Wittgenstein: From Mysticism to Ordinary Language

• Preface I Positivism and Metaphysics: The Vienna Circle and the Dispute over the Nothing The Vienna CircleHeidegger's Nothing and the Experience of Radical Derealization-DepersonalizationFreak-out in a French Town: Sartre and the NothingThe Nothing and the Christian Purgatorial NightWho's on First?II Metaphysics as Profanation: Wittgenstein Reconsidered The Philistine and the ProphetThe Tractatus: Preliminary CharacterizationMystic Flight: Theophanic EncounterThe Symbolization of the Mystic Peak: Unbefittingness, Inadequacy, ProfanationThe Theophanic Encounter and the Rejection of MetaphysicsSilenceBeing Absolutely SafeThe World-Symbol of the TractatusEkstasis and ApatheiaGod and the WorldOf What One Can and Cannot Speak: The Say/Show-Itself DistinctionThe Solipsism of the TractatusExistential Yearning: The Urge to the MysticalProfanation and Obscurantism: The Judgment on MetaphysicsSome Problems with the Tractatus: A Theocentric Ethic Without Fallen ManProblems II: "Legislative Linguistics"Problems III: The Rejection of HistoryProblems IV: The Rejection of a Hierarchical OntologyThe Tractatus: Final CharacterizationIII From Prophecy to Scripture: The Canonization of Ordinary Language Showing the Truth of the Tractatus: A Choice of VocationsBreaking Silence—Wittgenstein's Encounter with Paul EngelmannCreating a MonsterRemarks on FrazerThe Shift to Ordinary Language: A Celebration of the Common ManFrom Prophetism to the Spirit of Jamnia: A New Conservatism and a New EpochOff to RussiaThe Triumph of Ordinary Language Philosophy in BritainIV Linguistic Tribalism and the Revolt Against Innerlichkeit Saving Society/ Saving Oneself"Our Language"Coming in Out of the Storm: Metaphysics, Mysticism, and the Significance of the Mental Health MetaphorsTowards a Behaviorist View of Mind: The Revolt Against InwardnessTowards a Behaviorist View of Mind: The Revolt Against PrivacyWork Therapy vs Language TherapyThe Attack on the Notion of Universal EssencesA Comparison with AugustineLinguistic Tribalism and the Ultimate Failure of Ordinary Language Philosophy: An EvaluationAn Exoteric Philosophy: Wittgenstein's Relationship to His Later ThoughtV Concluding Remarks on the Nature of Language as Spiel Index

"Russell Nieli's book constitutes an extraordinary contribution to scholarship, unique in many of its insights. For the first time, we come to understand core perspectives of Wittgenstein which some of his most influential interpreters misunderstood. No other book on Wittgenstein has helped me to understand half as well Wittgenstein as a human being, a thinker, and a man in his history and culture. None is as reliably right in its interpretations. None is as clearly written while attending to the richness of its subject matter." — Manfred Halpern, Princeton University"This is a very original approach to Wittgenstein that throws considerable new light both on Wittgenstein himself and on the whole of those tendencies in modern Anglo-American philosophy that stem from his influence. Nieli's hypothesis is both extremely insightful and well argued." — Eugene Webb, University of Washington"It treats one of the two most influential philosophers of the twentieth century in a genuinely fresh way. To that I can add that Nieli's novel assessment is on balance the right one." — Huston Smith, Hamline University