Wittgenstein & Heidegger: Parallel Spiritual Lives (Part Two)

Wittgenstein and Heidegger on Religion and Philosophy

Wittgenstein on Religion and Ethics

“…a philosophy which is going to be ethics and metaphysics in one, though they have previously been so falsely separated, like soul and body.” (Schopenhauer, in The World as Will and Representation, 1818/1988)

Despite Wittgenstein’s mysticism and, indeed, his religiosity, he may also be thought to have had an ambivalent, or even a counter-productive (in terms of the cause of religion and perhaps ethics), attitude towards religion and ethics in his later period.

In his Tractatus he attempted to pave a way for religious, well, discourse. Though a little later he said:

“I think that it is definitely important to put an end to all the claptrap about ethics – whether intuitive knowledge exists, whether values exist, whether the good is definable” (1929).

So, unlike religious theologians and possibly Christian ethicists, Wittgenstein appears to have believed, at this time (the 1920s and early 30s), that we shouldn't even discuss - not in an intellectual, philosophical or “theoretical” manner anyway - the issues of religion and ethics. Such discussions would pollute and defile these subjects. This attitude, it could be supposed, puts Wittgenstein more in the mystical rather than the religious camp. However, Wittgenstein of course conceded that religious and non-religious ethicists, and straight religious thinkers for that matter, are saying something with their words. That is, when we discover that a sentence “has no means of verification”, it didn't follow, at least for Wittgenstein in the later 1920s and early 1930s, that there is nothing to discover or understand in that sentence. The very process of not finding an (empirical?) verification means that we could still understand something interesting about the sentence. Those people who use such sentences aren't, as the logical positivists argued, indulging in “meaningless metaphysics” or simply talking “nonsense”.

Although this kind of anti-positivism is and always has been to a great extent commonplace and even de rigueur in continental philosophy, it will be interesting to see attitudes that were expressed during Wittgenstein’s own day, and also sometimes in a quasi-Wittgensteinian manner, that weren't actually part of the analytic or Wittgensteinian tradition.

For example, Martin Buber (who's just been mentioned) thought that logical positivism attempted to relegate ethics, religion and poetry to the exclusive realm of human emotion. And within this realm there is, according to the logical positivists, no “true knowledge”. Buber also thought that such an attitude essentially meant that for logical positivists there is no “present reality” until that reality has “become past”. Only then, Buber claimed the positivists believed, could the “nature of reality” be circumscribed by our logical and conceptual tools (1990).

Wittgenstein, in this respect as well, was also articulating a position that had existed previously (or was at least roughly contemporaneous with the Tractatus). Rosenzweig, again, talked in terms of the “truth of the philosophers” and the truth that can indeed be found in other domains. He said that philosophical truth “could only know itself”. However, he was also concerned with truth for someone.

He continued:

“[Truth] leads over those [scientific, rational] truths for which a man is willing to pay, on to those that he cannot verify save at the cost of his life…” (1925)

Despite this kind of anti-verificationism, Wittgenstein himself also thought, and this mustn't be forgotten, that if people did talk about, say, “intuitive knowledge”, or “the real existence of values”, or whether or not “the good is definable”, then they had clearly fallen prey to either the philosophical or the scientific language game (or both). The early late period, as it were, Wittgenstein said that

“the essence of the good has nothing to do with facts and hence cannot be explained by any proposition”. (Wittgenstein, 1930)

Wittgenstein, unlike Buber and Rosenzweig above (and Heidegger below), believed that philosophy should be silent on matters of religion, spirituality, ethics and aesthetics. He wasn’t, however, very silent on these issues in his private life. Though this may have simply been the case because he talked about them qua non-philosopher, rather than qua philosopher.

Heidegger’s General Religious Attitude

“The primary existential structure of Dasein is its Being-in-the-world, its holistic unity that includes not independent objects (as in Husserl’s notion of intentionality) but rather the whole world, ‘the worldhood of the world’. It is a world that cannot be ‘bracketed’, a world that is not so much there ‘for us’ as one from which we cannot distinguish ourselves (Heidegger sometimes writes dramatically of our ‘being thrown’ into the world). The idea of a world known by us which is distinct from the one in which we act…is unintelligible, and another primary structure of Dasein, consequently, is care, a generalised notion of ‘concern’ which refers to the necessity of our engagement in the world.” (Continental Philosophy Since 1750: the Rise and Fall of the Self, Solomon, pg. 162)

Although Heidegger, like Wittgenstein, had a somewhat ambivalent attitude towards religion and theology (at least towards Christianity), he nevertheless used language that resonated with both direct and indirect religiosity, spirituality and mysticism. In Being and Time, 1926, for example, he has this to say about the world at that time:

“We have said that the world is darkening…the flight of the gods, the destruction of the earth, the standardization of man, the pre-eminence of the mediocre” (Heidegger, 1959 trans).

