Wittgenstein and Foucault: The Limits and Possibilities of Constructivism

Abstract

MarshallMarshall, James(1995) once argued that Wittgenstein’sWittgensteinsocial constructivist view of mathematicsMathematicsis not ‘idealistic’, ‘relativistic’ or ‘subjectivistic’ but rather is ‘non-idealistic and objective’. Wittgenstein is not idealistic because he attacks the prioritizing of mental states over linguistic accompaniments of those internal states. What he emphasizes is not intuition or mental process but the use of languageLanguage. This, says MarshallMarshall, James, is an objective criterion, for although mathematicsMathematicsis ‘invented’ rather than ‘discovered’, the manner of its invention is in the form of discursive construction and in this sense it is independent of the individuals who use it as are the criteriaCriteriaof the truth and falsity of its propositionsPropositions. It is thus non-foundational in the Russellian/Fregian senses. Rather, its objectivity is guaranteed by understandingUnderstandingmathematical objectsObjectwithin a formal languageLanguagesystem. Truth in this sense depends on correct derivation in terms of the rule structure of the ‘language game’ relative to a ‘form of life’. Truth is thus ‘internal to a scheme’. In this article, I compare WittgensteinWittgensteinto FoucaultFoucault, Michelwith respect to the issues of idealismIdealism, scepticism and languageLanguageto highlight some of the main issues which seem to me central to any serious consideration of the limits and possibilities of social constructivism. These relate to (1) the central differences between radical constructivismConstructivismand social constructionism, and (2) the extent to which the problem of relativism is overcome by WittgensteinWittgensteinand FoucaultFoucault, Michelmaking comparisons between the two thinkers. In completing these tasks, I will also consider some of the contributions of Foucault to the constructionist debate.