Wittgenstein's Slapstick
Keywords:
Wittgenstein, improvisation, commedia dell'arte, slapstick, language gamesAbstract
In “Performance Philosophy — Staging a New Field,” Laura Cull approaches performance as a source of philosophical insight and philosophy as a species of performance (Cull 2014, 15). This calls for a radical transformation of philosophy and its practices. What form might this take? Wittgenstein’s later philosophy provides one example. The language games presented in the opening remarks of the Philosophical Investigations (PI, [1953] 2001) are meant to be played out. They involve improvisation based on general scenes, stock characters, and linguistic play. When enacted, they are slapstick. As such, they offer a method of philosophical investigation in which clarity and insight are inherent in the performance itself. Wittgenstein’s language games were directly influenced by the subversive practices of Austrian commedia dell’arte and slapstick (through the works of Johann Nestroy and Karl Kraus). By their very nature, they challenge the pretensions of philosophical explanation and theory. Unlike attempts to compare Wittgenstein’s philosophy to theatre, enacting language games is a form of philosophical performance. Andrew Lugg notes that recent attempts to compare Wittgenstein’s philosophy to theatre problematize the opening remarks of the Investigations. However, enacting language games as a form of philosophical performance makes what is hidden, in all of its simplicity and familiarity, obvious, striking, and engaging.References
Bair, Deirdre. 1978. Samuel Beckett: A Biography. New York: Touchstone.
Chargaff, Erwin. 1978. Heraclitean Fire. New York: Warner Books.
Cull, Laura. 2014. “Performance Philosophy — Staging a New Field.” In Encounters in Performance Philosophy, edited by Laura Cull and Alice Lagaay, 15–37. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gasking, D. A. T. and A. C. Jackson. 1967. “Ludwig Wittgenstein.” In Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Man and His Philosophy, edited by K. T. Fann, 49–55. New Jersey: Humanities Press.
Goldfarb, W. D. 2006. “I Want You to Bring Me a Slab: Remarks on the Opening Sections of the Philosophical Investigations.” In Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: Critical Essays, edited by Meredith Williams, 17–32. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Hegel, G. W. F. (1807) 1977. Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by A. V. Miller. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hutchinson, Phil and Rupert Read. 2005. “Whose Wittgenstein?” Philosophy 80 (313): 432–55.
Iggers, W. A. 1967. Karl Kraus: A Viennese Critic of the Twentieth Century. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Janik, Allan and Stephen Toulmin. 1973. Wittgenstein’s Vienna. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Kant, Immanuel. (1785) 1977. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by M. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Knight, Max and Joseph Fabry. 1967. “Presenting Johann Nestroy.” In Three Comedies by Johann Nestroy, translated by Max Knight and Joseph Fabry, with a foreword by Thornton Wilder, 5–27. New York: Frederick Ungar.
Laurel, Stan and Oliver Hardy. 1928. The Finishing Touch. Directed by Clyde Bruckman. Hal Roach/MGM.
Lugg, Andrew. 2013. “A Sort of Prologue: Philosophical Investigations §§1–7.” Philosophical Investigations 36: 20–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9205.2011.01462.x
Madden, David. 1975. Harlequin’s Stick, Charlie’s Cane: A Comparative Study of commedia dell’arte and Silent Slapstick comedy. Bowling Green: Popular Press.
Mighton, John. 1988 Possible Worlds. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press.
Monk, Ray. 1991. Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. London: Vintage Press.
Puchner, Martin. 2015. “Wittgenstein’s Language Plays.” Philosophy and Literature 39 (1): 107–127. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/phl.2015.0007
Rhees, R. 1980. “Wittgenstein’s Builders.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 60: 171–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/60.1.171
Ring, Merril. 1983. “Baker and Hacker on Section One of the Philosophical Investigations.” Philosophical Investigations 6: 259–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9205.1983.tb00349.x
Savickey, Beth. 1999. Wittgenstein’s Art of Investigation. New York: Routledge.
———. 2013. “Improvisation and Imagination in Wittgenstein’s Investigations.” Paper presented at Wittgenstein's Conception of Philosophy and Aesthetics, Marifjøra, 29–29 May 2011. Republication by the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen. http://wab.uib.no/agora-wab/
Schulte, Joachim. 2004. “The Builders’ Language.” In Wittgenstein at Work, edited by Erich Ammereller and Eugen Fischer, 22–41. London: Routledge.
Stern, David. 2004. Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stoppard, Tom. (1979) 1980. Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth. London: Faber and Faber.
Timms, Edward. 1986. Karl Kraus: Apocalyptic Satirist. London: Yale University Press.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. (1953) 2001. Philosophical Investigations, 3rd edn. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
———. 1981. Zettel, 2nd edn. Edited by G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
———. 1980. Culture and Value. Edited by G. H. von Wright and H. Nyman. Translated by P. Winch. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal, provided it is for non-commercial uses; and that lets others excerpt, translate, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