It could be said, however, that there are certain non-Christian, or even unchristian, phrases in the passage that I've just quoted.

For example, the “standardization of man” can be seen as more of an existentialist than a Christian utterance on Heidegger’s part. Despite that, I can see the possibility of certain interpretations of that passage that would square with a Christian vision (or at least certain existentialist Christian visions). Also, and in a similar vein, his reference to the “pre-eminence of the mediocre” is even more Nietzschean than it is existentialist. Again, perhaps this too could be seen to square with certain Christian viewpoints (of which, of course, there are possibly enough to encompass any ostensibly non-Christian position). In terms of his reference to the “destruction of the earth”, this parallels Wittgenstein’s own vision, mentioned earlier, of a world made safe for war by science and the flight from God.

Despite the no doubt deep and profound though definitely aggressive controversies that surround Heidegger’s penchant for National Socialism, all I can say is that I find just as many Heideggerian correlations with Nazism than I do with the Christianity I've just mentioned. Indeed, despite Derrida’s (amongst others) protestations and defences, I do see similarities between, say, Heidegger’s “attacks on realism” and Nazism. And there are other connections between Heidegger and Nazism that are worth commenting upon for the simple reason that they all also have a bearing on Heidegger’s religious and mystical beliefs and attitudes.

These shared similarities with Nazism include: an interest in mysticism, an interest in the early medieval period (shared with, amongst others, the English Catholic fascists of the early 20^th century), anti-intellectualism (or intellectual anti-intellectualism, as in the case of Heidegger and, well, Joseph Goebels), a distaste for modern civilisation science and technology (which can quite easily go alongside the use of technology, as was the case with the Nazis and is the case with our Islamic fundamentalists), anti-Enlightenment attitudes, “thinking with the blood”, an idealisation of peasant life, an ambivalent attitude towards Catholicism (to less of an extent, towards Protestantism), a connection with Nietzscheanism (positive in the Nazi case, less positive in Heidegger’s), and so on.⁹

It must be said, there were anti-Semitic aspects to Wittgenstein’s personality (despite the fact that he was, of course, Jewish “by blood”). This too bears on the issues of this essay. For example, Wittgenstein had a traditional Austro-German distaste for what had been called “pernicious Jewish theological rationalism”.

So to get back to Heidegger’s stance on religion and theology. It can be said that Heidegger never really escaped from theology (and metaphysics). The philosopher and pragmatist Sydney Hook got it just right when he referred to Being and Time:

“…there is a mystical doctrine of creative emanation at the bottom of Heidegger’s thought…Heidegger is really asking theological questions.” (1930)

Heidegger had a love-hate relationship with metaphysics, religion/theology and philosophy generally. He couldn’t decide whether to be a part of one - or all - of these traditions, or to live apart from one – or all – of them. Indeed perhaps he wanted to be both a part of and apart from these traditions at one and the same time:

“…what Heidegger really wanted to do was to find a way of getting himself out of from under theology while still keeping in touch with what theology…had been about…Like Plato and Plotinus before him, he wanted to get away from the gods and the religion of the times to something ‘behind’ them. So, although in one sense he is indeed still asking theological questions, in another sense he is trying to find better questions that will replace theological (or, as he was later to say, ‘metaphysical’) questions.” (Rorty, 1983)

This love-hate relationship was also expressed, in a way, by Heidegger himself when he wrote that “we are too late for the gods, and too early for Being”.

That is, “we are too late for the gods” because theology and metaphysics itself can no longer have any purchase on the European mind. Though, unfortunately, most of us are also “too early for Being”. That is, too early for Heidegger’s very own “onto-theology” (or “ontic-theology”).

