I support the former, though I should stipulate (specify or "spell out") that in addition to Locke and Bacon, I'd argue the "thrust" of "British Philosophy", as it were, is construed most clearly along a literary line, beginning with the Greek satirists, and from there to Robert Burton, Milton, Swift, Fielding, Peacock, Irving (Washington Irving), Poe, Hawthorne, Samuel Clemons (Mark Twain), Melville, Huxley, Orwell, Nabokov, Kubrick, and so on. "British" because it is convenient, and has some historiographic validity; though if you look at the historians and the historians of literature past fifty years, they are rather smug and reductive concerning "Whig" (or "Whiggish") historiography, as they style it.
As for Whigigish historiography being overly-optimistic in the face of the reality of the Human Condition? Well, considering "Whiggish" historiography emerged from Calvinism, and small-c Calvinists like Milton, Locke, and so on, I can't for the life of me imagine much optimism or upbeat anticipation being advanced through that view of human nature. But mark this. Is it possible that what the new historicism actually finds insufferable about Whiggish positions, is the unwelcome Whiggish--or Calvinist, both large-C and small c--habit of shining a bright light on fraud?
Which brings us back to Wittgenstein. He is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to turning on that spotlight.
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| The Wittgenstein family in Vienna, Summer 1917, with Kurt (furthest left) and Ludwig (furthest right) in officers' uniforms |
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