Talk:Ludwig Wittgenstein/Archive 6

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He is regarded as...

"He is regarded as" is true if a small group regard him as a great philosopher, or if a large group regard him as a great philosopher, or if everyone regards him as a great philosopher. There is no need for "some" or "many". Banno 22:13, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

everyone doesn't regard him as such, but surely some people do. If it was less exaggerated of a claim, it would suffice to say it without "some". For instance, "he was an important and influential philospher ..." Ernham 20:19, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Who does not regard him as influential? They would be either foolish or ignorant. Whether he is "important" may be debatable, so my wording[1] is preferable. This is about English usage, not opinion. Banno 20:34, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

That's the wrong queston. You forgot the qualifier, the weasel-like usage of "most". Who doesn't regard him as "one of the MOST influential", Well, I can think of about my entire Philosophy department at university(save for one with a symbolic-logic "fetish"). His important contributions were mostly esoteric.Ernham 20:41, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

So are you saying that your Philosophy Department is foolish or that it is ignorant? Being influential does not mean being correct, as the present U.S. president so ably demonstrates. Nor does begin esoteric imply that one is not influential. What do you think that "influential" means? I understand "W. is influential" to mean that he influenced other philosophers. Are you wishing to claim that this is not the case? My apologies for reverting your other edit. Banno 21:01, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

again, his "influence" in philosophy was moderate to minimal to the majority of the discipline. If anyone believes otherwise, show me any profound philosophers hence that cite him as someone that influenced their work. He introduced some novel concepts but was generally "mor of the same" when it comes to philosophy.Ernham 14:05, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Banno, don't bother arguing with this guy who obviously doesn't understand the various strictures concerning "weasel words". Just find fifteen minutes to spend in an adequately-stocked library, and find a suitable quotation by an authority about Wittgenstein's importance. For example, perusing my copy of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, I see that Bertrand Russell wrote in the introduction that the contents of this monograph "makes it one which no serious philosopher can afford to neglect." Were my personal library less limited, I'm sure that I could find several quotations that would prove even more conclusively Wittgenstein's importance. -- llywrch 23:34, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, that's brilliant. First the intelligent use of 'weasel words,' then the suggestion to look at the introduction to the Tractatus, an introduction Wittgenstein himself raged against for misrepresenting his work. 24.88.76.172 07:11, 9 February 2007 (UTC)Singlen

I'm not sure whether the issue at stake here is whether Wittgenstein has has been influential to most people, or whether he's one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century ... but I just made an adjustment of the last edit by 24.88.76.172, who is pretty obviously a non-signed-in Ernham. It seems to me that to say that the guy was considered (whether by some, by many, or by most) to be "the most significant philosopher" is a much stronger claim than my version, that he is considered to be "among the most significant philosophers" since the latter admits of a bit more room for people to agree to disagree. That is, for people who have a pet favorite philsopher whose name isn't L. Wittgenstein not to be irritated when they see our article's text, and feel the need to edit it. Actually, I guess my version is pretty similar to Banno's, only with more qualifiers about how his work has been influential, which I don't think can be denied. Buck Mulligan 13:24, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Preamble

Whoever Tonyberge is (his user page seems to be inactive), he might want to actually read the body of the article before adding what is basically a lot of redundancy to the preamble. The article is already bordering on too long, and we don't need repetition. Also, much of what Tonyberge has written in the aforementioned preamble is rather one-sided, in terms of the general direction of Wittgenstein's thought, as well as it's account of the general drift of philosophy and science in the latter half of the twentieth century. Finally, when making additions of the kind that he's made, it's customary to add a note in the editing summary space to let others know what you've been up to (even some of our more contentious editors are good enough to do that). Thanks in advance. Buck Mulligan 18:52, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