Early Heidegger as Mystic and His Spiritual Dasein

“This is a God to whom man can neither pray nor offer sacrifice [i.e., the “God of the philosophers”]. Before the causa sui man cannot fall on his knees in awe, nor can he sing and dance before this God.” (Identität und Differenz, Heidegger, 1957)

Master Eckhart (1260 – c. 1327), who started out as a Dominican monk, is generally regarded as the greatest representative of German mysticism. The mystic had a strong effect on the young Heidegger (along with Duns Scotus). More particularly, it was Eckhart’s concept of not knowing anything (Eckhart, in Erich Fromm, 1976) that initially inspired Heidegger. Eckhart himself once wrote:

“…we say that a man ought to be empty of his own knowledge, as he was when he did not exist…” (1976 trans)

The early Heidegger opposed what he took to be traditional metaphysics with a “meditative” alternative. At times he called this meditative alternative simply “thinking” or “letting be”, a term he adopted from Meister Eckhart. Heidegger also used the German word Gelassenheit. This is a term for thinking “without why”. A way of thinking that placed restraints on “the demands of the will”. According to Heidegger at that time, meditative thinking “lets things” show themselves, rather than be shown or circumscribed by the inquiring mind.

The mystic Angelus Silesius also influenced him at this time. It's Silesius’s “rose” that, according to Heidegger, lives “without reason” or “without why”. (It's interesting to note here that the writings Heidegger composed under the influence of Silesius and Meister Eckhart have often been compared to texts in certain Buddhist traditions.)

Heidegger’s most important concept, or, perhaps I should say, notion (according to Heidegger, it's not a concept), Dasein, has itself a mystical or spiritual dimension. That is, the Being of Dasein is “to be” (zu sein) “there” (da) in the world. In a basic sense, this appears to stress the essentially non-rational or non-intellectual nature of Dasein. That is, to be rather than to think or to do or to have. (We may as well note here that the later Heidegger was also to put the “question of Being” forward as the “spiritualising” part of the National Socialist revolution.) Heidegger believed that his notion of Dasein is not a notion of knowing. Instead Dasein is always in the background each time we know, acquire knowledge and contemplate the world.

Heidegger’s most important notion, or anti-concept, that of Dasein, has been explained and described, by Caputo, in essentially religious terms. Caputo writes: “In a manner strongly reminiscent of Augustinian and Lutheran spirituality, Heidegger describes Dasein…” (Caputo, 1998). Yet, in a strange way, Heidegger’s notion of Dasein is also his most “anthropocentric” (to use a term often applied to the late Wittgenstein) notion. That is, it captured, to use Robert Brandon’s words again, “the ontology of the social”. *

There is no reason to believe that ontological “anthropocentrism” and spiritual or religious Heideggerian “concern” can’t be found within the same philosophical package. Think here of one of Heidegger’s variations on Dasein: “Dasein ist Mitsein” (“To exist is to be together with others”).

Wittgenstein too tried to square his “anthropocentrism” with an essentially religious or mystical attitude. That is, even though there is a strong Hebraic religious element in his work, this element still seeks to return us to the “common world”.

On the other hand, we must also remember the other Wittgenstein. This Wittgenstein tells us that we need to control ourselves, to have a critical attitude towards metaphysics, to indulge in philosophical therapy instead of old-style metaphysics, and to accept that the human world is really the only world.

Back to Heidegger.

The German philosopher was also deeply influenced by the Lutheran religion (despite the fact that he was a Catholic who lived in Catholic Bavaria) and medieval Catholic philosophy (particularly Duns Scotus).

Perhaps it's the case that Heidegger was more religiously literate, at least in terms of the history of Christian philosophy and theology, than Wittgenstein. Indeed Wittgenstein, a one-time denizen of Catholic Vienna, doesn't seem to offer us much of his religious views and knowledge, at least not in any direct sense. This isn't surprising considering his views on the relation between philosophy and religion (as I've already commented upon). He did, however, have quite a lot to say in his private life (as I’ve also said). With Heidegger, on the other hand, his ecclesiastical knowledge is obvious both within and outside his strictly philosophical work.

The New Mysterians Against Late Wittgenstein’s Anthropocentrism

“.... there are desires and sentiments prior to reason that it is not appropriate for reason to evaluate...” (Nagel, The Last Word, 1997)

David Pears and Tom Nagel (amongst many others) have accused Wittgenstein of being an “anthropocentric philosopher”. This is very ironic and strange if one considers - even for just a moment - Wittgenstein’s mystical tendencies, his profound distaste for scientific dominance, and, say, his championship of religious language games. It seems, however, that Pears and Nagel have simply never considered the possibility that Wittgenstein might well have quite easily squared his “anthropocentrism” with his religious or mystical beliefs (as Heidegger did).

Perhaps they should also consider the possibility that Wittgenstein might equally have often returned from esoteric theory to mundane practice; and also possibly from heavenly ecstasies to everyday life. Indeed the mystical Eckhart believed that such coming and going between the “heavenly sublime” and the earthly ridiculous is a good example of his own “last and highest parting”.

