Introduction

The question of whether Wittgenstein was a conservative philosopher has generated a large literature. Given the enormous scope of the literature there will not be space here to consider all of the various arguments in favour of deeming Wittgenstein a conservative. In particular many have focused in on Wittgenstein's claim in §124 of the Philosophical Investigations that philosophy ‘leaves everything as it is’. That remark alone is deserving of a long discussion (I discuss it in Chapters 5 and 6 of this book) and if controversies surrounding Wittgenstein's remarks about rule- following, rationality, and relativism were taken into consideration a sizable book could be written on the topic of Wittgenstein's relationship to conservatism. I will restrict myself, in this chapter, to the arguments found in J. C. Nyiri's paper ‘Wittgenstein 1929– 31: The Turning Back’.

The evidence brought by each side of the debate about whether Wittgenstein was conservative can be roughly divided into evidence concerning Wittgenstein's occasional remarks directly concerning political matters and evidence from among Wittgenstein's philosophical remarks. The reason I say ‘roughly’ divided is that there is some controversy about the extent to which this division can be made. Within Wittgenstein's typescripts each kind of remark would not be clearly separated; a remark about politics might be followed by a remark about philosophy, and philosophers might think that there is no clear division between the two kinds of remark (or that there aren’t two kinds of remark at all). In this chapter I will treat the political remarks and philosophical remarks separately and I hope that by the end of the chapter it will become clearer how a separation can be made. I will argue that philosophical remarks that have been construed as having political implications do not in fact have the implications that some commentators have suggested.

If we can separate out the two kinds of remark then there are really two questions to answer. First, we can ask whether Wittgenstein was conservative in his political views and second, we can ask whether Wittgenstein's philosophical remarks have conservative political implications. To the first question my answer will be that Wittgenstein certainly held some political views that can be deemed conservative (although he also held some views that could be characterized as left- wing and as expressing a deep dissatisfaction with the way things were).