The purpose of my preamble was to introduce Wittgenstein to a general audience. One that isn´t familiar with his work. The preamble as it is will not raise immediate attention. This could lead the general audience not to read any further. It is my opinion that a preamble should deliver some punchlines straight away; especially with a philosopher who is still not a well known name outside of academic circles. The entire article, all though well written and argumented for an insider audience, still leaves him somewhat obscure. A publisher who would put the exsisting preamble text on the back of the cover of a book about Wittgenstein, would probably not sell a lot of copies. Tonyberge 20:26, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the preamble is a bit dry as it currently stands, and that a very casual reader might not stop to peruse the entire article solely on the strength of its introduction. However, fortunately for us, we're not in the business of selling books or evangelizing for any particular subject. As far as delivering punchlines is concerned, you have a point, but what you added was more of a short history of 2500 years of western thought (Plato thru Wittgenstein, the "end of metaphysics" (as it were), etc.), and some of your phrasing is certainly not voiced in such a way that an "outsider" to his thought would understand what W. was all about.

For instance, you have: "Wittgenstein made clear that metaphysical ideas could not be known, but that these concepts only had a certain meaning in the context of language." I'm pretty sure I know what you're trying to say, but it's not a great bet that anyone who wasn't already well-versed in the man's writings would. You continue, a bit later: "It is not that we can deny that there are metaphysical rules, for instance related to aesthetics or ethics, but we can't express these in our spoken language in a verifiable way." Again, to anyone who didn't know much about the topic at hand, the notion of a "metaphysical" rule (as opposed to a rule, per se) would probably be less than transparent. The same goes for the non-contextual talk of verificationism, which--again, to a non-reader of Wittgenstein--sounds like the guy ought to have been a member of the Vienna circle. Finally, the mention of Popper, who we both know had some big problems with verificationism, seems to further confuse things. For my money, Wittgenstein can't be called either a verificationist of a falsificationist. But of course plenty of people disagree with me about that.

Which brings me to the other reason I removed the preamble. My experience with these philsophy-oriented articles is that people, myself included, are tempted to write them as though they were writing something rather more argumentative than a research paper, and then frustration sets in when other people don't see eye-to-eye with one's take on a particular issue (again, myself included). And of course, Wittgenstein is particularly troublesome this way, thanks to his mid-career change in direction, as well as the ambiguity of his argumentative/investigative style.

But having said all this, I do agree that the preamble as it stands isn't exactly going to set the world on fire. Maybe the thing to do would be to add a brief introductory/overview section, after the preamble but before jumping right into his life story. The Heidegger page might be a nice model to follow in this case. Notice, though, how brief and general the introduction is in that case--nothing very specific is said about his place in the tradition, apart from the fact that his thinking: (a) concerned the nature of being, (b) was quite revolutionary, (c) tended to strongly divide people, and (d) had a major influence on a lot of famous people who went on to become very influential in their own right. (Well, that, and: (e) he was briefly a Nazi--but that, thank God, isn't relevant to our discussion of Wittgenstein...) So what do you say? Buck Mulligan 22:15, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the Heidegger like introduction is a good idea. There is certainly a challenge in making general statements about Wittgenstein and his importance, in my opinion monumental importance, and at the some time choose the right words that are accessible and objective. I will post a new version over the weekendTonyberge 12:06, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I have put in a short introduction trying to describe the main themes in a couple of sentences, in order to provide some highlights to the reader that is not familiar with the manTonyberge 16:47, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

intro

Wittgenstein philiosophy and ideas have evolved during his life but he has always been concerned with the importance of language and its relation to the way we think. A lot of his investigations went into how we us our language to describe the world around us and how we formulate theories. His thoughts uncover the limitations of the use of spoken language to gain knowledge, achieve certainty or make sensefull statements. His ideas and investigations have had a profound impact on different disciplines like metaphysics, ontology, psychology and epistomology and are considered by some as a major turning point in the history of Philosophy.

