Date: Thu, 4 Dec 1997 22:08:37 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: wittgenstein


To: Jon Roffe

Re: The World as Sublime and Representation

First of all with regard to Schopenhauer, I don’t really think I am really
breaking any new, critical ground here.  In point of fact,  the majority of
Wittgenstein scholars acknowledge the influence of Schopenhauer on early
Wittgenstein.  The former philosophy is generally seen as having provided the
epistemological framework which Wittgenstein himself eventually came to
address in terms of language. The metaphysical sections of the early
notebooks and Tractus regarding solipsism, the self, God, ethics, will,
showing, the aesthetics, and the mystical all show the clear traces of this
influence. 

As one possible reference among the multitudes, I would suggest “The
Philosophy of Schopenhauer” by Bryan Magee.  Besides being a excellent
introduction to  Schopenhauer himself, it has an entire chapter devoted to
his influence on Wittgenstein.

I admit that in calling Wittgenstein a positivist of semantics, I was being
somewhat rhetorical.  I don’t think he escapes, however, from this entire
problematic.  Consider the following statement from the P.I. # 309: “What is
your aim in philosophy? To shew the fly the way out of the fly bottle.”

This statement and similar ones on philosophy in the P.I. have been seized
upon by both psyhoanalysts and zen devotees with good reason.  The statements
imply that philosophy arises from a mere confusion regarding language: a
linguistic mistake.  In other words, it isn’t class war, racism and
injustice, but merely semantic confusion which bring about our differences.
 Even though Wittgenstein also said: “Our language can be seen as an ancient
city: a maze of little streets and squares” (#18 P.I.) he never saw this as a
social construct subservient to and mediated by power relationships.  

I agree that the making of this leap is a Foucaultian move, but I don’t think
Foucault is necessarily alone in making it.  I would also maintain it is a
Marxian one as well, but don’t feel inclined to belabor this point. (It would
be too much of a tangent to discuss here the Frankfort school and its
relation to Foucault.)

I do think it is also a point that Lyotard makes in the Differend, however,
and that his argument goes beyond Foucault in a number of ways. (Furthermore,
this is a Lyotard discussion group, is it not?)   As one brief example,
 Lyotard says he prefers the terminology “genres of discourse” to “language
games”. The game requires a player and thus remains tied to a subject.  (This
was in the background of my own criticism of Wittgenstein for being still too
subjective and psychological.)

Would you still concur with me on the basic point I was attempting to make in
my previous post?  I was really arguing for the following.   Although
Wittgenstein himself was somewhat naive concerning power structures, when his
philosophy is modified along these lines by Lyotard, Foucault, and, yes, even
old Zarathustra,  it becomes possible to develop it in new ways which neither
Wittgenstein nor the entire British school of analytical philosophy ever
envisioned.  It can now become the basis of a radical social critique; one in
which the Differend plays a significant role.   

I hope this helps us return to our discussion of the Differend and to ask
again the old questions in even more radical ways “What is philosophy?”  and
“Is it happening?”