self-conscious customs which require much thought simply to perform them: but such thoughts are not the special meaning-giving items which Wittgenstein is concerned to disallow. Easier, then, to begin with unreflective customs and go on to show that the same point holds even for highly reflective customs. Wittgenstein, however, never went on to portray such reflective activity. T h a t is a pity, because even if there need be nothing particular going on in ones mind on any particular occasion when one follows
See Philosophical Investigations

3 5.

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a rule, it may nevertheless be that one must sometimes reflect on the rule. Even if some customs may be relatively unreflective, it is doubtful that all customs can be. Indeed, if we accept Kants characterization of our self-consciousness, then for any conscious activity in which we engage, it must be possible for that activity to become an object of self-conscious attention. Wittgenstein leaves this fundamental move of self-consciousness out of account. Because reflection is left out of the tribes we consider, we are invited to conceive of reflection as supervenient upon unreflective activities. We the reflective interpreters are outside the form of life trying to interpret the unreflective activities going on within. This ignores the possibility that reflective and unreflective activities probably coexist in even the simplest forms of life: some degree of reflection is there at the base level. The relation of reflective to unreflective activities would then not be as hierarchical as one might initially have supposed, and we must come to understand how this lack of hierarchy is possible. One thing is certain: if reflective and unreflective activities must coexist, then Wittgenstein has portrayed unreflective activities as more autonomous than they are. Wittgenstein insists that philosophers must speak the language of e ~ e r y d a y but , ~ the language of everyday is portrayed as so devoid of reflection that it remains mysterious how a philosophical consciousness could speak this language. Philosophy when properly done, Wittgenstein suggests, is a therapy for dissolving distinctively philosophical problems: the clarity we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems completely disappear. The real discovery is the one that makes me capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want to.8 O n this view there is no need for a distinctive language, at most one needs various therapeutic methods for bringing one back to speaking the language of e ~ e r y d a y But . ~ one cannot account for Wittgensteins own philosophy in these terms. Take, for example, the conflicting attitudes that emerge toward the law of excluded middle. O n the one hand, Wittgenstein engages in a philosophical reflection which suggests that the law of excluded

See Philosophical Invcsfigatiom ij 120, and cp. $$ 1 16, 95. 12 I .

Phiiosophical Invcstigafiom $ 133. See also $I 126, 124. See Philosophical Investzgatiom $5 116, 133.

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middle is not universally valid. T h e extension of a predicate like game is partially constituted by our game-playing activities, but these activities are not everywhere circumscribed by rules.o In philosophical reflection we discover that our game-playing practices are open ended in all sorts of ways: we are not in a position to say that for any activity we might possibly encounter we will be able to determine whether or not that activity is a game. And since there is no Platonic Form which exists independently of our practices and judgements of similarity, if we are unable to determine whether an activity is a game or not, we lose reason for believing that it must be one or the other. I n short, philosophical reflection convinces us that our practices help to determine the content of a concept and that our practices may run out: there may be no answer as to whether a n item falls under a conceptor does not. O n the other hand, philosophy for Wittgenstein is supposed to be non-revisionary: i t is not supposed to change our beliefs, i t is supposed to give us insight into them. Yet philosophical reflection seems to convince us that we must abandon or a t least severely qualify our belief in the law of excluded middle. One might at first think that there is an escape from incoherence. According to the split-level interpretation, one must distinguish our ordinary beliefs from our philosophical beliefs. Wittgenstein is not being inconsistent, on the split-level interpretation, for he only insists that our ordinary beliefs remain unaffected by philosophical reflection. As to our philosophical beliefs, well, he was suspicious of them anyway: the more we can get rid of, the better. For example, our ordinary beliefs about games have not been changed by philosophical reflection. T h e content of those beliefs have always been as open ended as the game-playing practices which lend them content. And when we discover in philosophical reflection that those beliefs are open ended, there is no recommendation that we should close them up, even if we could. But what about our belief in the law of excluded middle? A split-leveler might want to say that the law is a reflective belief about all our ordinary beliefs of the form P or not-P. So the split-leveler might argue that we can abandon our belief in the law while leaving all our ordinary beliefs intact. This interpretation depends on a n unbelievable distinction between ordinary and reflective beliefs. Suppose you are watching

Philosophical Investigations 3 68.

Philosophical Investigations

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a tennis game with a friend and, after a bizzare stroke, he turns to you and says: I dont know whether that was a proper stroke or not, but it was certainly one or the other: lets see what the referee says. Is that a philosophical belief? If it is then we are left with only the most lobotomized existence to call ordinary. But if this is an ordinary belief, it is an example of one which may well be changed by philosophical reflection. Notice also that the friend is not invoking the law of excluded middle per se, he is asserting an instance of it. It is hard to see how one could conceivably banish all instances of the law from the domain of the ordinary. Yet our confidence in the instances would diminish as our confidence in the law itself was undermined. It is ultimately unclear what Wittgenstein should say about the law of excluded middle. There are diverging strains in his thought, and the tension is not resolved. The split-level interpretation does represent one strain in Wittgensteins thought, but if we follow it we are left without a satisfying account of the relation of reflection to revision. Not only does this make philosophical reflection unnecessarily mysterious and suspicious - as going on outside the arena of legitimate activity - it makes the form of life appear artificially boring. And it leaves completely unanswered the question of how reflection does go on, as indeed it does, within a form of life. This ignorance is one legacy of Wittgensteins later philosophy. There is, however, another strain in his thought which pulls in the opposite direction. O n this strain we should simply accept the law of excluded middle as another of our unjustifiable beliefs. Our mistake lies not in the fact that we accept the law - that is simply one of the things we do - our mistake lies in thinking that we can offer some philosophical justification of it. But if we follow this strain, what confidence have we that our unjustifiable beliefs are coherent and consistent? Will not our unjustifiable adherence to the law of excluded middle rub up against our repeated discovery of instances where it does not appear to be valid? And if our beliefs and practices do start to rub up against one another, doesnt this breed the conflicts out of which philosophical reflection grows? We seem to have lost all reason for thinking that philosophy should be non-revisionary . Wittgenstein treated philosophy with suspicion. As a result it is natural to suppose that a legitimation of it must satisfy a sceptic.
See Philosophical Inuestigationr

