Wittgenstein

 122 pages, of nearly 600, and the life of Ludwig Wittgenstein is a thoroughly worthwhile read. That comes as a pleasant surprise when I had anticipated heavy going and impenetrable passages of epistemology. So far so good with how Ray Monk's account in narrating the life with a manageable level of detail supported by summaries of the ideas in which one can at least believe one has an idea what is involved in the ideas. 

The first point seems to be how well Wittgenstein did to avoid suicide with siblings and contemporaries making such a vogue of it. Being brilliant to the point of exhaustion and beyond the comprehension of almost all the rest of humanity can't be easy, taking oneself off to Norway to be alone to think incessantly about logic wouldn't usually be considered healthy. But he lives at an intensity that only such dedication can provide purpose and fulfilment and, while being well liked by some, he can be difficult and important relationships with Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore suffer as a result. There is clearly more to logic than first year Philosophy where inductive arguments seemed straightforward. 

I had thought I was in sympathy with what I understood of his thinking but, at first at least, he rejects empiricism - the evidence of one's senses- in favour of the processes of logic to the extent that he denies it's possible to know there isn't a rhinoceros in the room when Bertie has looked under the table and everywhere else without finding one. But I know the Tractatus is eventually retracted so we will wait and see if he later concedes the rhinoceros-less condition of most domestic accommodation in England.

I'm also surprised how he suddenly accepts Christianity which I wouldn't have thought could be established by empiricism or logic. I'm not convinced by the example of rain in the proposition that 'it's either raining or it isn't', which sounds true because it must be one or the other, but one or two spots might fall on one person and not the person next to them on Southsea seafront and so they would disagree whether it was raining or not. And I'm not yet sure that Wittgenstein escapes from the language that he necessarily has to use to express his abstract ideas. It has long seemed that words in sentences are not sufficient and that their limitations are his.

Madness surely lies waiting for anybody bold enough to take on such enormous questions and no philosopher yet has provided a system that wasn't critiqued and found wanting by the next generation. With Derrida and post-Structuralism it appeared to collapse into meaninglessness and truth was elusive. However attractive one might find elements of Sartre, Barthes or Baudrillard, it could be that nobody really got much further than Socrates. 

As you can see, I haven't grasped it but maybe nobody else has either. To be a total adherent of any philosopher requires the sort of act of faith that Christianity depends on which puts it all down to God while omitting to explain where he came from. But if there was an answer, the game would be over and that would be that. In the meantime, Wittgenstein is a compelling figure with his towering genius ultimately taking him on an arduous journey to nowhere but, gladly, worshipping Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms so at least he got that right.