Do your exercises
reader participation in Wittgenstein's investigations
pp. 147-159
in: Michael A. Peters, Jeff Stickney (eds), A companion to Wittgenstein on education, Berlin, Springer, 2017Abstract
Many theorists have focused on Wittgenstein's use of examples , but I argue that examples form only half of his method. Rather than continuing the disjointed style of his Cambridge Lectures , Wittgenstein returns to the techniques he employed while teaching elementary school . Philosophical Investigations (PI) trains the reader as a math class trains a student—"by means of examples and by exercises" (§208). Its numbered passages, carefully arranged, provide a series of demonstrations and practice problems. I guide the reader through one such series, demonstrating how the exercises build upon one another and give us ample opportunity to hone our problem-solving skills . Through careful practice , we learn to pass the test Wittgenstein poses when he claims that something is "easy to imagine" (§19). Whereas other critics have viewed the Investigations as merely a diagnosis of our philosophical delusions, I claim that Wittgenstein also writes a prescription for our disease: Do your exercises.
