[C] [Wittrs] Re: Re: Metaphysical Versus Mystical
- From: "J D" <ubersicht@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 03:53:12 -0000
SW,
I believe it may be helpful to examine the entire paragraph from Wittgenstein's
letter to Ficker:
"The book's point is an ethical one. I once meant to include in the preface a
sentence which is not in fact there now but which I will write out for you here
because it will perhaps be a key to the work for you. What I meant to write,
then, was this: My work consists of two parts: the one presented here plus all
that I have not written. And it is precisely this second part that is the
important one. My book draws limits to the sphere of the ethical from the
inside as it were, and I am convinced that this is the ONLY rigorous way of
drawing those limits. In short, I believe that where many others today are just
gassing, I have managed in my book to put everything firmly into place by being
silent about it. And for that reason, unless I am very much mistaken, the book
will say a great deal that you yourself want to say. Only perhaps you won't see
that it is said in the book. For now, I would recommend you to read the preface
and the conclusion, because they contain the most direct expression of the
point of the book."
Now, where he writes, "My book draws limits to the sphere of the ethical from
the inside as it were, and I am convinced that this is the ONLY rigorous way of
drawing those limits," I would agree that the most natural way to read "from
the inside" would be as "from within the ethical sphere". But I want to
impress upom you how odd (which is not to say "incorrect"!) such a reading is
in the wider context.
First, the Tractatus doesn't say much about ethics.
Second, Wittgenstein here says that he had "put everything firmly into place by
being silent about it". How could being silent about it fit with drawing the
limits from within the sphere of the ethical? (This is not a rhetorical
question.)
Third, in the preface, one of the parts to which Wittgenstein referred Ficker,
we find, "It will therefore only be in language that the limit can be drawn,
and what lies on the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense."
One way to address this oddness is to suppose that Wittgenstein was simply
being imprecise. This is correspondence after all. And Ficker would find
things clarified by actually reading the parts Wittgenstein suggested.
But perhaps we could also distinguish between being within the sphere of the
ethical and using language (in an attempt) to talk about ethics. Couldn't the
distinction between saying and showing help here? He is not saying anything
about ethics but showing something by the "rigorous" approach he takes - by not
"gassing".
But we should never forget that the Tractatus itself is nonsense according to
Wittgenstein. And it isn't (at least for the most part) nonsense dealing with
the sacred or other-wordly. Or rather, if it's nonsense, it doesn't deal with
anything: but it doesn't even present the appearance of discussing
other-worldly things. It is nonsense that presents the impression of largely
being about about language, logic, and metaphysics of a kind that isn't
particularly religious at all!
So which side of your distinction would it fall on?
My point that there may be a single logical concept of nonsense while still
permitting a recognition of various ways that nonsense might be motivated is
quite able to accommodate all of this. The Tractatus is nonsense that tries to
show things about language but also about ethics and does so from an ethical
standpoint while for the most part not using words associated with religious
talk, but it may still be deemed important.
And this also accommodates the fact that Plato's words (for Augustine) could be
as much a matter for devout seriousness as Kierkegaard's.
JPDeMouy
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