Zeit und Geschichte Time and History - Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein ...
Zeit und Geschichte Time and History - Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein ...
Zeit und Geschichte Time and History - Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein ...
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50<br />
Conservativism or Progressivism - Is It a Yes/No Question? <strong>Wittgenstein</strong>’s <strong>and</strong> Rorty’s Pragmatic Account of Historical Progress - István Danka<br />
writings had previously fixed the structure of reality<br />
(including our present <strong>and</strong> the future); historical existence<br />
is, since Plato, only an illusion. One of the main reasons<br />
why we supposed for ages that history has an end of it<br />
was that some of our beliefs are proven to be illusory, <strong>and</strong><br />
since we had a strong rationalist belief (unproven not to be<br />
illusory) that reality is reasonable, we needed to think that<br />
passing time is a process which has an end in which we<br />
can reach the eternal structure of ‘real’ reality.<br />
That static framework which teleologically determines<br />
contingencies had therefore been self-explained by<br />
RTK which was precisely the central target of<br />
<strong>Wittgenstein</strong>’s pragmatic arguments. The idea of<br />
progression is, as it is known, a belief strongly accused by<br />
rationalist suppositions of the Enlightenment (Bloor 2004).<br />
Most importantly, a rationalist wants to feel herself in<br />
safety just alone (i.e., without God <strong>and</strong>/or society). Since<br />
she knows that the frame of her knowledge does not<br />
exactly fit into the structure of the world, she hopes that in<br />
the future the former will converge to the latter. From this<br />
hope, moreover, she misimplies that the only possible way<br />
of thinking about reality is a view that our knowledge in fact<br />
converges to reality. It is not the problem with progressivist<br />
accounts that they were false; the problem is that they are<br />
claimed to be the only possible explanations by<br />
rationalists. If we give up, however, RTK, we don’t need,<br />
<strong>and</strong> have no more reasons for, the supposition that history<br />
should have any direction fixed once <strong>and</strong> for all.<br />
Rorty is of course aware of a possible description of<br />
his view as a Neoromantic attack against scientism of the<br />
Enlightenment, with an unreasonable nostalgy toward<br />
progressivism of it. He sees but his hope for a better future<br />
as a central thesis of his pragmatism (esp. Rorty 1994).<br />
This hope, after leaving behind realization of RTK as a<br />
purpose, is directed to a social goal in terms of solidarity<br />
(as opposed to an epistemic goal in terms of knowledge).<br />
If the above-mentioned are right, <strong>Wittgenstein</strong>’s<br />
main reason against seeing history as a progress was its<br />
exclusive strategy, strongly affected by RTK. If it is allowed<br />
that there is more than just one way of describing the world<br />
which can be (almost) equally applicable for some purposes,<br />
it is evident that we lose not only the<br />
reasonableness of RTK, but also the reasonableness of<br />
the supposition that history has a certain goal fixed once<br />
<strong>and</strong> for all.<br />
Seeing the distinctive features of a conservative<br />
reading of <strong>Wittgenstein</strong>, Rorty’s progressivism is,<br />
surprisingly, in an accordance with it point by point. A<br />
conservative <strong>Wittgenstein</strong>ian thinks that concrete is prior to<br />
abstract, history to reason, practice to theory, norms or<br />
customs to rules, <strong>and</strong> life to thought (Bloor 2004, 113). I<br />
hope it is clearly unwanted to argue that these are exactly<br />
the features which are attributed by Rorty to good<br />
Deweyan comrades. If this is so, maybe the abovementioned<br />
are features which does not necessarily commit<br />
us either to conservativism or to progressivism, since they<br />
are just some marks of rejection of a fixed goal of history,<br />
i.e., rejection of the view that the world has come into<br />
existence just for the purpose that we could have got a<br />
complete account of it via RTK.<br />
As I mentioned, <strong>Wittgenstein</strong> did not directly argue<br />
for or against the idea of progression but regarded it as a<br />
hypothesis which can be either followed or ab<strong>and</strong>oned<br />
without proofs (i.e., blindly). Hypotheses of progression<br />
(e.g. Evolution Theories) are parts of our natural history<br />
(Schulte 2004, 183-7) <strong>and</strong> natural history is a practical<br />
explanatory strategy which should be followed (or<br />
ab<strong>and</strong>oned) without any proofs - since proofs are<br />
distinctively theoretical explanatory strategies (Garver<br />
2004, 141). Natural history is rather like a Genrebild than a<br />
story of series of events with temporal extension - but also<br />
without an explicit rejection of it. This also means that<br />
explaining the relations among particular events does not<br />
have a unique historical or temporal structure. What can<br />
be seen from the past can only be seen as it appears now<br />
for us; what appears to be thus <strong>and</strong> so from this aspect,<br />
can also be seen from another aspect otherwise. Hence,<br />
the only way to reflect history of past time <strong>and</strong> of future as<br />
well, is to <strong>und</strong>erst<strong>and</strong> how it is involved in the present.<br />
Reading <strong>Wittgenstein</strong> in such a way, it is more<br />
obvious why he did not work out any complete history of<br />
philosophy - since it can only be fo<strong>und</strong> in the practice of<br />
the present language games. In this case, the only<br />
significant difference between conservativism <strong>and</strong><br />
progressivism is, nevertheless, just the emphasis: a<br />
conservativist says that knowledge is practically-socially<br />
inherited rather than written <strong>and</strong> proven once <strong>and</strong> for all,<br />
whereas a progressivist says that knowledge practicallysocially<br />
will be created rather than written <strong>and</strong> proven once<br />
<strong>and</strong> for all. From a perspective of a complex account of<br />
where our knowledge comes from, it seems that there is<br />
no contradiction: for coming into existence, an inherited<br />
piece of knowledge has to be created socially (since it is<br />
not fixed once <strong>and</strong> for all) <strong>and</strong> for being kept up, a created<br />
piece of knowledge has to be inherited socially (for the<br />
very same reason).<br />
A conservative account of the present in terms of<br />
the past seems therefore not to contradict a progressivist<br />
account of the present in the terms of the future. On the<br />
contrary, they do have a similar explanatory structure in<br />
which our present stage must be seen as a contingent<br />
episode in the flow of time. On the other h<strong>and</strong>, a historical<br />
account in terms of the present, either a progressivist one<br />
of the past, or a conservative one of the future, is<br />
essentially mistaken since it is accused with the bad<br />
presupposition of RTK that what is written now can be<br />
seen as eternally true. It is but evidently a supposition of<br />
RTK that the best way to <strong>und</strong>erst<strong>and</strong> how the world is, is to<br />
apply overgeneralized theories to issues for which they are<br />
unapplicable. A pragmatic, i.e., practice-oriented instrumentalist<br />
presupposition can dissolve the yes/no question<br />
if we apply explanatory strategies to the appriopriate<br />
explanatory targets <strong>and</strong> we will remain conservatives with<br />
respect to the socially inherited knowledge of the past, <strong>and</strong><br />
will become progressivists with respect to a hope that<br />
social problems which actually exist can be once solved by<br />
our social knowledge which is inherited <strong>and</strong> is going to be<br />
hopefully improved, or, on the gro<strong>und</strong>s of inherited<br />
knowledge, is going to be hopefully extended, in the future.