"Sensefull"?!? The first sentence is grammatically incorrect, since he is dead. Wittgenstein did not specialise in spoken language, nor was he interested in how we formulate theories so much as how we speak about them. The remainder is a string of motherhood statements, held together by weasels. Overall, it doesn't actually say anything. Banno 19:18, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

The purpose of the introduction has come up in discussions in how to get a layman introduced to Wittgenstein.See preamble.Why don´t you give it a try? I´m curious to see with what you will come up, Banno Tonyberge 03:46, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

First acquaintance with Turing

The article currently has Wittgenstein out of the UK during all of 1937, but the standard biography of Alan Turing (Andrew Hodges, Alan Turing: The Enigma of Intelligence, London: Unwin, 1983), has him introduced to Turing during the summer of 1937 (p.136). Can anyone resolve this discrepancy? Thanks. Itsmejudith 20:56, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

The article, like all the Wittgenstein hagiographies, needs to be read with a very sceptical eye. Wittgenstein was in Moscow in 1935 and again in 1939, according to a report made to John Moran by Sophia Janovskaya. The fact that the Soviets offered him the chair in Philosophy at Kazan (which had been Lenin's university) and an academic post at Moscow University, means he was working for the Soviets. (Any other hypothesis, given Stalin's strangle-hold over ideology, is inconceivable.) This fact casts a very black cloud over his role at Trinity College Cambridge, from which Kim Philby and Wittgenstein's fellow homosexual Apostles, Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess were recruited. Turing - who attended Wittgenstein's lectures - was not only, like Wittgenstein, a homosexual logician, but also, because of his Bletchley Park work, the Cullinan diamond amongst the British intelligence crown jewels that Stalin pilfered so successfully. Theodore Redpath's memoir ("Ludwig Wittgenstein", Duckworth, 1990, p.46) records Wittgenstein as being at Cambridge in January 1937 and again, towards the end of that year. My money is on Redpath and Hodges being correct, not the Wittgenstein-worshipping article writers. Alan Turing, Oliver Strachey and others at Bletchley, were groomed by Wittgenstein because of their intelligence value to Stalin. Kimberley Cornish 22:43, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

There's not a single shred of documentary evidence linking Wittgenstein to Soviet intelligence, nor has the suggestion of a link ever been made by any serious historian. With the publication of the Mitrokhin archive in 1999, we now have extensive knowledge of the Cambridge spyring, including the circumstances of their recruitment and detailed reports of their subsequent handling by the likes of Arnold Deutsch, in addition to Russian accounts and the confessions and memoirs of Philby et al. The fact that such a sensational disclosure has failed to leave ANY noticeable historical trace is damning. In short, there are no longer any "gaps" for such a ludicrous conspiracy theory to fill (unlike speculation on, say, the identity of Jack the Ripper). Barring a massive coverup by the sinister forces of homosexual logic. Or that evil Wittgenstein-worshipping cult. 88.107.104.248 17:05, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we might simply agree that Wittgenstein was at Cambridge for part of 1937! The references supplied on the other matters do not inspire much confidence. The "Times Literary Supplement" (Nov. 26 1999) commented witheringly on "The Mitrokhin Archive"; 'Did not the KGB have some sort of time-accounting or performance reports as all bureaucracies do? The sheer volume of the materials Mitrokhin is said to have copied by hand (tens of thousands of documents) makes one wonder how he could have found the time.'

It is reported that none of the 25,000 or so Mitrokhin documents are originals or even photocopies of originals. All we have is the assurance that a Russian clerk first walked into the U.S. embassy in Riga to offer his hand-written material and was told to get lost. Later he managed to walk into the British embassy, which graciously accepted his generous offer and ran him as an agent in place in the Russian archives. Those stupid, stupid Russians, taken in by yet another spectacular British intelligence coup! Sadly, the fact that the MI6 agent who smuggled the material from the dacha (Richard Tomlinson) was imprisoned by a British court, must sadly cast doubt on the Mitrokhin material. However our objector has a fallback reference to clinch matters ... wait for it! ... the memoirs of KIM PHILBY! Not much doubt that Philby told the truth about who recruited him! Unfortunately, Philby was a KGB officer with the blood of untold numbers of Britons on his head and his testimony - how to put this? - cannot be regarded as reliable by any person capable of reflection about anything at all. Offering Philby as a referee in this matter shows a quite astonishing naivety that rather disqualifies our objector from even understanding the issues, let alone presuming to participate in their public discussion.

