The Spell of Wittgenstein (Part II)
Winch v. Popper: Rationality in the Social Sciences
Or
How to parry a poker
By John Saudino
11 August 2020
This is the second article in a three-part series. See Part I here.
3. Popper’s Response to Winch and Its Implications for Popperian Methodology in the Social Sciences
3. Introduction:
Here I will give a brief characterization of Popper’s response. Then using this response as a point of departure I will do a systematic treatment of his points of critique of Winch in connection with specific aspects of his philosophy. This will include brief references to relevant works. I will also do an investigation of the unexpressed divergences between the two philosophers that have to do with the deeper issues that distinguish Popper and critical rationalists as a school of thought on the one hand, from philosophers like Peter Winch, who follow a more Wittgensteinian approach in the spirit of the so called “linguistic turn”, on the other. It will become clear that these differences boil down to fundamental and highly significant problems and solutions that separate them philosophically. These can be articulated in terms of Popper’s scientific approach to the social sciences in general and more specifically by his opposition to two specific tendencies in philosophy: essentialism and relativism.
3.1 Popper’s Response: “Winch on Institutions and The Open Society”[1]
3.1.1 General Characterization
Popper’s consternation at Winch’s article jumps off the page right from the first sentence and continues through till the end. He says right away that Winch’s “puzzling” contribution is permeated by a feeling that “communicates itself to the reader” that Winch is criticizing him from a “radically opposed” point of view based on “the discovery (or what he believes to be a discovery) of serious weakness” on Popper’s part but that this feeling “has simply no basis in the actual points of criticism made by Winch” and that these points are either “simply mistaken” or “quite trivial”. According to Popper these mistakes have to do with Winch misunderstanding him or simply failing to read the significant passages.
Popper’s annoyance is also directed at the fact, and my own experience corroborates this quite well, that Winch’s text is extremely confusing and unclearly written. Popper complains that he found “Winch’s central criticism” “difficult to unravel” and that he could only make a guess “after many readings and rereadings”. He even complains that, in an effort to excavate the basis for an alleged “confusion” on his own part in section III, he had to “read the preceding paragraphs of Winch’s essay at least ten times.”
Throughout his response Popper makes references to passages in his own work that either show that Winch’s objections are based on Winch’s own misunderstanding, are trivial or are simply based on Winch’s obsession with the meanings of words, which results in “ a kind of philosopher’s talk which does not convey anything to me”. However, there is one view that Winch clearly attributes to Popper that Popper finds “quite staggering”. Winch alleges that according to Popper traditions are necessary for rationality and that “all traditions are more or less equal, or that their differences are ‘more or less irrelevant’”. Here Popper is astounded, becomes quite indignant at Winch’s presumption and gives a principled philosophical argument based on his own past pronouncements that he would never and could never take such a position. I will later argue that this is an example of Winch reading himself into Popper and that through Popper’s vehement response we see the core distinction between the two approaches to social science and to philosophy related to the problem of relativism.
3.1.2 The Methodological Nature of the Divide
Now we come to the crux of the matter. What are the fundamental philosophical problems at the root in these divergent philosophies and what consequences do these solutions have for the practice of the theoretical social sciences?
The problem revolves primarily around the question as to how similar the practice and principles of the social sciences should be to those of the natural sciences, in particular in the realm of what Popper has termed “social engineering”, that is to say the reforming and improving of institutions. Popper’s favoring of “piecemeal social engineering” over “utopian social engineering” is an important element of his political philosophy as articulated in The Open Society and Its Enemies and in The Poverty of Historicism.
To express the Winch/Popper divide in a nutshell I would say it consists quite simply of the following: Popper views the social sciences as analogous to the natural sciences, whereby Winch does not. Consequently, Popper is in favor of engaging in social engineering and Winch, though he does not say so directly, argues consistently against doing so. Popper is a proponent of objectivity or realism in the sciences based on a correspondence theory of truth, Winch is an advocate of the type of relativist philosophy that grew out of Wittgenstein’s doctrines and the linguistic turn. Winch therefor views what we refer to as science as a kind of construct emanating from a particular culturally specific “discourse” and that “truth” outside of a “language game”[2] is impossible. By applying Wittgenstein to religious questions and to cultural anthropology, Winch’s develops a position which suggests that Popper’s conception of rationality is entirely illegitimate as a point of departure for understanding the social life of people within their traditions and institutions, and that without this understanding even piecemeal social engineering should be avoided.[3]
My evaluation here of Winch’s position is not immediately apparent to anyone who reads the exchange between to two men on its own, but by following and reading up on the references Winch makes to his own work[4] and to Popper’s work and following those made by Popper to his own work, (citations to follow) a picture of these two adversaries very much like the one I have painted above emerges. The division is based on philosophical problems related to the Popper/Wittgenstein conflict. It is as if Wittgenstein’s notorious poker has come back to haunt Popper.[5] These problems will be dealt with systematically below. An explication of the profound philosophical problems investigated by Popper in this context form the methodological aspect of this article. The consequences of these problems and the Popperian solutions thereof in support of rationality and objectivity over relativism will form the basis for my conclusion.