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We are then left wondering what could possibly convince a sceptic. We are even puzzled as to how to begin. But we may have already gotten off to the wrong start. Another way to begin is to accept from the start that philosophical reflection is (an important) part of our lives and inquire: how is this possible? This question is not calling the possibility into question, it is asking for insight into it. The legitimacy we are after derives from a deep self-understanding: an understanding of how it is that we do what we do. At the end of such an inquiry we may then (and only then) be able to address the sceptic; or we may have lost interest in doing so. I11 Kant was well aware of the difficulty in gaining insight into the nature of reflective consciousness. If we make mind a n object of investigation, we will end up only with an account of mind as it appears to itself: observing mind will be out of the picture, doing the observing. In the third Critique Kant offered an ingenious, indirect strategy for gaining insight into reflective consciousness. In his Critique of Teleological Judgement Kant argues that if we consider the teleological judgements we make about nature, we will ultimately learn more about ourselves than about nature. When we make nature an object of study, Kant argued, we encounter a puzzling phenomenon: we discover greater systematic unity than we can easily account for. All unity, Kant thought, must be the work of a mind that is actively unifying,I3 but the unity we find in nature far exceeds any which our minds have imposed. The empirical study of nature is an a posteriori search for systematic unity, but it requires a priori principles to guide it. For example, the maxim Nature does nothing in vain regulates our inquiry into nature. We do not cease our inquiry until we find a purpose for a process that strikes us as purposive, but whose purpose remains opaque to us. We do not derive this maxim from nature, it is a presupposition of inquiry into it.I4 To carry out our inquiry Kant thought that we must proceed as if a mind had created the empirical laws - thus the unity - so as to be comprehensible to us thus a unity we can appreciate. We must proceed as if the object of our inquiry, the noumenon, had been created for our nous. Since this principle states no more than that we must proceed in this way,
Critique o f Pure Reason, B 12!+131. Critique o f Judgement (tr. J. C . Meredith, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), Introduction fj V, pp. 1814.
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Kant says that it has no more than subjective validity. Nature is not determined by it - thus the principle lacks objective ualidity -only our relation to nature is. Thus in our study of nature we learn more about ourselves as systematic inquirers than we do about nature. We learn that to be a systematic inquirer we must proceed by assuming nature to be fundamentally mind-like. And the unity we do find in nature will reveal to us what mind-likeness consists in. T h e paradigm of natural objects which had to be mind-like were teleologically organized structures.l 5 I t is, I believe, easy for us to underestimate the significance of Kants argumentative strategy. Those of us who have been brought up on the first Critique may too easily interpret the claim to subjective validity merely as one more limitation on the minds capacity to comprehend the world as i t is in itself. We will tend to focus on the fact that, for Kant, our teleological judgements lack objective validity. We will thus tend to ignore the substantial positive content to the claim that our teleological judgements do have subjective validity. If this is the way we must proceed, then by investigating the teleological structures in nature we may gain insight into the type of systematic inquirers we are. We need not make mind an object of study: since nature is a mirror of mind, we may place nature under the microscope and learn more about mind. Kants strategy is, however, no more than suggestive. One problem is that this strategy does not show us how to capture the philosophical consciousness which is manifest in Kants own argument. Even if this strategy did give us insight into ourselves as inquirers into nature, by the time we are reflecting on our inquiry into nature our consciousness has changed substantially. Philosophical consciousness again appears to be outside the study, even indirectly construed. Another problem is that, for Kant, an irreparable gap exists between subjective and objective. But if we think of philosophical consciousness as itself something that genuinely exists in the world, then ideally we ought to be able to comprehend i t from both sides: as something which has both subjective and objective reality. And yet, whatever its shortcomings, Kants indirect strategy inspires hope for a philosophical selfunderstanding which breaks the bonds of the meta model.
15 Of coursc, Kant seriously undcrcstimatcd thc succcss latcr gcncrations would have in explaining functional organization as thc outcomc of mechanistic laws. His argumcnt that we could never see functional organization of the product of blind rncchanistic laws is mistaken.

