Was WITTGENSTEIN EVER an ATHEIST? A mystic from the first. Not by learning, but by birth; not burning with fire like a William Price* but, like the genie released out of the bottle, vengeful against those who popped the cork - the logicians and the philosophers, tribes which, for many years I myself have made note, share little of that primal vision. But if mystic offends, then let us say a profoundity: yet still a vision, an instinct, of that lying behind the veil of nature and the grin of the abacus. Those who weigh the evidence for atheism and belief in his works must necessarily produce a caricature in him of one or the other, or else construct a fairground of transitional episodes. Neither is it a case of finalising the deal by picking and choosing from each, but rather abandoning both. Yes, Wittgenstein always believed in autonomous agents not of the body, whether we call them God or not, and always had a singular appreciation of and understanding for ritual. He was uplifted, never driven, by mystic authors.** What leads authors astray? First, for the philosopher, it is transcendental idealism, the best formulation that philosophy can entertain for a mysticism. Continuously misunderstood or half-baked, no logical or mathematical enterprise has expanded its logical face since its first, primitive formulation in the Tractatus. All of Wittgensteins ideas can be laid at its door, though there are doors beyond that, locked to the philosopher. Second, Wittgenstein plays the role of opposing interlocuter even outside the Philosophical Investigations, confusing his actual position. Third, mystics have dark nights of the soul, which come when the clinician is safely out of the way, locked in his own asylum, and the author is free to entertain what we call doubts but are expressions made within one of the domains of certainty - hell. I would finish this piece by revisiting the question was Wittgenstein ever an atheist, but, as you can see, it would not be respectful or representative of Wittgensteins élan. I would provide quotes but it would become unreadable. *the doctor of Llantrisant; **e.g. William James: The Varieties of Religious Experience
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 00:31:02 +0000