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Wittgenstein′s Romantic Inheritance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

M. W. Rowe
M. W. Rowe
Affiliation:
University of York
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Extract

A number of writers have noted affinities between the form and style of Wittgenstein′s Philosophical Investigations and the Christian confessional tradition.1,2 In this paper, however, If the Christian tradition, than of the Christian inheritance refracted through, and secularized by, German Romanticism. I shall argue that Wittgenstein′s work is less a direct continuation on this context, not only do many of the features of the Investigations which seem eccentric or wilful become naturalized, but light is also thrown on Wittgenstein′s claim that the twentieth and late nineteenth century play no part in his spiritual makeup, and that his ‘cultural ideal’ derives from ‘Schumann′s time.’3

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 69 , Issue 269 , July 1994 , pp. 327 - 351
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1994

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References

1 For example, Stanley, Cavell, ‘The Availability of Wittgenstein′s Later Philosophy’, in his Must We Mean What We Say? (Cambridge University Press, 1976), pp. 70–72;Google ScholarRay, Monk, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius (London: Cape, 1990), pp. 364–366Google Scholar

2 I am using ‘Romanticism’ in the broadest possible sense, so that it is virtually equivalent to 'Romantic period'; on even a marginally narrower construal, Hegel, and certainly Goethe, would turn out to be anti- Romantic. Even so, this paper is not an exhaustive enumeration of Romantic influences on Wittgenstein: Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer, for example, are two notable omissions.

3 It may be objected that a paper largely devoted to examining the influence of Goethe (1749–1832) and Hegel (1770–1831) cannot throw much light on ‘Schumann′s time’ even if that period is construed more loosely than Schumann′s actual dates (1810–1856). However, this overlooks the fact that Romanticism in music appears much later than it did in literature. It would not be contentious to claim that Romanticism achieved its first full-blooded literary expression in Goethe′s Werther in 1774, whereas Weber′s Der Freischutz, which plays an equivalent role in music, was not performed until 1821. The same time lag is evident when we consider the greatest literary influences on Schumann. The writers who had the greatest influence on him were not contemporaries but E. T. A. Hoffman (1776–1822) and Jean Paul Richter (1763–1825) and most of the latter's work was written between 1792 and 1809. Consequently, when Nietzsche, searching for literary counterparts to Schumann, described him as ‘half Werther, half Jean Paul’ Beyond Good and Evil (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976), p. 158. he was identifying him with literature written between twenty and fifty years before Schumann′s career (roughly 1829–1854) began.Google Scholar

4 I use the following abbreviations for Wittgenstein′s works: ‘PI’, Philosophical Investigations, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1976),Google ScholarAnscombe, G. E. M., (ed.) ‘CV’ Culture and Value (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980), von Wright, G. H.; (ed.); ‘LC’, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1978), Barrett, C.; (ed.) ‘OC’, On Certainty (Oxford: Blackwell, 1969),Anscombe, G. E. M. and von Wright, G. H.; (eds) ‘BB’ The Blue Book (Oxford: Blackwell, 1964); ‘GB’ ‘Remarks on Frazer′s The Golden Bough’ in Wittgenstein: Sources and Perspectives, (ed.) Luckhardt (Brighton: Harvester, 1979), pp. 61–81. Page numbers are given only in the absence of section numbers.Google Scholar

5 Abrams, M. H., Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature, (London: Norton, 1973). pp. 32–7. I have relied heavily on this extraordinarily erudite and brilliant book.Google Scholar

6 Op. cit., quoted in R. Monk, p. 282.Google Scholar

7 Cavell, op. cit.,. p. 71Google Scholar

8 Cavell, op. cit., p. 71Google Scholar

9 Saint, Augustine, Confessions Pine-Coffin, R. S., (ed.) (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971), p. 170.Google Scholar

10 Ibid., p. 172

11 Matthew, Arnold, ‘Preface to the First Edition of Poems (1853)’, in Arnold: The Complete Poems, Allott, K. and M. (eds), (London: Longman; 1987), p. 654.Google Scholar

12 Augustine, op. cit., p. 208Google Scholar

13 Cavell, op. cit., p. 71.Google Scholar

14 Cavell, op. cit., p. 71

15 H., Elvert Lewis (ed.) Bunyan, The Pilgrim′s Progress (London: Dent, 1927), p. 5Google Scholar

16 Dante, Inferno, Canto 1, lines 1–3. I use the translation found p. ix.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., p. 7.