In Wittgenstein’s case at least, religious belief and critical thought both provided an escape from the masterful objectivism and objectualism that, according to both Wittgenstein and Heidegger, had so dominated the Western philosophical tradition. Wittgenstein’s religious beliefs and his critical thoughts actually gained him freedom by letting him view theory only as an instrumental tool and not as a dogmatic weapon. And yet Wittgenstein’s religious beliefs and critical thought were indeed both, in their own senses, deeply “anthropocentric”.

The fact is that Wittgenstein’s prime motive throughout his philosophical career was religious and ethical. Indeed it might well have been the case that Wittgenstein wanted to bring us back to Jewishness (despite his distaste for “rationalist Jewish theology”) and away from Gnostic intellectualism and metaphysical grandeur. That is, he wanted us also to return to a “common life” in which the practical and the ethical were both of primary importance.

It is even stranger if one reads the following Wittgenstein-like passage from the anti-Wittgensteinian philosopher mentioned and quoted above. That is, Tom Nagel himself writes:

“It may be true that some philosophical problems have no solution. I suspect that this is true of the deepest and oldest of them. They show us the limits of our understanding.” (1979)

Elsewhere Nagel wrote that Wittgensteinians must

“acknowledge that all thought is an illusion…the Wittgensteinian attack on transcendent thought depends on a position so radical that it also undermines the weaker transcendent pretensions of even the least philosophical of thoughts.” (Nagel, 1986)

Of course people may find it strange that I call the first passage above “Wittgenstein-like”. That is, late Wittgenstein might not have said, it may be argued, that “some philosophical problems have no solution”. He might instead have said that some philosophical problems are in fact non-problems. However, he might have seen them as non-problems precisely because he also saw them as insoluble (perhaps in principle). And, of course, Wittgenstein also, like Nagel, was interested “in the limits of our understanding” (especially, though not exclusively, in the Tractatus).

Despite that, I suspect that these “limits” would be seen by Nagel as limits imposed on us by the a priori nature of the mind and the necessary factors of the non-human world. Wittgenstein, on the other hand, might have accepted limits; though these limits are contingent limits imposed (or not, in fact, imposed, if they are self-created) on us by our linguistic practices and our contingent concepts.

The New Mysterians (including Colin McGinn) would probably not accept Wittgenstein’s view on the human nature of our human limitations; though they may well accept Nagel’s. There are of course many philosophers who are not Mysterians (or even anti-Wittgensteinians); though who nevertheless are deeply troubled by late Wittgenstein’s radical proposals and positions.¹º

Wittgenstein & Heidegger: Parallel Spiritual Lives (Part One)

i) Introduction

ii) Wittgenstein and Heidegger's Parallel Mystical Lives

iii) Unthought and the Point of Pointlessness

iv) The Prose and Philosophy of Wittgenstein

v) How to Get Unthought Wrong

vi) How to Miss the Point of Pointlessness

vii) Heidegger and Wittgenstein as Non-Philosophers

Introduction

“Not that I believe that [the Tractatus]…is to any extent ‘mystical’…I shall try to prove that this is not the case…what Wittgenstein says about ‘the mystical’ depends heavily on what he says about facts, objects, logic and language; that any interpretation which brings in ‘mystical’, alien doctrines and concepts…totally misses the mark.” (Eddy Zemach, in his 'Wittgenstein's Philosophy of the Mystical', 1964)

The following is a piece on the mystical and spiritual leanings of Martin Heidegger (1889 -1976) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 -1951); as well as on the comparisons that can be made between the two philosophers.

As far as Wittgenstein is concerned, there will be virtually no mention of his early period. However, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus will be a brooding presence in the background and will evidently, at times, break through. In any case, the mystical side of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus has already been well-commented upon. Despite saying that, it's still worth remembering that, at a certain point in history, the many connections that can be made between, for example, the mystical sides of Schopenhauer and Wittgenstein had to be forced down the throats of Wittgenstein’s incredulous - though faithful – positivist and analytic acolytes. To many of them (at that time) the ideas that could be found in the history of German metaphysics were almost all strictly verboten.

So I myself will quote a very Tractatus-like passage here from Arthur Schopenhauer that isn't only relevant to a reading of the Tractatus itself; though also to a reading of late Wittgenstein:

“What is supposed to be communicated by [this book] is a single thought…[which] viewed from different sides, shows itself as what people have called metaphysics, what they have called ethics, and what they have called aesthetics…” (1816)

Instead of a detailed commentary on the Tractatus, I'll argue that the mystical (or spiritual) side of Wittgenstein’s work was, in certain senses, carried on until his death. I don't believe, therefore, that there's any deep chasm between the early and late Wittgenstein.

