ANCORA SU WITTGENSTEIN. INTORNO A SCIENZA E FILOSOFIA

Abstract

The paper presents several reflections on the way Wittgenstein interpreted the relationship between philosophy and science. Particularly, this contribution highlights (a) how Wittgenstein’s criticism is not directed at science as such, but rather at the presumption that philosophy is and behaves as science (or as a science); and, consequently, (b) how Wittgenstein’s polemical target is what he sometimes defines as “metaphysics”. In fact, according to him, metaphysics arises precisely when (1) conceptual investigations are addressed with factuality, and when (2) in philosophy a certain theoretical attitude based on the search for the general and on reductionism is accepted. On this background the paper discusses (c) the connection that Wittgenstein’s philosophy holds, on the one hand with contemporary Naturalism and, on the other, with the most recent critiques of philosophy as conceptual analysis. The conclusions suggest that Wittgenstein’s thought, insofar as it maintains the distinction between norms, rules, reasons, etc. and facts, causes, etc., can hardly be matched with contemporary Naturalism and its reductionism without being tempted by the sublimations typical of the various forms of Platonism.