This is a remarkable book about a man (perhaps the most important and original philosopher of our age), a society (the corrupt Austro-Hungarian Empire on the eve of dissolution), and a city (Vienna, with its fin-de siecle gaiety and corrosive melancholy). The central figure in this study of a crumbling society that gave birth to the modern world is Wittgenstein, the brilliant and gifted young thinker. With others, including Freud, Viktor Adler, and Arnold Schoenberg, he forged his ideas in a (...) classical revolt against the stuffy, doomed, and moralistic lives of the old regime. As a portrait of Wittgenstein, the book is superbly realized; it is even better as a portrait of the age, with dazzling and unusual parallels to our own confused society. Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin have acted on a striking premise: an understanding of prewar Vienna, Wittgenstein s native city, will make it easier to comprehend both his work and our own problems .This is an independent work containing much that is challenging, new, and useful. New York Times Book Review.". (shrink)

PREFACE A volume of essays on Wittgenstein, arguably this century's greatest philosopher, certainly would require no apology. However, one which combines ...

Fin de siecle Vienna was once memorably described by Karl Kraus as a "proving ground for the destruction of the world." In the decades leading to the World War that brought down the Austro-Hungarian empire, the city was at once an operetta dream world masking social and political problems and tension, as well as a center for the far-reaching explorations and innovations in music, art, science, and philosophy that would help to define modernity. One of the most powerful critiques of (...) the retreat into fantasy was that of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose early career in Vienna has helped frame debates about ethical and aesthetic values in culture. In Wittgenstein's Vienna Revisited Allan Janik expands upon his work Wittgenstein's Vienna (co-authored with Stephen Toulmin) to amplify a number of significant points concerning the genesis of Wittgenstein's thought, the nature of Viennese culture, and criticism of contemporary culture. Although Wittgenstein is the central figure in this volume, Janik places considerable emphasis on other influential figures, both Viennese and non-Viennese, in order to break down some of the persistent stereotypes about the philosopher and his surrounding culture, especially the myths of "carefree" Vienna and Wittgenstein the positivist. The persistence of these myths, in Janik's view, stems in part from the inability of many historians to differentiate past from present in the evaluation of intellectual currents. Janik reviews a number of figures overlooked in assessing Wittgenstein: Otto Weininger, Kraus, Schoenberg, Nietzsche, Wagner, Ibsen, Offenbach, and Georg Trakl. All of these, Janik demonstrates, are absolutely necessary to understand what was at stake in the debates on aestheticism and the critique of a modern culture. Wittgenstein's efforts to recognize the limits of thought and language and thus to be fair to science, religion, and art account for his place of honor among critical modernists. These essays elucidate Wittgenstein's perspective on our culture. (shrink)

It was Paul Engelmann who stimulated Wittgenstein to consider art as the avenue of access to what is higher, the "mystical" in the Tractatus. Unlike the course of their personal friendship, it is not easy to reconstruct the nature of their philosophical confrontation with one another. In the light of their correspondence, Wittgenstein's notebooks and the bit we know from biographers, Wittgenstein's development in the period immediately before he met Engelmann is sketched, discussing the influence of Hertz and Weininger, and (...) determining what his meeting with Engelmann meant for his philosophy. (shrink)

Janik beschrijft in zijn filosofische essay aan de hand van een aantal filosofische posities zijn visie op het thema afgoderij en de rol die religie speelt in een seculiere wereld.

'Omdat oudere vrouwen meer ervaring hebben, zijn ze verstandiger en beoefenen ze meer discretie bij het opzetten van een intrige om verdenking te voorkomen. De omgang met hen is derhalve veiliger voor je reputatie.'.

De stilte in Mahlers symfonieën en de stilte die Wittgenstein bepleit zijn eenzelfde stilte; ze zijn beide een reactie op Nietzsches notie van de dood van God en de crisis van de wetenschap. Deze stilte is een moment van puur luisteren. Het is een moment van catharsis en een uiting van persoonlijke of stilzwijgende gedachten die niet objectief, dat wil zeggen in wetenschappelijke proposities, kan worden gerepliceerd. Catharsis drukt geen kennis uit, maar een direct, ongemedieerd weten dat we zijn.

Plato was de eerste filosoof die de verlichting der mensheid op rationele basis trachtte te stoelen. Diderot werkte Plato's ideeën uit in zijn filosofische dialoog De neef van Rameau, waarin hij op ironische wijze de tegenstrijdigheden in de denkwereld van zijn tijd in de richting van de verlichting tracht om te buigen.

De snelheid van het moderne leven en de vluchtigheid van beeld en tekst op het scherm brengen ons steeds verder af van alles wat naar reflectie en diepgang tendeert. Geen aspect van het leven blijft onaangetast door de imago-industrie. De strategie van de leugen, de valse vergetelheid en de ontkenning van de dood kunnen alleen door reflectie op het culturele verleden bestreden worden.

