Wittgenstein

The Wittgenstein group is a research group based at the Department of Philosophy.

Affiliation

Research Area

There is a long tradition of Wittgenstein research at the Philosophy Department in Bergen that continues today with ongoing work being done both in the scholarly interpretation of Wittgenstein’s writings as well as in the application of his work to areas such as the philosophy of the social sciences, philosophy of mathematics, and esthetics. Much of the contact between Wittgenstein researchers in Bergen and the wider community of Wittgenstein scholars is mediated through the Wittgenstein Archives, which hosts a wide range of international scholars conducting research on Wittgenstein. Each year, the department hosts a number of guest lectures given by visiting international researchers at the Archives. https://wab.uib.no/ (external link)

Journal

The Philosophy Department is home to Nordic Wittgenstein Review (NWR (external link)), an international Open Access online journal that was established in 2011 by the Nordic Wittgenstein Society (external link) in cooperation with the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen within the framework of the European Agora project. The journal publishes original contributions on all aspects of Wittgenstein's thought and work - exegetical studies as well as papers drawing on Wittgensteinian themes and ideas in discussions of contemporary philosophical problems. Each issue includes a peer-reviewed articles section, an archives section in which seminal works are re-published or where previously unpublished archive materials are presented, and a book review section. In addition, most issues include an invited paper and/or an interview. The journal is published by the Nordic Wittgenstein Society.

The journal publishes two issues a year and occasionally special issues, and it is currently in its fourteenth volume. In 2012 and 2013, the journal was edited by Alois Pichler and Simo Säätelä from the University of Bergen and from 2014 onwards, the journal is edited by the NWS member departments in turn. From June 2017, its editor-in-chief is Simo Säätelä.

International Cooperation

Staff from the Philosophy Department are actively involved in international Wittgenstein Societies, such as the Nordic Wittgenstein Society and the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. The first two issues of the new international journal Nordic Wittgenstein Review (NWR) were edited by members of the Philosophy Department.

Course

Wittgenstein studies FIL217 / FIL317
 

Each Fall semester the department offers a course on Wittgenstein. The course provides an introduction to Wittgenstein’s philosophy, including a general overview of his authorship, central concepts, and examines the methods at work in his writings. Language of instruction is English. The course can be taken at both the bachelor’s and master’s level. For more information click the respective course codes above.

Projects

Publications

Selected publications

Volumes

  • Bangu, Sorin. (forthcoming) Philosophy of Mathematics After Wittgenstein. Cambridge Univ. Press.
  • Pichler, A., E. Heinrich-Ramharter & F. Stadler (eds.) (2025). 100 Years of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus - 70 Years after Wittgenstein's Death: Proceedings of the 44th International Ludwig Wittgenstein Symposium. Publications of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society - New Series. 637 pages. Berlin / New York: De Gruyter.
  • Cahill, Kevin M. (Ed.) (2024). Wittgenstein on Practice: Back to the Rough Ground. Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Pichler, A., L. Rasinski, A. Biletzki, L. Koczanowicz, & Th. Wallgren (eds.) (2024). Wittgenstein and Democratic Politics: Language, Dialogue and Political Forms of Life. Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Philosophy. 332 pages. New York: Routledge.
  • Pichler, A. (2023). Style, Method and Philosophy in Wittgenstein. Elements in the Philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein no. 10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  • Cahill, Kevin M. (2021). Towards a Philosophical Anthropology of Culture: Naturalism, Relativism, and Skepticism. New York: Routledge.
  • Bengtsson, Gisela; Säätelä, Simo; Pichler, Alois (eds.) (2018).  New Essays on Frege: Between Science and Literature. Springer.
  • Cahill, K. and Thomas Raleigh. (Eds.) (2018). Wittgenstein and Naturalism. New York: Routledge.
  • Cahill, K., Martin Gustafsson and Thomas Schwarz-Wenzer. (Eds.) (2017). Finite but Unbounded: New Approaches in Philosophical Anthropology. Berlin Studies in Knowledge Research. Berlin: de Gruyter.
  • Cahill, Kevin M. (2011). The Fate of Wonder: Wittgenstein's Critique of Metaphysics and Modernity. Columbia Univ. Press.
  • Pichler, Alois; Säätelä, Simo T S. (eds.) 2006. Wittgenstein: The Philosopher and His Works. De Gruyter.


