[Wittrs] investigating Vienna Circle some more...

kirby urner <kirby.urner@xxxxxxxxx> · Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:42:28 -0800

Scooting north these hours, pausing near Angel of the Winds casino,
Stillaguamish tribe, where I'm friends with IT.

My base, Blue House in Portland, has sent me as a delegate to this
family event in Bellingham.

In my suitcase:  Wittgenstein Reads Weinenger.
http://www.amazon.com/Wittgenstein-Reads-Weininger-David-Stern/dp/0521532604

These essays are on the newer side, we could say "3rd generation"
Wittgenstein scholars, following how they talk about Jung's
commentators (up to 4th generation we could say).

I'd say Weinenger has been through the recycling, much as Nietzsche
did thanks to Walter Kaufmann, also one I've my teachers at Princeton.

Nietzsche's "blond beast" went back to being a lion, like Aslan of
Narnia, not an "Aryan" under Walter, who was German, fought the Nazis,
and should know.  He also translated Goethe and Buber, using a bolder
style than had been customary (call it the "Dante Effect"? --
converting to the vernacular, adroit use of idiom).

Weinenger, who only made it to 23, but was prodigious in the meantime,
has been one of those "love to hate" figures apparently.  I've been
blissfully ignorant, not tuned in, kinda like when I showed up at
Princeton a kind of weirdo "blank slate" from the viewpoint of
domestics.  I've not from Vienna, and I'm am not "fin de siecle" (I'm
more "fin de millennium"), though I do enjoy catching up on Vienna
Circle ("Doppler Effect"? -- that's what RBF calls it (we all get it
in a different order, within our respective partially overlapping
scenarios in eternally non-unitarily conceptual Scenario Universe (the
more full featured expression))).

I suppose I first connected to said circle through Freud ("Frewd" as I
called him, as in "prude") when I first started browsing adult stacks.
 That latter led me to Otto Rank and Norman O. Brown through the
Ernest Becker book, 'The Denial of Death'.  Woody Allen likes that
book too, as we find out in 'Annie Hall', and Kaufmann got some real
chuckles from Woody's humor, told us that in his lectures.  This was
before things got all scandalous and soapy, more R-rated, in that
scenario.  Walter might not have been miffed.  He was a fan of
Erhard's as well, another twisty scenario, still ongoing (there's a
movie on Hulu I recommend about that one, along with 'How the Hippies
Saved Physics' out of MIT, for reading).

Otto Rank is not Otto Weinenger however, and my next Vienna Circle guy
(not counting Wittgenstein himself) was Karl Menger because of his
geometry of lumps as "non-Euclidean" and how this connects to the
history of the "fourth dimension" from the 1800s forward (per Linda
Dalrymple Henderson's fine beginning).
http://www.finearts.utexas.edu/aah/art_history/faculty/henderson.cfm

Apparently there was a "beastly translation" of Otto and people got
him all wrong.  But then Wittgenstein himself was not what we'd call a
disciple of Otto's, though he may have attended his funeral with his
elder sister, at the tender age of 14, we don't know.  He was on
Wittgenstein's "top ten" list though (of influences) and that's
important.  In a way, said Wittgenstein, you could read Weinenger and
but a giant NOT in front (we've had a genre of "not joke" since 1st
generation scholars) and get something quite close to Wittgenstein's
approach.  Per "pointing", 180 degrees opposite would be more "on
target" than most gestures.

Weinenger ties to say the unsayable and spins out, is how we might put
it.  He jumps on his fantasy roller coaster and tries to ride it, goes
off the rails.  Wittgenstein keeps his head above water in a different
way:  he shows us technique, a way of working.  That's endlessly
useful next to another mythology or "metaphysics" ala some "world
soul".  That's for each to work out privately, in a language known
only to him (not! -- hah hah (was just sharing 'annoying orange' with
my host, watching Youtubes on the living room flat screen as I type)).

Time to pack up my show and head to Bellingham.  The snow shouldn't
present a problem.  I'm using the company car as we call it.
Lindsey's "escape pod" from the military-industrial complex (a
Gulfstream plant in Savannah, Georgia).  Lindsey is "the corporate
badass who came to save Portland" (like a TV Guide thumbnail).

More on the Blue House scenario here:
http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2012/01/lights-camera-action.html

More soon,

Kirby

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[Wittrs] investigating Vienna Circle some more...

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