Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Locating the Itch Chapter 3 The Genealogy of "Philosophy" Chapter 4 Paradigms of Analytical Philosophy as First Philosophy and Their Problems Chapter 5 Wittgenstein'sPhilosophical Investigations: Overcoming the Overcoming of First Philosophy Chapter 6 Mapping a Neglected Terrain: Philosophy in Relation to Its Times Chapter 7 Working on Oneself, Caring for Us: Toward a Transformative Philosophy
Thomas Wallgren is a Senior Fellow at the Academy of Finland.
Thomas Wallgren's book Transformative Philosophy is a remarkable,
important achievement in modern philosophy…. The importance of the
book is that it manages to portray significant positions and
debates in modern philosophy both in their own modern terms and as
examples of how to deal with some deep and basic problems that have
always characterized serious philosophy since Socrates. There is
hardly any other book available that analyses "what philosophy is
about today" with such profundity as this book. It reveals a fine
and valuable insight into important parts of both modern analytic
and modern continental philosophy…. It is a book that one can
recommend to not only to students of philosophy but to learned
scholars, since few living philosophers have managed, with
excellence, to present the aspirations of modern philosophy as
still answering to the historical roots and original ambitions of
the enterprise.
*Steen Brock, Aarhus Universitet*
With great mastery, Wallgren navigates through much of the best in
recent Wittgenstein scholarship, introducing us to many lines of
interpretation found therein: transcendental, relativistic,
naturalistic, corrective therapeutic.... Yet, in the end they are
all left behind in favor of a different and new line: "polyphonic
grammatical" interpretation, and, more generally, "transformative
philosophy"… By presenting Wittgenstein to us as a follower of
Socrates, the author succeeds in demonstrating one way in which
Wittgenstein may offer us an alternative to choosing between theory
and corrective therapy on the one hand and anarchy and
irrationalism on the other. And, needless to say, along the way
Wittgenstein himself is also scrupulously scanned for faults.
*Alois Pichler, University of Bergen*
Transformative Philosophy is a courageous, profoundly searching
examination of the character and value of philosophical theory and
practice…. Philosophers as diverse as the pre-Socratics, Socrates,
Heidegger, Quine, Dummett, Davidson, Habermas, Apel, Foucault,
Deleuze, Guattari, Rorty, and Wittgenstein himself, along with his
recent expositors and critics, are scrutinized to determine the
extent to which their basic contentions make sense and make a
genuine difference to—or instead raise basic difficulties for—our
philosophical procedures. Wallgren develops a compelling
alternative to first-philosophical pretensions, deflationist
quietism, and relativism in the form a "polyphonic" grammatical
interpretation of Wittgenstein's later philosophy. He shows how we
can be seriously committed philosophically both to rational
justification and to the moral relevance of philosophy to our own
times…. Wallgren's book is replete with subtle and important
insights, above all about Socrates and Wittgenstein; it is a "must
read" for philosophers of all persuasions.
*Kenneth R. Westphal, University of East Anglia*
I found [Transformative Philosophy] a charming [book],
philosophically quite astute and wide-ranging, and decidedly bold
and inventive in the direction it proposes.
*Joseph Margolis, Temple University*
Wallgren's detailed account of the transformative potential of
philosophy — of the way in which, by working to resolve conceptual
confusions or to rid oneself of delusions, one can end up
transforming one's entire life and even the world itself — has been
long-awaited and is most welcome. Wallgren's development of the
therapeutic interpretation of philosophy…builds on all that is best
in the great voices of philosophy from Socrates to the present day,
and focuses most intently around Wittgenstein's thought…. Those who
think that admiring Wittgenstein entails conservative political
views will be shaken by this book, for Wallgren's philosophy is a
deeply-contemporarily-relevant philosophy of emancipation: from the
tutelage of scientism and individualism, and from our governance by
mentalities such as that of knowledge-fetishism or
free-market-ideology.
*Dr. Rupert Read, University of East Anglia, Norwich*
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