As far as Heidegger is concerned, I came to find that what can be called my very English reading of the German philosopher was very much like Richard Rorty’s very American reading of him. What appeals to me about Rorty's position on Heidegger - and indeed continental philosophy generally - was his ability to “demystify” the obsession with deepness (or, as the English would say, heaviness); as well as with Life and Death. What Rorty argues is that under the “onto-theological” expressions of these issues (at least as far as Heidegger is concerned) lies some quite simple elements which are (in some cases at least) not particularly deep or profound at all.

For example, take this de-mystificatory (or, simply, non-pretentious) interpretation of Heidegger’s notion of Dasein from Rorty:

“I take ‘Being’ to be, in Heidegger…merely ‘transcendental German’ for a ‘connection of man with the enveloping world’, which naturalism…does not help us envisage.” (1983)

There are many other connections between Wittgenstein and Heidegger that could have been commented upon in this piece. They include:

i) Their shared concern with language.

ii) Their philosophical externalism and anti-individualism (as a response to – Cartesian - internalism and subjectivism).

iii) Their interest in what Robert Brandom called the “ontological primacy of the social” .

iv) Their sceptical position on scepticism itself (which is itself a correlative position with the externalism just mentioned).

v) Heideggerian arguments that are somewhat close to Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument.

Primarily, I believe that both Heidegger’s and Wittgenstein’s mystical and spiritual leanings can primarily be found in the following ways:

i) Their desire to reach a state of what I call unthought (or, alternatively, thoughtlessness).

ii) Their anti-academia and anti-philosophy.

iii) Their strong anti-scientific (or anti-scientistic, in Wittgenstein’s case) proclivities.

iv) Their metaphilosophical attempts to either “overcome” the Western philosophical tradition (Heidegger) or to simply ignore it (Wittgenstein).

v) Their defence of religious (as well as other) language games.

What follows is not primarily a work of philosophical analysis (if at all). In fact analytic philosophers (of the hard-core type) may find this essay to be one long ad hominem. I would say, however, that this piece is indeed biographical (to some extent at least). Having conceded that, I will still say that ad hominem arguments (if, indeed, the following are such things) are justified if they (arguably) lead the way to a better and deeper understanding of the philosophical arguments. That is, biographical detail isn't seen as an end of this philosophical inquiry: simply the beginning. And this particular inquiry into Heidegger and Wittgenstein is still ongoing.

Biographical Sketches

The following section is by way of two very short biographical sketches of both Wittgenstein’s and Heidegger’s spiritual and religious lives. Although, again, it's evidently not a piece of philosophical analysis, hopefully it will put the following sections of this essay in some kind of context.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

“Bach wrote on the title page of his Orgelbuchlein, 'To the glory of the most high God, and that my neighbour may be benefited thereby.' That is what I would have liked to say about my work.” (Wittgenstein)

Wittgenstein’s father was baptised a Protestant. His mother and her children were Catholics. (Wittgenstein was Jewish “by blood”.)

Wittgenstein only achieved an A twice in his entire school career. Perhaps it won't be surprising to be told that he scored As both times in religious studies. A decade or so later, a writer friend of Wittgenstein said that the philosopher would have most have liked to have become a priest and “to have read the Bible with the children”. Shortly after this, Wittgenstein began a short career as a schoolteacher. At his school he would pray with his pupils every day. After leaving that post, Wittgenstein called in at a monastery and enquired about becoming a monk. (Needless to say, he didn't take up this vocation.) However, Wittgenstein’s Christian beliefs remained strong after this event. So much so that in the 1920s Bertrand Russell said of Wittgenstein: “[He] was much pained by the fact of my not being a Christian.”

Martin Heidegger

Heidegger was brought up in a strict conservative Catholic family. Early on in his life he wanted to join the Catholic priesthood. However, in 1919, Heidegger broke with the Catholic confession. Despite that, Heidegger still described himself as a “Christian theologian” until around 1921.

Now let’s quickly skip forward to Heidegger’s funeral. He was buried in a Christian Church at which a Mass of Christian burial was held. It was the same church at which Heidegger’s father had once served as a sexton. The celebrant on this occasion was a Christian theologian. Heidegger had previously asked him to read verses from the poet Hölderlin, and these verses were to be read alongside sections from the Scriptures. The celebrant theologian also spoke on Heidegger’s behalf. He said that Heidegger was a great philosopher and a “seeker whose thought has shaken our century”.