Een bezoek aan Sint-Petersburg vlak na het einde van de Sovjetunie doet filosoof Allan Janik inzien hoezeer het postmodernisme, met zijn credo van 'alles is toegestaan', leidt tot nihilisme en tot een marginalisering van de filosofie zelf. De Russische filosofen die hij er ontmoet, bewegen zich in een werkelijk postmoderne maatschappij, een chaotisch machtsvacuüm waar niets vanzelfsprekend is. Juist daar blijkt dat een relativistisch-postmoderne houding weliswaar terecht de 'Grote Verhalen' ondermijnt, maar dat ze wegkijkt van de werkelijke problemen. Zo plaatst (...) de filosofie zichzelf in de marge, op een moment waarop ze juist een rol van betekenis kan en moet spelen. (shrink)

Janik beschouwt het falen als problematiek in een op succes gerichte wereld, waarin mislukking iets is geworden waarvoor men zich moet verontschuldigen. Hij gaat in op de soorten van falen die er zijn en de verschillende betekenissen die de term kan hebben, om inzicht te scheppen in de complexiteit van het begrip.

Schönberg liet zijn pogingen om Igisch te componeren vergezeld gaan met kritische en analytische geschriften. Hij wilde, net als vele andere kritische intellectuelen van zijn tijd, een authentieke Weense muziekcultuur ontwikkelen, die zich tegen de heersende esthetische smaak keerde. Zijn hekel aan populaire muziek was eerder gegrond op morele dan op esthetische overwegingen. Mooie muziek leidt tot dagdromen en niet tot nadenken, vond hij. Zijn werk eist een aktieve deelname van de luisteraar, die de idee achter de muziek moet trachten (...) te vinden. (shrink)

‘Tijdens een van hun eerste ontmoetingen in 1911 wist Wittgenstein Bertrand Russell verstomd te doen staan door te weigeren toe te geven dat er geen neushoorn in de kamer was, en zulks ondanks het feit dat Russell er geen kon vinden toen hij ernaar had gezocht.’.

Wittgenstein’s attitude to writing philosophy is an important part of his complex legacy from Frege. Even the frequently misconstrued phrase, “Philosophie dürfte man eigentlich nur dichten”, is part of that legacy. How should we actually render that sentence in English? How is the idea that Dichtung is a necessary aspect of philosophical method rooted in thoughts that ultimately find their way back to Frege? Where do we find Dichtung in the so-called private language argument? How is Wittgenstein’s view of the (...) role of Dichtung in philosophy related to his appreciation of humor in philosophizing? What is the role of humor in Frege’s work? How does Wilhelm Busch in Eduards Traum illustrate the philosophical significance of humorous Dichtung? What is the link between Dichtung and craftsmanship in writing philosophy for Wittgenstein? These are the central issues that the article addresses. (shrink)

Stephen Edelston Toulmin, philosopher and historian of science, pioneer in the logical analysis of substantive argumentation, was educated in physics and philosophy at Cambridge, where he studied with Paul Dirac, John Wisdom and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Cambridge, Issac Newton’s university, remained his philosophical home: he always was very critical of the way that philosophy was done at The Other Place, as Oxford is known there. The only philosopher whom he really revered there was John Austin – although it is necessary hastily (...) to add that he deeply respected Gilbert Ryle and Isaiah Berlin. Like the latter, he considered himself a “public intellectual”. As such he was delighted to be invited to become a contributor to Encounter and later, from the mid-1960s a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books. He was fascinated by Wittgenstein, attending as many of his classes as he could, but had no interest in becoming close to him. Both the idea of discipleship and Wittgenstein’s dominating personally were uncongenial to him. Like Wittgenstein and Berlin he was never at home among professional philosophers . On occasion his relationships with philosophers could be stormy indeed as was the case with Sir Karl Popper and Nelson Goodman. He prided himself on being an amateur and was only mildly disturbed when “experts” chided him as a bungler. His deepest belief was that professional philosophers do not determine what the real problems of philosophy are; rather those problems arise out of conundrums in human life. That meant for him engaging in intense dialogues, with physicists, psychologists, psychoanalysts, medical doctors, lawyers, musician artists and, of course, historians of science. (shrink)

It has been argued that we cannot trust the agent to be able to give a true account of his own actions. And that, where self?deception is involved, hermeneutics can do little more than participate in it. Only a rigorous science of the mind can take us towards the truth in these matters. The aim of this paper is to sketch a hermeneutics that can deal with self?deception. It examines the relation between what the agent does and his own account (...) of it. and the relation of both to the communal practices wherein they are both situated. The agent's account and the scientist's will both have to be measured against that of the reflective and experienced practitioner. (shrink)