The Political Wittgenstein

Since Wittgenstein's death in 1951, readers have advanced numerous claims about his philosophy's political significance. Some take his philosophy to have a conservative or reactionary bent; others take it to have a relativistic leaning; yet others associate it with classical liberalism, neo-liberalism, or Marxism. The Political Wittgenstein surveys this terrain in four chapter-length narratives about the development of distinct views of the political significance of Wittgenstein's thought. This Element offers a thorough introduction to the question of a Wittgensteinian approach to political thought. It simultaneously makes a case for reading Wittgenstein's philosophy as, at base, political, liberating and pressingly pertinent.