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IV I would like to focus on a gap which might exist between mind and one part of nature which we genuinely cannot help but see as teleologically organized: ourselves. We must view ourselves as agents, acting on the basis of beliefs, desires, intentions, speaking to and understanding each other. T h e interpretation of a person in terms of his beliefs, desires and utterances portrays him in his capacity as a rational animal and this, for Kant, would be a paradigm of a teleological judgement. However, the point of the present exercise is not simply to investigate what we are like as teleologically organized beings. I would also like to employ an indirect strategy and ask: what must we be like given that we must see ourselves as teleologically organized beings? T h e importance of so restricting our focus is this: so long as there is disharmony between what we learn about the object of our judgements and what we learn about the subject of those judgements we must remain discontent. For in both cases we are learning about our own minds, so whatever conflict exists must be a conflict in our own selfunderstanding. I am going to pursue this strategy within the context of the thought of the later Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein was concerned to undermine not our ascriptions of beliefs, intentions and meaning to people and their utterances, but a host of widespread conceptions of what such judgements consist in. H e did not directly ask the question, What d o these ascriptions of meaning and intention tell us about the mind which is inclined to make them?: he was more concerned with what, if anything, was going on the in the mind of the person of whom the ascription is made. But if we ask What do these philosophical judgements about what is going on in the minds of the members of a Wittgensteinian tribe tell us about the philosophical mind that is inclined to make these judgements?, the disparities between the object-mind of the tribesman and the subject-mind of the philosopher generate the conflicts out of which philosophical self-understanding might emerge. Let us begin with the builder and his assistant: the builder calls out Slab!, Pillar!, Bring me a beam, etc., and the assistant brings him the appropriate thing.I6 Looking on, we are inclined to say that the assistant understood what he heard, that he grasps the
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concept of a slab. But what, Wittgenstein asked, legitimates these ascriptions? We are tempted to posit special items in the builders and assistants minds which endow their utterances with meaning and which are responsible for understanding. But Wittgenstein discovered that there are no such items and, more dramatically, that we must abandon our picture of the mind as a special container of them. Perhaps this generated the first conflict out of which Wittgensteins philosophy grew. The conflict is resolved not by abandoning our ascriptions, but by finding a more reliable basis for them. The claim that the assistant understands an expression is legitimated not by reference to a special item in his mind, but by his ability to use the expression correctly. Generally speaking, using the expression correctly consists in using i t as it is used in the customs, practices, institutions in which the expression gets its life. Using the expression as it is used in the customs and practices consists in using it the same way as eceryone else does who participates in the customs and practices. And using the expression in the same ways as everyone else does ultimately depends on being accepted as doing so by the other participants. The ability so to use an expression is one we acquire through training by members of the linguistic community - we are initiated into the custom. We can still say that someone understands the concept. But this understanding does not explain the use, the ability to use the expression legitimates the judgement that he understands the concept. The builders assistant is an unreflective interpreter: he is merely obeying orders as he hears them called out. We, by contrast, are philosophers looking on trying to grasp what this minimal level of unreflective interpretation consists in. And yet the assistants activities do not seem devoid of significance for our own selfunderstanding: for part of the thrust of the Investigations is to convince us that our own lives have more unreflective interpretive moments than we may have hitherto imagined. There seem to be two significant realms of unreflective interpretation in our lives. First, we seem to understand an expression at the moment that we hear it, say it, read or write it - we grasp it in a flash.17 The meaning of an expression consists in the use that is made of it over time, and yet we seem to be able to understand the expression without any reflective grasp of that use. Second, when we are learning the meaning of an expression, it seems as though we need to be exposed to very little of its use before we can be said to

See Philosophical Investigations

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understand it.18 Minimally a teacher may point out various instances of a concept and say These sorts of things are . . .. At some point in this ostensive training we may think we understand. What legitimates our claim to understanding is the ability to go on and use the expression as it is used in the community. Wittgensteins unreflective interpreters, it would seem, are used to gain insight into ourselves in our unreflective interpretive moments. And what reflecting on the unreflective interpreter suggests is that understanding is the barest of practical abilities. T h e unreflective interpreter has no theoretical understanding of how the expressions are used over time, he is simply able to use them. Language-users would thus appear like rowers in Humes boat. Each person is able to pull his oar harmoniously with the other rowers, but none of them has the Concept of Rowing in his mind. This conception of understanding as practical ability does resolve the conflict we first experienced when we looked to the special contents of a mind to legitimate our ascriptions of understanding and found nothing there. But it in turn generates conflicts of its own. How could we be mere rowers? It is one thing to posit a tribe of rowers and watch how they get on, it is quite another to conceive of ourselves as in the same boat. As we watch a n unreflective tribe we are, as it were, on the shore watching how the rowers get on. There is a dimension to the meaning of their activities which is available to us, but closed to them: we can reflectively consider how their expressions are used over time while they merely participate in the use. Yet if this picture is ultimately designed to give us insight into ourselves, then it is doubly misleading: in our unreflective moments we cannot be mere rowers, in our reflective moments we cannot be standing on the shore. All men by their nature desire to imitate. From earliest infancy a child will engage in imitative re-enactments, and a community will tap this desire to imitate in order to teach the child customs,rituals and practices: among them, language-use. There is no doubt but that the acquisition of a concept depends on a persons practical ability to participate in a custom, but this practical ability - if it is to develop, mature, and become a secure part of the persons repertoire - requires some theoretical understanding (however minimal) of what the custom is. Indeed, it is probably a mistake to conceptualize practical ability and theoretical understanding as

See e.g. Philosophical Investigations $ 5 69, 208, 210. That is: the good ship Neurath must have more levels than Humes rowing-boat.