Unthought and the Point of Pointlessness

“Has she [i.e., Anscombe] read Wittgenstein correctly?” (David Keyt, 1963)

“…it is not philosophy in any straightforward sense, [with] its permanent traversal, excess, or outflanking…[he] has not so much re-defined philosophy (the traditional task of philosophy), as rendered it permanently indefinite.” (Geoffrey Bennington, 1998)

Is the Christopher Bennington passage above an accurate description of Wittgenstein’s philosophy? To me, at least, it is. However, Bennington is actually referring to Jacques Derrida. I hope, nonetheless, that my implicit point still holds. (Of course it could also - to some extent at least - be a description of Heidegger’s philosophy.)

In terms of the quoted passage above (at the least), that’s partly why there are so many cross words in the long-burgeoning Wittgenstein Industry. It's also because “there is no standard by which one can measure [him] without begging the question against him”. That was Richard Rorty speaking in 1976. However, Rorty, like Bennington above, isn’t speaking about Wittgenstein: he's speaking about Heidegger! Rorty continues thus:

“[H]is remarks…are beautifully designed to make one feel foolish when one tries to find a bit of common ground on which to start an argument.”

That’s also why there are as many interpretations of Wittgenstein as there are people who've read his work.

Though what if (as is often claimed) “there is no authority outside the text”? Then these multiple interpretations of Wittgenstein (as well as Heidegger) may not be such a bad thing after all. It would also be a good thing if Wittgensteinians themselves were to seek out an explanation for this Wittgenstein interpretation-frenzy. However, it's the case that many Continental philosophers have had part of the answer to this ongoing situation.

For example, the following is a generally-accepted position (i.e., within much Continental philosophy) on (all) “texts”:

“…this text cannot exhaustively control the reading you give it (no text can read itself without remainder)…there is no end to reading, no conceivable horizon of interpretation…” (Bennington, 1998)

It may be even wiser to keep the above remarks in mind when specifically considering Wittgenstein’s works. His works - almost more than any other texts in the analytic philosophy tradition – are made to suffer from what Roland Barthes called “semiosis” (as used in a critical sense) – that is, excessive over-interpretation.

I'm not the only one to have been by perplexed by Wittgenstein’s work. Many within the analytic - and indeed the Wittgensteinian - tradition have dared to admit to their own perplexity.

For example, take these words on the Tractatus:

“It is for the ordinary reader a book sealed with seven seals, of which the significance is only to be revealed to the most esoteric devotees, and which…embodies a very peculiar combination of rigorous mathematical and logical thought and obscure mysticism.” (Rudolf Metz, 1935)

Perhaps it's a little more surprising to read Brand Blanshard writing in these terms:

“…Wittgenstein…has the strange distinction of having produced a work on logic beside which the Logic of Hegel is luminously intelligible.” (1962)

The heat that brings forth so many interpretations also brings forth a copious amount of cross words too. Many commentators/admirers of Wittgenstein think that far too many other commentators/admirers have “got Wittgenstein wrong”; just as many commentators/admirers of Heidegger believe that far too many other commentators/admirers have got Heidegger wrong.

An enigmatic and gnomic (or even inscrutable) philosopher such as Wittgenstein was - and still is - bound to attract his fair share of acolytes or disciples. As Gilbert Ryle once put it:

“[V]eneration for Wittgenstein was so incontinent that mentions, for example, my mentions, of any other philosopher were greeted with jeers.” (1946)

A mystical philosopher who wrote profoundly mystical prose was almost bound to be venerated (as he still is today). The very obscurity of (some of) Wittgenstein’s utterances may well mean that his initiates have prided themselves on discovering the truth about their Master’s work. After all, it takes a lot of hard work to get Wittgenstein right. So perhaps their self-praise is justified to some extent.

Of course it needn't be said here that just about everything written so far about Wittgenstein (in this section) is equally applicable to Heidegger. No one ever gets Heidegger right either. They just get him wrong.

To sum up. Wittgenstein himself once said that only two people understood his philosophy - and one of them was Gilbert Ryle!

