Is this the sense of belief in the Devil: that not everything that comes to us as an inspiration comes from what is good?
I wonder what moved Wittgenstein to venture this formulation. It seems calculated to make viable an integration of pious caution with the bold impiety of the age. The atheist who believes in demons would be like the good architect according to Wittgenstein's earlier remark:
Today the difference between a good and a poor architect is that the poor architect succumbs to every temptation and the good one resists it.
But what is the point of treating the moderation of a secular progressiveness as "belief in the Devil," even when the Devil has nothing to do with it? Is this a secularization theory, claiming that even hard-nosed materialists may secretly still believe in the devil? Or a theory of consequential equivalence, claiming only that we might as well say they believe? Or is there yet another possibility, that "Devil" never meant anything other than the indeterminate source of inspirations which do not come from what is good, and that the secular caution of the type of the good architect only makes this indeterminacy obvious?
I shun the temptation of your last proposed "possibility". And that is enough to prove it impossible.
ReplyDeleteOn a related note, what word should be used to describe paragraphs replete with deep hypothetical questionings...whether of student, or St. Ludwig???
ReplyDelete? ? ?
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Anyway, St. Ludwig took the Host at the end of his curious life, so he's goot to go, raht
Something for Daniel:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-034Un28R4
Prec-ious.
ReplyDeleteRilke, eh.
Zehr Prec-ious.
AJ Hunt: Do you have a cite for the LW quote? I'm guessing PI, but not sure.
J, it's on the last page of Culture and Value. Unless you meant the architect quote, which is somewhere else in Culture and Value.
ReplyDeleteA bit tangential, but something on... Wittgenstein's arrogance (vs....Russell)
ReplyDeletewhy were people trying to extract philosophical theses, theories, arguments, and general views, from a text that relentlessly disavowed and railed against such activity – to ascribe a philosophy of language to a man whose unsystematic sketches displayed our linguistic, perceptual, and cognitive life as full of incoherence, families of resemblances, and illusions that tempt us to specious philosophical card house building?
http://www.lehman.cuny.edu/deanhum/philosophy/BRSQ/04may/leiber.htm
Assuming most of the biographia on LW's accurate (say, Witt.'s Poker incident), he should have eaten a few extra Hosts for dessert...
Interesting! Does it tell you anything about me that this article makes me believe all the more firmly in Wittgenstein's superiority to Russell?
ReplyDelete--Whatever, AJ. LW was enigmatic, hip, modernist, quirky (possibly...unbalanced--ie see the poker incident)--thus sort of a hero to the enigmatic, hip, modernist, quirky...
ReplyDelete--In terms of analytical philosophy, Russell's fairly important. Perhaps not a Goedel or Church (tho' Goedel's critique of logicism follows from the Principia..), but even Quine acknowledged Russell's influence and contributions.
--While I would agree Russell the person may have been pedantic, glib, british-stuffy, I don't think most people (even philosophy types) understand the extent of his influence, both in academia, and politics . Russell condemned both right and left extremism. He met VI Lenin and knew many leading politicians of 20s and 30s (including Winston Churchill, who he disliked). He may have been flawed, but he put his shoulder to the wheel (including protesting US involvement in 'Nam)--those humans who dislike or mock Russell tend to be either romantic marxists, or ...rightwing fundamentalists, IMHO.
--Wittgenstein rarely said anything political, and castigated those who did. Some have claimed LW ran with the stalinists in 30s and 40s--possibly even a spy (not to say his nasty business a teacher apres-TLP). Not sure, but there are loose ends.
As far as...some ethical or religious assessment goes--well, my own view is that any rational Being would value virtuous skeptics--say Thomas Jefferson, or BR-- to Jerry Falwell, or corrupt priests, even ones who memorized the Summa up n down. On that we'll have to wait n see...
J, you seem pretty "enigmatic, hip, modernist, quirky" yourself, if I may say so.
ReplyDeleteReally, Goedel's critique of logicism follows from the Principia? That's not the story I heard, unless you just mean that a really tearing critique of logicism wouldn't have been possible without a really thoroughly accomplished logicism to critique? In which case...well, your point is that BR is important because without him there would have been no one for Goedel to spectacularly refute? (Not speaking out of direct knowledge here so do correct me if I'm wrong.)
As far as I can tell, the most widely acknowledged accomplishment of BR is his analysis of definite and indefinite descriptions. It's important to me, too. Just not as important as the TLP.
I dislike Russell for the abstracted and radical epistemology of his philosophy (as far as I know it--perhaps you can school me on that, too), which is far more "world-abandoning" than Wittgenstein's thought.
Is BR a better model for emulation political and collegial behavior? Sounds like it. The sense in which I take LW to be superior is just that I think it's better to pay attention to him, but not with an action-directed attention. It would be reasonable to raise the question of whether a non-action-directed attention has any validity. In fact I find my own attention frequently returning to a fixation on that very question.
And by the way, I should add that part of the importance of Wittgenstein is precisely the manner in which he puts his own quietism to question. That's what I see happening in the devil quotation. I speculate that in the last year of his life, LW found himself taking seriously the possibility that his career was funded by an evil inspiration. If Monk is correct in his estimation of the importance of Weininger for Wittgenstein, then a student of Wittgenstein can't ignore that possibility, and if in his later career Wittgenstein himself was a student of Wittgenstein, neither could he--and it seems to me a faithful student: not in the sense of sycophantic, "arrogant" adherence to himself, but in the sense of a seriousness about the nature and provenance of his thinking.
