Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius

by Ray Monk

“Great philosophical biographies can be counted on one hand. Monk’s life of Wittgenstein is such a one.”—The Christian Science Monitor.

Genres: Philosophy, Biography, Nonfiction, History, Biography Memoir, Psychology, Memoir

654 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Ray Monk is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton, where he has taught since 1992.

He won the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the 1991 Duff Cooper Prize for Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. His interests lie in the philosophy of mathematics, the history of analytic philosophy, and philosophical aspects of biographical writing. He is currently working on a biography of Robert Oppenheimer. (Source: Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Anastasia Fitzgerald-Beaumont · Rating 5 out of 5]

Portrait of the Thinker as a Man

If you want to understand Ludwig Wittgenstein, the thinker and the man, turn to the very last page of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, the only philosophical work published in his lifetime. There you will find in all of its gnomic beauty one of the best remembered and most quoted propositions of all: Whereof we cannot speak thereof we must be silent.

That’s just the thing: he wasn’t silent. Most of his life after the publication of the Tractatus was a pursuit of the very things that could not be touched on in a work of uncompromising logic, whether it be the nature of language, the way language is used in practical terms, the nature of thought, of ethics, of psychology, of the relationship of philosophy to the wider world of human experience.

“If a lion could speak, we could not understand him”, he wrote in the posthumously published Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein spoke. Most who followed, particularly the Vienna School of Logical Positivists, which had as good a claim as any to be the apostles of the text, could not understand him.

Bertrand Russell, who wrote a preface for the Tractatus, could not understand his brilliant protégée. The truly remarkable thing is that when the two met at Cambridge before the First World War Wittgenstein was a novice, Russell a mature and respected professor of philosophy, the author with A. N. Whitehead of Principia Mathematica, a seminal work of mathematical logic.

But Wittgenstein quickly established complete intellectual dominance, so much so that by 1912 Russell told his sister that he expected the next big step in philosophy to be taken by her brother. It’s salutary to remember that he was still only a twenty-three-year old undergraduate!

Ray Monk understands the man, the thought and the life in thought, enough to write Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. I came to this lately, in the paperback edition, determined to get to grips with one of the great thinkers of the last century.

He is one of the people I have long admired for his clarity of expression, for those parts of his work that are accessible to me, those parts that are not too deep in an ethereal and mathematical mode of expression. Admired, yes, but from afar, like some intimidating demigod. Monk has brought me far closer to the man in what is a surprisingly readable and at points gripping biography.

Surprising? It’s just that I did not expect so difficult a thinker to be reducible to such ordinary human terms. This is the key, in fact, to this book: in its own brilliant and lucid way it humanises the idol, if that makes sense, painting a detailed and comprehensive portrait. Monk has a commendable grasp of the material to hand, quoting liberally from letters, diaries, notebooks and interviews, coming close to understanding the thinker as a whole. There is Wittgenstein, uncompromising in his self-critical brilliance, relentless in the pursuit of ideas and of people, full of self-assurance at some points, and at others full of the most crushing and debilitating forms of self-doubt.

As usual, given that this is the paperback edition, the cover is replete with laudatory praise. I have no argument here; it’s richly deserved. It is, as the Observer says, a book that is much to be recommended. The Guardian adds that Monk’s biography is deeply intelligent and generous to the ordinary reader, statements with which I fully concur. But the reviewer goes that one step further, saying that it’s a beautiful portrait of a beautiful life. Hmm…a beautiful portrait? Well, yes. I suppose, though I think the expression just a tad hyperbolic. But was it a ‘beautiful life’? I’m not sure. It was an important one, yes, but that’s quite different.

Ecce homo; behold in whole. The fact is the more I delved into the thinker the less I began to like the man. He was far too intense, far too opinionated, far too wearing. This is genius, and supposedly everything is excused, all normal standards suspended. But I still came away with a feeling that, for all his brilliance, this was a man better not to know; better for some of the less able children in the Austrian elementary schools he taught not to know; better not to know a man rather too free with his fists.

He was a huge influence on the young men who came his way, turning some away from academic philosophy and Cambridge, both of which he paradoxically despised, towards more ‘practical’ endeavours. He embraced a kind of Tolstoyan view of life, encouraging others to work alongside ‘ordinary’ people in preference to academia. I could not help but feel that Francis Skinner, a brilliant mathematical scholar, Wittgenstein’s disciple and sometimes lover, might have been happier if he had never met him. In his pursuit of a bogus authenticity he went to work in screw factory at the behest of his mentor, a place where he was deeply unhappy. Earlier on he and Skinner had planed to go to Soviet Russia in the mid-1930s to work as labourers. Fortunately for them, at least fortunately for Skinner, the harebrained project failed to mature.

I suppose it’s another measure of Monk’s skill as a biographer that he gives us a cogent warts and all portrait. I’m probably far too conscious of the warts, but it’s comforting to see that while Wittgenstein could be a mystic he was no saint! He is a man whom I would both loved and hated to have known, with the latter perhaps now a little more pronounced than the former. If I had met him I would have one question to ask: who could anyone, least of all a man with your degree of insight and sensitivity, have been taken in by Otto Weiniger’s bizarre, misogynist and self-hating monograph Sex and Character? It’s complete trash! I’m glad to say that Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius is not. Rather, in itself, it’s a biography of genius.

[Paul Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hey, do you hear that flapping sound, like the beating wings of a thousand pigeons? What is that sound?

Oh it’s just the sound of the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein as it flies over my head. Having read this whole thumping biography of him, a lot of which is all about his ideas, I can say I am none the wiser. Jesus told the parable of the sower – some seeds fell on good ground, and grew and yielded fruit. And some fell on stony ground. Where Wittgenstein is concerned, I am that stony ground.

BUT apart from that, this was a very interesting biography. I read it because his name threads through the 20th century, he turns up in all kinds of places. Who’s that sitting quietly in the corner? It’s Wittgenstein.

EXAMPLE OF A PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSION BETWEEN RUSSELL AND WITTGENSTEIN

Russell proposed to Wittgenstein that there were at least three things in the world. He said that statement was both meaningful and true. He took a piece of white paper and made three blobs of ink on it.

I besought him to admit that, since there were these three blobs, there must be at least three things in the world, but he refused resolutely. He would admit there were three blobs on the page, because that was a finite assertion, but he would not admit that anything at all could be said about the world as a whole.

EARLY LIFE OF THE GENIUS

He told people that he grew up in a house that had seven grand pianos. He was exaggerating wildly. The family home only had four grand pianos.

Yes, the Wittgensteins were vastly rich and lived in Vienna. The family was large, there were 10 siblings, they were amazingly talented and very screwed up. Three of his brothers committed suicide. There’s clearly a huge story to be told but this book doesn’t do that.

Finally he went to school in Vienna and guess who was at the same school at the same time? Adolf Hitler.

He came to Manchester in England in 1908 to work at the Kite Flying Upper Atmosphere Station near Glossop. At this point his ambition was to design, construct and fly a plane of his own.

Three years later he was at Cambridge University with Bertrand Russell who instantly realised that Wittgenstein was going to be a great philosopher. Probably already was.

HE RENOUNCES WEALTH

When the First World War broke out he was in Austria and he immediately volunteered. He wanted to fight on the front line. Eventually he kind of got his wish and he became an Observer, where you had to spend all night in the most dangerous exposed place of all observing the enemy. While the English and the French were trying to kill him he wrote his first book, the famous Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. It’s only 200 pages long but eventually it became very famous. Only 27 people ever understood it.

While the war was raging he send letters to his English friend David Pinsent who was still at Cambridge University, and he received fairly regular replies. Imagine that, two enemies writing to each other all through the war. How humane was the postal service in those days!

After the war he made a Life Changing Decision. He hired lawyers and he drew up iron-clad agreements with his family. He gave all his money both present and future back to them and refused to receive a penny from them for the rest of his life. He hated being privileged. They thought he was nuts. Well, you would, wouldn’t you.

A CHANGE OF CAREER

He didn’t want to be a nasty privileged philosopher at all, he wanted to be a humble worker, a man of the people. Eventually he decided to slightly compromise and get a job as a primary school teacher but only if it was at a school in the depths of the impoverished Austrian countryside. It did not end well (“These people are not human at all but loathsome worms”). In the various schools he taught in he would do the same thing – identify which girls and boys (they were around 9, 10,11) were bright and force them to do extra schoolwork so they could take exams and go on to higher education. Then their parents would create a row telling him to stop putting ideas into the kids’ heads as they were required to work on the farm. In case you have formed the idea that Wittgenstein was a cool guy, he was constantly getting reprimanded for hitting the kids. On the last occasion he bashed a kid so badly the kid was knocked out. That evening Wittgenstein fled the school and did not go back to teaching. There was a hearing later and he was cleared of misconduct.

HE FINALLY PUBLISHED HIS MASTERPIECE

He had a heck of a depressing job getting Tractatus published. Finally someone said okay, we’ll do it, sign this contract.

Under the terms of this contract Wittgenstein was paid nothing for the rights to the book and entitled to no royalties from its sales.

Way to go, Ludwig.

WHAT’S THE POINT, WITTGENSTEIN?

He later realised the true purpose of philosophy :

What we find out in philosophy is trivial, it does not teach us new facts…but the proper synopsis of these trivialities is enormously difficult and has immense importance. Philosophy is in fact the synopsis of trivialities.

But philosophy for Ludwig was like the guy in The Godfather, remember the scene – “I thought I was out and they pulllllled me back in!” So he ended his days back at Cambridge conducting weird seminar-lectures to students who thought he was the greatest thinker on the planet. Hey, maybe he was.

[howl of minerva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most surprising for me was the religious-mystical-spiritual thread that runs through Wittgenstein’s life and work. He was very far from the coldly rational uber-logician that he’s often presented as being. As his friend Drury put it: commentators have made it appear that Wittgenstein’s writings ‘were now easily assimilable into the very intellectual milieu they were largely a warning against’. He’s talking of course of the Vienna Circle, technical analytic philosophy, logical positivism…

A few quotations:

“My whole tendency and I believe the tendency of all men who ever tried to write or talk on Ethics or Religion was to run against the boundaries of language. This running against the walls of our cage is perfectly, absolutely hopeless. Ethics… can be no science. What it says does not add to our knowledge in any sense. But it is a document of a tendency in the human mind which I personally cannot help respecting deeply and I would not for my life ridicule it.” p277

“I am honestly disgusted with […] a kind of idol worship, the idol being Science and the Scientist.” p405

One can imagine the contempt he would have had for the likes of Dawkins and Sam Harris…

“An honest religious thinker is like a tightrope walker. He almost looks as though he were walking on nothing but air. His support is the slenderest imaginable. And yet it really is possible to walk on it.” p464

“It isn’t absurd, e.g., to believe that the age of science and technology is the beginning of the end for humanity; that the idea of great progress is a delusion, along with the idea that the truth will ultimately be known; that there is nothing good or desirable about scientific knowledge and that mankind, in seeking it, is falling into a trap. It is by no means obvious that this is not how things are.” p485

Wonderfully:

“A picture that intruded upon him, he wrote, was of our civilization, ‘cheaply wrapped in cellophane, and isolated from everything great, from God, as it were’.” p489

And a personal favourite that gives some insight into Wittgenstein's sense of humour:

"I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again ‘I know that that’s a tree’, pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell them: ‘This fellow isn’t insane. We are only doing philosophy.’" p578

[Katia N · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enigmatic name "Wittgenstein" has often popped up in the novels I was reading. Only recently, i’ve read Austral and Austerlitz one straight after the other. They were chosen by happenstance without any visible connection to each other. Amazingly, both of them referred to the man and his work.

