[lit-ideas] Re: Wittgenstein's Humour
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2014 08:49:12 +0000 (GMT)
>In a message dated 2/13/2014 6:40:14 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Having long been of the view, based on the English translation, that there
is quite a lot of wittiness in the text, a casual perusal confirms that
the German original is completely devoid of a sense of humour.
Of course, as Geary often reminds us......(snip)>
Before anyone gets too carried away, my remark was scherzo - in part a play on
the old English riposte to "What would we be if we didn't have a sense of
humour?":- "Germans."
While Wittgenstein is serious in what he writes, that does not foreclose his
work having something akin to a sense of humour. My view accepts what Chris
illustrates with his anecdote from Russell - that the younger Wittgenstein was
almost entirely devoid of humour, as is his Tractatus (apparently he was the
only one in the family who did not fall about laughing on hearing that Paul,
the concert pianist brother, had lost an arm in the First World War). But while
there is nothing playful about the Tractatus, there is something playful (or
possibly playful) in aspects of Investigations.
This 'playfulness' may be a misreading in that it is not within Wittgenstein's
"authorial intent" but it seems to me a reading that fits the text otherwise.
The playfulness in part arises (I suggest) because Wittgenstein in
Investigations is repeatedly trying to show "the same or similar points" as he
puts it in the Preface: he is repeatedly trying to show how the sense of
language is not said in the language used but only shown. But he does not feel
it right to say this is what he is doing (for that would lead to the kind of
unsatisfactory product like the Tractatus, which seems to 'say' what it claims
cannot be 'said') but simply engages in showing what he thinks cannot be said.
This gives his Investigations' work a kind of 'indirectness' as to its point,
for the underlying point is never said. For example, the opening discusses an
Augustinian 'names-for-objects' language: the underlying point is that the
sense of the 'naming-relation' is never said by anything we say when we use
words to name objects, but Wittgenstein does not say this (for reasons I have
tried to explain at greater length in other posts). This 'indirectness' may be
one aspect of what might appear a kind of 'playfulness' (perhaps 'wrongly
appear', given W's intent).
But there is more to it: while Wittgenstein cannot see fit to 'say' his
viewpoint, he can 'gesture' to it - and indeed gesture to it by referring
(indirectly, in the Preface) to Sraffa's 'Neopolitan gesture' ["this
influence"]. To take a gesture as illustrating that the sense of language is
not said but shown is one thing: but it is somewhat playful to use the words
"this influence" where the word "this" refers to the sense of a gesture that is
shown-not-said by the gesture.
It may also be this issue is affected by translation: for the sense of English
may give rise to playful humour in a way not the case for the 'corresponding'
German.
Dnl
Ldn
On Wednesday, 19 February 2014, 2:32, "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
wrote:
In a message dated 2/13/2014 6:40:14 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Having long been of the view, based on the English translation, that there
is quite a lot of wittiness in the text, a casual perusal confirms that
the German original is completely devoid of a sense of humour.
Of course, as Geary often reminds us, the word 'humour' (or 'humor', as he
prefers) is 'ambiguous'. I prefer 'ambivalent' (cfr. "Do not multiply
senses beyond necessity").
Various things to consider re: Witters a 'practical joker' include:
Did Wittgenstein find his kind of 'humour' humorous?
(In other words, did he laugh at his own jokes?)
It is amusing (and slightly humorous) that the humour then comes from G. E.
M. Anscombe who is responsible (originally) for bringing what McEvoy finds
humourless prose in Wittgenstein into 'a lot of wittiness'.
Oddly, "Wittgenstein" is NOT cognate with "wit".
The name "Wittgenstein" means the stone of "Wittgen" -- who Geary calls 'a
divinity'.
Cheers,
Speranza
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