ReplyDelete... unless you just mean that a really tearing critique of logicism wouldn't have been possible without a really thoroughly accomplished logicism to critique?
ReplyDeleteYes, that's sort of it--yet PM was not completed, and W. & R. had left open the question of completeness and consistency, along with other issues. But you forget that one, first-order logic is complete and sound (as W. & R. had suggested)--some seem to think Goedel overturned all. He didn't. He was saying in regards to mathematical foundations, ie natural numbers (not logic/rules of inference per se), there may be statements about the natural numbers that are true, but unprovable.
So Goedel, working with the PM (which W and R both said was incomplete) showed the limitations of logicism, as applied to natural numbers, ie mathematical foundations. The issue of finitistic proof remained (as Hilbert had asked)--but the foundation-experts aren't completely clear on what finitism implied.
Yes, the definite descriptions/denoting another issue BR tackled. Russell's not my guru (no philosopher is), but he did important work in logic, mathematical foundations, AND philosophy of language. In his later work "Human Knowledge..." (not read that much) he takes on probability, induction, phil. of science, etc. Not real exciting, but authentic philosophy, as much as say Carnap was.
Let's not forget that BR also knew the usual metaphysical classics up and down. His manner of speaking or background may not appeal to hip postmodernists or to theology students, but his arguments--say against naive empiricism or Kant's synthetic a priori are carefully put forth, not merely college BS session complaints or dismissals.
Reading Russell's a bit similar to reading Hume (and BR knew his Hume, though not always in agreement). Many people were dismayed (and still are), or even disgusted with what Hume said in regard to knowledge and to religion. But that doesn't diminish the force of his arguments.
And by the way, I should add that part of the importance of Wittgenstein is precisely the manner in which he puts his own quietism to question. That's what I see happening in the devil quotation. I speculate that in the last year of his life, LW found himself taking seriously the possibility that his career was funded by an evil inspiration.
Perhaps naive, or narcissistic, but ..."Evil"? Are philosophy, logic, mathematical foundations evil? Perhaps within theological tradition, rationalism has at times been thought evil, but hardly as evil as Wittgenstein's one-time classmate...Der Fuhrer. That dude was evil (then, didn't G*d, assuming He exists, allow for it, indeed plan it eons ago?...a somewhat tired topic, but I contend that theologians must grant foreknowledge---which seems to enhance the culpability of a G*d, thus making monotheism seem slightly...absurd--a point Russell was aware of as well).
-land forget early BRAnd denoting,
authentic philosophy, as much as say Carnap was
ReplyDeleteYou lost me there.
Reading Russell's a bit similar to reading Hume (and BR knew his Hume, though not always in agreement). Many people were dismayed (and still are), or even disgusted with what Hume said in regard to knowledge and to religion. But that doesn't diminish the force of his arguments.
It's not so much the claims BR made about knowledge and religion that dismay me. It's his religious adherence to an abstracted model of knowledge. I believe that he confused not knowing with not having what seemed to him sufficient reasons for knowing.
Perhaps naive, or narcissistic, but ..."Evil"? Are philosophy, logic, mathematical foundations evil? Perhaps within theological tradition, rationalism has at times been thought evil, but hardly as evil as Wittgenstein's one-time classmate...Der Fuhrer.
My prima facie evidence for the plausibility of an evil inspiration of Wittgenstein's career is the influence on him of Otto Weininger (the guy who killed himself in Beethoven's house to fulfill his own anti-Semitic philosophy). If Monk is right, Wittgenstein thought for almost a decade, because of this man, that he ought to kill himself too unless he could justify his place in the world by being a genius, and didn't get over it until he convinced BR that he was one.
Weininger's writings were in fact used later as Nazi propaganda. Does that help?
then, didn't G*d, assuming He exists, allow for it, indeed plan it eons ago?...a somewhat tired topic, but I contend that theologians must grant foreknowledge---which seems to enhance the culpability of a G*d, thus making monotheism seem slightly...absurd--a point Russell was aware of as well
I don't think absurdity can be made to function as a criterion for choosing between comprehensive views of reality. Any unified sense of things comes down to a point at which one has to call it absurd. Even skepticism, which precisely tries to avoid choosing any such view, has the absurdity of completely failing to conform to the life the skeptic leads outside the study.
It's not so much the claims BR made about knowledge and religion that dismay me. It's his religious adherence to an abstracted model of knowledge. I believe that he confused not knowing with not having what seemed to him sufficient reasons for knowing..
ReplyDeleteEarly Russell, of say the Principles of Mathematics tended to affirm platonic/Fregean views, at least in regard to mathematics/logic--hardly unconventional, at least for philosophers, or mathematicians. If you mean "abstracted" to refer to the vaguely platonic aspects, OK. Then, Goedel himself was more or less a platonic realist as well--as are, I wager, most of the math/logic people at your school, or any Uni. The nominalists and naturalists, even conceptualist types (ie Kantian, for lack of a better term) are in the minority.
The theological issues are separate, but obviously some consider platonism, of whatever type amenable to religious metaphysics. Really, late Wittgenstein's the one who dismissed the platonic/Fregean realism (at times in the TLP he seemed to lean towards it). He's gone...jungle, anthropological, slightly behaviorist ("the best idea of the human soul is the human body," said LW of the PI).
Biography only goes so far. Some have said LW had nazi pals/influences; then others claim he was working with the soviets. I think at least by late 30s he had moved away from the Cambridge...rightists.