Stebbing's Wittgenstein

Susan Stebbing wrote only once on Wittgenstein, in her paper ‘Logical Positivism and Analysis’ (1933). The paper was unusually critical of Wittgenstein. It put the Cambridge analytic philosophy of Moore and Russell in a sharp opposition to the positivist philosophy of the Vienna Circle, in which Stebbing included Wittgenstein. Whereas the positivists were interested in analysing language, the Cambridge realists were analysing facts. To be more explicit, the analytic philosophers were engaged in directional analysis, which seeks to illuminate (to elucidate) the multiplicity of the analysed facts. In contrast, positivists aimed at a final analysis that proves that there are simples. Stebbing’s sympathies were clearly on the side of the Cambridge realists. The important implication of Stebbing’s paper was that it urged Wittgenstein to change the style of his philosophy, abandoning those points which allegedly connected him with the Vienna Circle.