Dedicated to educators who are not philosophy specialists, this book
offers an overview of the connections between Wittgenstein's later
philosophy and his own training and practice as an educator. Arguing for
the centrality of education to Wittgenstein's life and works, the
authors resist any reduction of Wittgenstein's philosophy to remarks on
pedagogy while addressing the current controversy surrounding the role
of training in the enculturation process. Significant events in his
education and life are examined as the background for successful
interpretation, without lending biographical details explanatory force.
The book discusses the importance of Wittgenstein's training and
dismissal as an elementary teacher (1920-26) in light of his later,
frequent use (1930s-40s) of many 'scenes of instruction' in his
Cambridge lectures and notebooks. These depictions culminated in his now
famous Philosophical Investigations -- a counter to his earlier
philosophy in the Tractatus. Wittgenstein came to distinguish between
empirical inquiries into how education, language or mathematics might
ideally work, from grammatical studies of how we learn on the rough
ground to normatively go-on as others do - often without explicit rules
and with considerable degrees of ambiguity, for instance, in
implementing new guidelines during a curriculum reform or in evaluating
teachers. The book argues that Wittgenstein's reflections on education
-- spanning from mathematics training to the acquisition of language and
cultivation of aesthetic appreciation -- are of central significance to
both the man and his pedagogical style of philosophy.