Papers (selection)

  • Cahill, K. (forthcoming) “Wittgensteinean Political Quietism and Rawls’ Political Liberalism”. Philosophical Investigations.
  • Pichler, A. (forthc.). "Understanding Other Languages, Understanding (Other) Religion." In: Wittgenstein and the Epistemology of Religion. Edited by Duncan Pritchard and Nuno Venturinha. Wiley-Blackwell.

 

  • Bangu S. (2025) "Wittgenstein on Cantor's Proof". Synthese. Vol. 206, art. 130. Co-author: Jeffrey Schatz
  • Bangu, S. (2025) "Wittgenstein on Proof and Concept-Formation". Philosophical Quarterly. 75, 1:1–20.
  • Pichler, A. (2025). "For If There Is No Resurrection of the Dead, Then Christ Has Not Been Raised Either": Wittgenstein and the Cognitive Status of Christian Belief Statements. In: Religions 16/3: 306 (2025) - Special Issue New Work on Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Religion. Edited by Sebastian Sunday Grève. Basel: MDPI
  • Søderstrøm, S. O. (2025). "Wittgenstein on the Grammar of Unshakeable Religious Beliefs". Religions (Basel, Switzerland ), 16(7), 857. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16070857

 

  • Bangu, S. (2024) "A Note on 'Philosophical Investigations into AI Alignment: A Wittgensteinean Framework' by J.A. Perez-Escobar and D. Sarikaya." Philosophy and Technology. Vol. 37, art. 96
  • Cahill, K. (2024) “Avoiding ‘Tack-on’ Theories of Culture” in Wittgenstein on Practice, ed. Kevin M. Cahill (London: Palgrave Macmillan) 287-316.
  • Pichler, A., S. Sunday Grève (2024). "Cognitivism about religious belief in later Wittgenstein". In: International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 97 (2025). pp. 61-76. Berlin: Springer Nature
  • Pichler, A. (2024). "Glaube und Aberglaube nach Wittgenstein: Zu nonkognitiven Deutungen der Grammatik des religiösen Glaubens". In: Religionsphilosophie nach Wittgenstein - Sprachen und Gewissheiten des Glaubens. Edited by Esther Heinrich-Ramharter. pp. 245-286. Berlin: J.B. Metzler
  • Pichler, A. (2024). "Wittgenstein, Ludwig Josef Johann". In: Neue Deutsche Biographie, Bd. 28 Wettstein - Zwoch. Für die Historische Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften hrsg. von Hans-Christof Kraus. pp. 341-344. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot

 

  • Bangu, S. (2023) "On the Grammar of Mathematical Propositions." In Contributions/Beiträge to International Wittgenstein Symposium 2023: 100 Years of Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus — 70 Years after Wittgenstein’s Death. A Critical Assessment 6. - 12. Aug 2023. Pp. 29-37. Eds. A. Pichler; E. Heinrich-Ramharter; F. Stadler. Kirchberg am Wechsel.
  • Cahill, K. (2023) “The Tractatus and the Carnapian Conception of Syntax” in The Tractatus at 100, eds. Martin Stokhof and Hao Tang (London: Palgrave Macmillan), 119-142.
  • Pichler, A. (2023). "I think of you constantly with love ...": Briefwechsel Ludwig Wittgenstein - Ben Richards 1946-1951, edited by Alfred Schmidt. In: Nordic Wittgenstein Review. Volume 12. Published by the Nordic Wittgenstein Society. Bergen: Nordic Wittgenstein Society
  • Pichler, A. (2023). Interactive Dynamic Presentation (IDP) and Semantic Faceted Search and Browsing (SFB) of the Wittgenstein Nachlass. In: Wittgenstein-Studien 14/1, pp. 131-151. Edited by Juliet Floyd, Yi Jiang, Stefan Majetschak, Richard Raatzsch, Nuno Venturinha, Wilhelm Vossenkuhl, Anja Weiberg. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter.
  • Pichler, A. (2023). What Is a Work by Wittgenstein. In: Paradigmi - Rivista di critica filosofica, 1: Reading Again the Tractatus One Hundred Years Later (1922-2022): In Memory of Brian McGuinness. Edited by G. Corsi, R. Egidi. pp. 129-148. Bologna: Il Mulino.
  • Pichler, A. & M. Oakes (2023). "The “Diktat für Schlick”: Authorship Research and Computational Stylometry Revisited". In: Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle - 100 Years After the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Edited by F. Stadler. Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook vol. 28. pp. 247-268. Cham: Springer