3.1.2.1 The Problem of Natural vs. Social Sciences
One point of contention regarding this problem featured prominently in Winch’s critique and in Popper’s response; it was Winch’s objection to Popper’s analogy between traditions and scientific theories (see p. 5 bottom-p. 6 top). This objection is key for Winch’s effort to shield institutions from social engineering. Popper’s use of this analogy is based largely on some of the arguments in The Poverty of Historicism are expressed in “Toward a Rational Theory of Tradition” as follows:
My main purpose will be to draw a parallel between, on the one side, the theories which, after submitting them to scientific tests, we hold as a result of the rational or critical attitude–in the main, that is, scientific hypotheses-and the way they help us to orientate ourselves in this world; and, on the other side, beliefs, attitudes, and traditions in general, and the way they may help us to orientate ourselves, especially in the social world.[6]
It is clear how this analogy, like the one Popper proposed in connection with Hayek on models, [7] is key to Popper’s view that the methods of the natural sciences also apply to the social sciences. Winch’s critique, citing Rhess, is that Popper is suffering “confusion” when he is led “to conflate practical social problems with theoretical problems”[8] Winch’s attempt to discount Popper’s analogy by claiming a dichotomy between being detected vs not being detected (top of p. 6 above) is soundly refuted by Popper using his characteristic italics:
The “confusion” of which Professor Winch speaks, and from which he draws such far-reaching consequences, is clearly not mine: ‘unlike the case of scientific theories, the tradition exist whether any observer detects it or not’ was Professor Winch’s criticism…But the natural regularity also exists, like the tradition, whether any observer detects it or not[9]
What is revealed here is that Winch does not understand or simply rejects what Popper and other natural scientists view as the relationship between theory and empirical reality. The “regularity” that the theory represents has empirical content and hence is about the world and is not a mere “discourse” endemic of a particular “form of life”, as Winch might well put it. Therefore the regularity described by the theory not only exists whether or not the observer detects it, but affects “the behavior of the phenomenon” exactly as Winch said it could not, hence both pillars supporting Winch’s dichotomy collapse. Without this dichotomy his argument here for the separation of scientific theory from social theory has no basis at all.
For the sake of brevity, I will have to be satisfied with this admonition of Popper’s leveled at Winch’s view of the fundamental nature of social theory. In the course of the examination of the methodological issues below, which will elucidate the Wittgensteinian roots of this conflict, other fundamental differences of great consequence for philosophy and for the social sciences will come up. The significance of these for the real world will be explored in the conclusion.
The first of the two major sub-problems that I will deal with has to do with one of the main elements of The Open Society and Its Enemies and that is Popper’s critique of Aristotelian essentialism and all its variants.
3.1.2.2 The Problem of Essentialism
Popper’s philosophy of science has many elements that are astoundingly groundbreaking. They are groundbreaking in their bold and scientifically based solutions to age old philosophical problems, one of these is the problem of essentialism and it is dealt with in detail in The Open Society[10], 1962 and more briefly as early as 1935 in Logik der Forschung[11].
3.1.2.2.1 Popper’s Critique of Aristotelian Essentialism
Let us turn now to this problem as dealt with in The Open Society. Popper insists that the epistemic/metaphysical doctrine of the empirical sciences is and must be nominalism. The position he advocates in both the natural and social sciences is methodological nominalism, which he contrasts to methodological essentialism[12] which he rejects.