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distinct capacities. If this is correct, then even in the most basic imitations, there is some search for the context in which the reenactment occurs. We are not then mere rowers, each of us autonomously pulling his oar in harmony with others: each of us (at some moments at least) is straining to get a view of how (some of) the others are rowing. This, I believe, is a basic truth of human nature, but it is also embedded in the essence of our self-consciousness. We are beings, Kant argued, who are able to become self-consciously aware of any of our conscious experiences. Thus even if we d o have unreflective interpretive moments, for each such moment it must be possible to become self-consciously aware of it. In actually becoming aware, we engage in rejective interpretation. But a reflective interpretation requires some (minimal) understanding of the context in which an expression is used. I t would appear, then, that concept-possession requires more than Wittgenstein envisaged. To be sure, it is in customs and practices that a concept gets its life, and a being who lacked all mimetic, practical ability to engage in those practices would not understand the concept. Yet the requirements of selfconsciousness also demand that we have some minimal understanding of the framework within which our mimetic activities arc set. And in a self-conscious thought - for example, he wants a slab the word slab serves as a symbolic shorthand both for ones understanding of the customs in which the concept is employed and for ones ability to participate. Perhaps that is why one can understand a word when one hears or says it, why one can Lgraspit in a j a s h . O n e does not, of course, grasp the whole use in a flash, but one could not grasp anything at all in a flash if it were not the case that what one did grasp in a flash were a token which could be cashed out by some more extended (theoretical and practical) manifestation of how the expression is used. This manifestation need not be so developed as to constitute self-conscious thought of the concept, but it is from this manifestation that self-conscious thought of the concept develops. T h u s we should not conceive of our reflective interpretive moments as standing in a meta relation to our unreflective interpretations. For beings like us there is a mutual interdependence of the reflective and unreflective moments. We are beings who may live through many unreflective moments - and Wittgenstein was a genius in awakening us to that insight - but for each such moment it must a t least be possible to convert it into a reflective moment. And thus the possibility of living through the unreflective interpretive

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moments in our lives depends upon the possession of an ability which we will forever ignore so long as we take Wittgensteins unreflective interpreters as the model for our unreflective moments. Once one does acquire the ability to think self-consciously of concepts, ones ability to participate in customs increases qualitatively. O n e may now participate in customs in which concepts are self-consciously invoked: one example of such a practice is philosophy, but any self-conscious consideration of concepts will do. Wittgenstein does not address this important arena of our lives, for he did not consider how practices can, via conceptualization, be internalized and made the object of reflective thought. Such selfconscious thought requires for its content that it be tied down to the practices and customs in which concepts get their life, but it is premature to conclude that this thought must therefore stand in a meta relation to these customs. For we d o not yet know how selfconscious thought can filter down and affect the content of the very customs which lend life to the thought. O f course, had Wittgenstein considered this realm of our lives, it would have made it more difficult to understand what he meant when he said that we follow rules blindly. But we can accept the point he was making that there is no special mental item which determines our rule following activity - while also admitting that self-conscious consideration of a custom may motivate us to change it. We cannot, then, be mere rowers. However, neither can we be on the shore. As our ability to interpret reflectively develops, we become ever more interested in the contexts in which expressions are used. Yet, as philosophers, we realize that our view of contexts must always remain partial. There are two related reasons why. First, we cannot stand in the relation of purely detached observers to ourselves. T h e context is not, strictly speaking, something which exists external to ourselves, something to which we can legitimately take a sideways on perspective. Wittgenstein taught that if we are to understand what it is for a person to use a linguistic expression correctly or incorrectly, we must locate that person within a form of life in which the expression is used. But since we help to constitute the form of life we cannot legitimately think of it as some tribe whose activities we can observe from a safe vantage point in the bush. Wittgenstein does encourage us to imagine tribes going on in various ways, but the value of such imaginative exercises is greatly diminished if we remain in a n observational stance with
Philosophical Investigations 4 2 19.

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respect to forms of life. T h e point of such imaginary observations is to give us insight into that which does not admit of a detached vantage point. Second, even if we could be pure observers we could not see the whole use of an expression: for in a living language the full use does not yet exist. When we reflect philosophically on our position as reflective interpreters, it seems impossible that we should be able to understand a speaker on the occasion of his utterance. For the meaning of an expression is determined by its use, and much of the use of a n expression will lie in the future of any given utterance. T h a t future use is in principle unavailable to us, at least at the time of the utterance we are interpreting, yet this use helps to determine the meaning of the utterance itself. Since the future uses are partially determining the content of a given utterance, it would seem that the utterance could only be fully understood in retrospect: from the perspective of future use. Does philosophical reflection teach us that our confidence that we understand a n expression when we hear or say it is an illusion? Phenomenologically speaking it is odd to suppose that the meaning of statements we now make are dependent on actions that follow the statement. We feel as if we understand statements when we hear or say them: we do not wait on tenterhooks to find out tomorrow what we meant yesterday. But philosophical reflection suggestions that this is precisely the phenomenology one should expect. I n language-training we acquire a practical ability to use expressions: we acquire the ability to go on to new cases and we are seen by others and see others as going on in the same sorts of way. Of course, we will see future uses as conforming to part uses: that is a precondition for there being a language. But it is not a fixed meaning which is determining the use and the inherent experience of similarity: it is the extended use with its attendant sense of similarity which is fixing the meaning.2 Hegel was willing to accept that the full meaning of a meaningful
In the past decades much work has been done on the topic of meaning-variance, but from a Wittgensteinian perspective, a much more fundamental problem is to understand what it is far meaning to remain the same. Within a small tribe, like the ones Wittgenstein considers, the answer is relatively straightforward, if a bit surprising. An utterance has the same meaning a s it had on previous occasions if i t would be perceived by members of the linguistic community a s a case ofgoing on in the same way. But as the community expands in population and spatio-temporal expanse it becomes less easy to see what content the conditional has. And yet, with an increase in population and spatio-temporal expanse is there any non-question begging way to characterize a linguistic community? Do we have any criterion other than that members are those who would perceive each other as going on in the same way?

