Training and Abrichtung: Wittgenstein as a tragic philosopher of education

Abstract

As a landmark philosopher of language and of mind, Ludwig Wittgenstein is also remarkable for having crossed, with apparent ease, the ‘continental divide’ in philosophy. It is consequently not surprising that Wittgenstein’s work, particularly in the Philosophical Investigations, has been taken up by philosophers of education in English. Michael A. Peters, Christopher Winch, Paul Smeyers and Nicholas Burbules, and others have engaged extensively with the implications of the later Wittgenstein’s philosophy for education. One challenge they face is Wittgenstein’s use of the word ‘training.’ It appears throughout his discussions of language learning and in his periodic references to education. This is made all the more problematic by realizing that the German term Wittgenstein uses consistently is Abrichtung, which refers to animal dressage or obedience training, which is currently used in sadomasochistic practice, and which also connotes also the breaking of an animal’s will. I argue that this little-recognized fact has broad significance for many important Wittgenstinian insights into education. I conclude by considering how an unflinching recognition of the implications of Wittgenstein’s word choice might cast him as a pessimistic or tragic philosopher of education and upbringing—following German-language traditions—rather than as thinker more compatible with progressive Anglo-American perspectives.

Keywords:

• Ludwig Wittgenstein
• training
• education
• learning
• Abrichtung

Acknowledgement

The author wishes to thank Karsten Kenklies of the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, for his generous assistance with this paper.

Notes

1. Note, however, that Luntley takes a different approach some years later. Observing that Abrichtung offers only ‘a minimal notion of training,’ and expressing his debt to Wolfgang Huemer, Luntley writes the following in 2015: ‘Such a notion of training is, on its own, insufficient as a basis for language learning. It is also doubtful that Wittgenstein ever thought that it was’ (p. 70).

2. As a teacher in rural Austria, Wittgenstein regularly pulled the hair and boxed the ears of his pupils, sometimes drawing blood. At one point, he struck a boy on the head with sufficient force to cause him to collapse on the floor, unconscious. Wittgenstein’s immediate response was to leave the classroom, the village and also his post as a teacher. Hearings were held at a district court, but the case was suddenly dropped, perhaps through the influence of Wittgenstein’s wealthy family.

3. Wittgenstein remarked that ‘Genius is talent exercised with courage.’ He has also noted that, ‘There is no more light in a genius than in any other honest man—but he has a particular kind of lens to concentrate this light into a burning point’ (1998a, pp. 40–41).

4. There are a number of things lost (in some cases, mistaken) in the Strachey translation of Freud into English as well. It is often noted that Trieb, the word for ‘drive,’ is systematically mistranslated by Strachey as ‘instinct.’ I have corrected this with reference to the original German text, otherwise relying on Strachey for rendering Freud into English. I thank Joris Vlieghe for his assistance with this issue.