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26
УДК 1/14. 1(091)
N. A. Sokrut
The Life of Ludwig Wittgenstein as a Projection of the Essence
of His Philosophy
Abstract. April 26, 2019 marks 130 years since the birth of one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century, Ludwig Wittgenstein. The article is devoted to a review of the life and works of the Austrian philosopher and logician, a representative of analytical philosophy. The article is divided into several parts according to the principles of his life, since we believe that the author's philosophy is inseparable from his personality and it is the readiness to live in accordance with his philosophy that makes his philosophy true. Sources for the study were the works of Wittgenstein himself, as well as the memories of his contemporaries. Books on the biography of a unique philosopher were used as additional literature. This method allows us to get closer to the most objective view of the personality and creativity of the investigated person. Based on the available materials, we show the contribution of Ludwig Wittgenstein to the philosophy of the XX century.
Keywords: language, life, Ludwig Wittgenstein, meaning, language game, "Philosophical Investigations", philosophy of language, philosophy, problem,"Tractatus Logico-Philosophical".
Н. A. Сокрут
Жизнь Людвига Витгенштейна как проекция сущности
его философии
Аннотация. 26 апреля 2019 года исполнится 130 лет со дня рождения одного из крупнейших философов XX века Людвига Виттгенштейна. Статья посвящена обзору жизни и трудов австрийского философа и логика, представителя аналитической философии. Статья разделена на несколько частей согласно принципам его жизни, так как мы считаем, что философия автора неотделима от его личности и именно готовность жить в соответствии со своей философией делает философию истинной. Источниками для исследования послужили труды самого Витгенштейна, а также воспоминания его современников. В качестве дополнительной литературы были использованы книги по биографии уникального философа. Данный метод позволяет приблизиться к наиболее объективному взгляду на личность и творчество исследуемого лица. На основе имеющихся материалов мы показываем вклад Людвига Витгенштейна в философию XX века.
Ключевые слова: значение, «Логико-философский трактат», Людвиг Витгенштейн, проблема, философия, Философские исследования», философия языка, язык, языковая игра.
The ancient Chinese said that a philosophical teaching was true only if the author lived according to the principles of his teaching. Therefore, the life of Wittgenstein can serve as a guideline of his philosophy.
Introduction
An Austrian philosopher and logician, Ludwig Wittgenstein (26 April 1889 - 29 April 1951) was a representative of analytical philosophy. He started a program for the construction of arts, the "ideal
SOKRUT Nadejda Alekeevna - Master's student of the Department of Interpretation and Translation, Institute of Foreign Philology and Regional Studies, M.K. Ammosov North-Eastern Federal University.
E-mail:[email protected]
СОКРУТ Надежда Алексеевна - магистрант кафедры перевода, ИЗФиР СВФУ им. М.К. Аммосова.
Научный руководитель
KOZHEVNIKOVNikolay Nikolaevich - Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, Professor, Department of Philosophy, M.K. Ammosov North-Eastern Federal University.
E-mail: [email protected]
КОЖЕВНИКОВ Николай Николаевич - доктор философских наук, профессор каф. философии, Северо-Восточный федеральный университет им. М.К. Аммосова
language", the prototype of which is the language of mathematical logic. He understood philosophy as "criticism of the language." He developed the doctrine of logical atomism, which is a projection of the knowledge structure on the world structure. His main work is "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" (1958).
It is said that every great philosopher discovers a new philosophical direction. No other philosopher had such a significant influence on the Anglo-American philosophy of the 20th century. His life and personality were full of secrets, and especially in those crucial years when he created his later philosophical works.
Ludwig Joseph Johann Wittgenstein was born on April 26, 1889 in Vienna to a Jewish family. Wittgenstein's father was an outstanding personality. He was an engineer, later became a prominent figure in the steel industry of the Danube Empire.
His four brothers and three sisters also had talents, especially musical ones. Since childhood, Ludwig had been showing interest in mechanics. As a little boy, he designed a sewing machine that excited general admiration. At that time, he dreamed of becoming an engineer, like his father.
From 1906 to 1912 Ludwig had been trying to find his vocation. Finally, on the advice of the great German logic Frege, in 1911 Ludwig decided to study in Trinity College (Cambridge) with Russell, whose book "Mathematical Foundations" he had read before. As a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Ludwig presented his "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus". As a result Wittgenstein received a research scholarship at Trinity College. The ideas of "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" were largely consonant with the ideas of the members of the Vienna Circle.
The uniqueness of his research
Wittgenstein is not like anyone and could not feel himself a member of any society.
In Vienna, the philosophy of logical positivism was developed by a group of philosophers united in the Vienna Circle under the leadership of Moritz Schlick. It was a group of Viennese intellectuals, mostly representatives of natural science knowledge, seeking to develop a new scientific and philosophical ideology.