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activity could only be understood in retrospect. I t is only when a form of life has grown old that its true meaning can be appreciated: it cannot then be rejuvenated, but only understood.22 Unlike Wittgenstein, Hegel was concerned with historically developing processes. He accepted that historical actors, whether individuals or nations, could not fully understand the significance of their actions. For they were part of a teleologically developing process which could not be fully comprehended until the telos had been reached. Thus, as Hegel put it, the Owl of Minerva flies at dusk. I t is not just that only from the perspective of the telos could one comprehend the meaning, though Hegel believed that too. The telos itself is meaning-conferring. For Wittgenstein, by constrast, there seems to be no time at which the Owl of Minerva can take off. The processes with which he was concerned are not specifically developmental but they are open ended. Reflective interpretation would seem to remain partial so long as we are unable to survey our customs and practices, yet there seems to be no perspective from which such a survey could occur. Any use we could survey completely would necessarily have gone dead: it would no longer be how we go on. Any way we do go on is in principle open ended and thus unsurveyable. We have approached this conflict from the point of view of philosophical reflection, but it is important to realize that it is a conflict which emerges within reflective interpretation itself. Our interpretations of others are always open ended and defeasible: we regularly revise our interpretations of a persons actions and utterances when we learn more about the context in which they are set, and it is rare indeed when we are so confident of our understanding of another that we feel certain that no future revelation could possibly motivate us to revise our judgement. We do make mistakes in our everyday judgements of others, we regularly revise our opinions. Perhaps it is our mistakes, and the inevitability with which we leave our interpretations open ended, which lead us to ask what could possibly legitimate them. The question of legitimation is thought to be a distinctively philosophical question, so it is important to see it emerging in the context of ordinary life. Philosophy distinguishes itself, I suspect, not by the questions it asks but by the depths at whichit pursues answers. Of course, questions may become refined and reinterpreted in the course of philosophical investigation, but
22 G . W. F. Hegel, Philosophy OfRight: (T. M. Knox tr., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), Preface, pp. 12-13.

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philosophy should not be conceived as a meta reflection on an object, activity, or form of life that is itself relatively self-contained: philosophy emerges right there in the form of life out of conflicts that are generated in living that life. We saw earlier that the idea of a self-contained level of unreflective interpretation was a myth. Reflective interpretation does not constitute a distinct level of consciousness supervenient upon the unreflective: our reflective and unreflective moments are of a piece., An extension of that myth is the idea of philosophy as the meta study of reflective interpretation. We might well think of the philosopher as a rejlective reflective interpreter: but it is crucial to realize that this iteration does not take us up a level. I t rather deepens and enhances the level we are at. Reflective reflective interpretation, that is, is a form of reflective interpretation and not another thing. O n e way to see this is to consider the outcome of the aporia concerning reflective interpretation which we have been working through. Wittgensteins investigations lead one to realize that the full meaning of ones thoughts and utterances cannot be transparent to one. For our thoughts are not pure meanings immediately available to consciousness, and our utterances are not endowed with meaning by any such items. O u r thoughts and utterances depend for their content on the context in which they are thought and uttered, on their place within what Wittgenstein called the form of life: and we could never be in a position to survey the form of life Now if this philosophical reflection were meta with respect to reflective interpretation we might expect the following phenomenon: this insight would seem as though it were made inside our studies. T h a t is, although we could have this insight, the insight itselfwould have no effect on our reflective interpretive activity. We would go about our reflective interpretations as though we were grasping the full meaning, though inside our studies we would realize that this cannot be so. This is not what happens. First, philosophical reflection was prompted by conflicts within reflective interpretation, not by retiring into our studies to consider an activity which in its own terms seemed in good shape. Second, the outcome of philosophical reflection does affect reflective interpretive activity itself. Insofar as we began with an unease about what legitimates our interpretations, philosophical reflection ends u p endorsing that unease. We d o not learn that if only we follow these procedures we
Thus Kants principlc ofappcrccption must be qualificd. Even if for any rcprcscntation R, I can think I think R, the full content of R may not be within my grasp.

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will make a definitive interpretation, we learn definitiveIy that a11 such interpretations must remain open to revision. This does affect our interpretive practice, for it allows us to feel at home with our unease. We can with confidence render tentative interpretations, knowing that all interpretations must to some extent remain tentative and that all we are lacking is more of the same: there is no special meaning-giving item we are contingently lacking which would definitively legitimate a particular interpretation. Thus reflective reflective interpretation (that is, philosophical reflection on reflective interpretation) does not emerge as the meta study of reflective interpretation, it is the internal self-understanding of reflective interpretation.

V
Our work so far has perhaps prepared us for the following thought: when philosophy turns its attention onto itself, it need not be the creation of a new form of consciousness, meta-philosophy. We have repeatedly found that what we were initially tempted to conceive as a meta activity turned out to be of a piece with that upon which it was allegedly supervenient. Philosophy itself is not an attempt to take a transcendent perspective to observe how the form of life is getting on. Such a picture assumes that the form of life is a harmonious and autonomous unit: a perfect launching pad for the Owl of Minerva, since the only task which remains is for the form of life to be understood. But to picture a form of life as harmonious and autonomous is already to be taking a sideways on perspective: one fails to take seriously that one is living within it. The perspective from within is not one of harmony. Conflicts emerge as one tries to find ones way about in the world: and working through these conflicts is the stuff of philosophy. Philosophy does not stand above the fray and adjudicate impartially between the contestants; the fray is itself philosophy. One might thus suspect that philosophys self-understanding will emerge from conflict. Other conflicts might well serve the purpose, but here is one which emerges from the interpretive issues we have been considering. No judgements seem more natural to us than our interpretations of others and ourselves. We are such that we find this sort of systematic organization satisfying. But when we inquire into what legitimates our interpretations we encounter various puzzles. Tempted as we are to found our interpretations on the presence of a special meaning-conferring item in the mind, we find

