Wittgenstein and G. H. von Wright’s path to The Varieties of Goodness (1963)

Abstract

This essay traces the development of Georg Henrik von Wright’s (1916-2003) work in the theory of values from the early 1950s to the publication of The Varieties of Goodness (1963), with special focus on the influences stemming from Ludwig Wittgenstein’s (1889-1951) later thought. In 1952, von Wright published an essay suggesting a formal analysis of the concept of value. This attempt was soon abandoned. The change of approach took place at the time von Wright started his work on Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. This preoccupation with Wittgenstein led to a new approach to value judgments in 1954, with strong late-Wittgensteinian influences on methodical as well as stylistic levels. Some important traces of the 1954 approach are still visible in The Varieties of Goodness, while the stylistic imitations and allusions have mostly been dropped. But in the late 1950s, new connections to Wittgenstein’s later thought emerge: An aim to provide a “surveyable (re)presentation” (cf. PI: §122) of the varieties of goodness, i.e. the various different but interrelated uses of the word “good” in language and an aspiration to make analytical philosophy something more than a “collection of material for academic controversy”.