The primogenitor of this this sort of essentialism is Aristotle, whose doctrine was only a very imperfect improvement over Plato’s. In the words of Bertrand Russell, metaphysically Aristotle was something like “Plato diluted by common sense”[13] What Russell means here is that, contrary to the thinking of those with a simplistic understanding of the rationalist/empiricist divide, including myself up until recently, Aristotle did not overcome the mysticism inherent in Plato’s Theory of Ideas, but only brought it somewhat down to earth and thereby, so to say, merely secularized it slightly[14]. Russell goes on to explain that because of Aristotle’s virtually unquestioned authority, his doctrines have been a major obstacle to the growth of scientific knowledge over many centuries:
He came at the end of the creative period in Greek thought, and after his death it was two thousand years before the world produced any philosopher who could be regarded as approximately his equal. Towards the end of this long period his authority had become almost as unquestioned as that of the Church, and in science, as well as in philosophy, had become a serious obstacle to progress. Ever since the beginning of the seventeenth century[15], almost every serious intellectual advance has had to begin with an attack on some Aristotelian doctrine.[16]
These are pretty harsh words to be hurled at the man who was once so unchallenged that he was referred to simply as “the Philosopher” both by Aquinas and by Aristotle’s Arab commentators. Popper’s critique of Aristotelian Essentialism is the clearest explanation as to why Russell’s characterization is clearly justified. Popper does this by making a methodical case implicating two forms of Aristotelian essentialism that are responsible for the kind of “obstacle to progress” mentioned above. As we will see one is associated with Hegel and the other with Wittgenstein.
In its basic form the methodological essentialism inherent in Aristotle’s obscurantist doctrine is that what is central to science is the compiling of a voluminous taxonomy of true definitions, which, on the basis of our “intuitive” understanding of their “essences”, are then to serve as the building blocks for an axiomatic system. Popper goes into great detail as to why this doctrine is methodologically untenable and why it is at the root of several schools of thought that are destructive of the open society. Two important representatives here are, historically, the authoritarian theocracy of the Inquisition i.e. of the Medieval Church and, in his own day, the “historicist”[17] and “totalitarian” doctrines of G.W.F. Hegel.[18]
The other central methodological problem has to do with another form of essentialism; an essentialism that seems skeptical and revolutionary on the outside, but in the final analysis turns out to be nothing more than a form of “reinforced dogmatism”[19] based on “deeply significant nonsense”[20].
For Popper this humbug of contemporary philosophy, a tendency that is still very influential today, is the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein.[21]
3.1.2.2.2 Popper’s Critique of Wittgenstein
In chapter 11 of the Open Society Popper singles out Wittgenstein in his explanation of the Aristotelian “prejudice that language can be made more precise by definitions.”[22] Popper shows exhaustively why this method utterly fails because, just like the attempt to demonstrate the truth of all premises leads to an infinite regress, so too does Aristotle’s essentialist method of definitions. For every term used to describe the word and its “essence” must in turn also be defined by other terms, and these by other terms, etc., etc., to eternity.[23]
As a result of this the only tenable approach to science is to employ nominalist methods in which the terms used by scientists function as mere place holders and definitions are merely provisional theories about the world that are read from right to left and not from left to right. Thus the mysticism of “essences” embodied in the obsession with meaning is replaced by the growth of scientific knowledge made possible by the fact that “in science, we take care that the statements we make should never depend upon the meaning of our terms” and because we make sure that “by carefully phrasing our sentences in such a way that the possible shades of meaning of our terms do not matter”.[24] This is a method diametrically opposed to the negative essentialism of Wittgenstein that, just like its Aristotelian counterpart, always ends with “an empty controversy about words.”[25] :
…we may criticize a doctrine like that of Wittgenstein, who holds that while science investigates matters of fact, it is the business of philosophy to clarify the meaning of terms, thereby purging our language, and eliminating puzzles. It is characteristic of the views of this school that they do not lead to any chain of argument that could be rationally criticized; the school therefore addresses its subtle analyses exclusively to the small esoteric circle of the initiated. This seems to suggest that any preoccupation with meaning tends to lead to that result which is so typical of Aristotelianism: scholasticism and mysticism[26]
Popper is even more brutal in footnote 51 referenced in the above passage in which he shows Wittgensteinianism to be no more than “deeply significant nonsense”[27], the italics, as usual, are Popper’s own. Popper’s rivalry with Wittgenstein dates way back at least as early as 1928. At Popper’s own doctoral exam (Rigorosum) of 1928 Moritz Schlick, who was on the committee, was so appalled by Popper’s criticism of Wittgenstein[28] that he ostracized him from the Vienna Circle. 18 years later Popper gave a presentation at the Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club on October 25th 1946. The presentation there entitled “Are there Philosophical Problems?” apparently so enraged Wittgenstein that he threatened Popper with a fireplace poker and then, after a cleaver retort by Popper, it would seem, promptly threw down the poker and stormed out of the room. [29]