18 The journey metaphor in Wittgenstein is noted by Quigley, Austin E., ‘Wittgenstein′s Philosophizing’, New Literary History 19, No. 2 (Winter, 1988), p. 210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 I have emphasized the element of internal dialogue in confession, but I would not wish to underestimate the importance of external dialogue as well. Inner transformation is obviously something which happens to the individual alone, but an important role in it can be played by those who argue, prompt and listen. I am grateful to Beth Savickey for pressing this point.

20 Augustine, op. cit.72:601, pp. 256–7.Google Scholar

21 Gerrard, Winstanley, The New Law of Righteousness, in G. H. Sabine (ed.) The Works of Gerrard Winstanley (Ithaca, New York, 1941), pp. 215, 567–8, 173–4.Google ScholarQuoted in Abrams, op. cit., pp. 52–3.Google Scholar

22 Abrams op. cit., p. 53.Google Scholar

23 D. A. T. Gasking and A. C. Jackson, ‘Wittgenstein as Teacher’ in K. T. Fann, (ed.) Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Man and his Philosophy (Brighton: Harvester, 1978), p. 27.Google Scholar

24 G. H. von Wright, 'A Biographical Sketch', in Fann op. cit., p. 53.Google Scholar

25 Monk, op. cit., p. 171

26 Letter from Bertrand Russell to Lady Ottoline Morrell, 20.12.1919. Quoted in B., McGuiness, Wittgenstein: A Life: Young Ludwig (London: Duckworth, 1988), p. 279.Google Scholar

27 Even Augustine sometimes thinks of himself in this way. Augustine, op. cit., p. I xviii. Quoted in Abrams, op. cit., p. 166.Google Scholar

28 Schelling, Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur, Samtliche Werke, Pt. 1, Vol. II, pp. 13–14. Quoted and translated in Abrams, op. cit., pp. 181 and 182.

29 Preface to the 1795 version of Hyperion, Samtliche Werke, Beissner, (ed.) vol. Ill, p. 236. Quoted and translated in Abrams, p. 361.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., p. 231.

31 The quotation at the end of the passage comes from, Hegel, Phenomenologie, p. 227Google Scholar

32 Augustine, op. cit., pp. 214–226.Google Scholar

33 Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, (Oxford University Press, 1977), Translated by Miller, A. V., p. 492.Google Scholar

34 Hegel, Preface to The Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. Walter, Kaufmann, in Hegel: Reinterpretation, Texts, and Commentary (New York, 1965), pp. 400–2;Google Scholar and Phenomenologie des Geistes, Johannes Hoffmeister (ed.) (6th ed.: Hamburg, 1952), p. 559. Both quoted and the latter translated in Abrams, op. cit., pp. 192 and 235.Google Scholar

35 Fichte, Die Grundzuge des Gegenwartigen Zeitalters (1804–5) Sdmtliche Werke, Vol. VII, 5–12. Quoted and translated in Abrams, op. cit., p. 218. For a full investigation of the circular journey metaphor in Romantic philosophy and literature see Abrams op. cit., pp. 140–324.Google Scholar

36 Hegel, Phenomenologie des Geistes, pp. 563–4. Quoted in Abrams, op. cit., p. 235.

37 I take this information from J., Bouveresse, ‘Wittgenstein and the Modern World’, in A.Phillips, Griffiths (ed.) Wittgenstein Centenary Essays (Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 3Google Scholar

38 The lines are from the final verse paragraph of part V of Eliot′s ‘Little Gidding’. They are quoted as an epigraph to D., Pears, The False Prison: A Study of the Development of Wittgenstein′s Philosophy, vol. 1, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987).Google Scholar

