Wednesday, January 25, 2006

 

Thinking about thinking.

I stopped by Kramerbooks tonight and bought “Lives of the Mind” by Roger Kimball. It is a collection of essays discussing the ideas and lives of some of the most influential intellectuals in Western Civilization.

The chapter on Wittgenstein is great. The brooding self-involved Austrian shifted philosophy to the study of linguistics in the 20th Century. He went after everyone including Bertrand Russell with ruthless logic and Karl Popper with a fireplace poker.

I have never read his work in its entirety. It has the feel of silly word games. And Wittgenstein wrote “What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.” All of the interesting things can only be spoken of, understood, incompletely. I can accept that the truth will always be obscured and still seek it out.

In the end, after all his arguments, fights, self-loathing and lost loves, his last words were "Tell them I've had a wonderful life."

Next: Santayana.


# posted by D. W. Eifert @ 4:05 AM
Comments:
There are no "word games" in LW, only language-games, and those are nothing trivial. The quote you give is from his early work, and is the result of a serious philosophical argument, not the casual aphoristic quip you take it for and reject. Though you appear to have moved on already, you should go deeper.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 12:55 PM
 
This being the blogosphere, I should have a vicious character-assassination response for you. However, you made a good point. I should not have used the word "silly", and I did not mean to imply that Wittgenstein was not being serious.

The point I was trying to make is that I have never been engaged by his work. However, I have not really tackled it either. I have not ruled out reading Wittgenstein. My interest happens to lean somewhat more towards political philosophy.
# posted by Blogger D. W. Eifert : 3:31 PM
 
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