Wittgenstein in the Moonlight

Abstract

Abstract Wittgenstein’s claims against private language and the existence of riddles have consolidated his reputation as a philosopher of the ordinary. This article makes a case for Wittgenstein as a thinker of enigma. His understudied remarks on riddles configure the ordinary and the transcendent in a novel and counterintuitive dynamic. This constitutes Wittgenstein’s most significant contribution to the study of the ordinary: a demarcation between language as the domain of the ordinary and mystery as the realm of meaning. The intricate interrelationship of these realms animates Wittgenstein’s abiding interest in the “limits” of knowledge and his pursuit of finely calibrated modes of analysis. The leitmotif of the riddle leads us through an exploration of Wittgenstein’s mottled oeuvre and serves as an occasion to ponder the question of “the question” in philosophy (as a matter of discursive form) as well as philosophy’s approach to “answers.” Acts of reading and interpretation, associated etymologically with “riddling,” are imbued with a special urgency in Wittgenstein’s thought, which this article brings to bear on recent debates on surface reading and close reading. To scholars of the ordinary, this article offers a critical reappraisal of Wittgenstein’s contribution, and to Wittgenstein scholars a (perhaps unfamiliar) moonlit Wittgenstein.