Wittgenstein Among the Savages: Language, Action and Political Theory
Author(s)
Dienstag, Joshua Foa
Abstract
In his attempt to understand matters of the spirit, most notably in the “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough,” Wittgenstein elaborated an account of human action that enables us to overcome the commonplace modern dichotomy between political science and political theory. His work creates the possibility for a certain kind of exchange between the “facts” of political behavior and the “values” of theory by developing the category of “mythology, ” a form of human activity that bridges the theory-practice divide. The central point is to establish an ontological equivalence between words and deeds so that neither is regarded as more fundamental than the other In addition to enriching our understanding of the elements of human existence that some label “irrational,” this account of action can, by extension, offer a description of the role of political theory in relation to politics that defends theory’s value while preserving its distinctiveness. The borderland between political theory and political science, once casually defined and permeable, has developed into a rigid and hostile divide. Each approach views the work of the other with disdain and distrust. No doubt there are material, disciplinary, and bureaucratic forces involved in this development–but the intellectual issues that have helped to bring it about are real enough. One way to conceptualize these issues is to think of the two sides as having drawn parallel but incompatible conclusions from the common premise that modern social inquiry begins with an attitude of profound skepticism towards earlier, metaphysical accounts of politics and society.