Stalin's Soviet Union was a charnel house - a human abattoir for processing bodies in numbers that chill the imagination. Academic promotion was based above all on political reliability with the unreliable routinely tortured, starved to death and sometimes even buried alive. If Wittgenstein was offered various senior Soviet academic appointments in the mid-thirties - as he undeniably was - then he was considered politically reliable by Marxist professorial apparatchiks such as Janovskaya whose lives and families would have been forfeit had they made a wrong political assessment. Far from there being "not a shred of evidence" that Wittgenstein was working for the Comintern at Cambridge, the offer of the Philosophy Chair is conclusive all by itself. Philosophy is not an ideologically neutral subject and in Stalin's Russia, no one - least of all the son of Central Europe's richest robber-baron capitalist - would be offered high Soviet academic posts if their beliefs were in any way contrary to the Stalin line. Wittgenstein's own students (Jackson and Gasking who later held professorial chairs) stated that Wittgenstein was a Stalinist. Monk records this, but they stated the same to me personally at greater length and detail in private interviews referred to in "The Jew of Linz"). Wittgenstein is on record as stating to Hutt that "at heart" he was a communist and in the Investigations that his most consequential ideas were derived from Sraffa, who was a Cambridge mole for Stalin. All in all, the image of Wittgenstein as a pure-hearted political naif, drawn to Russia by Tolstoy but ignorant of Stalin's mass murder is completely and utterly wrong. To fight Hitler, he sold his soul to Stalin. THAT is what devotees of the Wittgenstein cult have set their faces against as unbearable heresy. But perhaps a cult devotee might be able to offer an alternative explanation of the Soviet offers? Over to our objector ...Kimberley Cornish 07:32, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Fine, well, and good. Provide the appropriate citations and include it in the article. Banno 07:59, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

It seems people are very ready to put two and two together to make five, yet in fact we don't even have the capacity to make three. Still no real answer to my question. As Hodges's account specifically mentions the summer of 1937, whether or not he was in Cambridge at the beginning and/or end of that year is immaterial. I suspect that on this one, Hodges has been misled by unreliable memories. Itsmejudith 07:20, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Fania Pascal wrote of Wittgenstein ("Recollections of Wittgenstein", p.30)"...I don't think my other assumption is wrong, namely that he first returned from Norway in the summer of 1937." For what it is worth, I also add a quote from an some correspondence following an article on Turing in the August 1999 "Scientific American" by Copeland and Proudfoot. They replied to a letter: "we wish we could explain Turing's death, but having examined the depositions made at the inquest as well as other material, we are less certain than Bushnell that the coroner's verdict of suicide was correct." I shall remark that there are a number of actuarially too early deaths amongst Wittgenstein's acquaintances. Itsmejudith thinks there isn't sufficient evidence yet to show what two and two add up to. I prefer to think of the little boy pointing out that the king whose fine clothes were universally praised by the crowd, was in fact stark naked.Kimberley Cornish 09:29, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is neither a forum nor a place to publish your own research. Banno 10:14, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

More explicitly, the criteria for original research are found at Wikipedia:No original research. My comment is based on the position found in Wikipedia:No original research#Synthesis of published material serving to advance a position. You might consider this discussion closely before you attempt to place your material in the article. See if you can find a source that actually explicitly supports your case. Certainly there is no place for innuendo on the Wiki. Banno 12:04, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

The Wikipedia criteria referenced above use the word "unpublished". "The Jew of Linz" was published by Random House in 1998, reviewed in reputable journals including the TLS and its thesis concerning Wittgenstein and the Russian recruitment publicly supported by well known British academic philosophers such as Antony Flew. (See the Wikipedia article "The Jew of Linz"). It is now a standard, albeit controversial, strand in the various Wittgenstein interpretations and mentioned in most bibliographies of Wittgenstein-related material. It would be quite extraordinary to seek to prevent its central thesis being offered to readers of Wikipedia on POV grounds. Given that the Russian government even as recently as last November sends assassins to murder people on British soil, as the Litvinenko case demonstrates, it cannot be a POV matter to refer questioningly to Soviet offers of high academic positions to Wittgenstein and the early death of his students (such as Turing) and the recruitment of his fellow-Apostles at Trinity College.Kimberley Cornish 20:05, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

