G. H. von Wright's Connective Analysis of Goodness

This article revisits G. H. von Wright’s value-theoretical treatise The Varieties of Goodness (1963) by discussing von Wright’s analytical methods and by contextualizing his work historically. Section 2 provides an overview of von Wright’s general approach to conceptual analysis and identifies two levels of analytic work—descriptive and moulding analysis—and pinpoints parallels with Peter Strawson’s proposal of connective analysis and Rudolf Carnap’s method of explication. Section 3 focuses on what I call the analytical topoi of goodness, i.e., the variety of methodological tools used by von Wright in his analysis of the conceptual varieties of goodness (see Appendix). It is suggested that von Wright’s focus on the criteria of goodness, demonstrably indebted to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, indirectly addresses R. M. Hare’s non-cognitivist account on the meaning of “good”. Finally, it is suggested that von Wright’s non-reductive approach in the analysis of meaning, consisting in a systematic use of many analytical topoi, is best viewed as a post-Wittgensteinian contribution, which, despite its originality, draws, in small and large, from Wittgenstein’s later philosophical methodology.