From Logical Form to Form of Life: Daniel Hutto’s Critical Review of Wittgenstein’s Thoughts

Since Wittgenstein is known for his two philosophies, one of the concerns of interpreters of his thoughts is to understand the relation between his two philosophies. Hutto is one of the interpreters who have endeavored to identify a reliable relation between Wittgenstein’s philosophies in order to present a coherent and consistent interpretation of these philosophies. In his view, this approach results in resolving superficial and profound conflicts in Wittgenstein’s philosophies. In Hutto’s words, an integrated basis that relates Wittgenstein’s two philosophies is Wittgenstein’s “end of philosophy”, and his attitude towards “nature and meaning of language”. Based on Hutto’s interpretation, in two of Wittgenstein’s intellectual periods, the end of philosophy was ‘description’, but Wittgenstein’s philosophical attitude towards the nature of language was evolved: an evolution from logical form to form of life. Hutto attempts to show that this evolution was not Wittgenstein’s main intention and it emerged through the method he applied for offering his thoughts. In Hutto’s view, Wittgenstein’s attitude in his second philosophy is correct, based on the ‘functional attitude’ and his attitude in his first philosophy is faulty, based on the ‘picture theory’, and this fault results from Wittgenstein’s confusion. He intends to extend the second philosophy method to the first philosophy in order to interpret the whole philosophy by one end and attitude. Although his conclusion is exquisite, it results in the conclusion that in Tractatus, there is no substantial point worth keeping.