If Popper’s mild paper in Cambridge provoked Wittgenstein’s infamous poker, then the attack in footnote 51, the following passage, which cites the Tractatus[30], would have certainly driven him up the wall:
Wittgenstein’s own philosophy is senseless, and it is admitted to be so. ‘On the other hand’, as Wittgenstein says in his Preface ‘the truth of the thoughts communicated here seems to me unassailable and definite. I am, therefore, of the opinion that the problems have in essentials been finally solved’. This shows that we can communicate unassailably and definitely true thoughts by way of propositions which are admittedly nonsensical, and that we can solve problems ‘finally’ by propounding nonsense.[31]
The combination of its obscurantism and its “unassailability” is what leads Popper to insists that, as is the case with Hegel, Wittgenstein’s doctrine is a form of “reinforced dogmatism” founded on “deeply significant nonsense”.[32]
3.1.2.2.3 Peter Winch and the Wittgensteinian Linguistic Turn
The epistemological and cognitive incoherence of this “nonsense” born of the “preoccupation with meaning” becomes all too painfully clear in Winch’s critique of Popper. In footnote 10 I have already pointed out one example the kind of smoke and mirrors vagueness Winch employs. Both in this piece and in his essay “Understanding a Primitive Society”[33] one of his favorite formulations is to question to what extent something “counts as suffering”, “counts as a problem”, “counts as solution”, “counts as a question”, “counts as a hypothesis”, etc. , always with the word “counts” in italics. It is obvious he needs to do this in order to underpin his basic collectivist thesis that virtually every thought one has depends crucially on one’s cultural/institutional “form of life”. Another devise is to employ the slippery rhetorical lubricant of expressions like “concept”, “conception”, “forms of life”, “the context in which”, etc. Part of the point in writing like this is to avoid “any chain of argument that could be rationally criticized” as Popper points out above.
This may seem a bit harsh, but this an accurate characterization of the kind of “deeply significant nonsense” that is characteristic of Wittgenstein’s and Winch’s approach according to this view.
Popper gives Winch a particularly poignant lesson in the folly of obsessing with words and their meanings in his response. Winch claims that Popper’s “conception of ‘importance’” “seems to give him some difficulty”[34]. In his response Popper rephrases the objectionable passage from “Many moral decisions involve the life and death of other men. Decisions in the field of art are much less urgent and important” by changing the last part to “In the field of art, few decisions do.” (my italics) Here we see that Winch’s fixation on the meaning, the “essence”, of “important” was simply a senseless distraction. Popper rejoins with “Have I not said often enough that nothing depends on words, or on ‘conceptions’?”
There are many other examples in Winch’s writings of the rhetorical/epistemic effect of the linguistic turn in philosophy inspired by Wittgenstein. Such a tendency is anathema to the critical rationalist conception of both science and philosophy.
I have done enough to show the effects of this kind of essentialism in Winch and to explain Popper’s objections to it. It is time to examine the consequences of this methodology for philosophy, ethics and for politics in the realm of the theoretical social sciences.
3.1.2.3 The Problem of Relativism in this Debate
As I pointed out above (see p. 8) there is one passage towards the end of Popper’s response to Winch that really gets to the bottom of what divides the two philosophers. Winch is convinced that Popper believes that “all traditions are more or less equal, or that their differences are ‘more or less irrelevant’”. To me this is a clear case of Winch reading his own views into Popper perhaps to induce Popper to come closer to his position. It is Winch and not Popper who believes that “all traditions are more or less equal”[35] Popper does indeed stress that institutions and traditions are needed for there to be the kind of social regularities necessary for rational behavior, however, as Popper is only too eager to point out, this is a far cry from saying that all traditions are “more or less equal”:
Really—have I not by rational arguments criticized as endangering rationality the Platonic and Aristotelian tradition of essentialism, and its barely argumentative modern developments such as those of Hegel and Wittgenstein? That anybody who has read either The Open Society or Conjectures and Refutations can saddle me with the opinion Winch ascribes to me, and think it follows from my theory, merely because I have said that traditions are necessary for acting rationally, is beyond my comprehension. Necessary conditions are not necessarily sufficient conditions.[36]
His rejoinder and closing cadence to his response both reiterates one of his central missions in writing the Open Society and points out who is endangering it. Popper declares that “The Open Society—is an attack on the various traditions of the enemies of reason”[37] Popper refers to a passage in Conjectures and Refutations in order to spell out, in no uncertain terms, which tradition he cherishes and which one he detests. What he sees as “precious” “is the tradition and discipline of clear speaking and thinking; it is the critical tradition—the tradition of reason.”[38]
This tradition, however, is in a pitched battle with its enemies:
The modern enemies of reason want to destroy this tradition. They want to do this by destroying and perverting the argumentative and perhaps even the descriptive functions of human language…they support the flight from reason and from the great tradition of intellectual responsibility[39]
Popper citing this passage from Conjectures and Refutations at the end of his response to Winch can only be interpreted as a final slap in the face of Wittgenstein and all those who, like Winch, follow in his footsteps.