By all means, lets have mention of the book in the article - as indeed there is. Let's also have links to Cornish's book. But let's take care to mark the issue as controversial. Let's also not push past the text, into unpublished allegations. Can you locate citations in secondary or tertiary sources that assert that Wittgenstein was an assassin? If not, leave it out. Banno 21:26, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Since Turing died after Wittgenstein, I was not asserting that Wittgenstein personally murdered him; only that reputable writers suspect that Turing's death was not a suicide. But I think the following points are quite certain: 1. The Soviet offers establish that Wittgenstein was working for the Soviets. 2. An unsusual number of Wittgenstein's associates, including Frank Ramsay, George Paul, Francis Skinner, John Cornford, Julian Bell, to name a few, died premature deaths. 3. Soviet intelligence routinely sent assassins to murder people, just as its descendant agencies do to this very day. 4. Nothing was more in the interest of Soviet intelligence than keeping secret the penetration of British intelligence agencies by Wittgenstein's students, friends and fellow-Apostles.Kimberley Cornish 05:27, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Cool. Perhaps you might set out in the article what it is you are claiming, with appropriate citations? Your own published work included, of course. Banno 22:50, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

That an agent-in-place might be risked by being ordered to commit assassinations is an hypothesis likely to be dismissed on prudential grounds; the Soviets instead trained specialist murderers to do the job. These, however, had to act on information received and digested in Moscow from agents-in-place. We therefore ought to reflect on point 1, above. 210.49.121.35 22:43, 9 June 2007 (UTC)Kimberley Cornish 05:27, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Another reference for Itsmejudith, from Rush Rhees' "Postcript" in "Recollections of Wittgenstein", p.209: "I saw him again in Cambridge in June or July 1937."Kimberley Cornish 05:42, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Style

"Stalin's Soviet Union was a charnel house - a human abattoir for processing bodies in numbers that chill the imagination. Academic promotion was based above all on political reliability with the unreliable routinely tortured, starved to death and sometimes even buried alive. If Wittgenstein was offered various senior Soviet academic appointments in the mid-thirties - as he undeniably was - then he was considered politically reliable by Marxist professorial apparatchiks such as Sophia Janovskaya whose lives and families would have been forfeit had they made a wrong political assessment."

This is a tad emotional, verging on the hysterical, for an encyclopedia article. Can we stick to facts without the emotionally-charged "human abattoirs" thrown in? Also, suppositions of this sort ("if he was offered an appointment, then blah blah") are completely inappropriate.

Also, the bit about his alleged homosexuality is pure speculation and rumor.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Pallas sun (talk • contribs) 03:13, 07 June 2007

First, it's not THAT emotional. Human bodies were indeed hung on meat hooks during the famine that Stalin visited on the Ukraine. Cannibalism was rife. And meat hooks were also used to assist over-worked interrogators in getting speedier confessions from recalcitrants. Marshal Blyukher reportedly was persuaded to confess by his interrogator using a spoon to scoop out one of his eyes. (Robert Conquest's "Harvest of Sorrow" is the locus classicus on the Ukrainian famine and I would recommend Anton Antonov-Ovseyenko's book "The Time of Stalin". Solzhenitsyn's material also goes without saying.) Our objector should offer us an example of how he might present these matters, as he or she demands, "unemotionally". The Wikipedia "Auschwitz" article, for example, states that "... the Nazi regime was designed to degrade prisoners to the standards of animals ...", which is true and doesn't seem particularly over-emotional to me. For the crimes in question (we are talking of genocide here, whether Nazi or Soviet), unemotional language fails to do justice to the facts and the demand to just quote figures itself falsifies what happened. So .. let us see an unemotional description of forced cannibalism from our objector! How OUGHT it be presented?

