[Wittrs] Re: Did Religion Affect the Tractatus?
- From: "College Dropout John O'Connor" <sixminuteabs@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 16:35:59 -0500
Wittgenstein's Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics speak of the
differences in geometric construction and following a rule. In following the
rule, ala addition, you learn by the answers; whereas in geometric
construction, you are given examples and then asked to make the next
construction (you are shown how to construct a triangle and a square and asked
to construct a pentagon).
Upon my first reading of the TLP, I found that much of what was said instructed
me as if I were to make the next geometric construction. Maybe it was in the
ring of that last proposition and maybe it was in the flow of the whole book.
A lot of people, upon finishing the TLP, think to read it in order of
importance and not sequential. Sticking to whole numbers and and then the
tenth places and hundredth, etc. Eventually, I used seven pages to picture the
relationships of these. I don't think it did anything for me.
But there are numerous clues as to the TLP, and some of the lesser known books
covering it are helpful in revealing different conclusions as to the book's
makeup- like that the book is a riddle or a mirror.
I wish the foreword W gave was a bit lengthier, for the clues I found requisite
were in Ray Mon's biography. Curiously, I have yet to finish that biography.
But those clues would be:
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 dir!
ect expression of the point of the book.
There is one other 'clue' that was essential, e.g. that when W was attempting
to have the TLP published, an editor came back to him and asked if they could
publish it without the numbers. W responded that his work would lose all value
if that had been carried out, and so declined.
I guess his last words, Tell them I lived a wonderful life, might serve well
enough as a clue as well. But I guess everything from Culture&Value could be
construed as such.
I would rather not do the geometric construction for another, but I am unsure
about even that. Good luck,
College Dropout John O'Connor
^I love this title ;P
--
He lived a wonderful life.
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