The members of the circle welcomed the main ideas of the Tractatus, but Wittgenstein did not join the society, despite his close relationship with their views.
In many ways Wittgenstein got the start of his colleagues. The essence of the conflict between him and the Vienna Circle was that they relied on some of the provisions of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and wanted to find in Wittgenstein an intelligible interlocutor and interpreter of their own maxims. But at that time Wittgenstein had already gone forward, had been already thinking about some other, perhaps, incomprehensible paradigm, as the paradigm of late analytical philosophy, and this led to mutual misunderstanding
An idea of the philosophical views of Wittgenstein of this period (about 1930) is given by two of his works - a thesis containing about eight hundred pages, and the "Philosophical Notes". In these works a lot of attention is given to the philosophy of mathematics. Perhaps one of these works, Bertrand Russell in 1930, presented as follows. To the Council of Trinity College about the issue of the grant of the protégé subsidy: "The theories enunciated in this work by Wittgenstein are new, very original and, undoubtedly, important. I don't know, whether they are correct. As a logician who lean toward simplicity, I tend to think that this is not so. However, from what I read I made a firm conviction that the author should be able to continue the work, because when it is finished, it may well turn out that we have a whole new philosophy".
Wittgenshtein's two main works
Wittgenshtein has got two main works: "Tractatus Logico-Philosophical" finished in 1918, and "Philosophical Investigations" published in 1953 show the differences between early and late periods of Wittgenstein's philosophy. These two periods also reveal continuity in problematic. In "Philosophical Investigations", Wittgenstein analyzes the language to the same extent as in The Tractatus, although the nature of this analysis is different. "Philosophical Investigations" mainly focus on those sentences that describe mental life.
However Wittgenstein was the one who managed to do it twice: the first time in the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus", which was published immediately after the First World War, and the second time, when Wittgenstein's thoughts took the complete form in "The Philosophical Studies", published posthumously after the Second World War. Wittgenstein's early work influenced logical positivism very much. His later work influenced the analytical philosophy, which has been common in English-speaking countries for almost a quarter of a century.
In The "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus", Wittgenstein bases everything on the idea that meaning and lack of meaning depend on the formal relation of the sentence to reality. In the "Philosophical Investigations", meaning is considered as a function of how we use the words: human goals and life forms in which human beings exist, act as that which gives language to their meanings. There is no final analysis of sentences in logical names, which are the names of simple objects in the world. Instead, language is viewed as a natural human phenomenon, and the task of philosophy is to collect reminders of our current use of language, to destroy the riddle it sometimes creates. The philosophy "just puts everything in front of us and does not explain and deduce nothing," its results "are the discovery of one or another piece of obvious nonsense," philosophical problems are not solved, neither by the fact that new information is given, nor by the fact that we always know what is being processed."
Wittgenstein argues that "philosopher's consideration of a question is like treating a disease," that is, a philosophical approach does not take the form of a question - answer, but, as in the case of a disease, when the problem is properly treated, it disappears.
In his work "Philosophical Investigations", Wittgenstein develops a theory of meaning, which he called the theory of "family likeness."
He understood the meaning as a way to use it in the language. For example, we find out the meaning of the word "game". For this purpose, you can compare different games, highlighting the common features that are distinctive for many games. But this does not give the desired effect, since some games do not have certain signs that other games have. Certain groups of games may have common features, but extreme groups of games may not have anything in common. According to Wittgenstein, a similar situation is possible in large families, where the youngest and oldest of the children do not resemble each other.
Based on this ideas, Wittgenstein came to the conclusion that the common thing for all games is that they are named "games". The word "game" conditionally denotes what is meant by the game. Thus, it is a kind of convention by which we summed up a number of objects, facts of reality, under a certain word. Therefore, a well-known statement from "Philosophical Investigations" becomes clear: "For a large class of cases, although not for all, in which we use the word "meaning", it can be defined as follows: the meaning of a word is its use in language.
Wittgenstein calls language use in our lives "language games". Some of the language games deal with the practical use of signs and raise questions about the conditions under which the practical use of signs really expresses themselves in the use of the language. Thus Wittgenstein underlines the ways a language functions in our lives. Some researchers believe that such a position expresses a kind of skepticism in respect of the rules and following them, but Wittgenstein most likely emphasizes simply knowing how to follow the rules that are contained in behavioral and practical contexts and situations. Our understanding of the use of expressions in language implies such knowledge.
In "Philosophical Investigations," he answers the question "what is the goal of his philosophy," he says that his goal is to show the way "how a fly flies out of a flytrap".
