Cora Diamond

Cora Diamond ( born October 30, 1937 in New York) is an American philosopher.

Connects resolute reading of the works of Wittgenstein - as they call it - On Diamonds work on Ludwig Wittgenstein, a group of philosophers, one relies. The group thus directed against a standard interpretation.

Another area of ​​interest Diamonds is the moral philosophy and in turn, the debate about animal rights.

Life

Diamond began her philosophical teaching in 1961 at the University of Wales, Swansea. Further stations were Sussex and Aberdeen. From 1971 until her retirement in 2002, she taught at the University of Virginia, most recently as " Kenan Professor " for philosophy. She was also a visiting professor at Princeton University, among others.

Diamond was first marriage with Michael Feldman and his second wife, the philosopher Anthony Woozley († 2008). She is a member of the American Philosophical Society.

Work

Cora Diamond was in Wittgenstein research since the mid- 1960s through essays on Wittgenstein, and Gottlob Frege, as well as editor of Wittgenstein's " Lectures on the Foundation of Mathematics " is known, as it 1984 starting with the essay Throwing Away the Ladder: How to Read the Tractatus suggesting a new interpretation of the Tractatus.

Diamond is directed against the then prevalent view that Wittgenstein in the Tractatus, although he denies that in the philosophy of meaningful sentences about metaphysics (or ethics) are possible, but " unspeakable " ( ineffable ) tells truths, truths that are not words can be expressed, however, will " show ". Diamond turns the other hand, one that you can so that is Wittgenstein not fair, because at the end of the Tractatus, it means that the reader who understand him, after he has climbed up the ladder, recognize the sentences of the Tractatus itself as nonsensical, and the conductor will throw away. ( Tractatus 6:54 )

If, for example, of the " logical form of reality " is mentioned, then the idea that corresponds to something to which we refer somehow without being able to express it, a " pinch " ( chickening out) before Wittgenstein's claim, his sentences is be seen as senseless.

"To chicken out is to pretend to throw away the ladder while standing Firmly, or as Firmly as one can, on it. "

According to Wittgenstein, as Diamond, there are not just properties of reality that we can not express, but the show itself; instead was his view that the language of the Tractatus or useful for a time was indeed even essential to the clear Will of philosophical problems, but in the end only real, simple nonsense. The sentences do not correspond somehow unspeakable truths.

A more concrete example, this is called Diamond is, the sentence " A is an object ". According to the interpretation, against whom Diamond ( she calls explicitly Peter Hacker ) is the sentence "A is an object " is a prerequisite for the " intelligibility " ( intellegibility ) of ordinary sets, but to put it into words was a violation of the Logical syntax dar. the other hand, it proposes to Wittgenstein understood that the philosophical perspective from which we expressible or not expressible needs as the basis of reality, or opportunities as objective features of reality, whether expressible or not, see - that this perspective even an illusion that " a is an object ' by phrases such as is generated. "A is an object " is by Diamonds interpretation of Wittgenstein as innocent nonsensical as " Socrates is frabblig ". We are, she says, so confident that we understand what we are trying to say that we only see two options: it can be expressed or it is not expressible, but Wittgenstein trying to say that there is no.

One consequence of their interpretation that recognizes Diamond is that they are also called sentences Wittgenstein, they " wonderful " as the that there is only logical necessity ( Tractatus 6:37 ) has described as " ironic and self-destructive ."

Wittgenstein, and this is the second basic idea Diamonds, expressed already in the Tractatus from the idea that he immersed in his later philosophy that there is a connection between misunderstandings about the "truth of logic " and our attachment to a philosophy of doctrines, theories and theories give. Even if she sees differences between early and late Wittgenstein's philosophy, the unity of Wittgenstein's philosophy is in the foreground. Also, this view is in contrast to the traditional view that the early and late Wittgenstein represent radically different philosophies. Although there were previously philosophers who have rather emphasizes the similarities, but for Diamond not only the goals and criticisms, but also the methods are similar in the early and late Wittgenstein.

Criticism

The criticism of Diamond Hackers accuses her of, among other things, to have the preface and the conclusion part of the Tractatus given excessive weight and thereby be methodologically inconsistent.

Another point of criticism Diamond believes to be able to refute. If so the question of Wittgenstein in the Tractatus did not convey what you really can not tell, how is to understand Frank Ramsey's criticism of Wittgenstein, that there is no philosophical "important " Nonsense, that what can not be said can not be " caught "? Ramsey has performed in 1923 long conversations with Wittgenstein and should have most likely understood the Tractatus. If Wittgenstein did not want to " show " may be what is not " told " why he has not Ramsey saved from misunderstanding?

Diamond calls it a legend that Ramsey's often -quoted phrase " But what we can not say we can not say, and we can not whistle it either " ever refers to Wittgenstein's use of the unsayable. Rather, if it were a note on the technical proposal to be considered general declarative sentences as infinite conjunctions. As a key witness renames A. J. Ayer, who had brought the legend to life but also refuted.

Influence

The interpretation of Wittgenstein, which goes back to an early Diamond and colleagues James Ferguson Conant, has gained great weight within the Wittgenstein research over the past fifteen years. Advocates of this interpretation are sometimes referred to collectively as the " New Wittgenstein " according to a kind of manifesto, which was published in 2000 .. Originally the direction was " therapeutic" (as opposed to " metaphysical" ) sometimes called "transitional ". Meanwhile, the term "resolute reading" ( resolute reading ) has prevailed.

Bibliography

• Cora Diamond: The Realistic Spirit. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1991 [ RS]
• Alice Crary (eds.): Wittgenstein and the Moral Life - Essays in Honor of Cora Diamond. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2007 [ WAML ]
• Cora Diamond: People, Animals and terms. Essays on moral philosophy. Edited and with an afterword by Christoph Ammann and Andreas Hunziker, translated by Joachim Schulte. Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-518-29617-2.

Papers

• Cora Diamond: Throwing Away the Ladder. In: [RS ]
• Cora Diamond, James Conant: On reading the Tractatus resolutely: reply to Meredith Williams and Peter Sullivan. In: M. Koelbel, B. Weiss ( ed.) The Lasting Significance of Wittgenstein 's Philosophy, Routledge, 2004
• Cora Diamond: We Can not Whistle It Either: Legend and Reality. In: European Journal of Philosophy, "early view" February 19, 2010