A New Style of Thinking: Hanna Pitkin’s Wittgenstein

“It is by no means obvious that someone interested in politics and society needs to concern himself with philosophy; nor that, in particular, he has anything to learn from an obscure, misanthropic, enigmatic philosopher like Ludwig Wittgenstein, who never wrote about such topics at all.” So begins Wittgenstein and Justice (W&J). Pitkin’s opening line spoke—and continues to speak—to the difficulty in identifying the relevance and potential significance ofWittgenstein’s work for a social science audience. Wittgenstein’s later philosophy is not only lacking in direct remarks on politics or morality, it seems almost negatively predisposed towards normative commentary of any kind. His famous claim that philosophy should only describe things as they are, not produce explanatory theses about them, would seem to foreclose the very idea of creating political and social theories that take his work as their departure point. Perhaps more worrisome, writes Pitkin, is that “in trying to make his ideas accessible, lucid, and systematic, I may make their real content and significance inaccessible.” Worse than failing to succeed, the book could “betray its own cause.” Wittgenstein’s penchant for raising endless questions where Pitkin’s reader seeks answers presents a problem of authorial style that cannot be easily overcome. Interpretive projects that seek to distill his main philosophical ideas, especially for a non-philosophical audience, do so at the real risk of significant distortion.