Wittgenstein: The History of Interpretations (A Critical Analysis of Anat Biletzki's Approach)

This article is a critique of Anat Biletzki's approach to writing the history of interpretations of the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. The long (far from complete) history of the readings (interpretations) of Wittgenstein's texts begins in 1922 with the preface of B. Russell to the English translation of The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and continues to the present. Difficulties with the understanding and appropriation (and sometimes assimilation) of the philosopher's ideas are conventionally divided into internal (Wittgenstein's style in a broad sense) and external (history of (selective) publications of original sources and a long lack of access to Wittgenstein's Nachlass). Anat Biletzki's approach is based on a rather strict classification of periods in the study of the heritage of the Austrian philosopher and assumes, based on certain methodological historical and philosophical principles, the identification of key directions and problems for each period. Anat Biletzki was the first to offer a kind of a meta-historical perspective on the historical and philosophical research of Wittgenstein. In this article, the author shows the weak points and limitations of Anat Biletzki's approach. The author presents several modern revolutionary publications that allow formulating objections to the proposed history of the interpretation of Wittgenstein's philosophy: Was (is) there this history in principle? Do the general tendencies and changes in the basic approaches to the reading of Wittgenstein have significance for the whole context of interpretations of a certain period? Should such a history (with certain dates, periods, significant events, heroes) ever be written? The situation is aggravated by the desire of some authors to adapt Wittgenstein to the needs of their own constructions (often in the field of sociology or philosophy of religion). Inevitably, there appears the question of the mutual influence between interpretation and use. In addition, the author shows that some recent works claim or lead to a radical revision of established interpretations (and indirectly lead to revising the history of interpretations). In this article, the author concludes that, considering a significant shift in the understanding (sometimes this understanding is achieved for the first time) of several problems, it is difficult to write a coherent history of interpretations even of The Tractatus (and Anat Biletzki's work should be largely revised). Still, Anat Biletzki' approach may well be refined and is undoubtedly of great interest for further research on Wittgenstein's philosophy.

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