Wittgenstein and Cambridge Family Resemblances

of a piece as an infinite longitudinal strip, but possible if a cross-section is seen as
a piece/a complete, definitive piece. — But then we never come to an end with
our task. Quite so, since there is no end to it.
Der Philosoph ist nicht Bürger einer Denkgemeinde. Das ist, was ihn zum
Philosophen macht.
The philosopher is not a citizen of any community of ideas. That is what makes
him a philosopher.
In that same year, in a draft for a lecture, he explains to his students the significance of
his philosophy for science: how to ask the right questions, that is the right way to look
at philosophical problems, and how to dissolve the knots in our language and in our
thinking:
What I should like to get you to do is not to agree with me in particular opinions
but to investigate the matter in the right way. To notice the interesting kind of
things (i.e. the things which will serve as keys if you use them properly).
What different people expect to get from religion is what they expect to
get from philosophy.
I don’t want to give you a Definition of Philosophy but I should like you
to have a very lively idea as to the characters of philosophical problems. If you
had, by the way, I could stop/start/ lecturing at once.
To tackle the philosophical problem is difficult as we are caught in the
meshes of language. „Has the universe an end/beginning/ in Time“ (Einstein)
You would perhaps give up Philosophy if you knew what it is. You want
explanations instead of wanting descriptions. And you are therefore looking for
the wrong kind of thing. Philosophical questions, as soon as you boil them down
to . . . . change their aspect entirely. What evaporates is what the intellect cannot
tackle.
Wittgenstein and science
Wittgenstein’s critique of modern science becomes particularly clear after the dropping
of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 6 th and on the 9 th of August
1945. In fact, it is quite similar to that of Bertolt Brecht.
On the occasion of the second performance of his historical drama “The Life of
Galileo“, on the 30 th of July 1947 in Beverly Hills, Brecht extends the moral argument of
his didactic play by accusing Galileo of the betrayal of science: „G gab den eigentlichen
Fortschritt preis, als er widerrief, er ließ das Volk im Stich, die Astronomie wurde
wieder ein Fach, Domäne der Gelehrten, unpolitisch, isoliert.“ “G abandoned real
progress when he retracted, he abandoned the people, astronomy became a discipline
again, a domain of the academics – apolitical, isolated.“ That is, Galilei relegated science
from a means for everyone to understand the world better and – with it – themselves,
back into a domain for specialists. And it is only in the context of specialization that a
development such as that of the atom bomb was possible; the world and everything
that exists on it does not need it. When Albert Einstein, whom Brecht deeply
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