Wittgenstein in Exile

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19.3.51 letter to Malcolm (Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir, New York: Oxford University Press, revised edition, 1984, p. 133). 14 In these comments Wittgenstein seems to be taking partly as his target Rudolf Carnap’s Preface to The Logical Structure of the World [Der Logistic Aufbau Der Welt], 1928. For a historical account of the concept of Kultur as it has functioned in German thought, see Raymond Geuss, “Kultur, Bildung, Geist,” in Morality, Culture and History: Essays on German Philosophy, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. A propos “the heat he generates in overcoming friction”, in his diary (“Movements of Thought,” PPO, p. 73) Wittgenstein compares himself to “the one who burnt down the library of Alexandria.” 15 Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief, ed. Cyril Barrett, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1972, pp. 27-28. This concern pervaded Wittgenstein’s later work, though he rarely said so. Based on a lecture entitled “Wittgenstein as a Viennese” given by Stephen Toulmin in Memphis, Tennessee, on January 23, 1973, Peter Barker reports (“Uncle Ludwig’s Book About Science,” Philosophical Topics, 1981 Supplementary Volume, p. 71) the following: When Allan Janik interviewed Wittgenstein’s family as part of his research for Wittgenstein’s Vienna, he discovered that the family had their own names for their celebrated uncle’s most celebrated books. They called the Tractatus “Uncle Ludwig’s book on ethics,” and they called the Philosophical Investigations “Uncle Ludwig’s scientific work.” The ironic titles capture a truth in both cases that was not said but shown by their author. 16 “Philosophy,” in Philosophical Occasions, p. 171 (and also p. 167=PI 118). And “I destroy, I destroy, I destroy--” in C&V, p. 21/19 (1931). Cf. the systematic destruction of idols commanded by Josiah and carried out in II Kings 23: 1-30; and the most famous destruction of the golden calf by Moses in Exodus 32. 17 C&V p. 61/70; and Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, Cambridge: MIT Press, rev. ed., 1978, p. 132. 18 C&V p. 42/48-9 (1942). There seems almost to be a tradition in the Old Testament of prophets being crippled: Moses has a speech impediment (Exodus 4:10), Isaiah has his lip singed (Isaiah 6:7), and, metaphorically crippled, Hosea is made to marry and beget children with a whore (Hosea 1:2). Wittgenstein’s student, Theodore Redpath, thought of him as a prophet even before he met him. See p. 16 of Redpath’s Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Student’s Memoir. 19 Drury, p. 160. And “Perhaps someday a culture will arise out of this civilization” (C&V p. 64/73, [1947] noticed by Tessin). See also “Movements of Thought,” PPO, p. 55. Cf. the preface to Nietzsche’s Will to Power: “This book is the property of the very few. Perhaps indeed not one of them is yet on earth.” In “The Puzzle of Goethe’s Influence on Wittgenstein,” p. 25, I conjectured that 100 years was significant to Wittgenstein because Spengler had supposed the West would be entering a new era of culture by then. 20 Spengler, Decline of the West, New York: Alfred Knopf, vol. 2, 1928, pp. 192-6 (pp. 270-274). That Spengler thought of Russia as clearly outside of the Western tradition is made clear in a footnote on p. 16 (12) of vol. I. Cf. also vol. II, p. 278. 21 See the account in Ray Monk, Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, New York: Free Press, 1990, pp. 348- 354. 22 Monk (pp. 247-8) sees Wittgenstein’s attraction to Russia in light of John Maynard Keynes’ account, A Short View of Russia, Hogarth, 1925, which Wittgenstein read in 1927 and appreciated. But the fact that Wittgenstein and Engelmann already considered a “possible flight [Flucht, as in ‘escape’ or ‘exodus’] to Russia” in 1922 (Paul Engelmann, Letters from Ludwig Wittgenstein with a Memoir, Oxford: Blackwell, 1967, p. 53), suggests that his interest was instigated earlier by reading Spengler. In his discussion with the Vienna Circle on 1 January, 1931, Wittgenstein said: “What should be given to the Americans? Surely not our half-rotten culture. The Americans have no culture yet. From us, however, they have nothing to learn….Russia. The passion is promising” (Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle, ed. B. McGuinness, Oxford: Blackwell, 1979, p. 142). Engelmann himself went on, in 1925, to consider more seriously an escape to the real homeland. Wittgenstein comments (p. 55): That you want to go to Palestine is the one piece of good news that makes your letter cheering and hopeful for me. This may be the right thing to do and may have a spiritual effect. I might want to join you. Would you take me with you?” But when Engelmann finally did emigrate to Tel Aviv in 1934, Wittgenstein said no more about it (Monk, p. 229). By this point, he and Francis Skinner were already taking Russian lessons. 14