Given this deep division between Winch and Popper, why was it that Winch was writing this contribution in the first place and why was he so eager to read himself into Popper?
Winch’s intent seems to be to find common ground and to convince Popper of his reservations regarding social engineering. The doctrine that all traditions are equal is something fundamental to Winch, but not to Popper. According to Winch not only are people cognitively embedded into their traditions and institutions, but, as Winch argues in his writings, especially his well-known piece “Understanding Primitive Societies”, all institutions and collectives have their own, and with regard to all others, equally valid forms of rationality. These are embedded in “forms of life” that make them essentially unintelligible to the outsider. This comes out quite clearly in “Understanding Primitive Society” in his criticism of social anthropologist Evans-Pritchard.
Pritchard had been studying the African Azande people. Pritchard tries to analyze the complexity of studying a “primitive society” from the point of view of a European. As such Pritchard tries to give an acceptable account of how to view tribal metaphysics vs. western science. As a social anthropologist Pritchard rejects the principle of racial superiority. Winch, however, thinks Pritchard does not go far enough. He says that Pritchard is “crucially wrong, in his attempt to characterize the scientific in terms of that which is ‘in accord with objective reality’”[40]
Pritchard’s point was that native Azande were just as intelligent and rational as the average European given the metaphysical premises embedded in his culture, arguing that, just like the Azande, the average European has been given his conceptions of cause and effect through enculturation, and, just like an Azande, only needs to understand his native language to behave rationally according to these notions. However, this was not enough for Winch. For Winch the cause and effect relations assumed by an Azande tribesman that compel him to consult oracles in order to avoid witchcraft are somehow just as valid as Newtonian or Einsteinian physics. Winch goes on to say that:
The trouble is that the fascination that science has for us makes it easy for us to adopt its scientific form as a paradigm against which to measure the intellectual respectability of other modes of discourse[41]
What might be an example of these “other modes of discourse”? An answer is given in the very next passage where Winch goes into a lengthy piece of Biblical exegesis on The Book of Job that includes the following curious piece of “wisdom”:
Job is taken to task for having gone astray by having lost sight of the reality of God; this does not, of course, mean that Job has made any sort of theoretical mistake, which could be put right, perhaps, by means of an experiment. [heaven forbid, that would mean doing science!] God’s reality is certainly independent of what any man may care to think…it is within the religious use of language [42]
Could the “reality of God” be questioned at all according to Winch? Apparently not, because at the end of the passage we discover it is “not at the mercy of what anyone cares to say”.
I repeat, this does not mean that it is at the mercy of what anyone cares to say; if this were so, God would have no reality
Here in Winch’s fundamental rejection of the objectivity of science we see that, at least in Winch’s case, the “modern enemies of reason” by adding a pinch of tribal magic and Old Testament theology to their Wittgensteinian essentialism can become strikingly similar to the older enemies reason who advocated what Popper called “authoritarian religion”[43].
The net result of Winch’s equivalence of traditions and discourses is a form of cultural and even epistemic relativism that seems to point the way to the very contemporary kind of relativism advocated by the so called “Strong Program” and other related trends.
The Strong Program is the school of David Bloor of the University of Edinburg in which Wittgenstein in part forms the basis for a “social theory of knowledge”[44]. The hallmark of this school is its principle of neutrality which means treating all “strongly held beliefs” as knowledge. It also means equal treatment of all knowledge generation, both of scientifically correct and scientifically incorrect knowledge. They also insist that the Philosophy of Science should be radically revised if not replaced by their own approach which is called The Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK).[45]
This represents only one of relativists trends that follow in some way or other from the linguistic turn. The collection of doctrines often grouped under the general heading of “Post-modernism” could be viewed as another as could the field of “post-colonial studies” stemming from the work of Edward Said[46] and related fields like culture and gender studies.