How To Get Unthought Wrong

Wittgenstein

“[Wittgenstein] has penetrated deep into mystical ways of thought and feeling, but I think…that what he likes best in mysticism is its power to make him stop thinking.” - Bertrand Russell (circa 1919)

“Any ‘translation’ of [Heidegger’s] thought into terms that we can understand, he argues, will most likely result in a misunderstanding. Similarly, any attempt to locate him in the tradition that he rejects will probably produce a false picture of his efforts.” (Continental Philosophy Since 1750: the Rise and Fall of the Self, by Robert C. Solomon, 1988)

The “problem of life” (as Wittgenstein once put it) isn't solved by philosophy: it's solved by (more or less?) ignoring philosophy. Or, as Heidegger might have put it, the problem of life is solved by deconstructing (traditional) philosophy.

According to Wittgenstein himself, he once claimed to have read “little philosophy”. And what little he had read wasn't “too little, rather too much”. Indeed whenever Wittgenstein read a philosophical book, he claimed that it didn’t “improve [his] thoughts at all”. Rather, “it [made] them worse”.

There was an hilarious conversation which was notated between Wittgenstein and H. A. Prichard that exemplifies the former’s position on philosophy (at least at that time):

Wittgenstein: “If a man says to me, looking at the sky, ‘I think it will rain, therefore I exist’, I do not understand him.”

Prichard: “That’s all very fine; what we want to know is: is the cogito valid or not?”

The conversation above at least shows that Wittgenstein had a sense of humour (despite opinions to the contrary). Strangely enough, the man Wittgenstein referred to actually offered a (kind of) valid argument for the Cogito, at least in a very limited sense. Prichard (presumably a typical English analytic philosopher of the time) responded drearily and typically to Wittgenstein’s witty take on the Cogito. It must of course be said that Wittgenstein was perhaps being just a little disingenuous and rhetorical when he claimed not to “understand” the man who looked at the sky to prove his own existence.

Despite what's so far been said, Bertrand Russell might still have been a little too hard on Wittgenstein when he claimed that the

“later Wittgenstein…seems to have grown tired of serious thinking and to have invented a doctrine which would make such an activity unnecessary” (1944).

Perhaps Russell’s language above is still a bit too strong when applied to Wittgenstein himself. After all, extremely serious and difficult thought would still be needed in order to pave the way which led to making “serious thinking…an activity [which was] unnecessary”. Alternatively, if one just came along and said, “Fuck thought!”, not many people would listen. In any case, mysticism (of various kinds) has always been abstruse and profound. (Or, if one is cynical, profound because abstruse.)

Wittgenstein thought that many philosophical problems are in fact non-problems; and, in addition, that many philosophical questions were in fact “pseudo-questions” (a favourite term of Rudolf Carnap at one time).

For example, the questions “What is time?” and “What is a number?” were deemed to be insoluble by the late Wittgenstein. That wasn't because they are too deep and profound. Rather, Wittgenstein believed that they're insoluble because they're simply “nonsensical”. He also believed that those who ask these questions are simply “misusing language”.

Despite all that, perhaps part of the the truth is that Wittgenstein did indeed grow tired of “serious thinking”. In this context, however, that may be understandable to us if we bear in mind the fact that, according to Wittgenstein himself, the sort of questions just specified couldn't - by their very nature - be answered. And those other perennial “philosophical problems” couldn't - again, by their very nature - be solved. This was no doubt partly the reason for Wittgenstein’s frustration with - and his ennui towards - traditional philosophical problems and questions.

The Point of Pointlessness

On the other hand, it might have been more than simply a case of certain questions and problems being insoluble or meaningless. What if Wittgenstein was against certain types of questions and problems not because they're insoluble or nonsensical; but simply because he simply couldn’t see the point of them?

All that's been said so far can be put in the context of the following exchange.

In response to something Wittgenstein said, Alan Turing replied: “I see your point.” To this reply Wittgenstein had nothing but contempt. He said: “I have no point!” So, in a certain sense, we can say that Wittgenstein wasn't that far removed from the Zen master who questions the point of points. We can also say that to have a point (in Wittgenstein’s later eyes) is also to admit to oneself that one is trapped within the “language game” that is traditional Western philosophy. This was a place that Wittgenstein didn't want to be (at least not during his later years).

It can now be added that it was perhaps Wittgenstein’s intention not to spell out the point of many of his, well, points. It might well have been part of his intention to indulge in a kind of unthought or thoughtlessness. At least (in a Heideggerian vein) in such a state it may be possible to genuinely question the point of thought (if only thought as seen by “traditional Western philosophy”).

