Date Presented:

7 August

Abstract:

Wittgenstein offers a method of engagement and participation that enables us to establish overlaps between the public and the private. One such overlap is social courage. The duty to help is not a matter of entitlement, but it is an obligation that comes from our sense of connection with others. Wittgenstein’s method of language-games enables us to extend this sense of connection even to strangers because it a ‘socially reflective mode of learning’ through which we are better able to take the perspective of others. Obligations do not just come from a system of codified rules, but from the sense of agency we acquire as a result of reflective engagement in different practices. Wittgenstein does not advance any substantive thesis, but the critical nature of his method offers a framework for understanding social courage without leading to the antagonism between altruism and rationality