Dissonant Voices has a twofold aspiration. First, it is a philosophical treatment of everyday pedagogical interactions between children and their elders, between teachers and pupils. More specifically it is an exploration of the possibilities to go on with dissonant voices that interrupt established practices – our attunement – in behaviour, practice and thinking. Voices that are incomprehensible or expressions that are unacceptable, morally or otherwise. The text works on a tension between two inclinations: an inclination to wave off, discourage, or change an expression that is unacceptable or unintelligible; and an inclination to be tolerant and accept the dissonant expression as doing something worthwhile, but different. The second aspiration is a philosophical engagement with children’s literature. Reading children’s literature becomes a form of philosophising, a way to explore the complexity of a range of philosophical issues. This turn to literature marks a dissatisfaction with what philosophy can accomplish through argumentation and what philosophy can do with a particular and limited set of concepts for a subject, such as ethics. It is a way to go beyond philosophising as the founding of theories that justify particular responses. The philosophy of dissonance and children’s literature becomes a way to destabilise justifications of our established practices and ways of interacting. The philosophical investigations of dissonance are meant to make manifest the possibilities and risks of engaging in interactions beyond established agreement or attunements. Thinking of the dissonant voice as an expression beyond established practices calls for improvisation. Such improvisations become a perfectionist education where both the child and the elder, the teacher and the student, search for as yet unattained forms of interaction and take responsibility for every word and action of the interaction. The investigation goes through a number of picture books and novels for children such as Harry Potter, Garmann’s Summer, and books by Shaun Tan, Astrid Lindgren and Dr. Seuss as well narratives by J.R.R. Tolkien, Henrik Ibsen, Jane Austen and Henry David Thoreau. These works of fiction are read in conversation with philosophical works of, and inspired by, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Stanley Cavell, their moral perfectionism and ordinary language philosophy.

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This thesis is concerned with an analysis ofLudwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus that centers around the dilemma in which Wittgenstein finds himself in expressing the belief that the propositions of his work, while they are nonsensical according to their own standards, remain informative. The contention is that whether the text is successful in upholding Wittgenstein's claim relies deeply on the account that it gives of relations, in particular the pictorial relation and the relations that pertain amongst objects in states of affairs. It will be argued that the Tractatus sets itself the requirement that ifits propositions are to be nonsensical yet informative, then they must display the general form of a proposition that can have 'sense.' In turn, if any proposition is to be able to have 'sense,' then the pictorial relation must serve a dual purpose in holding the situation represented in the sense of a proposition distinct from the reality it depicts, while acting as a means of comparison such that the truth or falsity of a proposition can be determined. It will then be argued that if the pictorial relation is to be able to function in this way, then propositions must be able to signify exactly which relations pertain in the situation depicted by its sense. In conclusion a case will be made that the Tractatus is unable to meet the demands that it places on itself, for the work does not give an account by which elementary propositions, to which all propositions are analyzable, can signify the specific relations which pertain in the states of affairs they represent. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003.

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In the Theaetetus, Socrates proposes that knowledge is true belief that is accounted for or justified. The question that intuitively follows is what the proper structure of a justifying account of true belief is. Answers to this question are available throughout the history of philosophy and are generally vulnerable to the Agrippan trilemma of justification that originates with Pyrrhonian skepticism. I trace the influence of Pyrrhonism on the search for the proper structure of justification as it plays out in the current debate between coherentists and “contemporary” foundationalists. I expose their principal concerns—normative and naturalist, respectively—as descendants of ancient skeptical challenges. Illuminating this lineage shows that currently competing forms of justification are locked into a dilemma that is circumscribed by the Agrippan trilemma. Immanuel Kant and Ludwig Wittgenstein grapple with precursors to the current debate, which sets an interesting precedent for John McDowell’s attempt to resolve it with what I think is a conceptualist interpretation of contemporary foundationalism. I argue that a genetic story heuristically reinforces McDowell’s interpretation in a way that frustrates normative and naturalist concerns and leaves open the threat of skepticism. I in turn portray Kant and Wittgenstein as capable of domesticating these threats with a unique structure of justification that I argue is non-epistemically foundationalist. Such a structure meets the Socratic challenge that justifying true belief itself requires true belief as to the soundness of this justification. My central aim is to show how non-epistemic foundationalism is a matter of grounding, which depicts an asymmetrical relationship between empirical belief and pre-cognitive or transcendental awareness. I conclude that a grounding model satisfies normative and naturalist concerns and thereby offers a way out of the contemporary dilemma and an escape from the Agrippan trilemma. / Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2007-09-28 11:57:18.196

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My thesis is that the say-show distinction is the basis of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy in both the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) and the Philosophical Investigations (1953).Wittgenstein said that the Investigations should be read in conjunction with the Tractatus. To understand the Tractatus we must understand the say-show distinction: the principle that "what can be shown, cannot be said". A correct interpretation of Wittgenstein's philosophy will explain the significance of the say-show distinction for the Investigations. I evaluate three available readings of the say-show distinction which fail to meet this challenge. I argue that Wittgenstein's main purpose throughout his career was to replace traditional philosophy with an alternative conception of philosophy, which can only be understood through the say-show distinction. The Tractatus and the Investigations are different attempts to present the same conception of philosophy. I describe how, in both cases, they present a distinctive account of the nature of philosophical problems, the appropriate methods of philosophy, the end result of a philosophical task and the overall aim of philosophy. I argue that my interpretation provides a correct view of the significant continuities and discontinuities between the Tractatus and the Investigations. The failure of the Tractatus was not a flaw in the conception of philosophy presented in it, nor a flaw in the say-show distinction, hi the Tractatus, Wittgenstein failed properly to implement his proposed conception of philosophy, as he remained in the grip of traditional philosophical presuppositions. The Investigations presents the same conception of philosophy, but freed from the presuppositions of the Tractatus. The say-show distinction remains the basis of Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy in the Investigations.

Rule following is a central concept in the philosophy of Wittgenstein who was one of the pioneers of modern philosophy. Wittgenstein criticizes the traditional concepts of rule, because they were vague, ambiguous, and idealized. He thinks that it is not possible to isolate rules from practice and that a rule takes its meaning in a certain context or in practice. Wittgenstein&rsquo / s concept of rule following is closely related to a set of concepts: internal relation, understanding, criterion. These concepts explains the intimate relation between rule following and practice. Wittgenstein believes that his theory of rule following does not generate some problems such as paradox of interpretation and regression. Furthermore, the concept of practice plays a central role in Wittgenstein&rsquo / s view of rule following. He removes metaphysical speculations that are put forward concerning the &ldquo / essence&rdquo / of rule following and locates rule following in a form of life, that is in a natural context. With this, he provides an explanation that clarifies misuses of language and establishes a correct relation between theory and practice.