Skip to content
Home/ Wittgenstein's Artillery: Philosophy as Poetry
Wittgenstein's Artillery: Philosophy as Poetry

Wittgenstein's Artillery: Philosophy as Poetry

No customer reviews yet ISBN 9780262045834 The MIT Press

How Wittgenstein sought a more effective way of reaching his audience by a poetic style of doing philosophy.

Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, "Really one should write philosophy only as one writes poetry." In Wittgenstein's Artillery, James Klagge shows how, in search of ways to reach his audience, Wittgenstein tried a more poetic style of doing philosophy. Klagge argues that, deploying this new philosophical "artillery"--Klagge's term for Wittgenstein's methods of influencing his readers and students--Wittgenstein moved from an esoteric mode to an evangelical mode, aiming for an effect on his audience that was noncognitive, appealing to the temperament in addition to the intellect.

Wittgenstein was an artillery spotter--directing artillery fire to targets--in the Austrian army during World War I, and Klagge argues that, years later, he became a philosophical spotter, struggling to find the right artillery to accomplish his philosophical purpose. Klagge shows how Wittgenstein's work with his students influenced his style of writing philosophy and motivated him to care about the effect of his ideas on his audience. To illustrate Wittgenstein's evolving approach, Klagge draws on not only Wittgenstein's best-known works but also such lesser-known material as notebooks, dictations, lectures, and recollections of students. Klagge then goes beyond Wittgenstein to present a range of literature--biblical parables and children's stories, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche--as other examples of the poetic approach. He concludes by offering his own attempts at a poetic approach to addressing philosophical issues.

About the author

Product details

BrandThe MIT Press
Pub dateAug 3, 2021
ISBN-100262045834
ISBN-139780262045834
LanguageEnglish
Dimensions9.31 × 0.82 × 6.19 in
Weight1 lb
Last updated 2026-03-18 22:55
$52.28
In stock soon — order now to reserve your copy
Delivery by Monday, September 14, 2026
Qty
Sign in to Add to Saved list
Free delivery on orders over $35.
15-day returns. Any reason.
Secure checkout. We never store card details.

Readers who bought this also bought

More from Individual Philosophers
See all
Oxford Handbook of American and British Women Philosophers in the Nineteenth Century
<em>The Oxford Handbook of American and British Women Philosophers in the Nineteenth Century</em> disrupts the widespread impression that there were no women philosophers in this period. Building on feminist histories of philosophy that cover other eras, this volume includes chapters on a wide range of women philosophers: those who wrote explicitly philosophical texts for academic audiences, others who philosophized in novels or pamphlets, and still others who philosophized through journalism or activist writings. Through fifty newly commissioned chapters, it examines the philosophical thought of individual women, including women of color, as well as chronicling women's contributions to philosophical movements such as Romanticism, Utilitarianism, Idealism, and Positivism. It also traces the philosophical arguments women used to contribute to topics in social philosophy such as socialism, feminism, abolitionism, and the philosophy of education. It outlines the history of writing and publishing in the nineteenth century, showing that circumstances were more hospitable to women authors during this time than is often assumed. It clarifies ways in which race and class affected women's philosophizing and analyzes the influence of women philosophers on their male contemporaries. <br>By chronicling this wealth of women's philosophy, this handbook corrects the philosophical record and enriches our understanding of philosophy. If we assume there are no women philosophers in the nineteenth century, we will not look for them&#x3b; if we do not look for them, they will remain obscure, limiting our understanding of what philosophy is and can be.
$145.14