In a message dated 6/11/2015 10:39:18 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
""It needs to be said outright that Edmund is a traitor." And I was just
half-way through..."
It's all there in the references. The figure of Aslan was famously inspired
by that mysterious lion which keeps appearing and disappearing suddenly
and at key moments to in "The Place of the Lion", writen by Charles Williams.
"The Place of the Lion" was written before Witters's "Philosophical
Investigations", and recently, a philosopher has put forward the theory that
Witters's cryptic reference to the logical impossibility of a talking lion
might
have been ("but then might have NOT") influenced by this fantasy novel by
Charles Williams. "The Place of the Lion" was published in 1931 by Victor
Gollancz -- just two years after Witters got his PhD (Cantab). At the end of
the thesis defence, Wittgenstein infamously clapped the two examiners,
Russell and Moore, on their shoulders, and said, in perfect English, "Don't
worry, I know you'll never understand it". So we see that from an early stage
Witters had tricks with 'understanding': we could not understand a talking
lion, but Russell and Moore would never understand the thesis for which he
was awarded a PhD -- Implicature: That's Cambridge forya.
Similarly, in "The Place of the Lion", Platonic archetypes begin to appear
throughout England (and not just Cambridge) notably wreaking havoc and
drawing to the surface the spiritual strengths and flaws of individual
characters. One of the most daringly conceived and stunningly visualized of
all
novels of the twentieth-century.
Cheers,
Speranza
Williams, Charles. The Place of the Lion.
Geary, J. M. The Place of the Lion in Wittgenstein's Philosophy of
Language.
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