As a result, I’ve decided it was a time to read Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I've grabbed a new translation and took it with me on a city break. It was a mistake. I was reading it during museums’ visits; I was reading it in a Metro’s train and in a hotel bed. For many times, I was re-reading the passages trying to get to the meaning. I was trying to unlock them with my mind, but the page after page, it was more like an austere poem full of symbols. It was like some cosmic code or a prayer: “the limits of language (of that language which alone I understand) mean the limits of my world"

I was intrigued. I was taken not that much by the concepts, but by the enigma: who would wright like this? Who would put at the core of his philosophical argument an image of a man climbing the ladder only to tip it off from the top (as not anymore required)? Who would use this metaphor of a discarded ladder for his own work that i’ve just read? A snake biting its tale...It is almost equally ironic that his later self did indeed “discarded” a big part of his earlier thinking.

Fichte said: “What sort of philosophy one chooses depends…on what sort of man one is; for a philosophical system is not a dead piece of furniture that we can reject or accept as we wish; it is rather a thing animated by the soul of the person who holds it.”

And this astonishing biography has given me some access to that “soul". Wittgenstein of course is a “rewarding character”. Still this book reads like a thriller. I was especially impressed how much space Monk has left for Wittgenstein and people of his time to speak directly (through the quotes of correspondence and other sources).

So who was the man? I recommend Monk’s narrative to find out more. But when i think about his life, i do not think of a narrative. I think of a list of seven “propositions” instead.

1. Wittgenstein tried to live a good life.

1.1 “The way to solve the problem you see in life is to live in a way that will make what is problematic disappear”. (Wittgenstein,1937)

1.1.2. He went to fight for his country (Austria) in WWI though he did not have to.
1.1.3. He gave up his part of huge fortune back to his family and never let them help him with money or with anything else.
1.1.4. After the WWI, he went to teach children in a variety of primary schools in the poorest Alpine villages of Austria.
1.1.5 He went to stalinist Russia to see whether he and his then partner could emigrate there and work as manual labourers helping to build communism. He came back and never mentioned that again.
1.1.6 During WWII, he resigned from Cambridge and helped the war effort by working in a hospital.
1.1.7 He always advised his student to give up on academic career and do something useful like doctors, mechanics or manual labour do. Some of them have followed his advice.
1.1.8 According to Lettice Ramsey, “He made a moral issue out of everything”

1.2 “Fear in face of death is the best sign of a false, i.e. a bad, life.” (Wittgenstein, Diaries 1914-16)

1.2.1 He had to face death of people close to him since early age.
1.2.1.1 Three of his four brothers committed suicide.
1.2.1.1.1 The oldest brother was a very talented musician but needed to subdue his talent to the father’s will. He rebelled and escaped, but did not hold it together.
1.2.1.1.2 Another brother killed himself publicly in a bar leaving a note about his homosexual inclinations.
1.2.1.1.3 The third brother killed himself during the WW1 facing his soldiers disobedience and a need to surrender.

1.2.1.2 David Pinsent, his best friend in 1910s and possibly a platonic love, has died in a plane crash aged 27. Wittgenstein devoted [Tractatus] to his memory.

1.2.1.3 Francis Skinner, his friend and possibly lover, has died on his hands aged 28 in a Cambridge Hospital in 1941, neglected while all medical attention was on the war’s victims.

1.2.2 It seems, he went to war to overcome fear of death. He looked in abyss and came back with "Tractatus".
1.2.2.1 He was initially sent to perform duties far from the frontline. But he begged to be send onto the battlefield. He was decorated for bravery.
1.2.2.2 During this time, he was profoundly influenced by Tolstoy’s “The Gospel in Brief.” He has come across it by chance. But it has become his “talisman”, “a magnificent work”. He has become known as a “man with the Gospels” between the soldiers. He wrote: “this book virtually kept me alive”.

2. Genius: high stakes and high bar for himself and everyone else.

2.1 For Otto Weininger, the philosopher who influenced young Wittgenstein, it was genius or death. Wittgenstein was doubting his genius and vocation. “He was ashamed for 9 years he did not dare to kill himself. His feeling was overcome only when “he had convinced Russell that he possessed philosophic genius” (Monk).

2.1.1. He was “perhaps the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived; passionate, profound, intense, and dominating.” (Russel)

2.2 Since then, he was considered “a genius” by all Cambridge philosophers and was gaining much wider reputation, the following and fame. Even now he is widely considered the best philosopher of the 20th century. His impact on the wider culture is even greater including in the 21st century.

2.3 However, Wittgenstein said: “Inner process stands in need for outward criteria”. And it seemed through his life and starting with Russel, his genius was often “in a need for outward criteria”. He often relied on others for validation, intellectual and practical help. And he did not make it easy for people around him.

3. “God may say to me: “I am judging you out of your own mouth. Your own actions have made you shudder with disgust when you have seen other people do them.” (Wittgenstein, 1951)

3.1 Fighting pride and vanity but losing the fight.

3.1.1 In the 30s, he had made a number of closed friends to sit through the “confessions of his sins”. The reason he did it was that he believed the main objection to good philosophy is pride. He did not ask whether these people would be comfortable to be his confessors.
3.1.2 On the front he despised “slavic soldiers” as a “bunch of delinquents” (In Austro-Hungarian army slavic ethnicity was prevailing between the soldiers while the officers were predominantly of a germanic or Hungarian heritage).
3.1.3. When teaching in village schools he did not quite warm up to the locals. At one place he wrote ‘these people are not people at all but loathsome worms”. They did not trust him either and called him “baron”.
3.1.4 Gilbert Ryle, an Oxford philosopher, thought: “W not only properly distinguished philosophical from exegetic problems but also, less properly, gave the impression first that he himself was proud not to have studied other philosophers - which he had done, though not much - and second that he thought that people who did study them were academic and therefore unauthentic philosophers.”
3.1.4.1 “What Ryle says about Wittgenstein attitude towards reading the great works of the past is correct.” (Monk). In his own words: “As little philosophy as I read I have certainly not read too little, rather too much. I see that whenever I read a philosophical book: it doesn’t improve my thoughts at all, it makes them worse.” (Wittgenstein diaries).
3.1.4.2 In spite of this self-professed “view”, many scholars agree that the influence of Schopenhauer on Tractatus is obvious and very substantial. He also read Kant.

3.1.5 “Freud surely errs very frequently & as far as his character is concerned is probably a swine or something similar, but in what he says there is a great deal. And the same is true of me. There is a lot in what I say.” (Wittgenstein’s Diaries).

3.2 Feeling guilt in a Raskolnikov’s way

3.2.1 During his days as a teacher, he had all the time in the world for clever students, mainly boys. Less able, especially girls but not exclusively, were the subject of physical punishment. He boxed their ears, pulled hairs. Sometimes it has caused bleeding. He felt very guilty after that. But it seems to be a repeating pattern.
3.2.1.1 Just before the end of his teaching career, he knocked a boy on a head in such a way that the boy has lost consciousness. He carried him to the teaching room. But in the process has been seen by the father of a girl whom he made physically suffer as well. The police was called and tribunal ensued. However, he was cleared. Possibly it was a cover up by his family. For years he experienced a tremendous guilt. Ten years later, while working at Cambridge, he returned to the village, to ask for the children's forgiveness. The reception was understandably mixed. The incident here is referred as Haidbauer incident (wiki).

3.2.2 Francis Skinner, Cambridge student, was his long-term on/off partner, friend and collaborator in the second half of the 30s. Francis was a very soft, kind and extremely devoted person. However, Wittgenstein did not always payed him due respect. Though Francis might have become a solid academic, Wittgenstein convinced him to leave the academic life and to start working as a mechanic in a garage. At the same time Wittgenstein left for Norway to do ‘his work’ in solitude. Francis felt very lonely and out of place. However, he blamed only himself for any disagreements and for Wittgenstein’s cold treatment. Only after Francis untimely death, Wittgenstein appreciated him more and felt some very much delayed guilt.

3. 3 Strong views often reflecting the worst prejudices of his time.

3.3.1 Otto Weininger and later Oswald Spengler have had a forming and lasting influence on the his views.
3.3.1.1 In 1903, Otto Weininger has committed suicide aged 23 in the house where Beethoven has died. Otto has become a cult figure with a few copy-cats suicides, possibly including Wittgenstein’s brother. Before that he, wrote a book “Sex and the Character”.
3.3.1.2 “Sex and the Character” has become very popular after Weininger's death. The book was devoted to decay of the society. Weininger attributed this to the raise of science and decline of the art and music.
3.3.1.3 Being a Jew, Otto has expressed severely anti-semitic and misogynistic views in the book. Due to this, llegedly he was “Hitler’s favourite Jew”.

3.3.2 Wittgenstein considered the book “great” though did not agree with his views directly: "It isn't necessary or rather not possible to agree with him but the greatness lies in that with which we disagree. It is his enormous mistake which is great."

3.3.3 However, Wittgenstein also considered the predominance of science very negatively: “What links his apocalyptic anxiety with his hostility to academic philosophy is his detestation of the power of science in our age, which on the one hand encourage philosopher craving for generality, and on the other produced atomic bomb. In a curious sense he even welcomed the bomb, if only the fear of it could so something to diminish the reverence with which society regarded scientific progress.” (Monk)

3.3.4 Like many in his time, he looked at the tragic events of the century through the prism of “race” and “civilisations”.
3.3. 4.1 “I feel the terrible sadness of our - the German race’s -situation. The English-the best race in the world- cannot lose. We however can lose and will lose, of not this year then the next. The thought that our race will be defeated depresses me tremendously because i am German through and through.” (from the Diaries 1914)
3.3.4.2 In 1947: “Cambridge grows more and more hateful to me. The disintegrating and putrefying English civilisation. A country in which politics alternates between an evil purpose and no purpose.”