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that there is no such item. And even when we recognize that the meaning of an expression lies in the use that is made of it, not in its relation to a special mental item, we also recognize that when a person grasps the meaning in a flash he could not possibly have the whole use before his mind. We compensate for the Labsent object by placing the person in a larger context, a form of life.* However, the form of lzfe itself seems to be a missing object. The customs, practices, institutions which constitute the form of life extend over time. The meaning of a present act is partially determined by a context that does not yet fully exist. The form of life is not something that itself exists in its entirety, conferring meaning on individual acts. The individual acts are themselves helping to constitute the form of life. There is no need to think of the form of life as a teleologically developing whole: even if the customs and practices remain the same over time, what remaining the same consists in can only be determined by reference to the form of life that is extending itself. How could this absent object possibly be used to legitimate our interpretations when all the other absent objects fail? Have we not merely substituted one missing object - the form of life - for another - the special mental item? The problem which has emerged is how to legitimate the philosophical judgements we make about the form of life. We seem to have been led inexorably to forms of life through a series of struggles with aporiai concerning interpretation; but, as Kant would say, do our judgements about forms of life have objective validity; or do they merely have subjective validity? That is, is it merely a fact about us as systematic conceptualizers that this is the type of unity we must find when we inquire philosophically into what legitimates our interpretive judgements of persons? O r is it also a fact about us as systematic actors that we must genuinely act within the context of a form of life if our utterances are to have significance? Wittgenstein believed that there was no legitimation of the form of life itself: What has to be accepted, the given is - so one could say - forms of life.25 This statement is ambiguous. O n the one hand, it might be taken as a claim about forms of life: that they are basic and cannot be
24 For the haunting expression absent object I am indebted to Malcolm Budd, Wittgenstein on Meaning, Interpretation and Rules, Synthcse 58, 1984. Philosophical Investigationr p. 226.

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understood in terms of anything more fundamental. On the other, i t could be interpreted as claiming that there can be no legitimation of our judgements about forms of life. Wittgenstein clearly did believe that forms of life were simply given, but it does not follow that there is therefore no possible legitimation of our philosophical judgements about them. Without some form of legitimation, how do we know that this is not one more myth of the given? O n one popular conception of philosophy, which I shall call the tragic view, this question would have to be met with despair and resignation. The tragic philosopher realizes both that the implicit goal of philosophy is to attain a detached perspective from which one can have an absolutely objective view of the form of life and that there could be no such perspective. O n the tragic view, philosophy manifests itself as an impossible attempt to live the meta model, to take an observational stance with respect to ourselves and the world. There is a strain of the tragic in Wittgensteins approach to philosophy. Wittgenstein was immensely aware of the problem of saying anything philosophical. This problem overwhelms his earlier philosophy, and it is not overcome in the Investigations. In the Tractatus he rather desperately thought that you could kick away the ladder at the end of philosophical inquiry. In the Investigations he is kicking away the ladder - or maybe he is just kicking - all the time. He is constantly attacking the activity in which he is engaging. There is, for him, no place from which philosophy can be practised and there is no way legitimately to incorporate philosophical reflection into our lives. The only respectable activity, for Wittgenstein, is to treat therapeutically the impulse toward an essentially futile activity: thus Wittgensteins compulsive insistence that philosophy must speak the language of everyday, that it must not advance theses, that it must leave everything as it is. Yet the therapeutic idea is not developed: it is used (rather untherapeutically) as an expression of hostility toward the tragic position he finds himself in. Wittgenstein seems trapped in an almost obsessional routine: he constantly re-enacts an incorporation of philosophical reflection into life, and thus manifests a philosophical consciousness, while repeatedly insisting that there is no place for such a consciousness. It is worth noting that we are again enmeshed in conflict. In trying to legitimate our interpretive judgements of persons we find that we must legitimate the judgements (about forms of life) which were supposed to legitimate our judgements (about persons). Our

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legitimation itself stands in need of legitimation. This is a conflict which occurs within philosophy: and it is a conflict which, as it works itself out, provides at least a schema for philosophys selfunderstanding. If Wittgensteins later philosophy does lend insight into concept possession, thought and mental activity in those we interpret, i t should also lend insight into the mental activity of those who are interpreting. Trying to gain that insight is part of what it is to take seriously the idea that even we cannot get outside the form of life. T o understand the use of any expression, Wittgenstein taught, we must look to the use that is made of it. Forms of life is used in philosophical reflection, when one inquires into what legitimates the ascriptions of beliefs, intentions, meaningful utterances to persons. A particular judgement employing the expression form of life will be using that expression correctly if it accords with the use of those in the community who are competent to use the expression: namely, other philosophers, anthropologists etc. That is, there must be a form of life in which some members are using the expression form of life (or some equivalent) for the purposes of reflecting on meaning if a particular judgement about a form of life is to have any meaning at all. So not only must there be a form of life if our thoughts about forms of life are to have any content, the form of life must contain philosophers who are self-consciously using the expression. Form o f l$e is the philosophers concept par excellence. One acquires the concept by working through the conflicts within interpretive activity which lead one to posit forms of life in order to legitimate ones judgement. That is, one acquires the concept by doing philosophy.26 The conflicts themselves give one the training in the form of life which grounds the acquisition of the concept f o r m o f lif. One might think, in Hegelian terms, of there being a single actuality - a form of life - which has two aspects, subjective and objective. Objectively speaking, there are all the customs and practices which anthropologists, sociologists and philosophers try to describe. Among the practices, there is one called philosophy, and those members who engage in the institution are (among other things) trying to comprehend what legitimates our interpretations of persons. Their (our) activities of reflection, debate, working
26 Of course there may be superficial ways in which one can acquire some facility with the expression: just hang around the lounge of a philosophy or anthropology department and pick up the jargon. But the acquisition is itself superficial: one has not acquired the use of the concept, just a pale ersatz. This is true not just for form o f lifc but for many deep concepts.