Desire for clarity
A visual illustration of his strng desire for clarity is the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus". The whole structure of this work is aimed at the consistent manifestation of any text, reflection, etc. "What can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence. "
Wittgenstein always considered the goal of philosophical studies as the achievement of clarity. At first glance, this may seem like a concentration of all attention on one of the requirements of logic.
But this is a misunderstanding. Striving for clarity in Wittgenstein mattered the ethical principle, it was an expression of the requirement of honesty and sincerity in thought, a conscientious and consistent determination of its place in the world.
Georg Henrik von Wright in his biographical sketch about Wittgenstein wrote: "There was neither a manuscript nor notes Before him. He thought in front of the audience. The impression was that he was in the state of the strongest concentration of attention. The presentation usually led to a question that the audience was asked to answer. The answers, in turn, became the starting points for new ideas leading to new questions. "Two cycles of notes that Wittgenstein dictated to his philosophical audience between 1933 and 1935 became known as the Blue Book and the Brown Book.
The importance of Blue and Brown Books for understanding Wittgenstein
Firstly, the Blue and Brown Books allow us to trace the evolution of Wittgenstein's philosophical views: from the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus", where language is consired from the point of view of extra-personal representation of the world, to the variety of 'language games' rooted in life forms, where the material activity of the subject is an integral part of language use . The maximum degree of generalization in the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus", where nothing can be said besides what can be said clearly, gives way to the maximum degree of exemplification, where everything can be said, even if it is absolutely not clear. The main thing to say.
The term "language game", which is very important for the late Wittgenstein, first appears in the so-called Blue and Brown Books.
The language concept of "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" is that the language is divided into meaningful (copy of the world) and unthought. Language is a means of displaying the world. It is possible to build an ideal language. The concept of the language of Philosophical Investigations: to know what a given word means or to understand the meaning of a sentence is to be able to correctly use this word or sentence within a certain conversation. Meaningful expression is a successful language game. Language is a way of social communication, which consists of many different social games that we must learn to play, so that our language can work and make sense.
Secondly, it is the only text which appeal among philosophers, Wittgenstein approved off. Wittgenstein dictated the "Blue Book" to a group of students in the 1933-1934 school years, and he dictated the "Brown Book" to a close friend Francis Skinner in 1935 in the form of Blue and brown books we have compiled and edited text that Wittgenstein recommended to know about his ideas.
Honesty of all his searches
As Wittgenstein's contemporaries noted, the work demanded Wittgenstein's extreme concentration of will and intelligence. This was one of the manifestations of his absolute, infinite honesty. His ruthless honesty, extended both to himself and to those around him, Wittgenstein strove for honesty in all his searches. to find the essence of his teaching, he worked in different countries and environments, taught at a leading university, he served as a hotel clerk, gardener, also designed and built a house for his sister in Vienna, he thought of going to a monastery and even finished six-month courses of primary classes teachers and decided to devote himself to raising the younger generation in the Austrian country.
The most important discoveries in the field of the logic foundations were made when he unexpectedly left Cambridge and settled in Norway all alone. He decided to stay in Norway for a long time, so as not to communicate with anyone and in this loneliness finally finish his work. Here he communicated with the postman and several farmers who became his friends and sent him postcards for many years after he left Norway. Wittgenstein soon learned to speak Norwegian. He considered the time spent in Skjolden, the most productive in his life. Here he developed a theory that something can be said, and something only shows, the theory of logical propositions as tautologies, and came close to criticizing Russell's theory of types.
Wittgenstein lived, or wanted to live in Avstrovengrii, England, Norway, Ireland and the Soviet Union. The desire of the great philosopher to live in the Soviet Union, fortunately for him and for all of us, did not came true.
Probably only for such a paradoxical person as Wittgenstein it was in the nature of things, to have so much to love the Soviet Union, and to wear the Gospel of Tolstoy in his knapsack, and also to have been fighting with arms for four years against Tsarist Russia during the First World War.
Wittgenstein endorsed the communist regime, praised Stalin for the fact that "he gave people jobs" and hoped that they would give work him too. He wanted to live like Leo Tolstoy, who worked like a simple peasant
The few weeks that Wittgenstein was in the USSR turned out to be enough for him to understand - "they did not understand us here." Soviet Russia was considered almost more bourgeois and aristocratic than England. Wittgenstein did not expect that.
Unselfishness
The death of his father in 1913 made Wittgenshtein one of the richest people in Europe. Returning from captivity, Wittgenstein was one of Austria's richest men. The capital of his father was securely protected and even increased by inflation during the war. However, the young Wittgenstein refused to inherit, not feeling behind a vocation for this kind of activity. For the rest of his life, the philosopher made his own living. On the eve of the World War, some outstanding Austrian poets, artists and writers received large-scale money transfers from an unknown person.