3.3.5 He also has hold some anti-semitic views, at least for a period and often was not comfortable with women’s increasing role in the society.
3.3.5.1. “Were they not written by W, many of his pronouncements on the nature of Jews in his autobiographical remarks in 1931 would be understood as nothing more than the rantings of a fascist anti-Semite.” (Monk) He adopted for Jews many metaphors of illness on a healthy body.

3.4. Intolerance of other opinions, people and any critique of his work.

3.4.1 About Francis Skinner, his probable lover: “Thought: it would be good and right if he had died, and thereby taken my folly away. Althing again I only half mean it.” Francis, who was much young has died indeed in a few years. (The diary)

3.4.2 About Ramsey, very talented colleague and a friend, the translator of “The Tractatus” just three months after his death: “his mind repulsed me. He had an ugly mind but not an ugly soul. (The diary).

3.4.3 Occasional silent treatments to his friends and colleagues for obscure reasons sometimes lasting years. In Ramsey’s case - four years.

3.4.5 Judging Russel, Moore and other colleagues harshly, being rude and intense in letters, sometimes unreasonably demanding, asking for favours all the time. “If a person tells me he has been to the worst places I have no right to judge him but if he tells it was his superior wisdoms that enabled him to go there, then I know he is a fraud.” (about Russel in the diary).

3.4.6 “He tolerated no critical examination by others, once the insight had been gained by an act of inspiration...I sometimes had the impression that the deliberately rational and unemotional attitude of the scientist and likewise any ideas which had the flavour of “enlightenment” were repurgent to him. (Carnap said in the 20s)

3.4.7 “Because if you doubt the truth of what he says he always thinks you can’t have understood it. This makes him rather tiring to talk to, but if I had more time I think I should learn a lot from discussing with him.” (Ramsey in the 20s).


4. Solipsism both in philosophy and in personal life

4.1 “what the solipsist means is quite correct; only it cannot be said, but makes itself manifest.” (The Tractatus).

4.1.1 At least in his early philosophy he seemed to reject the existence of other minds. It has got impact on his relationships with people and even later philosophy as well.

4.2 Otto Weininger has got the following to say about love:

“In love, man is only loving himself. Not his empirical self, bit the weakness and vulgarities, not the failings and smallnesses which he outwardly exhibits; but all that he wants to be, all that he ought to be, his truest, deepest, intelligible nature, free from all fetters of necessity, from all taint of earth.”

4.2.1. This is almost too perfect a description of Wittgenstein’s romantic life.
He wanted to be very selfless but often ended up extremely selfish. Francis Skinner, his the most established partner, has got the worst treatment. In his only known relationship with a woman he has totally ignored her feelings or intentions. Respectively he totally misread them.

5. He lived and thought more like a Sage.

5.1 Early Wittgenstein views has got strong mystical elements:

5.1.1 “When my conscience upsets my equilibrium, then I am not in agreement with Something. But what is this? Is it the world? Certainly it is correct to say: Conscience is the voice of God.” (The Diaries 1914-16)
5.1.2 Ethics: “if there is of value, it must lie outside all happening and being-so.” (Tractatus 6.41)
5.1.3 “There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical.” Again like Weil about beauty in literature. (Tractatus 6.521)

5.2 Even later in life his insights came to him more like a result of “divine inspiration”:

“His point of view and his attitude toward people and problems even theoretical problems, were much more similar to those of a creative artist than to those of a scientists; one might almost say, similar to those of a religious prophet or a seer. When he started to formulate his view on some specific philosophic problem we often felt the internal struggle by which he tried to penetrate from darkness to light under an intense and painful strain, which was even visible on his most expressive face. When finally, sometimes after a prolonged arduous effort, his answer came forth, his statement stood before us like a newly created piece of art or divine revelation. Not that he asserted his views dogmatically... But the impression he made on us was as if insight came to him as through a divine inspiration, so that we could not help feeling that nay sober rational comment or analysis of it would be a profanation.” (Carnap in the 20s)

5.4 Keynes called him “God” even if he probably was ironic.

5.5 He developed almost a cult following.

5.6 Like a hermit, he always tried to run away to remote places (house in Norway or cottage in Ireland) to devote himself to work. However, he always came back to the “world” after that.

5.7 Zosima, a monk from The Brothers Karamazov was the one of his favourite characters. He said one could be a person like Zosima in real life. Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy who preached the ethic of spiritual sacrifice were the writers he respected the most.

6. He has started with solving all philosophical problems and ended by pointing that there were no problems as such, just confusions.

(due to the lack of space in the review box, the further points on 6. are in the first comment below)

7. “His disposition is that of an artist...”

7.1“His disposition is that of an artist, intuitive and moody. He says every morning he begins his work with hope, and every evening he ends in despair.” (Russel)

(see further points on 7. in the 2nd comment)

7.4 In my view, he was he was the best judge of himself:

“Among Jews “genius” is found only in the holy man. Even the greatest of Jewish thinkers is no more than talented. (Myself for instance). I think there is some truth in my idea that I really only think reproductively. I don’t believe I have ever invented a line of thinking. I have always taken one over from someone else. I have simply straightaway seized on it with enthusiasm for my work of clarification. That is how Boltzmann, Hertz Schopenhauer Frege Russel Kraus, Loos, Weininger, Spengler, Staffa have influenced me. What I invent are new similes.”

Inventing “new similes” appeared to be worthwhile occupation in life.

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that illuminates Wittgenstein’s ideas by showing us his life. Alternately, it illuminates his life by showing us his ideas. Flip-flop, mish-mosh, two sides of the same coin. His ideas grew organically from his life, in the same way that his Picture Theory claims that a picture is not a mental representation of a fact but is a fact itself, so that understanding comes immediately from seeing (not through abstraction and representation). This method of illumination works more for Wittgenstein than it would for other philosophers because for Wittgenstein, philosophy was not a mere game (perhaps that’s one of the reasons he despised academic philosophers so much, and called them un-serious), philosophy was a way of living and thinking rightly in the real world, by stripping oneself of all the comforts of illusion. If it didn’t do that (and he doubted if it did many times) then what good was it? Perhaps that's why he was intent on destroying philosophy as it was known then, uprooting it from its illusions of logic by exposing it to the sun. In life too, he was obsessed with questions of honesty and self deception, and tortured himself terribly over moral questions.

At times he seemed less like a philosopher and more like a religious figure with his ascetic lifestyle and exacting standards for his inner life. At other times, he was more like an artist with his severe judgements and social outbursts, and his tendency for perfectionism in his writings. Obviously, he was not always likeable, but he was always so much himself, a singularity whose contradictions made him even more who he was.

***

Most of my reading falls into two categories. First are the books that I actively seek out because someone recommended it to me, or I’ve been thinking about certain topics. These constitute the majority of my reading. The second category are books that seek me out. These are happy accidents that happen to fall along my path so that I could not ignore them. This book belongs to this second category.

I've never read any Wittgenstein before this, and I rarely read any philosophy either, but I came across this book at just the right time: I had finished the first book of The Man Without Qualities and was awaiting the second book’s arrival via Amazon. So I picked this up and just started reading, thinking I’d put it down after just a taste, but it wouldn’t let me stop! I read it compulsively. What’s odd about the timing of this book (between the Musil volumes) is that as I read it, I inevitably began to draw parallels between Wittgenstein and Musil.

I've also noticed that for the last few months my Goodreads reviews have become increasingly Reviews Without Books... as the Man Without Qualities is necessarily a man possessing all qualities, my reviews have increasingly tried to incorporate all my recent readings (Walter Benjamin, Hopscotch, and Man Without Qualities have crept up most often) to swallow them in a shameful act of gluttony. But hopefully (I hoped) out of it will come some kind of a larger picture, where colors complement each other, yet differences in shape are still preserved, even appearing more distinguished instead of falling into a big mush. It seems to me that reviewing one book in isolation is rather like taking a photograph of someone against a blank background: useful only for official documents and passports.

(This recent urge is also similar to a striving for context that both men (Musil and Wittgenstein) incorporated into their visions, with one big difference, this context is completely contrived internally. These books don’t really have anything to do with each other per se, other than the fact that I read them together, so in this way contextually weaving them together can only give the reader an idea of my mind, as if each book were a spider’s web I can only free myself from by stumbling into another one)

So I will talk about Musil here, and I will not be apologetic about it. First comes the superficial resemblances: both Musil and Wittgenstein were born in Austria, both were trained as engineers, and studied mathematics and philosophy. Both were around at the same time, and they both fought in the war, though there was no indication from this biography that they ever met.

But it is only when thinking about Wittgenstein’s philosophy that I found deeper resemblances.

***

An interesting thing happened to me when I was writing this book review. At this point in my sure-to-be-phenomenal study of the two men, I was overcome with a case of severe reviewer’s block. I had so many good points to make, about Wittgenstein’s interest in bridging distances between the utterable and the unutterable and even a brief mention in this book of imaginary numbers (Musil territory); about the two men’s similar love/hate relationships to science, pushing it away, yet inevitably using its exactness for their very own purposes; of their resistance to systematization, that tendency to boil things down to some kind of essence. Wittgenstein’s emphasis on context that creates meaning, context which is the antidote for science’s constant ‘craving for generality’, and Musil’s obsession with the same which he showed in his novel by playing with each character’s myopic extremes, while showing them completely unaware of the larger society’s constant vacillations between ideas that tend to wipe out all traces of the previous idea. And the concept of ‘genius’ that Wittgenstein was so obsessed about, seeing greatness as a justification for living the way he wanted, and that Musil talked about as the ‘genius of the racehorse’, an elegy to an antiquated idea. No longer do we have real geniuses, now even a racehorse can be a genius. Wittgenstein similarly laments when he sees photos of scientists in a store window instead of Beethoven. But not to stop there, because there are differences too, major differences, how one loved music for example and the other (Musil) hated it. These men also had different ideas about action, where one took the route of ideas, the other man (Wittgenstein) sought to purge all ideas from ideas, to escape from philosophy and into the purity of living (though he was unsuccessful) as Geothe said: in the beginning was the deed. But both courses were, I wanted to show, like two roads around the same block.

I had pages of similar notes not only because I wanted to write this review so badly, but also because I genuinely thought these little things could bring me closer to an understanding of these two men. Afterall, as Basil Reeve, a young doctor and one of Wittgenstein’s friends said years after they worked together, he was influenced by Wittgenstein in two ways:

first, to keep in mind that things are as they are; and secondly, to seek illuminating comparisons to get an understanding of how they are.