 

  • Bangu, S. (2021) "Hard and Blind: On Wittgenstein’s Genealogical View of Logical Necessity". Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 102 (2): 439-458

 

  • Bangu, S. (2020). “‘Changing the Style of Thinking’. Wittgenstein on Superlatives, Revisionism, and Cantorian Set Theory.“ Iyyun. The Jerusalem Philosophical Quarterly (68): 1-21

 

  • Bangu, S. (2018). “Later Wittgenstein and the Genealogy of Mathematical Necessity.“ In Wittgenstein and Naturalism. K. Cahill and T. Raleigh (eds.) Pp. 151-173. Routledge.
  • Cahill, K. (2018). “Tractarian Ethics” in The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein, 2nd ed.(eds.) Hans Sluga and David Stern (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press) 96-125

 

  • Cahill, K, (2017). “‘A Purely Self-Regarding Ethics’: Response to Sluga” in Wittgenstein’s Moral Thought, (eds.) Ed Dain and Reshef Agam-Segal (London: Routledge) 223-245
  • Cahill, K, (2017). “A Degenerate Case of Action” In Cahill, K. et al. Finite but Unbounded: New Essays in Philosophical Anthropology Berlin Studies in Knowledge Research, (de Gruyter)
  • Säätelä, Simo (2017). "Absolute and Relative Value in Aesthetics". In: Majetschak, Stefan; Weiberg, Anja (ed.) Aesthetics Today: Contemporary Approaches to the Aesthetics of Nature and of Arts. Walter de Gruyter, 2017. pp. 349-364.

 

  • Bangu, Sorin. (2016). “Later Wittgenstein on the Logicist Definition of Number.“ In Early Analytic Philosophy. New Perspectives on the Tradition. S. Costreie. (ed.) Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science Series. General ed. W. Demopoulos. Pp. 233-257. Springer
  • Cahill, Kevin. (2016). "The Habitus, Coping Practices and the Search for the Ground of Action". Philosophy of the Social Sciences 46(5):498-524
  • Cahill, K, (2016). “Wittgenstein’s Paganism”. In Mark Bevir and Andrius Galisanka, (Eds.) Wittgenstein and Normative Inquiry (Leiden: Brill), 174-191

 

  • Cahill, K, (2014). “Quietism or Description? McDowell in Dispute with Dreyfus” The Review of Metaphysics 68 (December 2014) 395-409
  • Cahill, K, (2014). “Naturalism and the Friends of Understanding” Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 44(4): 460-479

 

  • Säätelä, Simo (2013). "Aesthetics ‒ Wittgenstein’s Paradigm of Philosophy?" Aisthesis. 6: 35-53.

 

  • Säätelä, Simo (2011). "From Logical Method to 'Messing About': Wittgenstein on 'Open Problems' in Mathematics". In: The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein, ed. Kuusela, Oskari; McGinn, Mary. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 159-178.

People

Group manager

Kevin M. Cahill Professor

Group members

Sorin Bangu Professor

Rune Jensen Falch Assistant Professor, Academic Coordinator Examen Philosophicum

Carlota Salvador Megias PhD Candidate

Alois Pichler Professor, Head of the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen (WAB)

Simo Säätelä Professor

Sindre Olaussen Søderstrøm Adviser

Contact

For general questions about the research group, please contact the group manager.

Emails
kevin.cahill@uib.no