An alternative possible explanation for Wittgenstein’s interest and trip to Russia has been raised in a very speculative way by Kimberley Cornish, in his book The Jew of Linz (London: Century, 1998), where he proposes that Wittgenstein was a Stalinist sympathizer and recruiter. This would be incompatible with my account here. 23 See Wittgenstein’s diary entry of 4.4.37 (“Movements of Thought,” PPO, p. 237) while in Norway: “I sometimes consider whether I should leave here now already. For example: first to Vienna for a month, then to England for a month—or longer—then to Russia. And then return here?—Or to Ireland?”; and his last letter to Engelmann (21.6.37): “I am now in England for a short stay; perhaps I shall go to Russia. God knows what will become of me.” And von Hayek’s memoir of Wittgenstein, “Remembering My Cousin, Ludwig Wittgenstein,” recounts that after World War II Wittgenstein had visited Soviet-occupied Vienna: “He then engaged me in the most lively conversation, beginning with his impressions of the Russians at Vienna, an experience which evidently had shaken him to his depth and destroyed certain long-cherished illusions” (in Flowers, v. 1, p. 129). 24 The tension between civilization and culture haunted Wittgenstein’s homelife as well. His father, who represented progressive Western civilization, died in 1913. His mother, whose musical talents could have symbolized the lost Western culture, died in 1926. Yet during the thirteen years of her widowhood Wittgenstein was most painfully estranged from his family. See McGuinness, pp. 28 and 22; and Monk, p. 235. 25 The Judaeans in exile, however, were allowed to return home by the Persians after their defeat of the Babylonians. Many, but not all, did. Spengler discusses this in vol. II, p. 207. 26 I believe Spengler’s thoughts on the mechanistic philosophy of our times do influence Wittgenstein’s thinking about the nature of causality. For more about this, see my papers: “Wittgenstein on Non- Mediative Causality,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, October, 1999; and “The Puzzle of Goethe’s Influence on Wittgenstein.” 27 Zettel 455. 28 R. Rhees, “Postscript,” in Recollections of Wittgenstein, p. 208. 29 C&V, p. 17/24. 30 Monk, p. 498. Wittgenstein’s puzzling attitude towards Ramsey is elaborated in his diary entry of 27.4.30 in “Movements of Thought,” PPO, pp. 15-7. 31 PI 123 32 Wittgenstein’s Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics: Cambridge, 1939, ed. C. Diamond, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1976, p. 44. And similarly, the notes of lectures in Gasking and Jackson, “Wittgenstein as a Teacher,” in Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Man and His Philosophy, ed. K. Fann, New York: Prometheus, 1967, pp. 49-55. Cf. also the comparison of language to the streets of an ancient city (PI 18); and the comparison of philosophical confusions to geographical misconceptions (PO p. 185). 33 And if being a good philosopher requires being an exile, it is understandable that Wittgenstein encouraged his students to find work outside of philosophy. 34 Monk, p. 351. 35 C&V, p. 15/22 (1931), and PO pp. 185-7. 36 PO p. 199. 37 PO p. 195. 38 According to Desmond Lee (p. 192 in Flowers, v. 2) Wittgenstein “said once that one of the great drawbacks to a teacher’s life was that he was working always for a future he never saw, and that he was constantly having to deal with a new generation of pupils; no enduring visible result, only constantly changing generations.” 39 C&V p. 61/70 (1947). 40 From the same passage quoted above. And cf. Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, p. 132; and “Movements of Thought,” PPO, p. 169. 41 Or for the supposed inevitable irrelevance of science to philosophy—an issue I address in “Wittgenstein and Neuroscience,” Synthese, March, 1989. 42 In discussion after this paper was presented, Cora Diamond suggested that perhaps the illiterate peasantsoldier Platon, in Tolstoy’s War and Peace, would be immune to philosophical problems. 43 Cf. Wittgenstein’s feeling, while a teacher in Lower Austria, that he had been “called” but had refused. See Monk’s interesting discussion of this and related material at pp. 199-200. 15
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Wittgenstein in Exile

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