Secondly, on Wittgenstein's homosexuality, his diary entry on lying down several times with Francis Skinner, first thinking it was O.K. and then with "shame" sounds to me pretty conclusive. (See Monk, p.376.) This has to be read in tandem with his brother Hans' farewell suicide note over his homosexuality (Monk, p.12) and likewise for brother Rudi, mentioned in Bryan McGuinness' Wittgenstein biography. Two homosexual brothers and the reference to lying down with Skinner seem to me to win the field for W. W. Bartley. That is to say, unless one has independent evidence that Bartley is a liar, the onus of proof now lies squarely on those who assert Wittgenstein was not homosexual. His Apostles' membership and friendship with Keynes (with whom he shared a residence) and Lytton Strachey, not to mention the simple-minded lunacies of his intimate correspondence with David Pinsent (perhaps with a little intelligent reading between the lines) seems to me to establish the matter beyond doubt, or at the very least, to shift the onus of proof.

Thirdly, we are still owed an account of the raison d'etre for the Soviet offers to Wittgenstein. I don't myself see why our objector seeks to dismiss their crucial relevance with "blah, blah".Kimberley Cornish 10:40, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

->"So .. let us see an unemotional description of forced cannibalism from our objector! How OUGHT it be presented?"

This, along with your CAPS, is not helping your case. First you say it isn't emotional. Then you say, "unemotional language fails to do justice..." - so which is it? Is it matter-of-fact and unemotional or does it "have to be" emotional? My point: this is an article on Wittgenstein, not Stalin's "abattoirs" nor the holocaust nor meat hooks. Also, citing an article on Auschwitz (was _he_ a philosopher??) and Nazi war crimes doesn't really help your case. Why? This is an article on Wittgenstein. If you want to write about the horrors of Stalin's abattoirs, write an article on Stalin's abattoirs. But for an article on Wittgenstein it is superfluous, emotional, and obviously politically motivated.

->"His Apostles' membership and friendship with Keynes (with whom he shared a residence) and Lytton Strachey, not to mention the simple-minded lunacies of his intimate correspondence with David Pinsent"

So, just to get this straight, guilt by association is your proof? Along with requisite smears..

Most of what you have written is pure supposition and speculation. This isn't a term paper; it is an encyclopedia. Stick to facts and write suppositions elsewhere.

Will edit when I get the chance... Pallas Sun

I have already written on Wittgenstein's homosexuality in "Wittgenstein Contre Hitler", Presses Universitaires de France, 1999, pp.351-370. Wittgenstein's sister was a patient of Freud's, but the analyst the young Wittgenstein chose was not Freud, but Alfred Adler. Fragments of Adler's analysis are in the public domain, some of it in Adler's "The Neurotic Constitution" and others in a paper read before Freud and the other Viennese analysts and minuted, sufficiently, I argue, to identify his patient. Since the material has only been published in French, Pallas Sun might email me at kimberley.cornishATarts.monash.edu.au with the "AT" replaced by a "@" symbol. (This prevents automatic harvesting of web addresses by web crawlers.) I still have the original material in English and he/she might like to resume the discussion after having read it. Kimberley Cornish 07:44, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

lol. I see. I was wondering why all events in Wittgenstein's life was accompanied by insistent explanations on his apparent sexual preferences (as well as his general political views), for no apparent reason and in extremely elliptical language. Another thing - I was aware that he was a horrible teacher, when he finally had a shot at it, and accumulated a reputation for being crazy, in vague and unspecific ways. (Since I recognized this from the small biography in my version of Philsophical Investigations - that also fails to describe where exactly he taught at school, or on what subjects, for how long, etc.) - but.. I did not know that he nevertheless had great success with his teaching techniques when it came to "..children attuned to his interests and style of teaching, especially boys". ..Where does that come from? ;) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.151.153.102 (talk) 12:21, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

"village Skjolden at the bottom of the Sognefjord"

What on earth is this meant to mean? My geography teacher would have had a fit. I presume we are not talking about an underwater village. Are we talking about the southernmost point ? the lowest point of the valley above the level of the fjord or what ?--Pedantic of Purley 21:27, 20 June 2007 (UTC)