Abstract

Robert Vinten’s Wittgenstein and the Social Sciences (2020) is one of a small handful of books that have tried to take seriously the idea that Wittgenstein’s philosophy is relevant to the task of understanding the social world, and perhaps relevant to the social sciences. Peter Winch (1963) and Hanna Pitkin (1972) offered views on this topic decades ago, but Vinten’s approach is distinctive and substantial, and he discusses a literature that did not exist at the time of Winch’s or Pitkin’s writing. The book has three main thrusts. Part I is devoted to philosophical issues that arise concerning the social sciences. Part II is on the topic of “political philosophy”, or what Vinten calls somewhat misleadingly “ideology”. He asks whether there is a distinctive ideology that is expressed or implied in Wittgenstein’s work—whether conservative, liberal, or progressive or socialist. Part III addresses two substantive topics in the human sciences to assess the relevance and value of a Wittgensteinian perspective on the social world (freedom of the will and the problem of justice).