But what constituted an illuminating comparison? Things are as they are, and as soon as you compare them, even that comparison becomes an egregious generalization, a way of smoothing over complicated differences, and it would not live up to the original ‘thing as it was’ until you put so many qualifications and exceptions to your comparisons between the subtleties of one thing verses the subtleties of another thing that you might as well not make any comparisons to begin with! This is essentially the crux of the problem of writer's block: being confronted with the unutterable, feeling your irrelevance in the face of it, and not being able to capture that which overcomes one without reducing it to something obscene. Essentially the only way to write about a book would be to include the entire text of the book, and nothing else:

And this is how it is: if only you do not try to utter what is unutterable then nothing gets lost. But the unutterable will be -- unutterably -- contained in what has been uttered!

Maybe that was why it was so difficult for me to continue writing where I had stopped for weeks, looking over my notes in cafes and reading over lines I had underlined twice, three times, with exclamation marks penciled in the margins. I wanted so much to capture something inexpressible about this book, this life. I found myself emphatically in agreement with many of Wittgenstein’s points, but I had to admit to myself that afterall I had not really read any of Wittgenstein’s own writings. I had to admit that I was slightly intimidated by the logical propositions, and the rigorous uncompromising language. So that in the end what I had were only a collection of loose inexpressible feelings arising from the man’s life (as portrayed in this book) that I felt vaguely good about, and Wittgenstein’s own quiet insistence that "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

[Uroš Đurković · Rating 5 out of 5]

Toliko sam uživao u ovom čitanju da sam pomislio kako treba samo biografije čitati. Jer, tautološki rečeno, šta te se više u životu tiče od samog života? Pa ipak, uz sve moje oduševljenje, problem je što je retko koja biografija ovako sjajno napisana, tako da skrckate 700 stranica kao kolačić uz čaj. Rej Monk je bio savršeno uredan, temeljan i jasan, što je dobitna kombinacija za ovakav poduhvat. Sve je dobro promišljeno, dostojanstveno, potkrepljeno i, začudo, uprkos broju stranica, najkraće moguće – ništa se tu ne može izostaviti, a, verujem, ni dodati.

U susretu sa celinom nečijeg života, nameće se pitanje – šta izdvojiti? A čitajući ovu knjigu, lako se zaboravi da je i sama biografija odabir, pa je onda i moje pitanje odabir odabira. Ipak, već naslov pomaže u tom naumu – jer, ukoliko je nešto moglo da se za Vitgenštajna tvrdi, to je da je bio blistav um. Genijalan. Jedan od retkih filozofa koji nije želeo da pitanja zamaskira novim pitanjima, već da dâ odgovore, uvede red u misao. Dokaz da to nije samo arogantna želja jeste njegovo delo, zbog kojeg mu mnogi danas dobacuju da je došao do kraja filozofije. Ipak, kako to inače i biva kod najvećih umova i njihovih najcitiranijih izjava, često interpretacije imaju malo veze sa onim što je zaista rečeno. Shodno tome, priča o kraju filozofije nije kraj, isto kao što sa tišinom i autocenzurom ima malo veze ona čuvena rečenica: „o onome o čemu se ne može govoriti, treba ćutati”.

Ali da se manem sad užefilozofskih opservacija, važno je, u skladu sa naslovom, promisliti o dužnosti genija – prema sebi i prema društvu. Iako je samo po sebi veliko pitanje – kako prepoznati genija – još je podsticajnije pitanje odgovornosti prema toj posebnosti i ono se, baš kao kakav refren, iznova javlja u ovoj biografiji. Jer, bez obzira na sve svoje kvalitete (ili upravo zbog njih!), Vitgenštajn je vodio jedan uglavnom sumoran život, pun nezadovoljstva i suspregnutosti. Mnogo je razloga zašto je to bilo tako, a neki, svakako, potiče iz porodice. Navešću samo nekoliko podataka: otac Karl je bio jedan od najbogatijih Evropljana na prelazu vekova; tri Ludvigova brata (Rudolf, Johanes i Konrad) izvršili su samoubistvo (sam Ludvig je celog života imao ozbiljne suicidne misli); plus, kad dodate tu još i jevrejsko poreklo, dobijete zaista jedan teskoban sklop. Takođe, Ludvig je celog svog života pokušavao da smesti svoju (homo)seksualnost gde treba – osvedočeno je da je tri puta bio potpuno zaljubljen, ali nije sasvim jasno kakva je bila priroda tih odnosa, s obzirom na to da je insistirao na suprotstavljenosti seksa i ljubavi. (Uostalom, kao da su detalji bitni.)

Bilo kako bilo, jasno je da je bilo potrebno biti posebno jak da bi se kroz ceo život nosio teret svoje porodice, svog nasleđa i svoje prirode. I to naročito ako si sofisticirano biće, sa mnogim talentima i munjevitim mozgom. Ali Ludvig je, uprkos svom intelektu, retko kad sebi olakšavao zapetljavajući se u različite bezizlaze. Bio je dobrovoljac u Prvom svetskom ratu, gde je imao svoj čin, podređene, gde je oduševljeno čitao Tolstoja, priznao kako se osetio kukavicom kad je trebalo da prenese neku bombu i gde je, kako priznaje, nakon dugog vremena mogao da masturbira. Ironično, Vitgenštajnov odlazak u rat je pokušaj spasa: ostvarenja duboko preobražujućeg iskustva. Nakon rata odriče se očevog bogatstva, a pre rata diplomirao je ne filozofiju nego aeronautiku. Kao vazduhoplovni inženjer dospeva u Kembridž, kod Bertrand Rasela, koji će mu biti i mentor na doktorskim studijama. Njihov prvi susret je bio neobičan, Rasel ga je sasvim pogrešno procenio, a Ludvig je bio začuđujuće nesiguran i krhak. Nakon toga, njihovi odnosi će se menjati od krajnje srdačnog do sasvim hladnog, o čemu može biti posvećena čitava jedna knjiga.

Iako je imao priliku da u životu ne radi ništa, kao i da bude akademski ušuškan, Vitgenštajn je imao iznenađujuće raznoliku karijeru – bio je i portir, baštovan, pomoćnik u medicinskim eksperimentima, ali i učitelj. I baš sam se pitao – kakvi li su to časovi bili! Ukratko – svakakvi. Ludvig je insistirao na algebri koja je bila velika muka za većinu đaka (svaki dan dva sata matematike pre svega ostalog), a nakon toga bi vrlo posvećeno obuhvatao različite oblasti znanja, često kroz istraživačke aktivnosti, među kojima se izdvaja korišćenje mikroskopa, pokazivanje primera iz biologije i geologije i proučavanje skeleta mačke. Ipak, i povrh posvećenosti, Vitgenštajn je svoje đačiće surovo fizički kažnjavao, a ostalo je zabeleženo da je jednu devojčicu tako jako povukao za kosu da joj je ispao ceo pramen. (Bilo je tu, bogami, i sudskog gonjenja, ali ko hoće ima u knjizi detalje.)

U srednjoj školi se nije duže zadržao, budući da je zaključio da su tamo svi imbecili. Profesorski posao u Kembridžu mu je bio mrzak i verovao je da svojim predavanjima ne menja ništa – da retko do koga uopšte može da dođe. (Zanimljivo je da je znao da ćuti doslovno po dva minuta na svojim predavanjima da bi razmišljao. Studenti ga nisu prekidali, ponosni što prisustvuju tom procesu.) Ni tu se nije zadržao. Sa druge strane, ceo život je žalio zašto se nije bavio medicinom i pomislio je da bi u tom smeru mogao da ide. Čak je ozbiljno nameravao da se za stalno preseli u Rusiju i to baš usred Staljinovog uspona.

Neobičan je čak i njegov izbor putovanja – dok bi većina svoj idealni odmor zamislila na jugu, Vitgenštajn je putovao na sever. Sa Dejvidom Pinsentom, svojom prvom velikom ljubavi i čovekom kome je posvetio „Traktat”, bio je na Islandu, a on je sam u više navrata boravio u Norveškoj. U svim tim kretanjima, odnos prema nacionalnom i zavičajnom mu je bio kontradiktoran, kao i politički program – ni levičar, ni desničar, svojevoljno osiromašeno dete tajkuna, nepomirljivi ateista i jevrejski katolik. Čak je postojao i neki smešan ponos u pripadnošću nemačkom svetu baš onda kad je postao britanski državljanin (nikako mu se nije svidela ideja da umre u Engleskoj, to mu je zvučalo degradirajuće).

Osim spomenute životne tapiserije, sjajni su autorovi uvidi u osnovne ideje Vitgenštajnovog teorijskog dela (super za uvod i/ili osvežavanje memorije), kao i zanimljivosti vezane za susrete i uticaje. Zabavno je zamisliti susret Vitgenštajna sa Alanom Tjuringom ili Virdžinijom Vulf, gde ni on ni ona nisu bili impresionirani međusobno, ili komunikaciju članova Bečkog kruga sa obožavanjem Ota Vajningera (koji se, nažalost, takođe ubio). Takođe, Vitgenštajn je bio fasciniran „Karamazovima” i to pre svega likom starca Zosime. Ta duhovna linija u toku njegovog života bila mi je posebno interesantna i pokazuje štetu pojednostavljivanja Vitgenštajna na suvu drenovinu analitike. I iako sam se raspisao, ovo su samo kratke teze u odnosu na ono šta se može naći u knjizi.

I nakon svega, jedno razmišljanje. Da mogu da biram između mirnog, ispunjenog i srećnog života sa jedne strane i izuetnog, genijalnog dela sa druge, najverovatnije bih odabrao ono prvo. Opet neka faustovska posla!

[Jeff Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd enjoyed "Wittgenstein's Mistress" and "Wittgenstein's Nephew," so I figured it was time to find out something about the man himself. Ray Monk's book turned out to be one of the best bios I've ever read. A compelling recounting of Wittgenstein's extraordinary life (hails from Europe's wealthiest and most talented family with numerous sibling suicides, insists on serving in WWI trenches, went from Cambridge professor to day laborer) that also makes his philosophy more comprehensible, tracing his tumultuous metamorphosis from mathematical logician to metaphysical cobweb clearer. His true talent was for stripping down arguments and perceptions to their useful essence.

I also learned a number of endearing tidbits: (1) Wittgenstein loved pulpy crime stories, but only from Street & Smith's "Detective Story Magazine." No substitutes! (2) He was a remarkably adept whistler. And would correct the pitch of those who whistled around him. (3) He loved to go to the movies, especially westerns. (4) His favorite movie performer was Carmen Miranda. Next was Betty Hutton. (5) In his early days, he was so entrenched in the Viennese aristocracy that he despised the lower classes and was against suffrage for women. Later, he gave away all his money and tried to work as a menial laborer in the Soviet Union. (6) He trained the birds near his cottage to eat from his hands. (7) His last words were: "Tell my friends I've had a wonderful life."

[Geoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not going to have any time in the next couple of weeks to write something proper about this great book and this insanely intriguing, captivating, gloriously flawed & brilliant man, Wittgenstein, so I'll direct you to Jimmy's review of this book, which sparked my interest in it, and is full of great stuff about Witt, Robert Musil, Vienna, writer's block, among myriad other things. Jimmy is a real treasure on Goodreads so give his lovely review some much deserved votes:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

[Stavros · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Οι προτάσεις μου αποτελούν διευκρινίσεις όταν αυτός που με καταλαβαίνει, αφού με τη βοήθεια τους - πατώντας πάνω τους - τις υπερπηδήσει και προχωρήσει πέρα από αυτές, τελικά τις αναγνωρίσει ως στερημένες από νόημα. (Πρέπει, θα λέγαμε, να πετάξει μακριά την ανεμόσκαλα, αφού ανέβει πρώτα σε αυτή.» (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 6.54)

[Basil B · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book the day as a celebration the day I got into medical school and it was worth every pound. Some part of me is sad to close the reading of this book which has paralleled a long period in my life. Thinking about the power broker too which is another book I will be finishing soon which I started a long time ago. I remember celebrating the submission of my last medical school secondary app essays by ordering sushi and reading the power broker. Reading a book over a long time really makes you feel time passing.

[Anmol · Rating 3 out of 5]

I might have liked this more if I had read any Wittgenstein - I was looking for an introduction to his thought, and maybe a 700-page biography wasn't the best place. Like most other readers, I find Wittgenstein is most interesting when he is in a mystical mood, and unfortunately I don't think that mood is present in most of his philosophical writings (from the little I could get of them in this book). Even in his own personality, to be honest, he seems like a bit of a prick, and the way in which everyone around him treats him like a god or the greatest philosopher since Plato is a bit cringeworthy (again, I say this as someone who has not yet read him.) But then, maybe I would also be like one of them if the topic of adoration was Nietzsche, or Schopenhauer, or Aurobindo, or The Buddha. All of us can and do worship our idols in a cringeworthy manner – seeing through the illusion of this idol-worship is a part of growing up, and becoming our own person. I will say more about my initial discomforts with Wittgenstein’s views on philosophy when I read him sometime in the next few months.

[David M]

I'm afraid I've never been able to get much out of either the Tractatus or the Investigations (aside from the extremely quotable line here and there), but there's no question their author had an incredibly captivating personality. The agony of thought, the unintentional humor of purity. Ray Monk's portrait is masterful & highly entertaining.

[Justinian Guan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't got a clue what useful things I can say about Wittgenstein but I love his work and this book too much to keep my mouth shut. so here goes.

Wittgenstein has long been my favourite philosopher (the other one being Kant for his thought - but as a person Kant is so, so boring) - I did not even have to read him to glean already from clips of Derek Jarman's Wittgenstein that there was something profound, original, and unmatched in his thought. his notion of the unsayable and what he tries to get at in saying: "If a lion could talk, we could not understand it." were huge influences when I was writing my KI IS last year (not that that was any good; Wittgenstein would have trashed it).

so before reading this I was staggered already by Wittgenstein. after reading it I am even more staggered. the fact is Wittgenstein is one of the few analytic philosophers who appear really human; that he has a beating heart is not ever in question. not when he struggles with writing and questions eternally if his work is any good; certainly not when he struggles with his homosexuality and tries to square the circle in the tension he sees between sexuality and love. and above all not in that burning desire for the truth that suffuses the best of his work.

in writing about undoubted genius Monk manages to make genius human, and never once slips into idolatry or exaggerations of Wittgenstein's character. one doesn't have to, anyway - that detective story-loving, Schubert-singing, aphoristic philosopher's character leaps off the page right into your heart (there is something so queer too that all evidence that Wittgenstein was _different_ from an ordinary person makes him in the final analysis all the more human; we realize that "human" is no shorthand for mundanity). Monk, in writing about Wittgenstein, gets the essential parts of his philosophy across neatly and demonstratively; and from the copious letters and conversations he has to select from chooses just the right anecdote to shine brighter light on whatever facet of Wittgenstein's life he's discussing. (there's much there to laugh at, and be moved by.)

what is most moving for me in this life is not Wittgenstein's cleverness or alterity, even if those are always clearly in evidence. it is the constant searching of his conscience and faith, a search Beethovenian in its tempestuousness, that really sears as you read it. Wittgenstein took statements, meanings, and life _seriously_ - and everything else seems to spring from that restless seriousness.

it is all quite inspiring. I suspect the gravity of Wittgenstein's thought has already made me think, and see life, differently. as seems to have happened to most people who met the living man; and as I think will happen to anyone who reads this book. in sum, once again - I loved it.

[Paul Ataua · Rating 5 out of 5]

A marvelous and engaging book, in part because because Wittgenstein is such an odd and fascinating character, but mostly because Monk finds an excellent balance between the life and the ideas of this tortured genius, and because he writes it all with such sensitivity.

[Elliot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Monk’s biography of Wittgenstein is a truly detailed (at times painfully so) account of the foremost philosopher of the 20th century. The sheer scope of this biography, the personal and historical ground it covers, is awe inspiring. I was fairly familiar with the main points of LWs life having read some of the primary materials, a good number of secondary works, and having already read Wolfram Eilenberger’s partial bio of W. Some of the standout moments of Monks book were things I was unaware of like Ws trip to Russia, his relationship with Pinset and Francis Skinner, and his lifelong interest in authors I had no idea influenced him (Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, William James, Freud). While I was also familiar with Ws religious bent, I really was shocked to learn how deeply this ran and what an animating concern and question it was throughout his life.

On a personal note I find Monk’s bio to reveal W as a deeply conservative and reactionary figure in terms of how he approached the world, personal relationships, and ethics. While I find his life and thinking deeply fascinating, he is not someone I look to as a life well lived. It strikes me that, in a Lacanian sense, W was someone who’s life was a movement of cyclical jouissance crises (at points this became almost insufferable to read- like Ws constant desire to become a manual worker, his manipulation of students lives, his constant lambasting of professional philosophy while himself functioning as a professional philosopher, his multiple trips to Norway and back, and all the while his endless emotional and interpersonal turmoil). One has to wonder how much Ws early encounter with Weininger played a role in this- Monk surely seems to think it played a constitutive role…

Anyway I digress, this is a well done bio (even if it could have probably benefited from some editing that reduced its length) and I’d certainly recommend it for anyone with an interest in LW or 20th century philosophy.

[Lalagè · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ronald Jonkers heeft het dikke boek uitstekend vertaald, met alle details. Dit helpt me om erdoor te komen, ook al vind ik het iets te gedetailleerd, met talloze citaten uit brieven. Maar ik blijf gefascineerd door het veelbewogen leven van deze bijzondere man. Wittgenstein verhuisde vaak: hij woonde in Oostenrijk, Engeland, Noorwegen, Schotland, Wales en Ierland. Hij zocht afgelegen plekken op om goed te kunnen werken. Maar hij vond nergens rust en bleef altijd tobben over of hij wel een goed mens was en of zijn leven wel zin had. Ondanks diverse vriendschappen voelde hij zich vaak onbegrepen en alleen. En toch zei hij op zijn sterfbed: vertel aan mijn vrienden dat ik een schitterend leven heb gehad.

https://lalageleest.nl/2020/06/14/lud...

[Philipp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Monk writes great biographies - I loved the Oppenheimer biography, and here we have one on Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher of logic, psychology and mathematics, youngest son of the large and prosperous Wittgenstein family of Vienna.

I knew very little about Wittgenstein "the person" before, and even less about his philosophy. This servers as a very good introduction to Wittgenstein's philosophy - his writing is famously concentrated down to sentences as concise as possible. Here you get explanations from discussions with other philosophers, or from lectures he held.

Some things I noted:

- Many "famous" names appear here. Hitler was in a school class with Wittgenstein in Vienna for one year; later on, Popper, Feyerabend, Turing are all discussing/fighting with Wittgenstein. And of course, Wittgenstein's professors at university like Russell or Frege feature prominently, up to their eventual falling-out.

- Monk manages to show all the times Wittgenstein himself was weirdly naive without any judgment; I can't see how a 50-ish year old Professor of Philosophy can seriously entertain the notion of becoming a "manual laborer" in Soviet Russia ("the life of a manual labourer in Russia was the epitome of a life without treacle"). Soviet Russia didn't really want him, quote Monk: "The one thing that was not in short supply in Soviet Russia was unskilled labour." However, Monk defends Wittgenstein's remarks to Drury on the eve of Austria's Anschluss to Hitler's Germany as Wittgenstein trying not to worry Drury too much about Wittgenstein's family's situation. I'm not convinced.

- The intense part of Wittgenstein's personality is very well portrayed here. It was apparently very hard to be around him or hold "small-talk", and in philosophical discussions his directness was often abrupt to the point of being rude. This is how he wanted to prepare for a wedding:

Early in the summer he invited Marguerite to Norway to prepare, as he thought, for their future life together. He intended, however, that they should spend their time separately, each taking advantage of the isolation to engage in serious contemplation, so that they would be spiritually ready for the new life that was to come.

As expected, she left after two weeks.

- He wouldn't survive in today's academia - he published little to nothing, most is published posthumously. His teaching was kept "under wraps":

In order to keep his class down to a size with which he felt comfortable, he did not announce his lectures in the usual way in the Cambridge University Recorder. Instead, John Wisdom, Moore and Braithwaite were asked to tell those students they thought would be interested about the classes. No more than about ten students attended.

This is impossible in the age of standardised tests, degrees and the Bologna process.

- Wittgenstein's remarks and Monk's expansion about logic and concepts not being as simple as logicians wanting them to be are eye-opening, recommended reading

- In his remarks about language I'm reminded of Stanislaw Lem's SF:

This is because the commonality of experience required to interpret the 'imponderable evidence', the 'subtleties of glance, gesture and tone', will be missing. This idea is summed up in one of Wittgenstein's most striking aphorisms: 'If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.'

Most of Lem's SF is about mankind encountering talking lions!

- Wittgenstein's very dry humor is amazing and noted in many episodes like this one:

Never having seen Wittgenstein before, he [Mabbott] assumed that this [Wittgenstein] was a student on vacation who did not know this hostel had been given over to those attending the conference. 'I'm afraid there is a gathering of philosophers going on here', he said kindly. Wittgenstein replied darkly: 'I too'.

