Introduction

Much of what has been written on Wittgenstein by political theorists is concerned with how his work fits into the array of contemporary orientations to theory. From this literature we learn there are two great obstacles to incorporating Wittgenstein into political theory: His stated antipathy toward theory and the absence of concern with politics in the body of his writings. Despite these barriers, a number of political theorists have sensed that Wittgenstein has something important to offer their enterprise and have sought to graft his ideas regarding meaning, language-games, Lebensformen, the character of language, and its relation to the world onto their various takes on the discourse.

My thought is that grafting Wittgenstein onto political theory, seeing him as merely “significant” to political theory, or considering his work as a kind of therapy for, or underlaboring clarifier of, perceived maladies in the activity are inadequate, although such efforts have yielded some interesting results (Pitkin 1972; Danford 1976). What Wittgenstein demands of political theory is a reconsideration of the pictures of the theorist and the relation of the theorist to politics that guide practitioners, shape their attitudes toward the world, and give them a sense of identity.