Preproceedings 2006 - Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society

258
Regaining the Sense of the Tractatus: Wittgenstein’s Logical Mysticism - Paul Poenicke
vapid factual reality. However, humanity experiences a
world in which it appears misplaced: man somehow
stumbles upon value in aesthetics and ethics, and
understands that some things, like logic, are unable to be
explained in reference to the facts. The mystical reaches
out through religion and art—and also science
(Wittgenstein, 1979, p. 84); it, and not any material reality,
is the reason for the existence of the world (6.44). The link
between fact and value has again been made:
Wittgenstein’s mystical considerations of time emerge from
his logical exercises, in an attempt to resolve the problem
of life.
Obviously, the life that is problematic is the one that
is lived in time (Wittgenstein, 1979, p. 74). Bound by time,
which follows from the factual world, there is no hope to
cure the preceding problems of existence. Wittgenstein
believes that happiness is possible if a man “…is living in
eternity and not in time.” (Wittgenstein, 1979, p. 84;
6.4312) For Wittgenstein, eternal life is equivalent to nontemporal
existence—to live eternally is to live in the
present (6.4311; Wittgenstein, 1979, p. 74). To experience
this life, man must progress beyond the totality of facts that
make up the world; he must view it together with space
and time instead of in space and time (Wittgenstein, 1979,
p. 83). Now, outside the bounds of time, man can finally
see how the world truly is, and live happily, through
agreement with the world (Wittgenstein, 1979, p. 75).
Such non-temporal living would be achieved through
the view sub specie aeternitatis, the mystical feeling of the
world (6.45). Sub specie aeternitatis was first used by
Spinoza to describe the awareness of the link between
God and Nature, the necessary connection between the
divine and all (Copleston, 1994, p. 244-5). This view
allowed humanity to appreciate higher revelations of
reality, to escape from doubt, and to love the divine it was
a mode of. The pains of the present could now be
reconciled through the eternal substance: since the
universe’s sole source was divine, even trials and pains
were holy (Copleston, 1994, p. 244). Monk believes
Schopenhauer acquainted Wittgenstein with the term
(1990, p.143), but it was Weininger, a writer Wittgenstein
devoured in his youth, who brought the phrase its special
content. Weininger believed a great artist, like the brilliant
philosopher, bore the problems of life with him, unlike the
scientist, whose obsession with matter left him
unconscious of higher values (Schule, 2004, p. 127). Life’s
meaning was united with time and willing: ethics
necessarily accepted the boundaries of the present within
it was formed, and tried to accord itself with the
unidirectionality of time (Schule, 2004, p. 130). However,
the genius understood the universe’s essence, and,
transcending time itself, enshrined each moment in view of
this eternal universal value (Schule, 2004, p. 131).
Wittgenstein appropriated, with a few significant
modifications, his fellow Austrian’s uniting of ethics and
non-temporality through the view sub species aeternitatis.
Religion and art are similar in that they see the world sub
species aeternitatis, from outside of the world, having the
whole of logical space as a background (Wittgenstein,
1979, p. 83). Wittgenstein once remarked that in 1910 or
11 he had begun to see the possibility of religion (Monk,
1990, p.51), and it was this ability of religion to view the
world telescopically, appreciating the world as a bounded,
limited whole (6.45), that led him to become religious.
Normally, man’s view was microscopic: in space and time,
man could see only the facts, and not what was outside of
them. Viewing the world sub specie aeternitatis modified
the whole logical world (Wittgenstein, 1979, p. 83),
expanding to see beyond space and time to appreciate
value. One could now, with the world in its proper scope,
live in accordance with the facts and the ineffable,
Wittgenstein’s definition of “happiness” (Wittgenstein,
1979, p. 74-5). Life in the present was an existence
without fear and hope: once one lived in accord with the
world, there was nothing that could harm one’s self, even
death. Hope is unnecessary, for hope is not needed when
one’s goal is already present (Wittgenstein, 1979, p. 76).
Tolstoy, Temporality, and the Tractarian
Ladder
From logic, and by way of time, Tractarian mysticism
dissolves the riddle of life, a soteriology whose source
arose from Leo Tolstoy’s The Gospel in Brief, the book
that, while reinforcing Wittgenstein’s views towards religion
and the world, revolutionized the philosopher’s worldview.
Tolstoy’s Christ, as Wittgenstein reiterates in 6.521,
reminds his followers that one cannot prove the validity of
his wisdom, for his teachings are the light through which
everything is known (Tolstoy, 1997, p.132, 138). Christ’s
enlightenment was not removed from living, but was
identical with life and existence itself (Tolstoy, 1997,
p.132)—one could not, in Tractarian terms, understand
Wittgenstein’s propositions without first acting,
surmounting the sentences. Only after climbing through
and perceiving what was above Wittgenstein’s words was
it possible for the ladder to be seen as unnecessary and,
hence, disposable (6.54). Such a living enlightenment
realized what the rich young ruler could not: that the goods
of this life—both intellectual and physical—were temporary
and inferior to the Father’s eternal glory (Tolstoy, 1997,
p.121-2). Selfishness was to be abandoned for the will of
the Father, as were riches, which Tolstoy claimed made
doing the Father’s commands impossible (Tolstoy, 1997,
p.121).
The Gospel also impacted Wittgenstein’s temporal
mysticism. Chapter Eight, a meditation on “This Day,” a
line from the Lord’s Prayer, contains the subtitle “Life is not
Temporal,” an appropriate description for this section that
consistently emphasizes Wittgenstein’s sub specie
aeternitatis. The link between life in the present and nontemporality
are connected through service to the Son, for
the Son exists outside of time; thus, to serve him, one
must be outside of time as well, as the servant in Matthew
24:44,45 demonstrates (Tolstoy, 1997, p.156). For those
who follow this narrow road, disregarding future gain for
devotion to the Father’s call and fighting against, “The
illusions of the temporal life (that) conceal from men the
true life in the present,” Christ promises life beyond the
power of time (Tolstoy, 1997, p.145, 152). Outside of time,
those who are alive in God, the eternal, non-temporal
fountain of being, never die (Tolstoy, 1997, p.171). Faith,
the life of the Spirit, was not a belief in orthodoxy or
esoteric doctrine; it existed in understanding one’s position
and living out this revelation—only through faith, the
beholding of the source of life that could transcend time
and death, could one boast, “Death is not an event in life.
Death is not lived through.” (6.4311; Tolstoy, 1997, p. 153,
170-171)
Facing death in World War I was the final catalyst in
Wittgenstein’s resolution, first expressed in the
propositions leading to 6.41, that his logical method
pointed to something beyond the world. Tractarian
mysticism, with its foundation in language and logic,
evolved as an answer to the unique problems of its
author’s worldview.