[Taka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Exhaustive & Exhausting--

Maybe that's the nature of biographies—you get everything, or everything known about the person, and it flatly goes against our narrative preference to read only what's interesting and skip what's not (a strategy fiction adopts to keep us interested). We learn so much about Wittgenstein that, yes, he does become human, and yes, you feel like you understand his philosophy a lot better, but at the same time, there are so many instances of his life that are just not interesting at all (his advice to his friends about their job situations during the war, or his political delusions and trip to Soviet Russia to find, unsuccessfully, a menial job, or his peripatetic existence toward the end of his life and where he was staying and so forth).

What was fascinating was anything that touched on his philosophy, especially—for me—his later philosophy (which is something I'm planning on studying). Also fascinating was his spiritual life that led him to fulminate against Scientism, and it is this spiritual side of his personality in Culture and Value that attracted me to his philosophy to begin with. As Monk himself puts it: "For, in a way that is centrally important but difficult to define, he had lived a devoutly religious life" (580).

Apart from his spiritual and philosophical strivings, we get a portrait of an intense, stubborn man very difficult to get along with. His insecurity is written everywhere. When he was young, he wanted others to recognize him as a genius and tried everything in his powers to get the recognition. A sensitive and hopelessly awkward soul, he'd take offense at nothing and break off even long-standing friendships. A lonely man, he'd demand HOURS of friends' undivided attention about philosophical and personal problems he wanted to discuss. Or confess what he deemed were his "sins" to his friends at a cafe in a loud voice, making the listeners uncomfortable to say the least. In short, someone you'd try to avoid if you come across him in your life.

And yet, I came away with the feeling that he lived his life in the only way he could: passionately. And that's something. Despite all his psychological baggage, despite his loneliness, internal struggles, self-loathing (at his own sexual desires and philosophical work), he lived, really lived. And for that I admire him and his work.

Onto Philosophical Investigations and On Certainty!

[Rishabh Shukla · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is by far the best biography I have read so far (though I confess I haven't read that many biographies). Before I started reading this book, I was not even aware of the name Ludwig Wittgenstein, but after reading this, it's difficult to not admire and fall in love with his raw intelligence, childish innocence and unblemished heart that remained true to himself and everyone whose life he touched.

At many places in the book, it breaks ones heart to think of the loneliness Prof. Wittgenstein suffered throughout his life for in his own words, "his too little faith and too little courage in love." and inability to express his feelings. But more than that, I feel, throughout his life, Prof Wittgenstein suffered from an acute self-deprecation about his feelings and the work he did as a Professor and professional philosopher. This self-deprecation was so acute that from time to time, he left philosophy to take on jobs that involved, in what he termed as "real work". Things like, working in an army or as an apprentice in a lab or even a small town mathematics teacher. What is though completely unintuitive is that most of his best work came from this period where he was not doing active philosophy.

The book connects the dots of explaining his work as a philosopher through his life and his life through his philosophy. All in all, it's a reminder, if not a life lesson, for anyone who wants to do some work but often falls in the trap of illusion of grandeur. While the entire world that knew Ludwig Wittgenstein during and after his lifetime remained convinced of his raw genius and importance of the work he was doing (even if they were not necessarily convinced of its correctness), the one person that was never pleased with his work and was always critical of it was Ludwig Wittgenstein himself.

[Anton · Rating 3 out of 5]

As introspective and bookish as you might expect a philosopher as head-spinning as Wittgenstein to be, his actual day-to-day life is pretty interesting. Two anecdotes that most immediately come to mind: 1. After fighting in World War I (throughout which he was hellbent on fighting on the front-lines), Wittgenstein, by inheritance one of the richest men in Austria at the time, gave away ALL of his money to become a country school teacher, believing that he could not live authentically otherwise. 2. When explaining his meticulous designs for his sister's house, which included the size and shape to the tiniest millimeter of every door knob and window, Wittgenstein drove one of the house-builders to tears because of his implacable exactitude. Both these anecdotes exemplify qualities of character that cannot but make a life compelling: a passion for ideals at once admirable and profoundly alienating. Ray Monk renders the narrative well, making, for instance, the publication history of Wittgenstein's "Tractatus" a thing of page-turning drama (at least for this reader). While knowing about Wittgenstein's life and times in general does serve to contextualize Wittgenstein's ideas, I was a bit disappointed overall in Monk's explication of his writings. Monk's treatment of the philosophy at times seemed piecemeal and inconsistent: he'd explain simple points at length, but gloss over more esoteric ideas as if they were obvious. His discussions of Wittgenstein's reading early on in the book were very illuminating, however, and I will say that the book as a whole succeeds in humanizing and making more approachable this philosopher's demanding and enigmatic texts.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Again and again in his lectures, Wittgenstein tried to explain that he was not offering any philosophical theory; he was offering only the means to escape any need of such a theory. The syntax, the grammar, of our thought could not be, as he had earlier thought, delineated or revealed by analysis -- phenomenological or otherwise. 'Philosophical analysis,' he said, 'does not tell us anything new about thought (and if it did it would not interest us).' The rules of grammar could not be justified, nor even described, by philosophy. Philosophy could not consist, for example, of a list of 'fundamental' rules of the sort that determine the 'depth-grammar' (to use Chomsky's term) of our language:

We never arrive at fundamental propositions in the course of our investigation; we get to the boundary of language which stops us from asking further questions. We don't get to the bottom of things, but reach a point where we can go no further, where we cannot ask further questions.

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary book about one of the true geniuses of the 20th century.

[Michael A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good and interesting biography! Got me thinking I need to read more biographies.

[Vito Courtens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Na enige tijd sla ik de laatste pagina van deze magnifieke biografie om. Was het al deze tijd waard? Absoluut.

Met zijn levendige taal neemt Ray Monk ons bij het handje en toont—‘zeigt’—hij ons in detail het leven van Wittgenstein. Hij vindt een goed evenwicht tussen biografische informatie en filosofische uitleg en nooit zal hij te lang stilstaan bij futiliteiten. Dit alles zorgt voor een zeer aangename leeservaring die nooit verveelt. Op een bepaalde manier is dit boek zelfs te vergelijken met een roman.

Vooral slaagt de schrijver erin om een duidelijk beeld te schetsen van Wittgenstein’s persoonlijkheid, vaak a.d.h.v. citaten uit diens dagboek, alsook die van zijn vrienden en familie. Zoals het citaat op de achterzijde van het boek leest: “This biography transforms Wittgenstein into a human being.” Zijn eigenaardigheden worden blootgelegd, zijn ideeën worden verklaard en zijn omgeving wordt verduidelijkt. Dit alles speelt natuurlijk een cruciale rol in het begrijpen van zijn filosofisch werk.

Kortom, dit is een meesterwerk. Mocht je geïnteresseerd zijn, aarzel dan niet langer.

[Domhnall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is quite long but very readable and often entertaining.

Wittgenstein was a recognised genius but he had a scandalously limited interest in reading other philosophers and he just walked into the subject at the deep end without too much preamble. This resulted in some very idiosyncratic ideas - indeed convictions - which Monk attributes to his early reading, which by any standard was at best suspect.

His ideas evolved over his lifetime and he came to reject many of his earlier - rather dogmatic - assertions. He combined perfectionism with indecision - everything was permanently capable of revision - and he was constitutionally incapable of drawing a line, with the result that much of his writing was only made available posthumously and was assembled by his executors.

Wittgenstein was himself one of those who believe that his biography had no bearing on his ideas and Monk does an excellent job of proving him wrong. If anything, it makes a lot more sense to recognise the way his ideas developed - so that there is no reason to take anything as scriptural or definitive, but rather to take it always as an invitation to the reader to take up the same problems and work on them.

[Aike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aangezien ik dit boek in het Nederlands las, ga ik er ook in het Nederlands over schrijven.
Dankzij de prachtige bibliotheeksticker stond er op de rug van mijn versie uiteindelijk: Ludwig Wittgenstein: Portret van een Wittgenstein. (Wat naar mijn bescheiden mening een stuk beter klinkt 'gekwelde geest').
Om maar direct even heel eerlijk te zijn, dit was de eerste biografe die ik ooit heb gelezen en het komt ook direct het dichtst in de buurt van een filosofisch boek. Ik heb geen idee waarom ik het geleend heb maar ik weet wel dat ik absoluut niet verwacht had het zo leuk te vinden.
Ik deed er ongeveer een maand over om dit boek uit te lezen: het kostte me telkens moeite er weer in te komen, maar wanneer ik er eenmaal weer in zat (vaak na zo’n vijf pagina’s), bleef ik ook lezen zodat de meeste leessessies minstens een uur duurden.
De schrijfstijl is niet eens heel boeiend, vrij droog, weinig gevoel, ik had het idee dat dit deels ook door de vertaling kwam. Gelukkig bestaat het boek voor een groot deel uit primair materiaal: brieven, dagboekfragmenten, zelfs kranten- en tijdschriftartikelen. (Opnieuw had ik wel het idee dat deze aangetast waren door de vertaling, ze schenen in schrijfstijl veel overeen te komen.) Maar het was fantastisch, alsof je in een archief gegooid werd en snipper voor snipper iemands leven in elkaar zette. Het was fascinerend om te lezen hoe personen verschenen en verdwenen, wie er overbleef en wie je dacht dat zou blijven maar nooit meer terugkeerde. Het is vreemd om je te beseffen dat het leven afgelopen was: dat het al plaatsgevonden had. Wanneer je fictie leest kan alles nog gebeuren, lijkt elke bladzijde op dat moment plaats te vinden maar hier ken je het einde al, hier is alles al voor je gedaan.
Daarnaast zat er in het boek genoeg filosofie om te voorkomen dat het simpelweg een soap werd. Toevallig zijn we op dit moment op school met kennisleer bezig en de dingen waar Wittgenstein zich mee bezig hield, sluiten hier best op aan. Ik merkte dat bepaalde dingen me opvielen in de les door wat ik in het boek gelezen had, maar dat daarentegen ook het boek duidelijker werd door achtergrondinformatie uit de les: ik vermoed dat ik sommige passages zonder niet begrepen had.
(Ook nu nog waren er genoeg dingen die ik niet begreep. Maar het is geruststellend om te weten dat een groot filosoof er niet voor terugdeinsde zijn gedachten en meningen radicaal te veranderen. Dat ik over veertig jaar nog kan zeggen: "Nu weet ik hoe het echt zit.")