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through conflicts, play a crucial role in endowing their thoughts and statements with the meaning they have. Though the meaning of a statement must be grounded in the use that is made of it, Wittgenstein is mistaken to think that the philosopher must speak the language of everyday.* The philosopher cannot, it is true, speak from a transcendent perspective, so his activity cannot endow his words with transcendent meaning. But philosophy is a distinctive activity, and expressions may acquire a distinctive meaning within it: think of Wittgensteins own use of languagegame and form of life. Of course, there can be no insurmountable reason why these distinctive uses might not be incorporated into ordinary use. The point, however, is not that philosophy must speak the language of everyday, but that the ordinary man may wish to speak philosophically. Subjectively speaking, a consciousness is puzzled by the interpretive judgements it makes of persons and sets out to discover what they consist in. After working through a series of problems, he finds that he must set any meaningful utterance or thought within the context of a form of life. O n further reflection, though, he realizes that the form of life may be one more absent object. He wonders whether a form of life is anything more than a figment of a philosophers imagination: something to which he is led by a certain chain of reflection, but which has no objective reality. He then realizes that this very train of reflective thought is, from an objective perspective, part of the activity of a form of life: it is that activity within the form of life which helps to constitute the selfunderstanding of a form of life. The philosopher comes to realize that a single activity is (i) his own thinking; (ii) the concept form o f ltye working itselfout (because it is the use which is occurring as the philosopher thinks, for example, What does a form of life consist in? which is the use that is determining the content of the concept form of life); (iii) the form of lifes self-understanding (for the philosopher is a part of the form of life capable of grasping what the form of life is). What emerges from this activity is the realization that the form of life is not an object. The form of life is not one tribe among others. I n its deepest use all beings who are possible objects of our interpretations are part of the form of life. Thus the form of life is not an item with respect to which a philosopher can take an observational stance: for he cannot get outside it in order to observe

Cf. Philosophical Inuestigafiom $6 120, 97, 116, 121.

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it. Neither is it something which he can make an object of reflection, for it is not a possible object of consciousness. Any item which can be made an object of consciousness - for example, an imagined tribe - can be a form of life only in a more restricted and superficial use of the expression. Such objects may be useful in philosophical thinking. But what the philosopher should come to realize is that they are the ladder which one eventually kicks away. They are helpful in coming to realize that the understanding one is after could not possibly be constituted in this way. The problem with the meta model, then, is not simply that it generates an infinite regress that the subject repeatedly escapes its gaze. The problem is also that it could not possibly be an appropriate picture of how understanding of the form of life is possible. We also come to realize that f o r m o f lzye is not a concept. At least, the deepest use of the expression form of life is in a philosophical reflection in which we realize that it could not possibly be predicated of an object. A philosopher has not fully acquired its use until he realizes that it could not possibly be predicated of anything. Thus it turns out to be essential to the concept f o r m o f lzfe that, in philosophical reflection, the form of life emerges as an absent object. For this is part of the transformation of the concept f o r m o f l$e into something which is not, strictly speaking, a concept. And that is how we break away from the bondage of the meta models regress: we cease repeating the act of applying a concept of an object. We realize that concerning form o f li$e concept and object are of a piece: the thinking that constitutes the conceptualization is itself part of the object - it is the objects selfunderstanding. So in its deepest use the expression form of life is not a one over many, it is rather something like what Hegel called a Begrtff; a living conceptualization. We have not then overcome the threat of the absent object by showing that the form of life is, after all, a present object. The outcome of this exercise is a deeper understanding and acceptance of the fact that it could not possibly be a present object. But if the form of life is not a possible object for the philosophers surveillance, it would seem that the Owl of Minerva problem arises again for philosophical consciousness. How could the philosopher possibly know the full content of his own thoughts? Is not the content dependent on a context that is working itself out, developing? Yet is it not antithetical to philosophical consciousness that it have only partial grasp of its own thoughts? The only acceptable response is, I believe, simply to accept the Owl of

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Minerva problem. For this problem is a consequence of accepting that philosophy is not a transcendent, meta activity in which one commands an objective view of what is going on down below. Philosophy will go on as long as there are conflicts that emerge in the attempt to conceptualize the world and ones place in it. And as long as there are conflicts there will be a developing context for philosophy - for conflicts provide the context which lends content to philosophical thought. Thus the full meaning of the thoughts of any participant in the conflicts could not be transparent to him. Since the philosopher is a participant in the conflict, not a transcendent observer, he ought to accept for himself, qua philosopher, what he has already accepted for himself, qua reflective interpreter: that the content of his thoughts cannot be fully available to him. Indeed, this is a re-enactment of a general problem about meaning which we encountered earlier, in our investigation of reflective interpretation. Reflective interpreters are regularly trying to survey the context as well as grasping the meaning in a flash. When we first realize this, it looks as though it must be an essentially frustrating activity, for no reflective interpreter is the Owl of Minerva. Yet this activity of attempted (though necessarily partial) surveillance is itself constitutive of meaning and understanding. The survey is constantly being reincorporated into the use: our understanding of the context helps us to go on and is itself part of our going on. Wittgenstein missed this because he focused exclusively on unreflective interpretation: thus he was led to stress the primacy of practical ability to use an expression at the expense of theoretical understanding. When we widen our gaze to include reflective interpretation it becomes clear that theoretical understanding helps to constitute practical ability. In fact, Hegels Owl of Minerva was probably a hopeless ideal. If one thinks that history is a teleologically developing process, then there is some point in supposing that it is only at the end of history that one will finally grasp its meaning. However if one abandons the idea of teleological development, then the end of history - a t least in the sense of a telos - no longer makes sense. In as much as one can give sense to an end of history, it would have to be a mere termination. At the termination of history the Owl will no longer be a prisoner of a context he cannot fully survey, but then there could not be such an Owl, for there will no longer be a meaningconferring context or process to lend his thoughts any content at all. Although Hegel tried to get beyond the confines of the meta

