Wittgenstein: Philosophy, Postmodernism, Pedagogy

(Hardback)

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Peters and Marshall examine the parallels between the later Wittgenstein and French poststructuralism and investigate the direct appropriation of Wittgenstein's work by poststructuralists. They discuss the most pressing problems facing philosophy and education in the postmodern condition: ethico-political lines of inquiry after the collapse of the grand narrative, other cultures in the curriculum, and the notion of postmodern science. Wittgenstein is a central figure in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. His writings serve as a fulcrum in both modern philosophy and philosophy of education, charting the shift away from the formalist approach of logical atomism to the more anthropological emphasis on language games in the analysis of ordinary language. Wittgenstein's work served as a springboard for a range of today's leading intellectuals: Peter Winch, Thomas Kuhn, Richard Rorty, Stephen Toulmin, and Stanley Cavell. Wittgenstein is the source and authority for legitimating analytic philosophy of educationthe so-called London schoolas a distinctive field of intellectual endeavor based on the method of conceptual analysis and the search for necessary and sufficient conditions.

Reviews

"A superb achievement. This book provides a top class, thoroughly contemporary reading of Ludwig Wittgenstein's unsurpassed contribution to the western intellectual tradition. The authors draw on their impressive scholarship to explore Wittgenstein's works in relation to modern and postmodern currents and tensions by situating Wittgenstein in relation of other leading 19th and 20th century thinkers. The outcome for the reader is a truly enriched understanding on each of these dimensions."-Colin Lankshear Professor of Education Queensland University of Technology
"Michael Peters and James Marshall lead the reader on a journey that will fascinate all who have an interest in the enigmatic figure of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Armed with an impressive range of scholarship, they start the journey with a comparison of Wittgenstein's works with those of figures who were receiving attention in his native fin de siecle Vienna--Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Spengler, Freud, and a variety of composers and artists. Peters and Marshall make the case that the early Wittgenstein was modernist (their discussion of the Tractatus as "showing" rather than "saying," and the comparison with modernist art, is fruitful), while the later Wittgenstein was more postmodernist in spirit--an analysis that is strengthened by the interesting comparisons they make between his work and that of Lyotard, Foucault, and Rorty. The book culminated with a convincing account of Wittgenstein's later work as embodying a conception of philosophy as pedagogy."-D.C.Phllips Professor of Education and, by courtesy, of Philosophy Stanford University
"This is a complex and rewarding book. Peters and Marshall draw discriminatingly on Wittgenstein scholarship to deepen our understanding of modernism, postmodernism, psychology and philosophy, and in particular of philosophy of education. They illuminate the connections between key figures such as Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and Freud. Through an astute analysis of the different ways in which philosophy itself constitutes a kind of pedagogy they open up new ground for philosophy of education to explore. Philosophy of education is much enriched by their research."-Richard Smith Senior Lecturer, University of Durham, England Editor, Journal of Philosophy of Education
"Truly educational, [this book] invites the reader to pause for a moment from a particular stance before being left to herself to make up her mind. The deliberate disturbance never becomes chaotic but gives just the kind of guidance one wants in a postmodern landscape: true to the Wittgensteinian spirit it fills in the context."-Paul Smeyers Professor of Education University of Leuven, Belgium
An interesting publication for educators and philosophers of education...- Philosophy in Review
"An interesting publication for educators and philosophers of education..."-Philosophy in Review

Author Bio

MICHAEL PETERS is Professor of Education, Auckland University, New Zealand.