[Wittrs] Was the Tractatus Original?
- From: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2009 10:34:38 -0700 (PDT)
If you are asking about authorship, there is nothing to ask. If you are asking
about influences, I think care should be taken to understand the kind of
intellect that Wittgenstein had. He was not a detail-oriented mind. He would
have made a horrible lawyer. His basic industry was to take other people's
thoughts and correct or clarify them. Imagine having a power of insight that
was greater than others, yet not yourself really having your own answer. The
idea would be that you could instantly identify the wrong answers -- the wrong
paths of another's thought -- but you yourself cannot really have the "right
answer." And this is because the same animal that sees through flaws in others
stares straight down your own damn offerings. And so what you become is a man
who takes the problems given to him and produces clarity in the manner that
others working on those "problems" cannot.
If we accept this as Wittgenstein's gift, we would find that whomever fed this
machine whatever would wind up with a product sounding like the feeder's
concern (which it was).
Preface to the Tractatus: "How far my efforts agree with those of other
philosophers I will not decide. Indeed what I have here written makes no claim
to novelty in points of detail; and therefore I give no sources, because it is
indifferent to me whether what I have thought has already been thought before
me by another."
There is some suggestion in the recent book, "The House of Wittgenstein," that
one of the influences of the Tractatus was Tolstoy's, "Gospel in Brief." I had
thought this book also mentioned that one of Wittgenstein's brothers may have
influenced him somewhat. But I can't find that now, and I am wondering whether
my memory on this particular point is in error.
Regards.
Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
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