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model, the Owl of Minerva is a last vestige: it still holds out the ideal of surveillance from a transcendent perspective - even if the transcendence is only with respect to the historically developing process.

VI
Why did the meta model look so appealing? From our revised conception of philosophical consciousness we ought to be able to give some account of the grip the meta model has exercised on our imaginations. Some of the appeal no doubt lies in the fact it provides a picture for Kants conception of our minds. First, we are, as Kant called us, discursive intelligences: that is, the paradigm of thinking activity for beings like ourselves is a discursive judgement in which a concept is predicated of a n object. T h e activity of predicating is naturally treated as distinct from the object of predication. Second, on Kants account of self-consciousness, as we have already seen, the I remains distinct from its objects of thought. No doubt too that the appeal stems from a conception of objectivity as requiring detachment from the object of investigation. But the meta model also gains its appeal from the experience of conflict itself. For a being who genuinely experiences conflict, the resolution of conflict seems like transcendence: one has risen above the conflict and is now seeing clearly. This experience is misconceived by the meta model. In working through a conflict concepts are transformed, the world comes to be seen differently. In the process the questions and difficulties which provoked the conflict will often be reformulated: thus it is so tempting to conceive of oneself as looking down on the participants of a conflict viewed from a detached perspective. (That is, once the conflict has been worked through it is tempting to picture oneself as the Owl of Minerva.) However, this conception is a myth for the participants no longer exist. They have become ourselves, for, after all, that is who they were. T h e meta model mistakes the working through of a conflict for its transcendence to a meta-level. T o overcome the appeal of the meta model, it is perhaps best to formulate an alternative. Here I think we should take seriously the therapeutic model, at least as it has developed within the practice of psychoanalysis. I shall here only briefly allude to the appeal of the therapeutic model for philosophy. Therapy is the organized and directed working through of conflicts. Conflicts - which inevitably arise in human development, especially in the relations between a

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persons sexuality, his conception of who he is and who he would like to be - provide the matter of a therapeutic analysis. Without conflicts there could be no analysis. Thus it is part of the aim of the therapy to induce a controlled regression of the soul. The analysand is, in various ways, encouraged to regress to a more primitive psychic stage in the hope that he will at least partially reenact the conflicts of that stage. Of course, in a fairly healthy adult the re-enactment will only be partial. For the analysand will not leave his current psychic stage completely behind, so even in the regression there will remain some remnant of his observing ego on the scene, taking it in and trying to come to some judgement about it. The analytic situation is designed to encourage the observing ego. First, since the analyst does not directly engage in the reenactment himself, it is easier for the analysand to notice that the re-enactment and regression is just that: that it is not part of the reality of his interaction with the analyst. Second, the analyst works as an ally to the observing ego. It is the task of the analysis to help the observing ego to work through the conflicts which are experienced in the re-enactment. It is a familiar fact that an analytic interpretation on its own will have no therapeutic value for a person not directly engaged in analysis, even if that person accepts the interpretation. In fact, I think a stronger claim can be made: such a person will not understand the interpretation. Or, at least, his understanding will be very superficial. What psychoanalysis as a practice (as opposed to a theory of the mind) has discovered is that the conceptualization involved in analytic interpretations depends for its content on the conflicts which the interpretations are intended to resolve. A similar insight, I believe, emerges from the practice of philosophy. Philosophical claims about, say, forms of life are as shrill as they are boring when they are not firmly rooted in the conflicts which lead us to invoke them. Perhaps this is why the history of philosophy is an essential part of the practice of philosophy in a way that the history of a physical science is not an essential part of the science. If one does not actively re-enact the conflicts which led to the philosophical resolutions, then the accumulated resolutions lose their content as well as their therapeutic value. The history of philosophy provides, I suspect, the controlled environment for the working through of philosophical conflicts. Finally, the goal of psychoanalytic therapy as well as of philosophy is not a meta view of the conflict, but freedom from it. I t is to this end that one engages in a re-enactment of it. In analysis,

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the re-enactment is not a mere repetition of the conflict: because the regression is undergone under the auspices of two observing egos; there is a promise of freedom from a repetition which has hitherto been unintelligible (and thus imprisoning) to the analysand. With the resolution of conflict, the analysand is able to live better and he experiences the relief of a release from imprisonment. In philosophy, the conflict was generated by the desire to understand the world and one's place in it. The resolution of the conflict is itself a deeper understanding and it yields the pleasure which attends the satisfaction of that desire.'8

Department o f Phi~osoph~ Yale University N e w Haven Connecticut 06520 USA

I would like to thank Christopher Dustin, Cynthia Farrar, Mark Ravizza and Bernard Williams for penetrating criticisms of a previous draft.

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