Wittgenstein and Society: Essays in Conceptual Puzzlement

In this collection of essays, Gavin Kitching argues that the whole project of a science of society is radically misconceived - the pursuit of an objective that would not be desirable even if it was possible, but which is (fortunately) impossible. In the early essays, dating from the 1980s, Kitching still considers himself a social scientist seeking, in Wittgenstein's philosophy, a sound philosophical basis for this science. By the last essays in the collection he has become convinced that the pursuit of such a basis is a chimera, and that while the forming and expression of well informed opinions on social and political matters is one of the most important activities in which human beings can engage, doing that in the best and most persuasive possible way requires one to abandon any pretence of being a scientist. Kitching concludes with a very different understanding of Wittgenstein's philosophy to the one with which he began; an understanding which shows Wittgenstein to have been one of the most revolutionary and liberating thinkers of all time.