Diamond's Wittgenstein and the Mute Philosopher

Abstract

One possible way of situating Wittgenstein is by conceiving the history of philosophy
as a movement in the realm of language, and by analysing and implementing
Wittgenstein's ideas concerning the language of past, present and future philosophy.
This is Cora Diamond's way, as I read it. Diamond believes that traditional
philosophy was mesmerised by an illusion of sense regarding its own statements, and
that the same illusion still bewitches contemporary philosophers. She attributes to
both stages of Wittgenstein's thought the insights needed for a final liberation from
this illusion. I shall not dispute Diamond's interpretation of Wittgenstein here;
rather, I wish to examine the future of disillusioned philosophy according to
Diamond's allegedly Wittgensteinian views.