39 ‘Hegel seems to me to be always wanting to say things which look different are really the same. Whereas my interest is in showing that things which look the same are really different.’ Quoted in Monk, pp. 536–7. This paper, I′m afraid, falls on the Hegelian side of the divide.Google Scholar

40 Abrams, op. cit., p. 192Google Scholar

41 Wilhelm Meister is referred to, for example, at OC:8

42 ‘WM’ indicates, Wilhelm Meister′s Apprenticeship, edited and translated by Blackall, Eric A. in cooperation with Victor, Lange, (New York: Suhrkamp Publishers, 1989).Google Scholar

43 Hegel, Phenomenology, trans. Miller, p. 492Google Scholar

44 Hamburg Edition, Vol. 9, p. 283.Google ScholarQuoted in Reed, T. J., Goethe (Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 4.Google Scholar

45 Franco, Moretti, The Way of the World: The Bildungsroman in European Culture (London: Verso, 1987), p. 4.Google Scholar

46 Moretti, op. cit., p. 24.Google Scholar

47 TS 220, pp. 89–90, quoted in S., Stephen Hilmy, ‘Tormenting questions’ in Philosophical Investigations section 133', in Wittgenstein′s Philosophical Investigations: Text and Context, (ed.) Arlington, Robert J. and Hans-Johann, Glock (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 94.Google Scholar

48 Hamburg Edition, Vol. 13, p. 28. Quoted in Reed, op. cit., p. 99.Google Scholar

49 In this connection it is interesting to observe that Goethe and Wittgenstein's disapproval of anything vague, inner, idealistic and ineffectual, resulted in a common admiration for the world of business. Goethe is evidently not being ironic when he has Werner remark that the system of double-entry book-keeping is one of the great discoveries of the human mind, and Wittgenstein once remarked to Drury: ‘My father was a businessman and I am a businessman too; I want my philosophy to be businesslike, to get something done, to get something settled.’Google ScholarDrury, M. O′C., ‘A Symposium II in Fann, K. T. (ed.), Wittgenstein: The Man and his Philosophy (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1978), p. 69.Google Scholar

50 Moretti, op. cit., pp. 35 and 234.Google Scholar

51 The Phenomenology of Spirit is full of references to Goethe′s work, particularly Faust and Wilhelm Meister. The most obvious similarity of outlook is that for Hegel the individual is only wholly himself in a society where he finds his needs and aspirations acknowledged and realized. Any kind of inward retreat or withdrawal—as in the case of a Stoic or ‘Beautiful Soul’—leads to the creation of an ‘unhappy consciousness’ who cannot come to terms with ‘the way of the world.’ Such an individual, striving after and identifying with an inward ideal in essentially alien circumstances, cannot flourish and is inwardly riven and debilitated. For discussion of these issues see Charles, Taylor, Hegel (Cambridge University Press, 1975), pp. 148–196.Google Scholar

52 The page references for this and the next two quotations are to the Suhrkamp edition mentioned above, but I have used the translations found in Moretti, op. cit., p. 18. These capture more clearly the features to which I want to draw attention.

53 For a fuller examination of Goethe′s conception of science and its relation to Wittgenstein′s conception of philosophy see my article ‘Goethe and Wittgenstein’, Philosophy 66 (July 1991) 283–107:230–303Google Scholar

54 ‘F’, Theory of Colours (Zur Farbenlehre), translated by Eastlake, C. L. (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1970).Google Scholar

55 Quoted in Monk, op. cit., p. 186.Google Scholar

56 For more on the idea that philosophy aims to produce a certain kind of vision that can be prompted but not simply handed on, see Rowe, pp. 289–303.Google Scholar

57 The final chapter of A. C. Grayling's book, Wittgenstein (Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 112–119, sets out an understanding and evaluation of Wittgenstein′s work which requires, I would argue, a denaturing severance between his philosophy and personality.Google Scholar

58 I would like to thank Marie McGinn and Beth Savickey for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.