In the Tractatus, on the other hand, it's been assumed (by certain commentators) that Wittgenstein simply believed that his readers would already be familiar with the work of Frege and Russell; not to mention the work of Kant and Schopenhauer. Similarly with his Philosophical Investigations. Many people find it difficult to comprehend what precisely Wittgenstein is actually trying to say in that work. Wittgenstein might have actually said to these people: That’s because I'm not saying anything! Or, more charitably, we can say that what Wittgenstein was actually trying to do in that book was diagnose our philosophical confusions by means of particular examples and particular counter-examples.

There is a problem here: if we don’t have the same confusions as Wittgenstein, then we certainly won't see the point of his words.

Heidegger

So what about Heidegger?

Wasn’t Heidegger similarly “tired of serious thinking” throughout most of his life? Didn’t he want to get back to pre-Socratic and Medieval unthought (or thoughtlessness)? Didn’t he also question the words, concepts and tools with which we philosophise?

The following is a long passage from Rorty on Heidegger’s attempt to reach a state of unthought (or thoughtlessness) that was at the same time still - what the continentals call - “onto-theological”:

“…Heidegger ended up…as a thinker who tried to get away from beliefs…altogether. He wanted a language that was not hammered out as an instrument for communicating…but one that ‘is what it says’ (a compliment he once paid to Greek). He wanted to discover a language that was as close to silence as possible…Being and Time was (like A Common Faith…) a proposal to teach us a new way of talking – one that would let us ask about God or Being without thinking of ourselves as superscientists… He leans over so far backward to avoid being one more superscientist, one more metaphysician, one more theologian…He merely points and hints [like Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations]…Heidegger doesn’t employ any method. …in his later work he takes care to assert only sentences that cannot be construed as…beliefs (thus making it impossible to converse with him at all).”

In many respects, a large amount of post-Hegelian examples of Continental philosophy also attempted to acquire a state of unthought (or thoughtlessness). It did so by stepping outside what Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929) called “the cognitive All”. In such a state, certain philosophers found themselves free from the wicked gaze and control of Reason and Science. Or, in Rosenzweig’s own words again, the philosopher found himself

“in the utter singularity of his individuality…[in which he stepped] out of the world which [only] knew itself as the conceivable world, out of the All of philosophy” (1921/1970).

Heidegger & Wittgenstein as Mystics (Non-Philosophers)

Although Heidegger and Wittgenstein were philosophers, this shouldn't (or doesn't) automatically mean that they couldn’t also have been mystics of some kind (e.g., philosophical mystics).

So what is a mystic?

It's often said that mystics attempt to overcome strict (or rule-bound) ways of thinking (at least when it comes to spiritual or religious matters). Many mystics have also insisted that heaven, Christ and God are not in fact to be found in a distant realm – i.e., one that's more or less untouched by us in our present lives. Instead they're to be found “hidden within our hearts”. When, finally, we find them, then we can bring them to life with desire, love, or with acts of the will.

So what about this “mystical tradition”?

It was a tradition that nearly always placed a strong emphasis on the limits of religious language. It also stressed the need to go beyond what can be called “ontological objectification” (an aspect of mysticism that certainly appealed to Heidegger).

Finally, in many respects mystics have generally wanted - or tried - to rise above what they saw as the limitations of knowledge (or knowledge- acquisition). Instead, many mystics thought that we should quite simply replace knowledge with love, devotion, “heightened” psychological states, etc.

In certain respects Wittgenstein didn't even see himself as (solely) a philosopher. He certainly didn't see himself as an essentially professional (or academic) philosopher. He often veered, instead, towards mysticism or even – sometimes - towards straightforward religiosity (in certain cases, also towards artistic expression). Wittgenstein himself wrote that “philosophy ought really to be written as a poetic composition” (1931). Of course the Tractatus can – in certain ways – be seen as a poetic (or even a Nietzsche-like) poetic-prose composition. On the other hand, it's also been said that the Tractatus's epigrammatic (or gnomic) prose style is more a result of Wittgenstein’s assumption that his readers will have already read Frege and Russell; not to mention Kant and Schopenhauer. That is, he simply didn’t have the time (at the time) to fill in all the dots. (Wittgenstein wrote most of his Tractatus as a soldier during World War One.) Despite that possibility, in 1912 Russell once told Wittgenstein that he ought not simply to state what he thought: he should also provide arguments for it. To which Wittgenstein replied:

“Arguments would spoil its beauty. I would feel as if I were dirtying a flower with muddy hands.”

I therefore believe that Wittgenstein was being quite intentionally poetic and epigrammatic (as well as intentionally mystical and esoteric) when he wrote his Tractatus.

Heidegger too was also keen to express a poetic vision.