These relativist tendencies have had a significant impact on the Philosophy of Science[47] , Science and Technology Studies and on the practice of the social sciences and are often characterized by a tendency to reject traditional western notions of rationality and objectivity.[48] In view of these very widespread relativist tendencies I will argue below that the kind of objectivity, rationality, moral clarity and intellectual honesty of Karl Popper, as exemplified in The Open Society and Its Enemies is sorely needed today.
[1] L.O.L.P.”, pp 1165-1172
[2] Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1953
[3] “Understanding a Primitive Society”, Peter Winch, American Philosophical Quarterly
Vol. 1, No. 4 (Oct., 1964), pp. 307-324
[4] The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy, Peter Winch, Routledge, 1958
[5] This comment has to do with the famous ten-minute confrontation that took place between Popper and Wittgenstein at Cambridge in 1946 during which Wittgenstein reportedly threatened Popper with a fireplace poker.
[6] C&R, (article first published in 1949) p. 126
[7] The Poverty of Historicism, Karl Popper (hereafter cited as “P.O.H.”), Routlege, 1957, 2002, pp. 125-130
[8] L.O.L.P. p. 902
[9] Ibid p. 1170
[10] O.S., Vol. II, Ch. 11 pp.1-26
[11] The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Karl Popper (hereafter cited as “L.O.S.D.”), German: 1935, English: 1959, 2002, p. 15
[12] This methodology can be associated with various holistic and historicist doctrines ranging from the holistic economics of Friedrich Wieser, to the fascist social philosophy of Othmar Spann, to the historicism of Hegel, who Popper dubs “the father of modern historicism and totalitarianism” O.S. p. 22
[13] The History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell (hereafter cited as “H.O.W.P”), Simon and Schuster, 1945, 1972, p. 162
[14] I refer here to the shift in doctrine brought on by Aristotle that merely transferred the essential ideas or “forms” from Plato’s super sensory “world of ideas” to “essences” subsisting in the things themselves.
[15] Judging by the timespans and the stature of the philosopher, it is likely that the philosopher that “could be regarded as approximately his equal”, was Rene Descartes.
[16] Ibid, p. 159-160
[17] The historicist aspect of Aristotelian Essentialism consists in the notion that there are “essences” subsisting in everything that reveal their inner potentiality, which in Hegel’s means a deterministic historical destiny
[18] O.S Vol. II. pp. 1-16
[19] Ibid, p. 298-299
[20] Ibid, p. 297
[21] O.S. Vol. II See note 51 to Chapter 11 which stretches over four pages, pp. 296-299
[22] Ibid, pp. 16-17
[23] Ibid, pp. 9-11
[24] Ibid, p. 19
[25] Ibid, p. 18
[26] Ibid, p. 20
[27] Ibid, p. 297
[28] Popper’s criticism was to say that Wittgenstein “behaves like the Catholic Church; he wishes to forbid the discussion of questions to which he has no answers” (See Wittgenstein’s Poker: the story of a ten-minute argument between two great philosophers, David Edmonds and John Eidinow, Harper Collins Ecco, 2002)
[29] Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography, Karl Popper, The Open Court Publishing Co., La Salle, Illinois, 1974, p. 140
[30] Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1918
[31] O.S. Vol. II, p. 297
[32] Ibid, p. 297
[33]“Understanding a Primitive Society”, Peter Winch, American Philosophical Quarterly , Vol. 1, No. 4 (Oct., 1964), pp. 307-324
[34] L.O.L.P, p. 1165
[35] Ibid, p. 1171
[36] Ibid, p. 1171
[37] Ibid, p. 1171
[38] C&R, p. 135
[39] C&R, p. 135
[40]“Understanding a Primitive Society”, Peter Winch, American Philosophical Quarterly , Vol. 1, No. 4 (Oct., 1964), pp. 308
[41] Ibid, p. 308
[42] Ibid, pp. 308-309
[43]O.S. Vol ll, p. 381
[44] Wittgenstein: A Social Theory of Knowledge, David Bloor, Columbia University Press, 1983
[45] Knowledge and Social Imagery, David Bloor, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, Second Edition, 1976, 1991, pp. 3-23
[46] Orientalism, Edward Said, Routledge & Keagan Paul, Ltd., 1978
[47] „Feminist Epistemology and the Philosophy of Science”, Elizabeth Anderson, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Feb 13, 2020
[48] „Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective”, Donna Haraway, Feminist Studies, Vol. 14, No.3. (Autumn, 1988), pp.575-599