[Yunling · Rating 4 out of 5]

孟克（作者）本身也是一位後分析哲學教授，我覺得導論聊到作者為什麼會寫天才的責任，講到W1到W2的這個過程，也就是這本傳記試圖反駁維根斯坦是一個雙重人格的人，不存在W1 vs W2 這樣的詮釋，非常有意思。也可以搭配下冊最後附錄一起讀

天才是天生ＤＮＡ來的嗎？還是天才是可以教養出來的？誰來認定你是不是天才呢？很有趣的是：維根斯坦是家裡頭被認定駑鈍的一個。不但沒有早發的音樂天賦，更談不上任何才能。甚而到四歲才會說話。完全不像其他兄長叛逆，也沒有自殺的傾向。十四歲以前的他就是一個凡人（以他們家的狀況來說），甚而，誰說他是天才？也是到遇到羅素之後才越來越被認為是。那已經是二十歲後的事了。

然而，他們全家，都有一個共同特性：堅持當自己！

多堅持？在下冊，已經是希特勒進入奧地利的時期，他的兩個姊姊，竟然任性到可以跟德軍談判，用資產來換取不用離開德國的條件，那就是取得（不是純猶太人的證明）～當然我們可以說有錢好辦事，不過這可不是有錢就能辦得成的事。而他的哥哥，已經被炸掉右手，還是繼續到紐約彈琴～幾乎每一個兄弟姊妹，都可以在上下冊找到類似的堅持足跡。當然他們的爸媽，更是不遑多讓！

經濟學家海耶克（炸有錢Hayek)是維根斯坦的表弟。一家都很傑出，還不只兄弟姐妹。而且海耶克是維根斯坦第一本知名的邏輯哲學論的最初讀者。令我好奇的是：海耶克也寫了一本維根斯坦。看來，這個維根斯坦，很多人寫他～

唯一一個跟他似乎相遇，卻兩方都沒記載的人是吳爾芙。不論是維還是吳，都沒有紀錄。那麼，作者孟克怎麼會寫這段？也很有意思。可見得，孟克看了多少不同人的書信，比對所有當時那個年代幾乎會遇到的人他們的聚會。非常的難得可貴！

以前我沒有很喜歡凱因斯。讀天才的責任看到他不同的一面。凱因斯，不論在哪一章，他的角色就是～～救人！（好的，維根斯坦需要學歷，突然又需要獎學金，喔他需要英國護照）可謂維根斯坦的觀世音。最好笑的是：凱因斯覺得維根斯坦，還好。（劍橋使徒Cambridge Apostles）

以教育體制來說，我也突然欣賞起羅素。惜才！說不定我們身邊也很多天才，慧眼看出天才，卻是一個問號？老師，能夠在維根斯坦連大學學歷都沒的時候，就看出他的潛力，並且承認他比老師群還厲害，這也不是普通的老師。

維根斯坦，不論哪一個時期，都鼓吹他的學生，不要從事哲學正職。盡可能去做凡人的工作，勞力的工作更好。所以他的得意門生都盡可能的不要做哲學工作（超好笑！）安斯康姆，女性，算是維根斯坦可以聊天的對象和學生中，少數二位女性。（這已是下冊）維根斯坦不把他當女性，其實當時安斯康姆也不崇拜維根斯坦，而是喜歡卡夫卡。所以維根斯坦會在課上說：謝天謝地，我們甩掉了女人！（安斯康姆在場）她還借卡夫卡的小說給維根斯坦。然後維根斯坦會推薦她魏寧格（太好笑，魏寧格是後人所謂的厭女）她，也是維根斯坦指定往生後可以審稿的三人之一。

理解幽默和理解音樂一樣，都被維根斯坦拿來作為理解哲學的類比。我喜歡討論面相那章的細節。更多的是非哲學的對待、愛的散發。

他迷『偵探故事雜誌』（美國），還有西部片，不過同樣是美國雜誌，連作者都幾乎一樣，另一個雜誌叫黑面具，他就不能接受，而且會抓狂。（冷硬派偵探，其實我覺得跟維根斯坦很合）

早期品生曾經記載，維根斯坦貶低的音樂不必太現代。譬如說荀白克，馬勒，也沒讚賞過布拉姆斯。他認為莫札特貝多芬等才是音樂。不知道他晚期看那些美國西部片之後，有沒有改變音樂口味？

他熟讀托爾斯泰的福音書摘要。後來，他會一一去跟他教過被他體罰的學生懺悔，任何可能會對他不爽的人道歉～～這一章，也是非常有意思。

他對喜歡的女性，以及後來的男朋友，都非常的詭異。這一段，各種爭議～下冊更妙。1929年，他覺得要赤裸真相。（超好笑）他苦於他是野獸，而且還不以為苦。（我正在面臨變得更加膚淺的危險，願神阻止它的發生！）他在初夏邀請女生去挪威。必須要為未來的生活做準備。結果，他的準備就是：他住自己的房子，同時安排女生住進去另一個房子。（請問兩個人大老遠跑去挪威做什麼？）然後他在女生的行李箱塞了一本哥林多前書（討論愛的本質和德性）他自己去省思，女生就跟品生當年一樣，跑出去玩。挪威行的女性省思就是：這個男的嫁不得！

羅素以為自己的激情跟維根斯坦一樣。其實不同。

晚年時，他不是因為沒錢住朋友家。而是，當他開始不能寫作，自己主動辭掉教職，住在朋友家的原因是這些人可以刺激他，跟他聊哲學。所以，馬爾康姆成為他後期很重要的著作和對話的對象。

他蠻厲害的點是他算是蠻清楚知道自己什麼時候快要走。所以他竟然決定要去住修道院（沒住到）。他快要死之前的對話是：所有的興趣都在今生和我所能寫的東西上。雖然他知道他不久於人世，卻發現自己從來沒有想過來世！他跟朋友說，這不是很有趣嗎？儘管他沒有想過來世，但是他認為上帝說：我用你自己的嘴來審判你，當你看見別人做出同樣的行為時，你自己的行為已經讓你嫌惡得發抖。

整體而言，是本好讀又可愛的書。

[Michael Flick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not an easy read: Wittgenstein is arrogant and obnoxious, insecure and needy. The author tiptoes around his homosexuality, so the only important relationships in his life are left largely unexplored. Still, on the whole, the easiest way possible, I guess, to ease into the core of Wittenstein's thoughts--the distinction between showing and saying. It's hard, indeed, to write about the inexpressible. "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

[H]

ray monk's duty of genius

===

At about the same time, in fact, he surprised Russell by suddenly saying how much he admired the text: 'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul':
"[He] then went on to say how few there are who don't lose their soul. I said it depended on having a large purpose that one is true to. He said he thought it depended more on suffering and the power to endure it. I was surprised -- I hadn't expected that kind of thing from him." (51)

For the rest of his life he continued to regard the feeling of being 'absolutely sfe' as paradigmatic of religious experience. (51)

Russell then asked him how he would feel if he were married to a woman and she ran away with another man:
"[Wittgenstein] said (and I believe him) that he would feel no rage or hate, only utter misery. His nature is good through and through; that is why he doesn't see the need of morals. I was utterly wrong at first; he might do all kinds of things in passion, but he would not practise any cold-blooded immorality. His outlook is very free; principles and such things eem to him nonsense, because his impulses are strong and never shameful." (52)

-

" . . . deep inside me there's a perpetual seething, like the bottom of a geyser, and I keep hoping that things will come to an eruption once and for all, so that I can turn into a different person." (97)

"Perhaps you regard this thinking about myself as a waste of time -- but how can I be a logician before I'm a human being! Far the most important thing is to settle accounts with myself!" (97)

-

"Don't be dependent on the external world and then you have no fear of what happens in it . . . It is x times easier to be independent of things than to be independent of people. But one must be capable of that as well." (116)

Wittgenstein once told Bieler that he would make a good disciple but that he was no prophet. 'I could say about him', writes Bieler, that: 'he had all the characteristics of a prophet, but none of a disciple.' (133)

-

The connection between Wittgenstein's thought on logic and his reflections on the meaning of life was to be found in the distinction he had made earlier between saying and showing. Logical form, he had said, cannot be expresed within language, for it is the form of language itself; it makes itself manifest in language -- it has to be shown. Similarly, ethical and religious truths, though inexpressible, manifest themselves in life:
"The solution to the problem of life is to be seen in the disappearance of the problem.
"Isn't this the reason why men to whom the meaning of life had become clear after long doubting could not say what this meaning consisted in?"
Thus: 'Ethics does not treat of the world. Ethics must be a condition of the world, like logic.' (142)

-

'Normal human beings are a balm to me', he wrote to Engelmann, 'and a torment at the same time.' (181)

[Engelmann] "If I am unhappy and know that my unhappiness reflects a gross discrepancy between myself and life as it is, I solved nothing; I shall be on the wrong track and I shall never find a way out of the chaos of my emotions and thoughts so long as I have not achieved the supreme and crucial insight that that discrepancy is not the fault of life as it is, but of myself as I am . . .
"The person who has achieved this insight and holds on to it, and who will try again and again to live up to it, is religious." (185)

"I know that to kill oneself is always a dirty thing to do. Surely one cannot will one's own destruction, and anybody who has visualized what is in practice involved in the act of suicide knows that suicide is always a rushing of one's own defences. But nothing is worse than to be forced to take oneself by surprise." (187)

-

"As to the shortness of the book I am awfully sorry for it; but what can I do? If you were to squeeze me like a lemon you would get nothing more out of me. To let you print the Erganzungen would be no remedy. It would be just as if you had gone to a joiner and ordered a table and he had made the table too short and now would sell you the shavings and sawdust and other rubbish along with the table to make up for its shortness. (Rather than print the Erganzungen to make the book fatter leave a dozen white sheets for the reader to swear into when he has purchased the book and can't understand it.)" (207)

-

He went on to show that the things one is inclined to say after such experiences are a misuse of language -- they mean nothing. And yet the experiences themselves 'seem to those who have had them, for instance to me, to have in some sense an intrinsic, absolute value'. They cannot be captured by factual language precisely because their value lies beyond the world of facts. In a notebook of the time (277) Wittgenstein rote a sentence which he did not include in the lecture, but which crystallizes his attitude perfectly: 'What is good is also divine. Queer as it sounds, that sums up my ethics.' (278)

-

The colour octahedron is an example of grammar, in this sense, because it tells us that, though we can speak of a greenish blue, we cannot speak of a greenish red. It therefore concerns, not truth, but possibility. Geometry is also in this sense a part of grammar. 'Grammar is a mirror of reality.' (291)

