Wittgenstein on training: Comment on Norm Friesen’s ‘Training and Abrichtung’: Wittgenstein as a tragic philosopher of education?

Abstract

The view of Wittgenstein as a ‘tragic’ philosopher of education is examined. Friesen’s claim rests on an interpretation of the way in which Wittgenstein uses the German term ‘Abrichtung’. This involves the claim that Wittgenstein saw training activities closely analogous to the breaking of an animal’s will. Close examination of various of the later texts of Wittgenstein and comparison of the original German with the English translation does not bear out this claim. Wittgenstein used ‘Abrichtung’ and related terms in his own way and for his own purposes. The picture that emerges from an overview of Wittgenstein’s use of these terms is that he sees training as a variegated rather than a single kind of activity.

Keywords:

• Wittgenstein
• Abrichtung
• Unterricht
• training
• learning

Acknowledgement

Thanks to Jeff Stickney for a helpful reference and comments as well as his valuable work on this topic.

Notes

1. Why Friesen thinks it necessary to mention that Christopher Winch is the son of Peter Winch in this context is not explained. Does he think that Christopher is, in some sense, channelling the thoughts of Peter?

2. See also Luntley’s (2017) ‘non-collectivist’ interpretation of Wittgenstein, p. 442.

3. The Blue and Brown Books were originally available in English only and were subsequently translated into German.

4. In Volume 2 of the Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology (RPP2) para 6, Wittgenstein contrasts the kind of reaction that one might expect from an animal being trained from that of a being capable of thinking. And here, the ability to hesitate and to retrace one’s steps is a key marker, rather than specific mental occurrences.

5. Friesen admits that Luntley, although impressed by Wittgenstein’s use of ‘Abrichtung’ does not think that Wittgenstein maintained that all language learning could be described in this way. (Friesen, 2017, p. 76, fn.1).

6. See Rödl (2016) for an emphasis on the specific learning potentials of humans and for a critique of McDowell for appearing to suggest otherwise.

7. See Tizard and Hughes (1984) for more on young children’s own attempts, through questioning, to build up their conceptual frameworks.

8. Absence of doubt is a central feature of these early acquisition activities in On Certainty.

9. This is not surprising. Wittgenstein did not hesitate to extend the application of terms beyond their everyday use if he thought that it served the purpose of elucidation. His very broad sense of ‘grammar’ is another example.

10. Other themes are also dropped in the later writing, such as the importance of common sense.