After the war, Wittgenstein gave his relatives all of the capital. According to his calculations, the relatives were rich enough so that his millions could not corrupt them even more. Subsequently, he refused to accept even Christmas gifts from them, since he did not earn enough money to buy gifts himself.
Usually, Wittgenstein's decision to refuse the inheritance is explained by his personal disinterestedness and the example of Leo Tolstoy. The conscious motivation of this act was traditional: the philosopher should not burden himself with property. According to the attitude of Wittgenstein, wealth deprived the necessary freedom and internal independence. As his Russian teacher later recalled, Wittgenstein was the freest of people. He dropped all ties that enslaved a person: state, family, nation, and state.
But there were some other reasons, because money is not only a luxury, but also a big responsibility. "Poverty protects against suicide," Durkheim writes, "because by itself it serves as a bridle [...]. On the contrary, wealth gives us the illusion that we are dependent on ourselves ". It is very likely that the unconscious motivation was precisely to "put a rein on itself', so that instead of thinking all the time about yourself, start thinking about our daily bread.
Suffering as a source of power
Since 1919 until his death, Wittgenstein had been making his own living and lived ascetic. It was a constructive way from death to life. Wittgenstein considered it shameful to take care of himself, to hide from danger. Therefore, despite his release for health reasons, during the First World War, he went to the front in the army. He became an officer, was wounded. However, of the three brothers who remained alive at the start of the war, the Wittgenstein was the one returned home safe and sound.
In 1937, Wittgenstein returned to Cambridge, where two years later he replaced Moore in the department of Philosophy. Shortly before Wittgenstein took the chair, the Second World War began. He therefore obtained a job at Guy's Hospital in London, working as a dispensary porter. Then he worked in a medical laboratory in Newcastle.
In spring of 1947 his last lectures were held in Cambridge. In autumn of 1949 he was diagnosed with cancer. The illness took away his strength. However, he spent the last two months on the move and was on the rise.
Extraordinary personality
The strong and bright personality of Wittgenstein influenced others very much. It was impossible for him to remain indifferent. For some people, he caused active rejection. But many were fascinated and admired him. It is true that Wittgenstein avoided making acquaintances, but he needed friendship and was persistently searching for it. He was an awesome but demanding friend. Wittgenstein sometimes said that he had impending doom. The future was bleak to him. Modernity was hopeless. His thought about the mercilessness of human was clearly close to certain theories of predestination.
Wittgenstein did not any have systematic knowledge of the history of philosophy. He could read only what he perceived personally. In his youth, he favored Schopenhauer. In the works of Spinoza, Kant and Hume, in his own words. he was able to understand only certain places. However, it is known that he read Plato and enjoyed it.
Conclusion
In this paper, the philosophy of Wittgenstein is considered in the context of his life, because it was the purity, sincerity, proportionality of this life that allowed to form the philosophy that became the basis for the whole direction. It is not by chance that autopoiesis of his life - its natural self-organization was reflected in two fundamental stages of his philosophy. Both of these stages corresponded to his views, the change of which took place within the framework of the general evolution of Ludwig Wittgenstein's life.
Wittgenstein experienced a much greater influence by the authors, who occupy an intermediate position between philosophy, religion and poetry, than by the philosophers in the strict sense of the word. This is Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis, S0ren Aabye Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. The philosophical sections of the "Confessions" of Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis reveal surprising similarities with the philosophical method of Wittgenstein. There are clear parallels between Wittgenstein and Pascal.
The life and personality of Wittgenstein spread almost the same charm as his thinking. Numerous students, friends and colleagues of Wittgenstein noted his charm, temper, magnetism and brilliance. Anecdotes about his musical mastery, intellectual brightness and memory, his originality, sharpness, generosity and eccentricity are contained in many memories of those who met with Wittgenstein. He loved American films and went to them to take a break from philosophy. Norman Malcolm says that Wittgenstein often felt exhaustion from a lecture and was disgusted with them.
In his Memoirs, he writes: "Often he rushed to the cinema immediately after his classes in the audience. As soon as the students started to leave the room, he looked imploringly and spoke in a low voice, "Maybe go to the cinema?" On the way to the cinema Wittgenstein could buy a cold pork bun or pie and chew it while he watched the movie. He wanted to sit in the front row of chairs so that the screen would occupy his entire field of view and his mind would be far from his lecture. and feelings of disgust. "
There is no doubt that the personality and the writings of Wittgenstein will cause controversy and generate different opinions in the future. The author of the aphorisms "Mysteries do not exist" and "What can be said, can be said clearly" was itself a mystery. Someone once said that he was a logician and a mystic at the same time. None of these characteristics is true, although each indicates something very significal.
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