In explaining his view of the 'internal relations' established by grammar, Wittgenstein explicity contrasts it with the causal view of meaning adopted by Ogden and Richards in The Meaning of Meaning and by Russell in The Analysis of Mind. A causal relation is external. In Russell's view, for example, words are used with the intention of causing certain sensations and/or images, and a word is used correctly 'when the average hearer will be affected by it in the way intended'. To Wittgenstein, this talk of cause and effect misses the point. In his notes he ridiculed Russell's account by the following analogy: 'If I wanted to eat an apple, and someone punched me in the stomach, taking away my appetite, then it was this punch that I originally wanted.' (291)

"If a person tells me he has been to the worst places I have no right to judge him, but if he tells me it was his superior wisdom that enabled him to go there, then I know he is a fraud." (294)

-

"Our [with Waismann] thought here marches with certain views of Goethe's which he expressed in the Metamorphosis of Plants. We are in the habit, whenever we perceive similarities, of seeking some common origin for them. The urge to follow such phenomena back to their origin in the past expresses itself in a certain style of thinking. This recognizes, so to speak, only a single scheme for such similarities, namely the arrangement as a series in time. (And that is presumably bound up with the uniqueness of the causal schema). But Goethe's view shows that this is not the only possible form of conception. His conception of the original plant implies no hypothesis about the temporal development of the vegetable kingdom such as that of Darwin. Whatn then is the problem solved by this idea? It is the problem of synoptic presentation. Goethe's aphorism 'All the organs of plants are leaves transformed' offers us a plan in which we may group the organs of plants ccording to their similarities as if around some natural centre. We see the original form of the leaf changing into similar and cognate forms, into the leaves of the calyx, the leaves of the petal, into organs that are half petals, half stamens, and so on. We follow this sensuous (303) transformation of the type by linking up the leaf through intermediate forms with the other organs of the plant.
"That is precisely what we are doing here. We are collating one form of languge with its environment, or transforming it in imagination so as to gain a view of the whole of space in which the structure of our language has its being." (304)

Likewise the truth, the value, of religion can have nothing to do with the words used. There need, in fact, be no words at all. 'Is talking essential to religion?' he asked:
"I can well imagine a religion in which there are no doctrinal propositions, in which there is thus no talking. Obviously the essence of religion cannot have anything to do with the fact that there is talking, or rather: when people talk, then this itself is part of a religious act and not a theory. Thus it also does not matter at all if the words used are true or false or nonsense.
"In religion talking is not metaphorical either; for otherwise it would have to be possible to say the same things in prose." (305)

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Connected with the inclination to look for a substance corresponding to a substantive is the idea that, for any given concept, there is an 'essence' -- something that is common to all the things subsumed under a general term. Thus, for example, in the Platonic dialogues, Socrates seeks to answer philosophical questions such as: 'What is knowledge?' by looking for something that all examples of knowledge have in common. (In connection with this, Wittgenstein once (337) said that his method could be summed up by saying that it was the exact opposite of that of Socrates.) In the Blue Book Wittgenstein seeks to replace this notion of essence with the more flexible idea of family resemblances . . . (338)

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"It is not our aim to refine or complete the system of rules for the use of our words in unheard-of ways.
"For the clarity that we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear. The real discovery is the one that makes me capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want to. -- The one that gives philosophy peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself in question. -- Instead we now demonstrate a method, by examples; and the series of examples can be broken off. -- Problems are solved (difficulties eliminated), not a single problem. (365)

"If I perform to myself, then it's this that the style expresses. And then the style cannot be my own. If you are unwilling to know what you are, your writing is a form of deceit." (367)

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Rather than trying to answer the traditional questions of aesthetics ('What is beauty?' etc.), Wittgenstein gives a succession of examples to show that artistic appreciation does not consist (as one might think from reading some philosophical discussions of aesthetics) in standing before a painting and saying: 'That is beautiful.' Appreciation takes a bewildering variety of forms, which differ from culture to culture, and quite often will not consist in saying anything. Appreciation will be shown, by actions as often as by words, by certain gestures of disgust or satisfaction, by the way we read a work of poetry or play a piece of music, by how often we read or listen to the same piece, and how we do so. These different forms of appreciation do not have any one thing in common that one can isolate in answer to the question: 'What is artistic appreciation?' They are, rather, linked by a complicated series of 'family resemblances'. Thus:
"It is not only difficult to describe what appreciation consists in, but impossible. To describe what it consists in we would have to describe the whole environment." (405)

"It seems to me as if all that wisdom has come out of the ice box; I should not be surprised to learn that he [Tagore in his play The King of the Dark Chamber] got it all second-hand by reading and listening (exactly as so manyg among us cquire their knowledge of Christian wisdom) rather than from his own genuine feeling. Perhaps I don't understand his tone; to me it does not ring like the tone of a man possessed by the truth. (Like for instance Ibsen's tone.) It is possible, however, that here the translation leaves a chasm which I cannot bridge. I read with interest throughout, but without being gripped. That does not seem to be a good sign." (408)

'Russell and the parsons between them have done infinite harm, infinite harm.' Why pair Russell and the parsons in the one condemnation? Because both have encouraged the idea that a philosophical justification for religious beliefs is necessary for those beliefs to be given any credence. Both the atheist, who scorns religion because he has found no evidence for its tenets, and the believer, who attempts to prove the existence of God, have fallen victim to the 'other' -- to the idol-worship of the scientific style of thinking. Religious beliefs are not analogous to scientific theories, and should not be accepted or rejected using the same evidential criteria. (410)

There was, on his view, nothing for the mathematician to discover. A proof in mathematics does not establish the truth of a conclusion; it fixes, rather, the meaning of certain signs. The 'inexorability' of mathematics, therefore, does not consist in certain knowledge of mathematical truths, but in the fact that mathematical propositions are grammatical. (418)

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Freud's work is interesting precisely because it does not provide such a scientific treatment. What puzzles us about a dream is not its causality but its significance. We wnt the kind of explanation which 'changes the aspect' under which we see the images of a dream, so that they now make sense. (449)

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"When I talked of courage, by the way, I didn't mean, make a row with your superiors; particularly not when it's entirely useless & just shooting off your mouth. I meant: take a burden & try to carry it. I know that I've not any right to say this. I'm not much good at carrying burdens myself." (461)

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The problem could have only an existential, never a theoretical, solution. What was required was a change of spirit: 'Wisdom is cold and to that extent stupid. (Faith on the other hand is a passion.)' To breathe again, it was no use merely thinking correctly; one had to act -- to, as it were, rip the cellophane away and reveal the living world behind it. As he put it: ' "Wisdom is grey". Life on the other hand and religion are full of colour.' The passion of religious faith was the only thing cpable of overcoming the deadness of theory:
"I believe that one of the things Christianity says is that sound doctrines are all useless. That you h ave to change your life. (Or the direction of your life.)" (490)

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Understanding humour, like understanding music, provides an analogy for Wittgenstein's conception of philosophical understanding. What is required for understanding here is not the discovery of facts, nor the drawing of logically valid inferences from accepted premises -- nor, still less, the construction of theories -- but, rather, the right point of view (from which to 'see' the joke, to hear the expression in the music or to see your way out of the philosophical fog). (530)

'What would a person who is blind towards these aspects be lacking?' Wittgenstein asks, and replies: 'It is not absurd to answer: the power of imagination.' But the imagination of individuals, though necessary, is not sufficient. What is further required for people to be alive to 'aspects' (and, therefore, for humour, music, poetry and painting to mean something) is a culture. (531)

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"How do I know that two people mean the same when when each says he believes in God? And the same goes for belief in the Trinity. A theology which insists on the use of certain particular words and phrases, and outlaws others, does not make anything clearer (Karl Barth). It gesticulates with words, as one might say, because it wants to say something and does not know how to express it. Practice gives the words their sense." (573)

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We reach the end of doubt, rather, in practice: 'Children do not learn that books exist, that armchairs exist, etc., etc., -- they learn to fetch books, sit in armchairs, etc., etc.' Doubting is a rather special sort of practice, which can be learnt only after a lot of non-doubting behaviour has been acquired: 'Doubting and non-doubting behaviour. There is a first only if there is a second.' (578)

[Clara Mazzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro veramente rimarchevole, scritto da una persona non solo estremamente preparata su tutte le opere di Wittgenstein (persino sulle versioni rimaste solo annotate!)ma anche in grado di trasmetterci quello che era il suo pensiero filosofico – compito durissimo, visto che Wittgenstein praticamente smontava metaforicamente tutto quello che pensavano gli altri filosofi (o scienziati, o letterati che fossero) perché puntava a fare innanzitutto “chiarezza nel linguaggio”: era convinto, infatti, che tanti dubbi, tanta confusione, derivasse da un’inappropriata veicolazione linguistica – solo che trovare la parola giusta, adatta ad esprimere quello che aveva in mente, era un altro lavoro da “fuori di testa” (come del resto, a metà tra il serio e il faceto, Wittgenstein stesso si definiva). Viennese, contemporaneo di Freud, combatté (per scelta!) nella prima guerra mondiale perché era convinto (non a torto) che l’incontro diretto con la morte, avrebbe avuto un’importante influenza sui suoi pensieri; primo e sommo confutatore di Russell, diventerà poi docente a Cambridge di filosofia, pur detestando sempre profondamente innanzi tutto la cittadina stessa e poi la cultura inglese (purtroppo è sepolto a Cambridge perché è morto là). Una vita spesa nel pensiero, attività che lo confaceva di più e per la quale lui esigeva tanta solitudine e tanta quiete (si era costruito una casetta apposta nel mezzo del nulla norvegese) eppure capiva (e lo esprimeva a chiare lettere!) che aveva comunque bisogno degli altri, che da proprio da solo non ce la faceva a vivere così come dichiarava di aver bisogno anche di momenti intellettualmente semplici (adorava i film western, musical e i gialli). Molto probabilmente era un asperger. Wittgenstein è celebre anche per le sue anomalie comportamentali che lo rendevano una persona maniaca (non solo della quiete, ma anche della pulizia: lui puliva o faceva ripulire – i pavimenti della sua casa, cospargendo foglie di te umide per assorbire la polvere, che poi ovviamente, spazzava via; oppure si fissava con un certo tipo di cibo e doveva solo essere quello: prima era pane formaggio, poi erano i biscotti di carbone, poi qualcos’altro. I pasti dovevano sempre essere serviti in camera sua - non gli piaceva mangiare con gli altri, e alla stessa ora) ma allo stesso tempo una persona candida – nel bene e nel male: ha offeso tante persone (anche se tutti hanno colto che non c’era cattiveria in Wittgenstein, solo la ricerca di coerenza da parte di una persona che forse non era come tutti gli altri), così come ha saputo anche dimostrare grandi gesti di affetto, che sono arrivati inaspettati. “Tell them I had a wonderful life.” sono state le ultime parole di Ludwig Wittgenstein. Un libro che mi è piaciuto tantissimo.